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A human man bumped into her, part of whatever was in the six glasses he had corralled between his hands splashing onto her sleeve. With her super-sensitive nose, it was like taking an inhale directly through the neck of a gin bottle, and as a chaser, he shot her a glare, even though he’d been the one with the swerve.
“Sorry,” she muttered because she didn’t want trouble. When he kept on going, she rolled her eyes. “And Bitty thinks this is evolving?”
“What was that?” Mharta said while ignoring all the men around her.
Then again, maybe she was blinded by the blue and purple laser beams that shot through the music, ocular superheroes with nothing to save—or how about the floor that glowed, all blue lava without the heat. More likely, she was so used to the attention, it was like the air she breathed, something that was taken for granted even though it was necessary.
One thing about being a social worker? You learned a lot about how people operated, and the Mhartas of the world had a tendency to feed off the adoration they ignored, their boredom with it acalculated shield so nobody knew how much the ones they shunned mattered. Nalla had to try to fix a lot of the problems created by folks with that kind of attitude. In young. In partners who had been mistreated. In parents who were at the ends of their ropes. She did her best not to become jaded, but as somebody who connected deeply with her clients, it was hard not to be.
“Where are we going?” she asked because she didn’t like the generalizations she was making in her head. However true they might be.
“You don’t know?” The female glanced over, her hair shifting like a silk scarf down her back. “We’re behind the velvet rope.”
Some distance later, which probably wasn’t all that far but felt like a mile or two, Mharta stopped in front of an archway guarded by another pair of bouncers. Unlike at the front entrance, these guys were in black suits and thin ties, and instead of seventy-five pounds of extra muscle and a matched set of don’t-fuck-with-me frowns, this twosome looked like they used the pen, rather than the sword, to make their cuts.
And once again the unclipping of the velvet rope—yes, it truly was velvet, and blue—and the brisk nods through were too immediate to have been a mental trick on Mharta’s part.
Things were no quieter in the VIP section, but they were certainly less crowded. Instead of all kinds of humans milling around a dance floor where people with little rhythm were having sex with their clothes on, sunken seating areas that could hold a dozen or so I’m-cooler-than-you’s populated the floor plan like separate and distinct rooms: Each sectional was bathed—natch—in a different shade of blue. There was robin’s egg Tiffany, middle-of-the-road sapphire, a bright teal, a lavender-ish periwinkle.
She didn’t need her tour guide’s direction to know which one their group had claimed. In the far corner by the emergency exit, there was a black-light glow, the midnight color falling from the ceiling so dense and dark, it was as if a void had opened up to claim the weak of mind and heart.
Nalla’s eyes adjusted quick as she focused on the darkness, andshe recognized some of the faces: Ahgony and his best friend, Bedlam. Rhamp and his fraternal twin, Lyric. And laying back in a sprawl, yet somehow still taller than the others, L.W., the heir to the throne. There were also others who ran with the pack who she didn’t know, even though she’d seen them once or twice before.
No Bitty, though. Christ, if this turned out to be a wild-goose chase…
Also no Shuli, who was the leader of the pack, or Nate. Then again, they were probably still going at it out in the alley.
There was a cheer as Mharta’s presence registered, and the female went right down into the sunken pit with a round of greeting, hugging and clapping palms, walking that line between it-girl-the-guys-want-to-sleep-with and everyone’s-little-sister. Even Lyric looked glad to see the female, the two embracing and then putting their heads side by side so they could talk over the music into each other’s ears.
Standing on the top step, Nalla fussed with the zipper on her parka. As the males looked over at her, she reminded herself that she had known most of them her whole life, but as none raised a hand in greeting or smiled, she felt that a door had been shut. Then dead-bolted. Then had a piano pushed against the panels.
Her fucking father. She was so sick of him—
Lyric jumped in front of her. “I’m so glad you’re here!”
The female was wearing a floor-length silver dress that swirled around her body, and with her flaxen hair flowing in glossy waves like a shawl, and her heterochromatic blue-and-green eyes, she was like something out of a medieval fairy tale, ethereal and mysterious. As Nalla was hit with a full-contact embrace, her nose was filled with the scent of spring flowers and fresh night rain.
“Come sit down with me.”
As her hand was grabbed, there was no saying no, and a seat was prepared when Rhamp was given the boot by his sister. After which…
Nalla glanced over at the males who were across a low table. They were staring at her like she was on some kind of criminal watch list.
“I’m here to see Bitty.”
She said the words to Lyric. But she was talking at her audience of you’re-not-welcome-here—
The emergency fire door behind the seating area flew open, and two people slipped into the club. The entry was so quick, the steel panel under the red EXIT sign closing so fast, that no alarm went off and no one seemed to notice.
“What thehellhappened to you guys,” someone barked.
“The birthday boy’s already fighting,” came another shout-out. “Let’s goooo!”
Yup, Shuli definitely had a gash on his forehead that was leaking, but again, she hadn’t been looking closely at him in front of the club.
No, she’d been too busy checking out who he’d been with—and enough with that. There was no reason to fall back into the staring thing. Like Nate was any different up closer?
“I need a drink,” Shuli muttered as he limped over, sat down next to Rhamp, and put a stray napkin up to his temple. “It’s been a long night even though the bitch just got started.”
