He sits back and stares at me and then he says, "I'm sorry. About what happened with Alana at the party."
He is mimicking the humble cadence required for apologies, so I can tell he hasn't had to apologize often.
"That was wrong of me and I want to make it up to you." He lifts his glass toward me. "Can we start over?"
Alana lifts her glass too. "I'm sorry as well, Nathalie," she says, and her voice is so smooth. "Truly."
I pick up my glass to drink, not to toast, just to drink, and Alana tops it up without being asked. I drink that too because the wine is good and the evening is long and somewhere in this building or possibly already gone from it is a man who I am wondering why his face gave me absolutely nothing to work with to guess his emotions towards me.
Why has he lost weight? It was barely three weeks and he looked thinner. I drink the rest of my glass and Alana fills it again with attentive helpfulness. She seems to want me to have more wine very much. In a few minutes, I understand why.
The dizziness starts quietly. It wasn't the normal wine dizziness. It begins at the base of my skull and spreads forward. I set my glass down and stare at it, I look at Alana and then I glance at James. I think about the wine being filled before I sat down and topped up without being asked.
Damn
I try to stand and Alana's hand comes around my arm and she pulls me back down roughly.
They didn't drink the wine. Their glasses were full.
She is smiling, I turn to James and he is smiling too.
"What—" My voice comes out wrong. "What did you?—"
"Relax," James says. "You've been very difficult, you know that? Very, very difficult."
Alana stands and before I can process the motion, she slaps me and she throws cold wine on my face and then her fingers are in my hair. She leans down and says directly into my face with twelve years of compressed feeling behind every word, "You stupid whore. I have been waiting so long to do this."
They drugged me, they must have planned this. This was why James suggested we go out.
"What do you want," I say, and my voice is barely above a whisper.
James stands and walks around the table, straightening his jacket. "What do I want?" He eyes me with the look I had felt from him on the first day and had correctly identified it as dangerous. "I want a taste of you and payback obviously. Also if I get you pregnant tonight, won't you be begging to marry me?"
Alana grabs my purse from the table, she rips it open, pulls out my phone, and puts my limp thumb around it to open it. As I watch her scroll and search, I feel everything slowing at the edges.
She is looking for the video.
"You won't find it. I moved it," I say, dragging the words out from somewhere.
Alana's face twists. "You little?—"
"Leave it," James says, waving her off. He takes his phone out. "When we have her pictures, she'll give us everything." He looks at Alana and something passes between them that turns my stomach. "Film this, her pictures will be considerably worse than the one she has of us."
"You won't get away with this—my dad?—"
He laughs and he replies. "By the time we get some spicy videos, it'll be in your best interest to be quiet about tonight."
"Get on with it!" Alana snaps, holding up his phone.
He reaches for the strap of my dress and I pick up the wine bottle from the table with everything I have. My arm is supposed to be heavy and will not cooperate the way it should. It is slow but I swing the bottle anyway with everything available to me and it hits the side of his head with a sound that I feel in my palm. He falls down screaming and clutching his face and the bottle doesn't break, which surprises me.
"Fuck—" Alana scrambles toward him. "James, James are you?—"
I force myself to my feet, I run to the door and I try to push it open. I tap around for a knob or a bell, then I start to knock desperately but my voice isn't working. I can hear James behind me, his voice is furious through what sounds like his hand over his face, shouting, "Don't let her get away, you idiot, go?—"
One moment I am pushing the door and the next I have no legs. I feel a hand grab me from behind and immediately the door swings open.
I jerk away from the hand holding me back and push forward, only to lose my footing. I feel like I am falling as my eyes close but then I am being lifted. I can feel a chest against my face and I drag my eyes open.
