Page 92 of Hidden

“Rachel!” I gasped at her. “Stop being so violent.” And then I flicked her in the face with my beard.

I should have gone upstairs. Should have collapsed face first into bed and let the room spin until sleep took me under.

Instead, I looked around at the noise, at the lights, at the movement, at all these people who loved too loudly and lived too heavily and expected nothing from me tonight except whatever ridiculousness I chose to give them, and I made a decision.

If I couldn’t have her, if I couldn’t stand under her balcony and lose my mind over what I was missing, then I was going to drown it out.

“Who’s on music?” I demanded.

“Why?” Riley asked warily.

“Because your current playlist lacks vision.”

Before anyone could stop me, I was behind the bar, leaning over people, reaching for the auxiliary cable, ignoring Rachel’s helpless laughter and Dante’s look of immediate regret. My fingers fumbled twice before I got my phone connected, and then the opening beat of something loud, filthy, and gloriously brainless exploded through the speakers.

“What the fuck is this?” Dante shouted.

“Medicine!” I shouted back.

The reaction was immediate.

Half the room booed, the other half cheered.

I found two more glow sticks in the drawer beneath the till—don’t ask me why we had so many; this place was apparently one minor breakdown away from becoming a children’s disco at any given time—and snapped them both hard enough to make the neon spill through the plastic.

One pink, one blue.

Outstanding.

Rachel let out a delighted laugh the second she saw my face. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

I vaulted onto the lower end of the bar—not the top, I’m not suicidal—and began raving like a man possessed.

There is no dignified way to describe what happened next.

At some point, a whistle appeared in my hand. I do not know where it came from. I do not know who gave it to me. I can only assume the universe recognised that I was entering my Terry Crews era and provided accordingly.

So there I was—half cut, glow sticks in both hands, a whistle between my teeth, and my beard catching the strobe lights every time I flung my head around.

Raving at the bar like the world’s most emotionally unstable club mascot.

Rachel screamed with laughter. Even Dante looked close to smiling before he remembered he was morally opposed to joy.

“Move over!” Jenna yelled, climbing onto a chair and waving her drink in the air.

“No one can move over,” I shouted. “This is a solo spiritual experience!”

Then I blew the whistle so hard my ears rang.

The room erupted.

And for a little while—just a little while—it worked.

I threw myself into it completely. Into the ridiculousness. Into the neon and the pounding bass and the sheer stupid physicality of movement. I danced with whoever got too close. I nearly took out a prospect with a glow stick. I ended up on the floor at one point, leading some sort of synchronised arm-wave that Sunshine refused to participate in on the grounds that I was, and I quote, “an embarrassment to the patch.”

That was fair. Maybe.