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She looks like she wants to argue but checks her phone, huffs, and storms to the entrance. Not surprisingly she's let in right away without even having to pay. I'm not as lucky. I hand her a hundred Hong Kong dollar note and run in after Kiara.
I lean in touching her on the arm just so she knows I’m there. She reacts by shoving me away.
"Hey, asshole, I said no! Go hit on someone else already. If you come close again, I’m going to make it so you need to pee out of a bag."
I hold my hands up, playing the role, and let her walk away, "Geez, sorry. I was trying to be nice."
She's about ten feet away but in this club, it might as well be a hundred. The club is basically one big dance floor, and it is teeming with bodies. Hot, sticky, writhing, drunken bodies. And there is no way to move anywhere quickly.
My extra few inches come in handy so that I can watch her make her way through the crowd, toward the bathrooms in the back. Out of the corner of my eye, I see two men enter, and I give them a nod. Frank's men. I'm glad to see them, although, if something were to happen either where Kiara or I am standing, I'm not really sure how they're going to be able help. Let’s just hope that Frank chose his two best men.
Ahead someone shouts and the crowd lurches, moving to the right in a big uncontrollable wave. Fear burns as I lose sight of her. The problem with a crowd like this is it's not the easy to fall over, because you’re all squished in like sardines. But if you do, it's game over. In the dark, I pick out her head again; she’s moved another few feet toward the back.
I elbow a guy breathing his beer-drenched air on me and follow her.
She surveys the club, turning her head to take in the space, calm but tense. I catch her eye and wave but as soon as I lift my arm, she looks away. I'm not sure if I should feel proud that she's trying to do this the best way she knows, or fucking frustrated that she won't let me help. I'll have to ponder that in a moment when I'm not in a pit of living, breathing, five hundred headed drunk human monsters.
She's almost reached the back where there's a line for the bathroom. I watch as she pushes through and stumbles past the door. I can’t see her, but I'm hoping that it's safer in there than it is out here
Another crowd surge pushes me too far to the right, and I have to fight against the current to regain the progress I’d made to get to the bathroom.
I'm almost there when she appears again, pushing her way past the crowd waiting for the bathroom and onto the dance floor, as well as keeping a scared young woman by her side. The girl’s eyes are wide, wet, and I'm worried that if she enters the crowd, she's going to be crushed.
"Kiara!" I shout, and she looks at me as I gesture for her to take the woman around the edge of the wall. It’s a dangerous option in most cases; getting crushed again the wall is a sure-fire way to an injury. But timed well and with a little bit of luck, the crowd might move in the opposite direction, and there’s a short period of time to run. As if the universe is listening, the crowd yells and everyone gets pushed to the left, making a rare pocket along the wall where Kiara can go.
"Go!"
And for once, she listens. She grabs her friend's hand and they run, the lights washing over them, letting me watch their progress as I make my way over to them.
"Oof!" someone steps on my foot and I know there's going to be a bruise there tomorrow. I shove him, I don't have time for politeness. He scowls but then, as if the beer in his hands flips a switch in his brain, he lifts his hands in the air and starts singing along, forgetting that I’m there.
On any other occasion, I'd probably become friends with him, but tonight, I only have one goal. Getting Kiara out alive.
They're almost to the entrance when there's a loud angry shout. I look over to see a smaller man with two security guards behind him, appear from a side door, pointing at Kiara. They spot her, and make a bee line for her.
"Fuck."
Adrenaline pumping, I create a path for me to push through. I don't know how many feet I step on, how many faces I accidentally elbow, how many drinks I knock out of hands, and I don't fucking care. My hands wave in the air, trying to get my body guards’ attention. They see me and I frantically point to Kiara and the guys trying to get to her.
She’s ignoring everything around her, and just trying to make it to the door.
It's a race between the guards, me, and my two bodyguards to get to Kiara. My heart beats painfully in my chest, feeding oxygen to my legs.
"Go, go!!!" I shout, not daring to hope that she might just make it, once she gets to the door,
And then I watch, in slow motion, as one of the club's security men gets to her. My heart comes to a complete stop as I watch him grab her hair, yank her back, and throw her over his shoulder like she's a rag doll.
In the struggle, her friend manages to break free and run to the door. I can only hope that she can get to it safety, and that she and Kiara have discussed a contingency plan in case something like this happened.
“Get her!" I yell as I meet up with the security guards as we break free from the crowd and into the lobby. They carry her down a dark hallway and we chase after her, legs burning to catch up with her.
I run, run until my heart almost bursts. Run until she’s within inches and I reach out and grab her leg, dragging her to the ground.
“Kiara! I’ve got you!”
She falls at my feet as the club's security guard turns around and grunts.
"Run, Kiara. Fucking run!”
