a different color. But there was something strange about this one. A sheen of light whispered across his skin, almost as if he were glowing from the inside out. I blinked and shook my head. That was impossible. The club lights were playing tricks on my eyes. But when I lifted my gaze to the dance floor again, he was gone.
“Norah,” my best friend said as she leaned her face close to mine, her breath a cloud of vodka and cigarette smoke. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I just thought I saw something…” The world seemed to tilt sideways, and my vision went blurry. Ears ringing and mouth dry, I drew quick breaths in through my nose. Everything around me was suddenly loud, loud, loud, and the pulsing lights made my head spin. I pressed my hands against the bar top to hold myself steady, but that did nothing but launch a lump of nausea into my throat.
“Norah. What’s wrong?” My best friend’s voice sounded so far away, as if she were on the other end of a broken cell phone. A hand curled around my arm, pulling me away from the bar.
As soon as I’d made it three steps, my head began to clear, but the clammy sensation on my palms remained.
Bree’s head ducked to mine. Her grip stayed tight around my arm, and I could see now that she was pulling me in the direction of the women’s restroom. “What the hell’s going on? Is it another one of those panic attacks?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” For the past couple of weeks, I’d been experiencing increasingly overwhelming panic attacks, or so the doctors said. Heart palpitations, nausea, clammy hands, blurry vision, shortness of breath. It all fit. The problem—to me, at least—was that I never felt panicked when I had one of these so-called panic attacks.
They happened for no discernible reason, at least that I could tell.
One minute, I was fine. The next? I could barely see straight.
“Do you have your pills on you?” she asked as she pushed open the grimy black door that led into the women’s restroom. I wrinkled my nose at the smell, my eyes darting from the yellow sinks to the mound of wet, crumpled paper towels that were spilling from an overflowing trash can.
“Yeah, I brought them just in case, but I can’t manage to swallow them without some water.” I pointed to the yellow sink. “And I’m not drinking from that.”
She gave a nod without a moment’s hesitation. “Okay, stay here and take some deep breaths. I’ll get a glass of water from the bar.”
She disappeared from the bathroom a moment later. Sighing, I leaned against the sink and stared at my reflection in the cloudy mirror. I looked about as good as I felt. There were dark circles under my eyes, and my complexion was so pale that my skin now matched my light blonde hair. Frankly, I looked like I’d seen a ghost that had been tormenting me for years.
These panic attacks were starting to seriously suck ass, and the doctor had said I wouldn’t improve until I figured out the trigger. She thought it might have something to do with my home life, but I wasn’t home now. I hadn’t even been thinking of my step-dad, much less feeling panicked about him. The only thing that could have set it off was the strange guy who had been watching me…
The door pushed open, and my shoulders relaxed. Whether or not these were actual panic attacks, the medicine did make me feel better. I could take the pill, splash some cold water on my face, and go back to swirling around the dance floor until the sun broke through the morning sky.
But a figure much taller and much more muscular than Bree stepped through the door. His dark hood no longer obscured his pale, gleaming face, though his black eyes were just as piercing, if not more so.
I sucked in a sharp breath and took a step back. My heart began to tremble in my chest. What the hell was he doing in the women’s restroom? Had he followed me in here?
“Tonight’s your eighteenth birthday,” he said in a low rumble of a voice, one that was almost lyrical, like he had an Irish or Welsh accent. It sent shivers down my spine.
Swallowing hard, I stared at him. What was this? Some sort of strange pick-up line? I hadn’t been out at clubs and bars enough to know the difference, but this