Page 4 of Intrepid

An arm snaked around my neck and had my muscles straining, as a guy with a stubbled beard and thick ear gauges slid between Bea and me. His tongue glided across her cheek, and she chuckled, offering him a kiss on the lips. When his brown eyes landed on me, chin jutting toward me with the same intent, I looked away.

“Hey, who brought Scarface?” He snorted a laugh that was cut short when Bea slammed her elbow into his ribs.

“Disengage asshole mode. This is my new roommate. Show some respect.”

Not even her chiding could shield me from the feeling that all eyes had shifted onto me. Even the one named Dax interrupted his watchful scan with a quick downward glance my way. Not that I was anywhere near as sensitive about it as I’d been in high school, but I had an aversion to pricks, and the one beside me had met my prick quota for the night.

I threw the guy’s arm off my shoulders and stepped back, mentally dogging him in some impressive 8 Mile-esque string of insults that’d have made Eminem proud.

Dax slammed his hand into the asshole’s chest, kicking him back a step. “Get the fuck outta here, shithead.”

“Dude, I’m just fuckin’ with her.” Asshole turned to me and tipped his head, offering his palm. “I’m sorry. I’m Theo. You forgive me?”

“I said get the fuck out of here, Theo,” Dax warned, his arm sliding from Simone’s shoulders as he stepped forward.

Tail tucked, the guy walked off, dragging a stumbling Bea behind him through the crowd with her cup to her face. Sorry, she mouthed over her shoulder with an upturned brow, before disappearing into a sea of drunks.

“Don’t mind him. Kid’s a fucking socialtard.” Dax’s voice croaked as he blew another plume of smoke off to the side.

“No kidding.” Must’ve been something in the water. My scars had thickened my skin over the years, though it didn’t lesson the disappointment of finding that college was no different from high school. Guess I figured I’d finally find my tribe of misfits, like me. Turned out, the misfits were assholes, too.

His gaze lifted past mine and I followed the path of his stare to the entrance of the courtyard, where, beyond the crowd, a figure stood in the shadows. The outline of a drawn-up hoodie was all I could make out in the dim light, and Dax stepped around me, grabbing my shoulders.

“Excuse me, I have to go talk to someone.” The scent of his cologne trailed after him, as he made his way toward the entrance.

“I fucking love when she runs off with the first dick that swings her way.” Simone chugged back the cup of beer, the harsh glug banging out a pissed off admission that Bea wasn’t exclusive with her. “Then Dax ditches me. Fun night ahead. I can fucking feel it.”

“How do you know him?” I watched Dax approach the hooded figure, the way they exchanged a brotherly handshake, and how the two of them rivaled in height. After a minute of waiting for Simone to answer, I spun around to find someone else had taken her place—a brunette with a disapproving expression stamped across her face as she filled her red cup.

Choking back a surprised gasp, I trailed my gaze over the crowd, catching sight of those gray braids in the back corner, where Simone stood amid a group of women huddled around a trashcan bonfire.

Complete strangers filtered in around me, as I remained in proximity to the beer. They swarmed, bumping into me in all their eagerness to get to the alcohol, and another splash of my drink saturated the front of my shirt.

“Damn it!” I bopped back and forth like a bumper car, snapping my head back and forth to find both Bea and the guy she took off with were nowhere in sight.

The tightness in my chest clinched my lungs and the claustrophobic sensation from before closed in around me, smashing me into a tiny suffocating box. I’d always had a hard time in crowds, particularly the larger ones.

“Hey, wanna fin’ a quiet corner some’ere?” The kid who’d sat in the backseat with me stumbled backward, his half-mast eyes and slurred vocab telling me he’d become fifty shades of shitfaced.

I needed air. Quickly, judging by the way my periphery shrank and vertigo settled over me. I must’ve looked drunk myself as I weaved through the crowd, searching for an out while trying to block out the unbidden memory flashing through my head.

Pounding against the roof. The scent of gasoline burning my nose. A tight throb in my lungs.

Through a door-less entrance, the cool air hit my skin, lifting the smog filling my lungs and the visuals seeping in from the fringes. As I took three deep breaths, the empty space allowed me to settle my head, setting the world upright again.

I hated crowds, but more than that, I hated being ditched in the middle of a bunch of strangers, inside an abandoned building, in an unfamiliar neighborhood.

Why the hell did I think going out would be fun?

A stairwell ahead beckoned, almost calling to me with its enticing curve into the darkness above, and I set the red cup down at the foot of it, before ascending the crumbled concrete. Perhaps higher up, I’d get a better view of where my roommate had wandered off.

With each step up, the air grew thinner, easier to breathe, while the sounds faded below me. As visibility dimmed to darkness, I shoved my hands into my pocket, fishing out my apartment keys that held a small can of pepper spray and a mini flashlight, which I switched on. A halo of light cut through the blackness, illuminating about three stair lengths ahead of me, as I continued to climb.

At least ten minutes must’ve passed when I finally reached the top of the stairs. An old steel door sat precariously hanging from its hinges, and I stepped around it, wincing at the streak of fire across my back. “Ouch! Shit!” I reached back to palpate the gritty surface of a nail-head sticking out of the frame behind me. “Great. I’ll probably have tetanus,” I muttered, walking out onto the gravelly bed of the roof, the pain of my scratch quickly forgotten for the colorful lights that greeted me.

Tall scaffolding sat empty, where, I guessed, the sign at the top of the building once stood. Nothing but the rusted steel still carried the remnants of its name. Ahead of me, Jefferson Avenue stretched on, and I rounded the rooftop’s perimeter, the center of which opened to the buildings foramen like a hole in its skull, revealing the crowd below. Ugh. A nauseous sight, from where I sat almost a hundred feet above them, guarded only by a foot-high safety wall.

Backing away, I kept on, until I faced what I determined to be the south side of the building. I approached the parapet, and a lump caught in my throat when I peered into the seemingly endless stories that merged into a shrunken darkness below. Only the occasional flicker of metal told me I was looking down at the makeshift parking lot at the back of the building.