Sacrifice Me: The Complete Season One (4 page)

I stepped forward and could hear Katy gasp behind
me.

“What is this place?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

A feeling deep in my belly told me I belonged
here, though, which I realized was a ridiculous thought. How could I
belong somewhere I’d never been?

A heavy black door closed off whatever was in the
next room and as I stepped closer, the door opened and a young girl
who didn’t look much older than us stepped out.

I moved aside so she could pass, but she just
stopped and stared at us.

Her hair was bleached very white-blonde and cut in
a short pixie cut. She was a little taller than I, and had these
gorgeous sky-blue eyes. To say she was stunning would be the
understatement of a lifetime.

“Good evening, ladies,” she said. She
had an Australian accent. “Don’t think I’ve seen
the likes of you around here before. Is there something I can help
you with?”

I paused and looked at Katy. She was usually so
much better at bullshitting her way into places, but I could tell
from the look on her face she was way out of her comfort zone.

I turned back to the girl and smiled. “I
have no idea, to be honest,” I said, choosing truth over
bullshit. “It’s my birthday and we were out looking for a
place, and I don’t know. Does it sound stupid to say I was
drawn to this place?”

She raised an eyebrow and studied me closely. “Not
stupid, no. Strange, more like.”

Katy gripped my arm, her fingernails digging into
my flesh. I sucked in a breath and turned to tell her to let up, but
her eyes were crazy wide. “Look at her shirt,” she
whispered in my ear.

I glanced at the blonde girl's shirt and
swallowed. It said VENOM in bright green letters across her chest.

No. Freaking. Way.

“Is that the name of this place?” I
asked.

She cocked her head to the side. “Who told
you to come here?”

I bit my lip. “No one,” I said. “Not
exactly.”

She shook her head, all traces of her smile gone
from her pretty pink lips. “Don’t bullshit me. How did
you find out about this place and what’s your purpose here?”

Shit. The one time I choose not to bullshit
someone, I get accused of it anyway.

Katy tugged on my arm. “Maybe we should just
go.”

“I’m not bullshitting you,” I
told the girl at the door, shrugging off Katy's hand. I didn’t
want to leave now. Not after searching for it for half the night. I
needed to know what was inside and why I had somehow known it was
here.

“I got an invitation,” I said. “But
we've been searching for this club for the past half hour with no
luck. No one even seems to know this place is here.”

“So, how did you find it?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I just
felt drawn to this alley. Like I belonged here. I know how weird that
sounds, but—”

“I’ve heard much weirder,” the
girl said, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “You
said it’s your birthday today?”

“Yes,” I said. “Twenty-one
today.”

She pressed her lips together and looked at Katy,
then back at me as if trying to decide what in the world to do with
us.

“Okay, then tonight's your lucky night,”
she said. “But we have some rules here at Venom and you’d
better follow them as if your pretty little lives depended on it. You
got that?”

We nodded.

“Number one, don’t go off into any
dark corners or back rooms with someone you don’t know. Number
two, don’t leave here with any strange men. If either of you
ladies is looking for a one-night-stand, this is not the place for
you.”

I studied her, my eyes narrowing. “These are
the club’s rules?” I asked. What kind of club has a rule
against one-night-stands?

She returned my stare, her face dead serious. “Not
exactly. These are my rules for letting you in, okay? If anything
were to happen to either of you, I’d never forgive myself.”

The concern in her voice sent chills up my spine.
Since when does a bouncer at a club give a crap about what happens to
random girls who come in? And since when is it so incredibly
dangerous to go into a dark corner with someone?

What kind of place is this?

The door girl pulled a small pen from the pocket
of her jeans and reached for my hand. She turned my hand over and
placed the pen against the inside of my wrist, then pushed. Instead
of an actual pen, it was some kind of stamp. In the green glow of the
hallway, the stamp also glowed green, like it was under a
black-light. The stamp was a picture of a coiled snake.

She stamped Katy, then put the pen away.

“My name is Selena,” she said. “If
you need anything, you can come find me. I’ll be here the rest
of the night.”

I nodded. “Thanks,” I said. I glanced
toward the heavy black door with a matching carving of a snake in the
wood. “What kind of a club is this, anyway?”

She smiled, placing her hand on the metal handle.
“The kind of club people don’t find by accident.”

Thumping bass greeted us as the door opened. We
had to walk down another long black hallway to get to the main room
of the club and Katy grabbed my arm.

“What have you gotten us into?” she
whispered, clinging to me. “What if this is some kind of sex
club?”

I smiled at the thought. “Well, if we walk
in and everyone's having sex, we either join in or turn around and
walk right back out.”

She smacked my arm. “You are so disgusting.”

I bit back a laugh. If this was a sex club, at
least we'd end up with one hell of a story to tell about this night.

But as we walked down that hallway, I knew this
club had much deeper secrets than that. Much more dangerous secrets.
Whatever this place was, it was going to be a real adventure. I knew
it from the knot of fear in my core.

It scared and excited me at the same time.

I pressed forward, giving Katy's hand a reassuring
squeeze.

Like the front entrance, this hallway had long
tubes of colored liquid that bubbled and swam along as we walked,
giving off an eerie glow.

The closer we got, the louder the music and voices
became. I’d never been to a club that made you walk through a
tunnel to get to the main room, but our small journey added to the
mystery of the place.

Walking through that final archway and into the
main room was like walking into a brand new world. My senses were
assaulted with beauty and mystery and noise.

The room opened into a large two-level dance floor
filled with beautiful, elegant bodies. On the upper level, a balcony
wrapped around the dance floor with tables that overlooked the
spectacle below. People sat drinking, talking and laughing in the
shadows.

Large booths lined in plush velvet wrapped around
the entire bottom floor of the room.

Dancers with perfect bodies danced in cages lifted
just off the ground.

A long bar to our left took up the entire wall on
that side of the room. It was unlike any bar-top I’d ever seen,
in life or in the movies. Instead of wood, the bar was made of thick
clear glass, bright colors rushing back and forth in waves inside
long tubes that ran the length of the bar.

It was the lighting of the place that amazed me
and made me have to physically close my own jaw. It was magical and
mysterious. Dark and shadowed, yet filled with so much color and
light. A neon jungle of glass tubes.

I studied the tubes, trying to figure out exactly
how they were lit, but it seemed that the liquid itself was alive
with light. How could that be? It had to be some beautiful illusion.

“Wow,” I said, taking it all in. “This
place is incredible.”

Neither of us had moved from the archway.

Servers with clear glass trays passed in front of
us wearing skimpy outfits adorned with jewels. One girl with long
black hair and a killer body came out of a back room and stopped.

She stared at me for just a moment too long, then
shook her head as if realizing she’d been staring. She smiled,
meeting my eyes for a brief moment before disappearing into the
crowd, presumably to deliver her drinks to a table.

“I've never seen anything like this,”
Katy shouted in my ear.

Techno music blasted throughout the room and I
suddenly felt the urge to dance.

“Come on,” I said, pulling her toward
the dance floor.

She hesitated and threw a glance toward the bar.
“I want another drink. My buzz has totally worn off after all
that walking.”

I nodded. “Okay, let’s grab something
and then dance.”

“Deal,” she said, leading me toward
the bar.

The long counter was crowded with people, but we
managed to squeeze ourselves into a small opening somewhere near the
end. As we waited for a bartender to take our order, I studied the
other people crowded around the bar.

Every single one of them was gorgeous. And I’m
not just talking about
I’ve-had-too-much-to-drink-so-everyone-is-beautiful kind of
gorgeous. I’m talking about perfect skin, gorgeous glittering
eyes, and banging bodies.

Never in my entire life had I seen so many
good-looking people packed into one room like this.

I shifted my weight on my hand-me-down heels and
pulled my tank top down on my hips. I might have felt like I belonged
here when we first walked up, but I was quickly realizing how much I
did not match up to the money and style of the people in this room.

My face flushed and I suddenly felt as if someone
was watching me. I glanced around the dance floor, then turned my
eyes toward the bar. I was assaulted by the darkest, blackest eyes
staring back at me. My stomach flipped and my heart skipped a beat.
Or twelve.

If the people in this club were gorgeous, the guy
attached to that set of mysteriously beautiful eyes was a god. I
forced my mouth closed, realizing my lips had parted and I was
beginning to breathe heavily just looking at him.

His eyes were locked on mine. He wasn't smiling or
nodding or trying to approach me. He was just staring, his body
frozen and tense as if the sight of me had put him into some kind of
angry trance. Around me, the thundering music muted and there was
only him.

I could not force my eyes away no matter how hard
I tried.

He stared at me as if he could see straight into
the core of who I was. As if he knew something about me I had yet to
discover for myself. I felt the pressure of his gaze like hand on my
heart.

I heard Katy say my name, but I couldn’t
drag my eyes away from the guy behind the bar.

But then he seemed to wake up. His eyebrows
wrinkled in the middle and he shook his head, then turned away, as if
we hadn’t just shared some incredibly strange moment.

“Earth to Franki,” Katy said, shaking
my shoulder.

I took a deep breath and slowly came back down to
reality. “I’m sorry,” I said. “What did you
say?”

She whistled, her eyes wide. “Where the hell
did you go just now?”

“Nowhere,” I said, forcing a smile. I
didn’t dare look back toward the hot bartender. I was already
way out of my comfort zone here. The last thing I needed was to get
lost inside his eyes again.

“I asked what you want to drink,” Katy
said. “I can’t do another shot of scotch. I swear, I’ll
puke.”

I laughed. “I’m game for whatever.”

A female bartender came over to take our order and
looked at me with expectant eyes. The bar was extremely busy, even
for a Wednesday night, and I’m sure the last thing she wanted
to do was stand there and wait for us to make up our minds.

I leaned forward over the counter. “We've
been drinking Scotch all night, but want to mix it up. What kind of
vodka do you have?”

The corner of her lip twitched. “Is this
your first time here?”

As if she didn’t already know the answer.
The two of us stuck out like two sore thumbs in here.

I didn’t answer. I just leaned against the
bar and raised an eyebrow.

Her face broke out into a smile. “Hold on,”
she said.

She reached down low behind the bar and pulled up
a clear glass bottle with no label or markings of any kind.

She poured two full shots and set them down on the
counter in front of us. “What is this?”

“We call it the Red Dragon,” she said.
There was a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “Trust me. You’ll
love it.”

I studied her. Was she fucking with me? This drink
was totally clear and was probably either a shot of straight vodka or
nothing but water. Why did everyone here act like they had some big
secret they were keeping from us?

“This place is weird,” I muttered,
eyeing Katy as I snatched the shot glass off the counter and downed
it in a single gulp.

I don't know what I expected, but nothing could
have prepared me for the sweet, cinnamon flavor that slithered its
way down my throat. It was warm, but didn't burn the way vodka or
other alcohol usually did.

I set the glass down on the bar and felt the world
around me shift. I closed my eyes, then opened them wide, drawing in
a long, heated breath. I could swear a haze began to form around my
vision. My entire body relaxed. I reached for the bar to steady
myself, wishing I hadn’t worn such high heels.

“Holy shit,” Katy said, leaning
against my shoulder. “What the hell was that?”

I couldn’t answer her at first. I could
still feel the warmth of it sliding all the way down into the pit of
my stomach. Heat traveled through my veins and branched out, making
its way to the very tips of my fingers and toes. I let my own hand
move down my arm, loving the way my skin felt. It was as if every
nerve in my body had been set on fire. It was as if my every
inhibition had been cast into exile.

I wanted to dance.

I shook my head, not sure if I was drunk or what.
“I have no idea, but whatever it was, it was amazing,” I
said. “Do you feel that?”