Page 42 of Moth
“Come with me,” he grates, sliding his hands up to my neck, letting his fingers burrow into the fall of my hair.
“W-Wait.” My brain sputters, struggling to remember something important. Several important somethings. Mara. Who he is. The fact that I shouldn’t be allowing him to pull me across the dance floor toward the club’s entrance.
I start to resist, tugging on his forearm, but it’s too late. We’re already passing the bouncer barring the entrance. Within seconds, my skin prickles in the night air, cooling the sheen of sweat glistening there that I wasn’t aware of.
Neither was I aware until now that my hand is in his, his fingers grasping mine tight.
Until suddenly, he stops short.
“Shit.” His gaze is fixated across the street where a red sports car skids to a tire-squealing stop. Three men climb out and approach the front of the club, cutting past the line, their posture bold and cocky. Alarm bells go off at the back of my mind, displacing my muddled daze. Something is wrong. I can sense it in the air…
A foreboding feeling that only grows as one of the men reaches into his pocket and withdraws something that glints in the glow of a nearby streetlamp, unmistakable in shape—a knife.
“Go—” Rafe shoves me aside so fiercely I careen into the brick facing edging the entrance. Staggering to regain my balance, I look back to see him lurch onto the balls of his feet, his teeth clenched. “Get your little friend. Then go. Now.” His voice is too deep, devoid of any playful mocking. The gruff baritone leeches into me, keeping my annoyance at bay. He’s not playing, for once, and I instinctively take a step back, nearly running into a couple leaving the club.
They falter as well, fixated on the scene unfolding.
“Look who’s here.” The man in the center of the trio—the one holding the knife—mounts the curb first. He’s dressed in a suit, crowned by a blood-red tie, which makes him resemble some odd cross between criminal and businessman. I suspect the effect is intentional to look like one of the characters in my father’s favorite mafia crime dramas. “Little Rafie. The black fucking sheep, which says a lot, considering your fucked-up family.”
“What the fuck do you want?” Rafe growls.
“I hear you’ve been stepping outside of your zone,” the man says. “We’ve come to enlighten you as to why that might not be the best idea.” He brandishes the knife, and a gasp erupts from the few patrons still waiting in line. Some of them scatter, and one of the bouncers steps forward only to halt as Rafe raises his hand.
“Hannah,” he snarls without turning around. “Go!”
“That your new bitch?” the man wonders, nodding to me. He’s tall with short dark hair styled into a slick coif. Cold, green eyes glare from an angular but handsome face, set with a Roman nose. “Funny. I thought you liked blonds.”
“I do,” Rafe replies. “Like Bonnie. Do you want to tell your buddies why she might be here crawling all over my dick? I thought she was fuckingyou, Gino. One of the few bitches who will without you having to pay for it first, from what I hear.”
Gino laughs, but there’s no humor in it. His eyes blaze, wild and unstable. “Funny because Ihearthat you’re not as much of a hardass as you pretend to be. That you listen to whiny little whores who run their goddamn mouths. That you like to snitch, Rafie. My club got raided the other week. I wonder why?”
“Hannah,” Rafe snaps in a tone that’s like a whip, yanking on my attention. “Go!”
This time, he doesn’t have to tell me twice. I whirl on my heel and race inside, searching for Mara. She’s not at the bar or on the dance floor. Am I just too frantic to see her? It’s as if every nearby face blurs into the same indistinguishable person until I’m blinded by panic. My attempts grow desperate. Sloppy.
“Mara! Mara?” Without meaning to, I stagger into another dancer who hisses in irritation.
“Watch where you’re… What the fuck?”
Suddenly, the music dies mid-song. Bright lights flick on overhead at the same moment, and in the absence of ambiance, the fantasy is ripped away. Gone is the majestic allure, and we’re left standing in a brick room, crammed with people who murmur in shock.
Then alarm, as a scream echoes in the distance, and the calm erupts into chaos.
It’s as if everyone heads to the exit at once. In the resulting crush, my body is buffeted, a rag doll in the tempest.
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. A hand slams into my back as I grasp at flailing, lashing limbs, desperate for stability. Eventually, I find myself being shoved forward, back the way I came.
Outside is a different world from the typical, clubgoing scene I’d witnessed just minutes before. People stream from the mouth of the club, clogging the road and stopping what little traffic remains. Amid the shouting, honking chaos, a group of men stands before the entrance—Gino and his two thugs, and Rafe, who seems woefully outnumbered.
“Hannah!” Mara comes out of nowhere, clutching my wrist. Her hair is askew, her makeup smudged, her wide eyes darting around the crowded street. “This is bad. We need to leave.”
I agree as my throat contracts to choke down a building sense of dread. The scene unfolding just paces away seems so surreal, like something out of a movie. A bad one where someone winds up dead in the end.
“I suggest you turn around and head back to that fucking shithole you call a club, if you even have any business left,” Rafe growls. How I hear him above the noise, I have no idea. Scurrying patrons create a thin path through which I can make him out, standing tall. “Don’t blame me if you hold on to your territory as well as you do your women.”
I don’t catch Gino’s reply or anything else for that matter. Just my heartbeat, surging through my ears, pounding…pounding.
“Hannah! Come on!” Mara yanks on my wrist until I stagger down the block after her, away from the inevitable fight. Right before we reach the intersection, my steps falter. I can’t stop myself from craning my neck and looking back.
