Page 44 of Hidden

The elevator dings. I look up at the panel.

Rooftop terrace.

I pressed the lobby. Fuck, I’m losing it.

“Because I was drunk on power and orgasms,” I say, because I am not asking how that happened. I am not giving him the satisfaction.

The doors open to the starry night sky.

“Hadley, wait.” Davi catches up to me, his hand gently grasping my elbow.

I pull my arm back and I don’t look at him.

“No,” I say it again, and every time the word leaves my mouth I feel more like myself. “Don’t follow me.”

Chapter Eleven

“Don’t follow me.”I throw it over my shoulder one more time and I don’t know if Davi hears it or not. I don’t look back to find out. Even though I want to, I don’t.

I move past the rooftop bar and around the far side of the terrace, where the city air hits me full in the face, and my legs give out on the bench against the railing where I plop down on the old metal.

Eyes forward,I chastise myself.

My dress still sits open in the back where I couldn’t reach to zip it. My heels lost and forgotten. The Penn closing in on midnight is a building I have walked since I was six, and tonight I don’t recognize a single corner of it.

Fear rumbles through my body. My lips are dry, and when I lick them I taste copper and lemon and something else, something dessert-sweet, and my stomach does a slow roll.

Three men. I can still taste three men.

My hand drifts to my throat. The punctures are still there. Of course they’re still there. He bit me less than an hour ago and I am acting like an hour ago is a long time.

I don’t look behind me.

What if they’re there?

I said no.

They offered me the world. I said no.

I can’t think about that right now. And I can’t think about them not being on the rooftop. Because there’s no footsteps. Nothing.

They left me alone.

Gave me the space I asked for. Begged for.

Yet I am ruined.

Ruined for the version of me I was supposed to be on Monday morning.

They aren’t even men. Are they?

A sob breathes from my lungs as the wind moves around me, and the city below me hums on like nothing has changed. I just need air. I need to breathe.

I can’t just go back to the event. And it has nothing to do with my lack of shoes.

Vampires.

They’re not just real. They walk beside us. Living beside us.