Ellie

One

A.N:  This is a sequel to my story The little Stranger, but can still be read as a stand alone as it is set 17 years later 

(Part One-Grounded)

Ellie Kavanagh swept aside her dark shoulder length hair away, tucking it behind her ear from her face , as she hurriedly climbed up the few short steps that led up to the side door of the Orcanda nightclub. She was feeling the chill in the cold night air, dressed in her casual black top which did not have much substantial material for outdoor wear, and her short red leather jacket, and dark leggings that showed off her slim petite figure.

Now, as she opened the door to step into the warmth of the dull lit hallway, she heard the ping from her cell phone, but she decided to wait  until she got through the other graffiti laden wooden door in front of her, before checking who, or what it was. Stopping in her tracks to take her phone from her jacket pocket, she looked down at her lit up screen to see who was messaging her, and found herself rolling her brown eyes with a sense of long suffering, when she realised it was from her father Jake Kavanagh, who texted her to remind her he was looking forward to her coming home this weekend from college, to spend time with the family.

She would not  have minded, but he made it seem like she had not been back home in ages, when she had spent the weekend with them less than a month ago. Then there was the fact she spoke to him nearly every day on her phone on video messenger.   She had been lucky that she had finally managed to get  him to finally agree to let her go to business college in the end, after patiently convincing him seven months ago that going to a college twenty miles from home was not the other side of the world, when he had tried to persuade her she could find one nearer to home and not have to move out. 

Right now, she decided she couldn't be bothered replying to his text,  so instead she shoved her cell phone back in her pocket, and now made her way along the corridor, with its once cream and brown paint now peeling off the walls in places after years of neglect, so that revealed patches of the bare grey brick wall underneath. 

The grubby corridor was just nominally warmer than it had been outside, but that changed as she opened the door at the end of the corridor, that led into the main hall of the nightclub which was pretty crowded for a Wednesday evening. The mass of body heat upped the temperature significantly, as did the noise of people loudly laughing and chatting with each other, which Ellie found welcoming as she weaved her way through people and the tables to the other side of the room, where the crowded bar was situated.

The familiar smell of alcohol mixed with other substances that were probably being sneakily smoked by the mostly eighteen to twenty five year old crowd in the room, filled her nostrils. She managed to find a small space to squeeze in so she was leaning forward over the bar counter waving with her hand trying to catch the attention of one of the two men, who were busy occupied tending behind the counter and serving drinks.

The older of the two men, Rob, who was around his mid thirties, with his dark hair was greying already at the temples now noticed her, and after serving his drink to his latest customer at the other end of the bar he came down to join her.

"Hi Ell, Keith said you would be dropping by this evening to pick up your bracelet you left behind the other night in the changing room" he greeted her cheerfully, being familiar with her since she first started coming for the club, first as a casual customer on Friday evenings with her other college mates, but now even more so, since she had some of her college mates had gotten together to form a three piece band Remo that played every other Saturday evening on the small stage to entertain the crowd with their own covers of popular music from various decades, just for the fun of it.

"Yes, I was just so relieved when I phoned Keith, and he told me it had been handed in, it was a special present my dad bought me for my sixteenth birthday, I don't know what I would have done if I had lost it" Ellie explained with slight anxiety in her voice, as she now recalled the awful moment when she realised it was no longer on her wrist the following Sunday morning after their gig on Saturday night.