𝐓𝐨𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡

𝟕 | 𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐞 & 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐤

"Ria? Is that you?" someone by my right side asked softly. A well-known silhouette was leaning to a kitchen counter, while a girl with (for my taste) shorts too short was hung on him.

"Yes, it's me," I confirmed, still not believing I was so lucky to find my friend so quickly. "As I see, you've already found a replacement for me," I teased him, giggling. Otto cleared his throat and gently pushed his company aside.

"I-it's not what it looks like," he said, scratching the back of his neck.

"No need to explain anything. You were having fun. That's why you came here in the first place," I reminded him with a smirk on my face. Just before the girl disappeared among the people, she made a small gesture to let Otto know he should call her. If it weren't for all the lights that were shining with a new color every second, I'd swear he blushed. "Listen, if you have some spare time, could you, please, come with me to visit my mother? I think something is wrong," I explained my worries. Even in the red light, I could see the bumps on his forehead.

"Ughh, I thought you came here to get drunk with me," he muttered dissatisfied and took a red cup filled with beer. Just before he drank up, he stopped himself, narrowing his eyes, as if he was thinking about something. "Wait," he said, "weren't you supposed to go out with her today?"

"Yes, I was," I agreed. "And that's why I have to find out why it didn't work out. And you're going to help me with that. Unless you have something or someone else to do," I teased him as I chuckled. Otto frowned more.

"You're terrible, you know that?" he remarked.

"Thanks, I'm doing my best," I giggled, then checked my phone. It was ten o'clock. "I guess we should go," I suggested.

"Maybe your mom isn't asleep yet," he thought out loud. I suppressed the horrifying feeling, whispering to my ears that we won't ever find out. Someone shook my shoulder and stopped me from torturing myself with these thoughts.

"Ria? Listen, who's that handsome guy looking for you?" my classmate Naomi interrupted our conversation.

"What?" Otto and I asked at once. Otto made a grimace, quietly saying Who replaced whom, huh? and I tried to ignore him, desperately wanting to hear Naomi's answer.

"The brown-haired muscle man," she explained. A light bulb lightened up in my head, illuminating only one name. Leo. Thoughtlessly, I grabbed Otto's sleeve and plunged deeper into the crowd.

"What are you doing?" Otto shouted, but it was still hard for me to understand a word he said, through the noise in this house.

"I'll explain everything later. But now, we need to disappear." But how? This question must have reflected in my frightened eyes because Otto changed direction and took the lead. I didn't know what he was going to do. However, he walked so confidently, holding his head high, so I decided to trust him. I almost killed him with my bare hands when I found out his plan involved running away in the last place. According to him, I should relax and dance, even though I was being chased by a man who wanted to keep me locked up?

Finally, I had to admit that Otto's thinking wasn't bad. We managed to merge with several bodies. Leo passed us and didn't notice us at all. I guess we really looked like we were having a really good time.

When I saw him go around the corner into the hallway that led to the stairs, I couldn't let the opportunity slide and took it, tightening my grip around a weapon in my jacket's pocket. It was not a gun but a syringe containing fluid to induce sleep, so it could help me get rid of my "enemy" for a few hours. I hoped my father won't get angry when he'll finds out that I was going through his stuff.

"Stay here," I commanded to Otto, following Leo. We walked up the stairs to another floor with a few bedrooms and one bathroom. As soon as we've reached the second floor, I didn't hesitate more and hung on to him like a monkey on a tree, inserting the needle straight into the vein in his neck. At first, he resisted and used the remaining strength to knock me off to the ground. He threw me over and I bumped my back on a hard floor. As I crawled down in a painful spasm, Leo was preparing to attack, but then suddenly froze, falling down like a puppet. I swear that shit works like crazy. Some curious heads peeked out of the nearest room, but I quickly silenced them:

"That's enough alcohol for him today, don't you think?" I showed my teeth in a crooked smile and waited for strangers to close the door. Meanwhile, Otto came upstairs.

"What are we going to do with him?" he asked a question to which I had not yet have an answer. I ran fingers through my hair, trying to think of something. "You don't want to take him with you, do you?"

"Yes, Otto, I ran away from him so I could stun him and drag him everywhere where I go," I replied ironically.

"Judging by how you're hanging onto him, I'd say yes," a friend grinned. I rolled my eyes and sighed.

"You better help me. We have to get him to some free room," I said.

"And then what?" Otto didn't seem ready for that kind of excitement.

"Then we have to make the others think he only had a wild night," I remarked, losing control for a second. Leo's head fell to the ground with a thud merging in the music. Luckily, that crap in the syringe was strong enough.