Painful Reminders

Chapter Four: Drunken Desperation

This entire affair was becoming tedious. There was no doubt in my mind that if I dragged her out as I wanted to, I'd be doing it with her kicking and screaming. I wouldn't be able to compel an entire club to forget, so I'd have to find another way. "I just wish to speak with you."

She side-stepped out of my grasp and turned her murderous hazel eyes on me. "If you touch me again, I'll scream. You're ruining my night."

"Your night was ruined from the start," I informed her dismissively.

 Amya pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes before pivoting on her heels and marching away from me, her original intention to dance forgotten. She shot me another look over her shoulder. "I'm going to the bathroom, don't follow me."

Annoyed, I watched her snake through the crowd in the direction of the back hallway. As I'd stated to Andrea earlier in the night, Amya was a risk to our very survival. The longer I allowed this to go on, the more time and resources I would be wasting. Even in the week I'd been tracking her, three covens on the East Coast had gone missing. I needed to get back to my own. We were at war, and she was nothing more than a distraction.

***

He had killed my buzz. Bracing myself against the bathroom counter, I stared at myself in the mirror and his eyes were staring back at me. Lifeless hazel eyes exactly like my own. I blinked back the tears and gave my head a violent shake. It had been five years since he died and I still saw him.

You were born for greater things."

"I'd still settle for normal, Grandpa," I mumbled to myself, turning away from the counter and toward the door. "I wish you hadn't left me so soon."

Opening the restroom door, I was hit with the blast of music reverberating throughout the building and winced as I raised my hands to cup my ears briefly as they adjusted to the noise. I peered down the hallway thoughtfully and considered following the music back to the bar. I wasn't drunk yet, and I was positive Cassian had killed any opportunity I'd had of going home with someone. Unless I followed Becca and Shane to The Gold Standard. There was a back door if I moved away from the music toward the opposite end of the hallway. Cassian would never know.

Was it normal to feel this way about your stalker? He certainly wasn't winning me over, but wasn't I supposed to be more afraid of him? Wary? All I felt was annoyance and an intense dislike. I didn't know what his connection was with Shane, I mean they didn't even live in the same city, but there had to be some connection, right? I thought of how easily Shane had turned and walked away after a few short words from Cassian and frowned. Shane wouldn't have just walked away because a stranger told him to...

"That's not the point right now, Mya," I muttered as I turned decisively away from the music and moved further down the hall to the club's back exit. "The point right now is to find yourself a man or get drunk." And that's exactly what I planned to do.

***

I watched her slip out the back less than fifteen minutes after she'd left to find the restroom, and I cursed the day Zeke had discovered her. Andrea's suggestion to use her echoed in the back of my mind, however, we wouldn't be the first coven to attempt to use an Remedium. It was always a mistake; a deadly one. They were uncontrollable and impossible to read. Not to be trusted.

Following slowly behind her, I kept my distance as I mulled over the options. Amya wandered down the sidewalk, her focus divided between her handbag as she dug through it, and the walkway ahead of her. Ahead of her, a group of three men approached, laughing drunkenly. I knew the moment that they noticed her as I could hear their laughter dying to quiet snickers. I stiffened but didn't close the distance as I waited. They were merely human; hardly worth my time. She hadn't bothered to look up or acknowledge the men as they grew closer.