The Powers of Raven

Chapter 1

"Raven, c'mon!"
"No."
"Please, just this once. Stop being a workaholic." My friend, Maegan, muttered the last part.
"I'm not a workaholic, I just need the money. Plus, I can't just skip work tonight to go to a club, Maegan."
"It's not skipping if you're sick!"
"I'm not sick."
"They don't know that." She started laughing devilishly.
I smiled at that. That didn't mean that I would give in though. "Maegan... I'm sorry."
I really did want to go, but I had work and a low alcoholic tolerance.
"Don't you want to put yourself out there and have some fun?" She was starting to get frustrated at this point.
Cant blame her.
"I do-" she cut me off.
"Then go to the club with me, come on. One day without work won't kill you."
She couldn't drop this.
"Fine I'll go."
"Really? You can't say yes now and say no when I come and pick you up."
Covering all her bases. She really did know me.
"I know."
"Just reminding you, be there at 10 o'clock."
"Okay. Bye."
I hung up before she had the chance to answer.
It was 4 o'clock, so I had six hours to get ready. One hour to pick out something, one hour to take a shower, two hours to fix my hair, and 30 minutes to put on make up. Then dinner..... maybe.
After I picked out my clothes, took a shower, fixed my hair, and put on make up I had one hour and 30 minutes to make dinner. I didn't put on my black, strapless dress because I didn't want to get make up and food on it. That's me, clumsy as ever.

I finally finished getting ready and getting a bite to eat. After that, I still had about an hour and 15 minutes left. I decided I would take a nap, so I could be ready for the crazy night that awaited me.

I awoke to a banging at my door, no guess it was Maegan. I got up from my bed and walked down my small hallway, to the living room to open the door. I didn't bother looking through the peep hole. I was surprised to see a tall, broad shouldered man standing on the other side of the door frame. He was about 6'1, and I was 5'7. He easily shadowed over me.
"Are you Raven Freeman?" He asked lowly, with a quiet voice.
I didn't know who he was so I wasn't going to answer his questions, he was going to answer mine.
"Who's asking?"
He looked at me wth curiosity lurking behind his gaze. Then he smiled with hidden intention beneath the surface. I was tempted to just slam the door in his face, but I stopped in that train of thought when he spoke.
"I'm guessing you are Ms. Freeman? I'm sorry to be a bother, but I just moved into the room beside you. I think they got your mail mixed in with mine."
I automatically relaxed. Past experiences taught me never to trust anyone. That's probably the reason why I had one friend.
"Oh. Okay." Was all I could get out.
He lifted his arm to hand me the mail he had in his hand all along.
Stupid.
"Thanks." I said after taking it.
"No problem. My name is Kimball Hughs, by the way. Nice to meet you." He then held out his hand for me to shake. I didn't really see the harm so I shook his hand, when all of a sudden, my heart started beating really fast. So fast that it actually hurt, I let go of his hand quickly. I placed my hand over my heart as though it could make it stop hurting. It didn't do anything but make him look at me with concern.
"Are you okay?"
It took a minute to answer him. The pain was taking control of my body.
"Yeah. I'm sorry I have to go, nice meeting you. Bye." I squeezed out.
Before he could reply I shut the door. My heart started to calm down from its miniature tantrum. My heart always hurts, but this time it was different. The pain felt like electric shock mixed with a burning sensation.
That was weird.
Another knock came from the door. My heart immediately started frantically beating again. When I opened the door this time I wasn't met with an overcast shadow. It was only Maegan.

"So this club is new and it requires an invitation to get in. You're lucky that I can bring a plus one."
I rolled my eyes. Not like I was lucky anyways.
"Why do you need an invitation. Can you not just get in the club for free?"
"Oh sweet, innocent Raven. You have a lot to learn. This club is different from all the others. Well, the ones I've been to."
"How so?"
"This one is secretive and only a certain number of people know about this place."
"Well how do you know about it?"
"I have my ways."
"True."
She laughed.
"My friend Andrea told me about it. She said that there was a lot of good drinks, fantastic music, and hot guys there."
"Of course that would interest you."
"Who could ignore all those juicy details?"
"Apparently not you."
We both started laughing over this. All laughing aside, she sobered up and was quiet for a moment. I looked over at her to find a look of confusion on her face, then she spoke.
"I also heard that the guy that owns this club is a deranged psychopath. My friend said that he always sits at the far back corner watching everybody, but she couldn't see him because there are three bodyguards standing around the booth. To tell you the truth we are mainly going to get a look."
"What! Why?"
"She says that the people that look at him, in his eyes, are mesmerized. I want to see for myself."
"Don't you think that's kind of weird and absurd?"
"Not really."
"You're crazy."
"We'll see."

We arrived at the club, got out of the car, and walked towards the line of people waiting to get in. From the big neon sign, hanging on the tall brick building, it said Midnight bites.
I looked around the building inspecting the surroundings, we were literally in the middle of nowhere. My better instincts were screaming at me to leave. I couldn't find myself to tell Maegan I wanted to leave, so I kept quiet. After all, she probably would fight with me about it and convince me to stay in the end. She looked so excited, me on the other hand, felt queasy.
Maybe I shouldn't have had dinner.
"Look Raven, we're almost inside."
"Awesome." I said sarcastically.
The couple in front of us walked inside, while we moved up. The man, at what seemed like a podium, asked for our ID and an invitation. Maegan quickly pulled out her ID and the invitation she was given and handed it to him. I also handed him my ID. He looked it over and handed our ID's back to us, keeping the invitation.
"Enjoy." Was all he said.
As we walked inside, I instantaneously had gotten goosebumps. I brushed it off, for now hoping it was just because it was cold here. Maegan started to walk deeper and deeper into the club. It kind of reminded me of a fancy hotel lobby. It had a crystal chandelier hanging in the middle of the large spaced room. The walls were white with gold linings, there were couches circled around a glass coffee table, and a marble checkered floor. To be honest it was beautiful, but weird. I thought clubs were dark and neon-ish. I also thought there would be a lot of people, but I didn't see anyone. Maegan started walking towards a white double door. She then looked at me and opened it, all of a sudden a stir of wind busted through the open door and music filled the room. I was stunned and confused, by the looks of it so was Maegan.
How did we not hear all of this?
We walked through the opening and I started to examine the surroundings. I was right about clubs being dark and neon-ish. There were tons of people too. Enough to make anyone claustrophobic. People were grinding on each other, getting drunk and running to throw up their guts, flirting, kissing, and everything else you can imagine. For a club it was pretty spacious though. There was an elevator on the left far side of the room. Just by looking at the outside of the building it was about 5 stories up. There were also black spiraling stairs leading to the other top floors, also in the left far side of the room. The room was filled with high tables and chairs, booths lining all sides of the room, couches behind a wall of beads under the stairs, and a dance floor right in the middle of all the chaos. Maegan pulled me over to the bar located at the far right. She ordered what appeared to be a clear like substance, which I assumed, wasn't water. I didn't really drink so I didn't know what she was drinking. I ordered a coke, low alcohol tolerance and all. We sat down at one of the booths that were littering the club.

We talked for about an hour before she couldn't comprehend what I was saying. Maegan, unlike me, had a high tolerance to alcohol. This time though she went a little overboard. She had one to many drinks, but she still decided to go and dance.
"Lets dance." She slurred.
"I can't dance."
"You don't have to know how to dance, silly."
"Well you do if you don't want to look stupid."
She giggled, "...too late for that."
"Right."
Just as we headed for the dance floor, Maegan looked like she was about to barf. Without thinking I quickly put my hand on her back and put her arm around my shoulder. I saw that the exit was closer than the bathroom so I hurried over to the exit, opened the door, and stepped out into the humid night air. Maegan unwrapped her arm from my neck and ran to the grass to puke. I walked over to her to pat her back.
"Thats it, you're okay." I said trying to ease her.
Maegan was that girl that would flirt, cry and then throw up when she got drunk. It made me not want to go to clubs with her because I knew if she got drunk then I'd have to deal with the after mess.
While I was patting her back, I saw something moving at the left side of the building. It looked like a man kissing a women. I was about to dismiss it when I heard a muffled cry. I turned my head back in their direction and saw the girl slowly start to go limp. I looked closely and noticed he was at her neck. He pulled back and that's when I saw the overhead light that revealed his face, covered in blood.

HI GUYS! I hope you have enjoyed the first chapter of my book! I kinda rushed through the first chapter to get to the good stuff ;) I will post every other day so far. Thank you for taking the time to read my book.
~ M