We Are Monsters 🌕 Book 1 || gxg

La Fin de l'Innocence

Emerald leaves danced beneath the brilliant sky. For one long, sickening instant Sam was suspended over a vast nothing, no longer a victim of gravity. But gravity didn't like that, and before she could blink her stomach lurched into her throat with such force she nearly hurled right there. As a cold wind roared around her, a startled bellow echoed somewhere above.

She couldn't take her eyes off the solid earth beneath her, which seemed impossibly far away. She felt like she was falling in slow motion. The roil in her ribs peaked and a clear, distinctly feminine voice in her mind said, "No more waiting. Accept me or perish."

Her vision went black.

Swarming lights, reds, blues, purples, and thundering bass enveloped her. She could no longer feel the wind, the freefall. Instead she felt muggy June air on her sweaty face, and the pinch of her kitten heels around her toes and heel where blisters were forming. This time, she was not in the hallway, but at the edge of the gym with a drink clutched between both hands. As the scene formed piece by piece, she was surrounded by bobbing, writhing figures in an artificial dusk. She tossed back the cloying punch, scanning the room.

Her friends had disappeared; Charlotte had gone outside to smoke with a few others, Milo and Carson were in the washroom, and she had no idea where Shelly and Cassandra had vanished to. She considered going outside to cool off, but the temperature would probably have been much of the same.

Sam didn't know the song that was playing, and she didn't much care for it. So when it bled into a song she actually recognized she couldn't ignore the urge to dance again. She pitched the rest of the foul beverage, bobbing as she swept the room again for anyone she was comfortable dancing with or around. She didn't have to look long. The doors not far to her right were just swinging shut, and there was Milo, with Carson not far behind. They were already grooving and really played it up when they spotted her approaching. Milo always enjoyed her talentless dancing; his face scrunched in an amused grin, mimicking her awkward movements.

"I'm not that bad a dancer!" she yelled when they were close enough to hear her, a light flush prickling her cheeks. "What took so long?"

Carson shrugged playfully. "There was a fight in the bathroom. Where did everyone go?"

"I don't know."

Carson's girlfriend found him with the ease of a bloodhound and he disappeared into the crowd. Sam had barely seen him all night, but that wasn't unusual. Their relationship was a toxic one, but Sam had one of her best friends with her, and she was suddenly feeling better about being there. The stitched-up rip in her dress was impossible to discern in the dim light, and she had fixed her makeup thanks to a generous girl whose name she had forgotten.

Whenever she recalled the events in the washroom, her cheeks would flood and prickle. She licked her lips for the umpteenth time as they tingled distractingly. She hadn't told anyone what happened yet, afraid to have a hole poked in the way she remembered things, but Milo caught something in her expression, and like a raccoon with a quarter, he lit up and fixated on it.

"Why are you blushing?" he probed, round face glowing with excitement. "What did I miss?"

"Nothing, I'm blushing because you were mocking me."

That wasn't totally true; she was blushing because when she became aware of her somewhat dorky dancing she couldn't help wondering if Mel was nearby, which made her think of the way their lips felt on hers, and it just made the flush spread.

"No, I don't think so." Milo pursed his lips a little and seemed to consider. "Did someone bug you about your dress again? I'll smack them, if you want, you know I will."