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I needed toburn, but all I felt was dizzy and cold.

“You wanna dress like a girl?” Not-David-Bowie snarled. “I’m gonna fuck you like one. Tranny whore.”

His belt buckle jingled as he hiked my skirt up again.

His knee wormed in between my legs, followed by a kick that spread my feet apart, and I sobbed. Choked on a breath drawn too fast and thrashed every inch of me that could move.

“Loren!” My scream resounded in my ears as they rushed with blood and the man behind me shuffled his feet.

It was still echoing, deafening me so I didn’t hear the stall door open, but I saw it. It swung out so fast and hard the lock snapped off.

Not-David-Bowie’s body went stiff.

“What the hell—?” He barely got the words out before his gaze must have settled on what mine did.

Hell, indeed, on two feet and towering over us both. If I hadn’t been so strangled, I might have cheered. No, I wouldn’t have, because my gorgeous boy was bowed up bigger than I’d ever seen him, flexing muscles all the way into his neck and forming his fists so tight even I wanted to shrink away from them.

“Get lost!” Not-David-Bowie barked. “We’re in the middle of something here.”

Loren lunged forward and grabbed the other man by the neck.

In a blink, I was free. My arms dropped to my sides, wrists aching and sending painful tingles all the way up to my shoulders.

I didn’t move myself, but I was displaced, pushed out of the stall as Loren invaded it. I scrambled to pull my underwear up and cover my exposed ass as Loren bore down on Not-David-Bowie with inhuman speed. Driving him by the head, Loren bent the other man forward so fast it seemed his feet flew out from under him. He hit the ground on his knees, his pants sagging to expose his dingy white underwear as Loren slammed his head into the toilet.

The knocking sound of the collision made my stomach lurch. One strike, then two, and the porcelain bowl cracked, letting water rush across the floor.

Not-David-Bowie groaned. He sprawled in the wet wreckage of the toilet, his face misshapen and leaking blood from cuts that canvassed his distorted features.

Loren stepped back from the fallen man. He looked terrifyingly calm, so placid I believed that he truly was possessed. He kept his position between Not-David-Bowie and me, then held his hand out to the open space as a long, bladed weapon materialized in his grasp.

I’d only seen it once before, the thing that was neither spear nor sword. It was as tall as me, with a wickedly sharp edge that caught my reflection before Loren turned the blade end toward the downed man.

“Lore, don’t!” I called out without being sure why.

The weapon descended in a decisive sweep, and I covered my face. Missing the visual didn’t stop my ears from tuning to the wet snick of flesh and bone being cleaved apart.

Breathing hard, I peered out through quaking fingers. The weapon was gone, and Loren stood over the man’s headless corpse looking almost serene.

Water bubbled out of the fragmented toilet, tinged deeply red from the blood oozing from Not-David-Bowie’s severed body. I stepped timidly through it, trying not to splash as I approached Loren and tugged on his arm.

“Baby?” It was almost a babble, the first in a stream of words tumbling out. “Baby, we have to go. We have to leave…”

Loren’s head hung low as he watched the dead man wisp into smoke. Within seconds, all that remained of my assailant was a smear of blood on the tile being washed away by the toilet’s endless flow of water.

A shudder ripped up my body, leaving me feeling sick, dirty, and so, so cold.

At last, Loren looked at me, and the life returned to his eyes. His expression went soft, brows lifting, lips parting, and he drewme into his embrace. He was warmer than I was, pulsing with heat that failed to reignite the spark inside.

With the corpse gone, other concerns took precedence. My high was ruined, leaving me low and agonizingly sober. It was another missing thing, the buzz along with the fire, and I clung onto what remained as the tears returned.

“Loren?” I mumbled, my voice nearly lost in his chest.

He hummed in response, then brushed a hand through my curls.

Squeezing his middle, I sniffled and said the thing I was afraid to hear out loud: “I think something’s wrong with me.”

Indy