Page 2

Chapter 1

Sparrow

Six years later

This can’t be the place. No way. I asked Lilith to take me to the best party in town, and this is where she takes me? Frankly, it looks like a dump—a run-down house with a muddy yard littered with motorbikes. If not for the people, the music, and the lights, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been abandoned for years.

“This is it?” I hiss into Lilith’s ear, grabbing her fishnet-covered arm.

“What did you expect—a five-star hotel? Come on.” She lights a cigarette and walks in a confident stride up the muddy yard. How she manages to walk in those ridiculous heels is beyond me.

I click my tongue and follow her. Run-down and sketchy or not, it can’t be worse than where I came from. It’s not like I know what a party is supposed to look like, anyway; Aaron never took me to any parties, and I sure never had any friends who could take me.

Lilith spins to me and blows smoke into my face. “Now, I’m going to tell you something: In there, you’re on your own. I have other people to hang out with, okay?”

“But…” Is she serious? “I don’t know any of these people!”

“You’ll manage.” She drops the cigarette carelessly to the ground and pops some gum into her mouth. “You’re here to make friends, aren’t you?”

Not really, but I’m not about to tell her the real reason I’m here. Not that it would matter now—with my heart kicking into overdrive at the thought of being all alone in there, abandoned and unwanted. I imagine standing with my back plastered to the wall all night as people stare at me with a mocking tilt to their lips—more mocking than usual.

A feral dog tied to the side of the house barks wildly as we pass, making me even more nervous. Lilith pays it no mind, and she walks confidently up the patio stairs toward the entrance. Despite wanting to run the other way, I follow her.

A group of men loiter on a few chairs outside—one of them a gruff-looking man with a leather vest and a beard with thick sideburns. His amber eyes fix on me, and the man next to him leans in and mumbles something into his ear. The man with the sideburns scoffs, a flash of his canines showing as he casts another look at me and barks something at his friend, who throws his head back and laughs.

I feel naked under the weight of their gazes. Naked, tiny, and unwanted. I’m young, okay, I know that, but not any younger than most people at this place, surely? Though I look not a day older than eighteen, I turn twenty-one next spring, and Lilith told me these parties have patrons of all ages: barely legal teens, college students, as well as older folks. She also told me it’s hosted by the local biker gang, which supplies the town of Springvale with the nightclub-esque venue it’s apparently lacking.

I should fit in here. I should feel at ease. But as is usually the case, the ideal clashes hard with reality.

The two men on the patio are laughing at either my skinny frame, my shoulder-length hair, or my small, feminine features. They see the inexperience in my eyes. Maybe they know I’ve never been close to a party before, let alone drunk.

I’m going to get drunk tonight, though, and after I’m drunk enough to feel confident, I’ll find someone. Someone who isn’t Aaron.

A party is a place to have fun, and to have fun means to drink and chat and make out with someone, right? That’s what I’ve deduced from studying my classmates and watching movies.

A tall man with a bandanna wrapped around his head stops us by the door. “You’re new,” he says, nodding to me.

“He’s fine, Ravi,” Lilith says. “He’s with me.”

The man called Ravi looks me up and down, and I try my best not to squirm. “He’s a little young, isn’t he?”

“I said he’s fine,” Lilith insists, chewing her gum incessantly. “Same age as me.” I’m a year younger, not yet twenty-one, but it’s not as if I’m about to say it out loud. “Gonna let us in or not?”

Ravi rolls his eyes and turns to the biker with the sideburns—the one who laughed with his friend earlier. “What do you think, Louis?”

The biker—Louis—looks me up and down, eyebrows raised, and when he speaks, his deep, gravelly voice sends shivers up my spine. “Let the boy inside. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Keep an eye on me? What does that mean?

Ravi rolls his eyes again. “Sure you will.” He steps aside, and Lilith leans into me as we enter the door.

“You heard him, boy ,” she says with a grin.

I have no more time to dwell on what just happened. As soon as we step inside, all my senses are too busy keeping up with everything.

Music blasts into my ears in a huge living room, where maybe fifty people are all dancing, drinking, laughing, or talking. A few on a couch are snorting cocaine off a beat-up-looking magazine. At least, I think it’s cocaine. The white powder people inhale up their noses is usually cocaine, right? Aaron used to smoke weed with his friends, but he never allowed me to try any. Said it would make me think and talk too much, and I already think and talk too much. I feel too much too, and this is way too much for my senses to handle.

Lilith steps away from me, and I snag her sleeve in alarm.

“W-Wait.”

“What did I tell you?” she snaps. “I’m not your fucking babysitter.” I look up at her with pleading eyes, and her voice softens. “Look, just go over there and take a beer, okay?” She gestures at a big barrel of ice and beer bottles. “Drink it quickly, then take another one and drink that one more slowly. You think you can do that? And if you talk to someone, don’t ramble. Just play it cool.”

Easy for her to say. I already know I should play it cool; I just don’t know how. “But…where are you going?”

“To find another kind of fun,” she says, raising her perfectly filled-in eyebrows.

I’ve only known her for three weeks, and I’ve already seen her make out with five different guys. Two in our dorm hallway and two at the back of the school. The fifth was in our dorm room with her clothes halfway off. I wonder what it’s like to be that easygoing and popular with guys. I’ll probably never know.

With my only semblance of safety disappearing into the crowd, I move toward the beer as she advised. My fingers clench around the cold surface of a bottle. Now just to find something to open it with…

“Here.” As if the universe heard my prayers, a guy takes my beer and flicks the cap open with practiced ease.

I look up at him with big eyes as he hands me my beer back. “Thank you.”

His head is shaved, and he’s got a kind smile on his lips. He looks a couple of years older than me. Maybe a senior in college, maybe older than that.

“I’m Eric,” he says and holds out a hand.

“Sparrow.”

“Haven’t seen you around, Sparrow. New in town?”

“Mm-hmm,” I say, sipping at the beer and trying not to grimace at the taste. It’s not like soda, not at all, but Lilith told me to drink this one quickly.

“Freshman?”

I nod in reply. Play it cool. Play it cool. Don’t ramble.

“The town isn’t half bad,” Eric says. “Been to Mumphrey Hill yet?”

Shaking my head, I take another sip of beer, tilting the bottle further and further until the fizziness builds up in my nose, and I start to cough.

“Whoa there.” Eric laughs. “You don’t have to drink it all in one go. Eager, much?”

My cheeks burn. If I can’t even drink beer properly, how am I supposed to get drunk?

“Beer is slow,” Eric says. “I have something quicker if you want to get hammered.”

I give a tentative smile. “Okay.”

Eric slides his hand into his pocket and gets out a bottle of clear liquid. “This is gross, but it gets the job done. Open up.” He uncaps the bottle and holds it to my mouth. I part my lips eagerly, but as soon as a burst of the liquid hits my tongue, I gag and have to fight not to spit it out.

Eric barks out a laugh. “Strong, right?”

“Yeah,” I choke out. Strong? No kidding. It feels like that vile liquid is going to burn a hole in my throat as I swallow. I stick my tongue out in a grimace.

Eric chuckles again. “You’re cute.” He brushes a strand of hair from my forehead. His hand stays in my hair, and he gives me the bottle again, tilting it further to allow more of the liquid into my mouth. I gulp it down obediently. I do want to get drunk, after all, and Eric is nice to let me have this instead of the beer. After a minute or so, I start to feel a warm and fuzzy feeling in my belly, and my mouth lifts into a smile.

“There you go,” Eric says, eyes intent on my face. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

I nod. The sounds and people do feel a little less overwhelming, and instead of anxious and wary, I feel giggly and warm.

Eric feeds me yet another sip of the bottle before he suddenly grabs my hand and yells into my ear, “Let’s dance!”

Had he asked me thirty minutes ago, I would’ve refused, or at least protested, but now the idea doesn’t feel as outlandish as it should. I’ve never danced in my life, but now I’m following a stranger onto the dance floor. I hope Lilith would be proud if she saw me.

Eric pulls me ahead of himself and swirls me into his arms. As we move to the music, he hands me another mouthful of the foul-tasting liquor, laughing as it spills down my throat and into the collar of my shirt. He leans in and kisses my wet neck, and when his head turns back up, he captures my lips with his.

Wow. I gasp into his mouth, amazed that this is what he really wants to do with me. Perhaps he can be the one? The one to take care of me…

I need someone—someone who can blunt the sharpest edges of my life. Someone who’ll care for me, someone who’ll hold me. Someone who’ll fix this terrible weakness within me. Someone kind. In return, they can use my body whichever way they want, as long as they don’t betray me like Aaron did. I can’t go through life on my own. The mere three weeks that have passed since I left him have been plenty enough for me to understand that.

But Eric…Eric tastes like cigarettes and alcohol, and his arms wrap around my waist as he plunges his tongue into my mouth, way too deep. Slithering.

He’s handsome, though, in a worn-down, jaded sort of way, and he’s got that authoritative confidence I’ve always envied and craved.

But he doesn’t look kind.

He looks hungry.

He has the same gleam in his eyes that Aaron used to have when I changed into a dress he’d bought: a ridiculous pink thing, with accompanying panties and high heels.

“Now you’re almost as tall as me,” he said, pulling me in for a kiss.

I melted into his embrace, but then he bunched up the skirt and pinched the flesh of my ass so hard I yelped.

“Shut up,” he hissed. “Don’t want the others to hear, do we?”

I shake my head to rid myself of the memories, and the night blurs for a while. At one point, I’m in the bathroom, pissing a whole lot. When I get back to the dance floor, Eric swoops me up in his arms and kisses me again. I sway unsteadily to the beat of the music, stumbling around the crowd.

This is what I wanted, wasn’t it? To get drunk and make out with someone. So why doesn’t it feel as good as I hoped?

“Come here,” Eric says, leading me away from the dance floor. “I have something better than booze.”

Wait…He’s leading me to the stairs. Why are we going upstairs? Upstairs means privacy. Upstairs means bedroom. Aaron never used to trick me when he wanted to fuck me. He either told me outright, or he got a hungry gleam in his eyes that spoke his intention all too clearly. Sharp were his eyes, soft was his skin, and hard was his cock as it speared into my mouth or my ass. He was cruel, but he was honest.

This doesn’t feel honest. This feels insidious and wrong.

I rip my hand away from Eric, stumbling backward. “No.”

“No?” Eric says, and his mouth curls into an annoyed snarl. “What do you mean, no? Come here.”

He reaches for my arm, and the world blurs around me. Something bad is building up in my stomach and pushing against my throat. I feel nauseous, from both the alcohol and the way the night has evolved.

I thought Eric liked me. I thought he just wanted to dance and make out with me a little…Not pull me upstairs and get angry when I won’t go with him. I was wrong about him…So wrong…But how do I make it right? I can’t. I try to rip away from him again, but he holds me in a viselike grip, and the world is spinning, spinning, spinning…