Page 48 of The Truths We Burn

His face is hidden from me by an LED mask that flashes with the strobe lights. The deep orange glow pierces through my soul, and the X’s where the eyes should be seem to look right through me.

My chest expands with a gasp of shock, a zap of uneasiness falling down my spine, but it only stays for a second before it drifts away.

I think he’s possibly looking at one of the other girls surrounding me, but his ridged form stays rooted in the sea of people, eyes locked on me and only me, unmoving from my stiff body.

He’s covered by a black hoodie and dark jeans, and I can’t see any distinct features from this distance. But this deep sensation vibrates inside my stomach, a sense of excitement washing over me.

Even if he isn’t Rook, I could imagine he is. I could pretend so that being on this dance floor doesn’t feel so awful.

Slow and teasingly, he tilts his head to the left just a bit, adjusting his line of vision to see me better through the crowd. But it’s also like he’s tempting me. Like I would lift his mask up and see his eyebrows lifted in a silent question.

“Are you going to dance for me?”

My body sways to the music, carried by the illusion that Rook is here with me. That he’s both the man in front of me and the one behind me. I dance like a puppet on strings, some of my movements masked by the strobe lights. I dance like Rook is watching and he is my puppeteer.

Rolling my head in a small circle, I let my hair fall down in front of my shoulders, releasing a breath as my hands trace the outlines of my body. I look down at the white minidress, splattered with neon glow paint, swirls and patterns decorating my thighs and arms.

I snake back and forth, shifting my upper body just as much as I do my lower half. Hands grab at the front of my body, sinking into the soft flesh of my stomach. But these hands feel too needy. They aren’t direct and precise, knowing where to go without needing a map.

Raising my head back up, I expect the masked man to still be there, but just like my vision inside my mind, he has disappeared.

My mouth suddenly becomes dry. The light, airy feeling I had is gone, and I’m back to feeling like a rock that is going to sink to the bottom of the ocean.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” I croak, shoving Easton’s hands off my body and disregarding his pleas for me to stay.

Bodies bump me from all directions, only making the urgency for water build. There are too many things happening, too many people, too many sounds. I feel like I might die of a heart attack right in the middle of this dance floor and no one would even notice it, all of them so consumed with their feelings of ecstasy.

I press into the door leading to the hallway, wheezing as I push through, feeling relief instantly. I can feel in the air that there are fewer people out here. It’s cooler on my skin, helping the sweat that rolled from my body.

Soft moans of pleasure find my ear, turning my attention to a few different couples layered down the hall, bodies pressed into the glass of the mirrors while they grip at their partner’s shoulders.

The neon LEDs that illuminate the mirrors only shine a light on the twisted faces of bliss they’re all experiencing. One couple has both their pants around their ankles, while the guy thrusts inside of her so hard I can see her thighs jiggle from down here.

I suddenly felt empty, needing something I know only one person could give me.

“Fuck!”Another man’s voice rumbles between the panels of mirrors. His breath appears hot and steamy in front of him as he slams his hand into the glass. With his other meaty palm, he winds his hand tighter in a girl’s hair, her mouth open as she sits on her knees gazing up at him. His breath appears hot and steamy in front of him.

It’s hard not to look, not to be curious.

I peer further down the hall, only to jump slightly when I see the man with the orange mask has returned, tall frame solid as he looks over at me.

We stand there, staring at one another while moans ricochet between our bodies.

There’s once again a sort of familiarity in him, but not enough for me to have an excuse for standing here listening to people fuck while we stare at each other.

The dance had been harmless, a figment of my imagination, I had thought. Until right now.

Until I watch his foot move forward. It sends me into reality, reminding me that I don’t know that man, and who knows what he wants from me. There could be a million different things he could do, including turning me into a skin suit.

I spin, heading down the opposite way, walking faster than I should for not knowing which way I’m going.

My body collides with one of the mirrors harder than I’d like to admit. “Shit,” I hiss, rubbing my shoulder that took most of the force. The reflection tells me that he is still following me, so I don’t have much time to nurse my wounds.

I fight the rising panic, different from the drowning I feel normally. This is different altogether.

This feels like quicksand, enclosing around my feet, swarming like ants to food, sucking me down further into the plush, grainy earth.

That’s what quicksand does—it eats people up. It gobbles them down, refusing to leave anything behind until you’re trapped beneath the weight of sand turning into nothing but sediment.