Vitality (Vitality Series #1)

Chapter 4 Fire and Shadow

"Are you okay?" Dahlila asked again when Ava didn't answer her.

"I'm fine," Ava replied sharply. She was still partly stuck inside where he had been. Frustration escaped into her voice because she couldn't shake it, despite what her words said.

Danny looked at her after taking his watchful eyes off the crowd. "Well, judging by the way that dude's looking at you, he's still pissed. What the hell did you say to him?" His shoulders bounced as if he found humor in her vexing someone.

Ava spun her head around, finding him immediately.

He was walking away, while looking back at her, the same cold expression on his face, sending cold ripples down her body. His eyes were locked on hers. Her heart began to pump uncomfortably, her head throbbing out of numbness. She shot a look of warning at him, and he turned away and was engulfed by the crowd.

Ava turned around to see everyone's eyes on her. "What?" she hissed.

Shane came back, not making it long without out them. His eyes bounced between them. "What'd I miss?" He turned his attention to Danny. "What'd you do?"

Danny gave him a fierce look.

"Chiiiill." Shane put his hands up, quivered from the heat in Danny's eyes, and looked around again, confused. "We havin' a good time?"

"Come on, let's go for a walk and see the rest of this lunatic asylum." Dahlila hooked her arm in Ava's and pulled at her to come away.

Lunatic asylum — she would be right at home, Ava thought darkly. She grabbed Shane's whiskey out of his hand before going off.

"Wait!" Shane cried, running after them. "Don't leave me alone with these idiots! I'm sc—" Shane jumped, all brain functions paused as a guy with long hair and black tape all around his whole body, pushed himself out at Shane. "Ahh!" Shane let out a quick squeal and jumped away to Ava's side, grabbing her arm and mirroring Dahlila. They all burst out laughing — Ava couldn't help that one. They could hear Danny chuckling behind as he caught up, Liz and Trish still with him.

Off to the side, a young girl and a boy hung from swings, lazily doing aerial tricks, and between them was a large square space built into the rock wall. They slipped inside it, following arrows to a hole in the wall. The ceiling lowered as they went, the space shrinking until they could barely walk any further without bending over. A sign was hung above the hole: Slip into the rabbit hole. Ava was sure she already had.

Inside the opening were tunnels with signs intended to confused the traveler, arrows pointing to dead ends, and gilded mirrors hung all over its walls like some kind of gothic fun house, adding to the haunting confusion. Candles burned and dripped down the rock from the shallow ridges holding them. Off the paths were small cave dwellings where people hung out, partyied, or even slept. There were quite a few provocative scenes they felt the need to push each other past quickly, even though no one seemed to mind an audience for any of their intimacies.

Ava let herself get pulled along like a current, with their excitement, their joking, their jumping. She wasn't fully there, and they probably wouldn't notice a difference. She'd found herself staring at a warped and rippled mirror with a fake hand reaching out of it, wondering just how far away she was. And then she thought she saw him. Had the tables turned on her... Was he now closing in on her?

She turned around, but he wasn't there.

"Boo!" Shane teased in her distraught face with a flashlight. "Spooky little girl!" Ava hit him in the arm. "Ow! Fuck. I'm fragile!"

She hit him again, but more lightly, and pushed him forward so they could get moving again. She needed to move quicker, deeper in the tunnels, like her soul ached to be in the dark.

The tunnels led out to a vast black area, where eternities of beams went on. Satin curtains hung between some and spun around others. A tiny breeze went through from a ventilation system somewhere. Little scattered candles blurred out the shadows like stars.

Then she saw him.

This time, without a doubt, because their eyes were speaking... or whispering... and she was following the sound. Curiosity gleamed in their eyes for each other. He glided slowly through the beams, watching her like he was a ghost they couldn't see, but she could, until it was only the two of them and a frightening internal lullaby.

A dizzying sensation slowly swept over her. Blinking through her daze, she tried to see him again as everything began to blur. Ava knew what was coming and despair hit her with the realization, but she couldn't move on from him just yet. He was untying her like a loose red ribbon, and it was a sweet relief.

Then her reality began to alter.

— a quick flash of black — less than half a second — a quick cold sting ran up her body — less than half a second. Her eyes closed, disoriented. A haunting voice sang out to an eerie pounding of drums from far away, and Ava gasped softly from all the sensations whipping through her; her eyes fell open. She could feel a thin layer of sweat cover her, and she looked up at him weakly. He hadn't moved; she hadn't wanted him to.

As her perception of the world began to twist and flicker like a candle, he stayed clear in front of her. From him outward, it warped. As a heart would beat, the image became pronounced and then faded, pronounced again and faded.

Fire crept up around them; the intensity of her breathing fueled the flames, swallowing everything but them, scorching them in its warping heat. Her eyes closed again from pure panic, and when she opened them, it was all gone.

Her body was tense and aching, as if it had gone somewhere it was not supposed to. She was shaking and sweating, and he had not moved an inch. His eyes were unreadable, unnatural, the only life in them from the candles near.

His eyebrows waved down just then, as if his thoughts set onto something, and the room seemed to narrow. Until a woman came, long strings of brilliant black hair swinging down below her butt, wearing a ripped, long flowing dress that danced with her legs as she drifted next to him. The woman looked at him and then Ava. Her eyes were as dark as his, but beady and void. They froze Ava still to the ground, like she could feel every emotion she'd ever had at once against the woman's crude, empty gaze. On the ground, now vulnerable, like a baby deer left behind to the approaching predators, she'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be out of her depths.

The woman took a step forward, swallowing Ava with her eyes. Ava closed her eyes; she couldn't spin her head back to normal to find sense. She went to reach for her knife in the sheath under her corset; she couldn't understand how much was being warped by her mind, but she didn't know if she was safe.

Where was she again? She remembered him, remembered herself, and opened her eyes.

But a different woman was above her then, pulling her up, tattoo sleeves all the way up her arms and black-rimmed glasses in between her parted jet-black hair. Her foggy gray eyes hung lazily open. "Vhat you do, fall? Or arrre you tripping?" A Russian accent fluctuated in thickness on her tongue.

The other two were gone.

"Yeah..." Ava replied absently as she looked around, wondering how much of it she'd hallucinated. Hallucinations she would never speak of.

The woman smirked. "My name is Carrrla. You vill be okay?"

"Ava. I'm good."