brain fog

Hector probably would’ve scoffed at the idea, but the club needed an events coordinator. Last year’s Purge theme had shown some promise, but Lawrence had wrung his hands over her being there, which means she’d missed out. This year’s was worse – any appeal that might’ve hit over watching two hot men kick the crap out of one another was tempered by having to spend the night watching Lawrence’s back.

Kitty was probably enjoying it to a certain extent, at least since she’d spotted the bartender from the club in the crowd. The one she thought might’ve been sleeping with her at first, but apparently it wasn’t like that between the two of them. Unlike her, it seemed as though Kitty was smart with her love life. No sleeping with her brother’s best friend, someone naïve enough to think that one night together meant they were destined for a relationship – like either one of them was really in a position to handle that. Kitty wasn’t carrying the same sort of baggage, and thankfully hadn’t heard any of the tragic story of how poor Phoebe’s heart had hardened into a lump of coal.

Phoebe elbowed her way through the crowd again. This would’ve been a thousand times easier if it was Lawrence behind the bar and she could just talk him into giving her the bottle instead of having to deal with asking for another drink after every half dozen mouthfuls. The vodka went down fast, whatever it had ended up mixed with barely tasted. She handed the glass off to someone, not bothering to check whether or not they actually worked there. Her focus had been on Lawrence the entire time anyway, her gaze skittering past the cage that had been set up and the people milling around it as though they were waiting to be called up. Somehow she doubted any of them were gonna look be looking so confident about the whole thing when they were dragged out of the cage later, beaten to a pulp.

Violence had its place and her hands weren’t exactly spotless, but doing this stuff for fun was twisted in her book. You killed to protect yourself or others – that was one thing she’d held onto from her parents’ lessons. Taking a life left a mark on you and it was close to impossible to remove it. Phoebe slipped past some gigantic guy with a red beard – maybe someone would win if he went in – feeling her stomach twist at the thought. She’d spent years training herself not to think about Joshua with every breath, but telling Lawrence and Teddy about it all had stripped all of that control away and she’d ended up right back at the beginning again.

The bartenders were hustling behind the bar, the one she’d ordered from earlier up at the other end of it. Craning up on her tiptoes, Phoebe tried to wave down another. Others had probably been waiting longer, but they didn’t have a brother who worked for the club, did they? ”Two martinis, please,” Phoebe called the minute they looked her way, a smile sweetening the request a little further. There was a roll of eyes, probably because it was going to take longer than just grabbing one of those blood bags from the cooler or pouring a beer, but honestly, she’d stopped caring. This whole thing was leaving a bad taste in her mouth.

Movement came in from her right, leaving Phoebe raising a brow for the moment it took her to recognise the girl. As painfully human as Krista, definitely not made for a place like this. Phoebe glanced down at her own outfit, snorting faintly. It wasn’t exactly an every day fashion choice for her. ”Didn’t feel like it fit the theme,” she said, smirking. ”I’m guessing you didn’t know what that was.” But somehow Eden had managed to worm her way in all the same. If Hector found out then the bouncer was likely to end up part of the night’s entertainment in the cage. ”Watching people beating each other up isn’t your thing either?”

She glanced around. Lawrence was still there in the crowd, and while he was, she wasn’t gonna be moving. Getting Eden out and actually finding something better than a filthy warehouse and a cage would’ve been preferable, but Hannya would likely just latch on like a leech. ”Who’d you come with? I didn’t know anybody else who was supposed to be coming.” AKA, didn’t know that anybody would bring a human guest and break the rules.

Tagged: EDEN FOSTER * Word Count: 760

Earlier in the year she’d been imagining throwing a party tonight. Free of Whitmore’s regulations finally, able to buy her neighbours’ approval again with liquor and an invite, it would’ve been a night to remember for the right reasons. Only Lawrence had found himself heart deep (or should that have been loin deep) in trouble again. She could’ve thrown some sort of a celebration, made sure he came to it instead of to this thing, but it couldn’t have cut him free of the claws that Hannya had in him right now.

Phoebe tossed her ratted blonde hair back from her face, smiling faintly at Eden’s half compliment. No costume didn’t mean foregoing dressing up altogether. ”I’ll take that,” she murmured. ”There was no way I was getting dressed up as a witch or a vampire, too cringe.” And all too close to the truth. Just the thought of it had what liquor she had drunk curdling in her stomach. There were probably only a handful of people in the crowd who weren’t something other than human beneath their relatively normal outfits. Most of them were probably centuries older than Eden and the human had no clue about it. Ignorance wasn’t going to save her life if things kicked off like they had last year.

Narrowed eyes swept the crowd, looking for Hector amongst them. If he spotted Eden and realised who she was, she’d be thrown out by some of the bruisers who’d been lurking at the door. ”It’s a fight club – you know, like that movie with Brad Pitt. Get a room full of people together, get them liquored up and let them beat the crap out of each other.” Maybe it was supposed to be hot, at least to the women in the crowd, but Phoebe hadn’t found her eye drawn to any of that. This was about Lawrence and that evil bitch who had her claws in him.

For Eden it was far worse. It wouldn’t take much to turn her into the goat chained to a stake, waiting for something big and bad to come along and eat her. Maybe that was why the bouncer had let her in. He knew these things were gonna be hungry when they were done. The fool. Shaking her head, Phoebe sipped at her drink, washing away the worry. She needed a clear head tonight, she didn’t need to be torn in two trying to protect two vulnerable people in her life. There was a chance that Lawrence could handle himself for the rest of the evening, but she hadn’t wanted to keep pushing back making him cut his ties with Hannya. Sooner or later the demon was going to totally corrupt her brother and what remained of the Lawrence she knew would start bleeding out of him.

The corners of her lips half lifted as she looked back at Eden. ”My brother works at the bar, I get an invite to every single one of these things – although, they’re usually a hundred times better than this.” Tilting her head back towards the door of the warehouse, Phoebe frowned a little. ”You sure you wouldn’t rather go somewhere else? I’m sure someone’s got a party going on at Whitmore. I can get us through the doors there, and you wouldn’t have to be bored to death by all of that.” She lifted her chin towards the cage, wondering how gross it was gonna have to get in there to turn Eden off of the idea. Blood and sweat would be painting the floor soon, the reek of it filling the air to the point where things started to salivate in here.

Tagged: EDEN FOSTER * Word Count: 612