Inferno : Elements Series Book One

Gwen

The ‘Party’ is exactly what I expected. There are about ten of us and we are sitting around the back table at Alice’s house playing drinking games. Kings cup, battle shots and flip cup. I actually really enjoy drinking games, weird for someone who doesn’t like to drink but I make exceptions when it comes to games. I’m choking down the Kings Cup when Alice’s friend Sam gets really excited.

“This is getting pretty boring and it’s only ten so how about we catch a train into the city and hit a club?!”

There’s an excited cheer from the others, and I feel my insides shrivel. A little from the concoction I just finished drinking and a lot from the prospect of heading to a night club. I’m a good friend though, and I know Carmen and Alice want to go, so I agree and act excited. Carmen sees straight through my act.

“Okay, I can read it all over your face. You are not into this idea at all. Do I have to convince you? Do I have to pull out my much practised and often repeated speech about how you can’t just go home and read whenever you think you’ll be near people and how you’ll never make friends or meet a guy,” she nudges me and winks.

“I’ll take you home if you want but it will be a very annoying and whiny ride home involving the ‘my-best-friend-is-leaving-me-alone-to-go-home-and-bury-her-head-in-a-book’ speech,” fires off Alice.

I don’t even bother arguing. I know I’ll lose because she’s right and they have a retort for every reason or excuse I could possibly come up with.

The train is usually pretty empty this late at night, but its Friday night, so most of the carriage we’re in is filled with rowdy party goers heading into the city. It’s loud in the cramped confines of the train and Carmen, Alice and I are squished together so the guys have a place to sit too. I spend the hour long trip playing games on my phone and trying to ignore the knot that formed in my stomach the second I agreed to go out to a club. We reach the station and everyone races to the door. It must be some kind of game that I don’t know about; whoever gets off the train first and tramples the most people wins! We wait for the crowd to disperse and move off in the direction of the nearest club. We can hear the music from a block away and after paying our admission we head in.

“Now, we know you’re going to give us the speech, but let us just prove that we have it memorised okay? No leaving my drink unattended,” says Carmen.

“If a guy gets grabby, move closer to a bouncer. If necessary, kick him in the jewels and have him kicked out,” says Alice.

“Always look in my drink before each sip to check for anything that may have been dropped in and don’t accept anything from anyone unless it’s you,” continues Carmen.

“Did we leave anything out?” asks Alice with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

In my defence, I’ve only given them this speech twice and both times after someone we knew had their drink spiked and ended up in the hospital.

“Gees guys, you make me sound like such a buzz kill. Essentially, yes, you’ve got the speech down. Let’s see it in practice shall we?”

With that they plant a kiss on each of my cheeks and shove off with the guys to hit the dance floor. I, on the other hand, head straight to the bar in need of a little liquid courage. I’ve made myself sound like an incredibly anti-social, people hating recluse with a serious case of social anxiety. That’s not the case at all. I like people and I’m a nice person. I’ll happily talk to anyone about anything but it’s the getting to the conversation part that has me stumped. I don’t really know how to strike up a conversation with someone. Introduce myself and ask about the weather? Their career? Do I ask about their education, but even worse, am I bothering them by talking to them? I’m just not really comfortable with that, so nights like this usually end up with me sitting at a booth with a drink and my phone, waiting for someone to strike up a conversation with me. Carmen and Alice will undoubtedly drag me onto the dance floor soon, where I will attempt to sway my hips and make myself look like I know what I’m doing before retreating to the safety of my empty booth once they let me escape. It’s with this pattern in mind that I locate an empty booth, sit down and wait for the night to play out.

It’s been 20 minutes, I’m kicking butt in Plants verse Zombies, and I can feel the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. I feel like someone is staring at me, making me feel really exposed. I look up to see where my friends are and scan the room. I find Carmen dancing with a tall guy with biceps like tree trunks, tattoos and a hair style that makes him look kind of like a Viking. He’s her perfect guy, actually. Just behind him, with his back against the wall, is the guy from the other morning. The same guy who evil eyed me from the corner of my street as I left for work. It could just be a coincidence, but it doesn’t feel that way. Abandoning my drink and my booth I head out to the dance floor to grab my friends and leave, but the guy is gone. He isn’t standing against the wall anymore; in fact I can’t see him in the club at all. Moving onto the dance floor I grab Carmen and pull her aside.

“Hey, I have to go.”

“What?” she says. “We only just got here!”

“I have to. Listen, a few days ago there was this guy standing on the corner of the street. He was creepy and he just stared at me all the way out of my driveway until I turned the corner. I just saw him here in the club.”

“Wait, slow down, is he hot?”

“CARMEN!”

“Sorry, it’s just not like you to notice a guy, let alone remember him and locate him in a crowd.”

“I’m going back to the train station okay? Tell Alice that I’m fine, I just had to leave. Stay with the guys and have fun, I’ll text you when I get home.”

“All right, are you sure you want to go alone?”

“I can take care of myself Carmen, I’ll be fine.”

After hugging her and waving good bye to the guys I head out of the club. I’m probably just seeing things, but something just feels so out of place. I have to wait half an hour for the next train to come along and once I get to my station it takes another twenty minutes for the cab to arrive. With all the waiting around, alone, in the middle of night, in the city, my mind drifts to muggers and violence. As usual when I think of these things my mind slips to the robbery at work. It was just the usual day, coming up to the end of my shift when a guy walked past me as I was stacking shelves and I noticed a lump under his jacket. The second he saw me looking, he grabbed me, spun me around, using me as a human shield, and walked me up to the front counter, pressing a hand gun to the side of my neck. People screamed, the teens manning the registers began to panic and it was all I could do to talk calmly to them, while trying not to let myself panic. Two more men in the store pulled weapons out of their jackets, another hand gun and a very large knife, and moved to stand either side of the front door.

“Listen,” I said to the girls at the counter. “Don’t worry about me, just do what they say, give them what they want and let them leave.”

They weren’t listening, one of them made a ridiculously obvious move toward the silent alarm and the second her hand went near the button I felt excruciating pain in my ribs. The guy with the knife had walked over and stabbed me about half way down my rib cage, breaking through my skin but not too far, at least I didn’t think so in the moment.

“Touch the alarms or try anything stupid and I slice her open, do you understand?”

“Yes, I’m s-sorry,” said Brie, looking straight at me. I had a knife in my ribs and she was taking her cues from me? The guy took the knife out of my ribs and I immediately felt a surge of hot liquid flow down my side, obviously I was bleeding. He walked around to face me and, using the knife, cut my work shirt straight down from chest to navel.

“That’s better. Getting a look at these will make our day so much better.”

And with that one small statement, I felt myself get really, really pissed. I must have scowled or made a noise because the guy started laughing.

“Look at that, I made the lady mad. Go get the cash; I’ll take over with this one.”

Just as the man who was holding the gun to my throat began to walk away I felt a rush of adrenaline. This, for some reason that to this day manages to elude me, felt like the perfect opportunity to fight back. I thrust my hand forward, knocking the knife from my new captors hand and then bought my elbow sharply back, jamming it into the ribs of the man behind me. I heard the gun clatter to the floor but I didn’t have time to grab it, the guy remaining by the door had moved forward to step in. I got to him before he could raise the gun and kicked him in the stomach, making him sink to one knee. Using the momentum from running forward, I punched him in the face, knocking him out cold. I felt arms go around me and, realising it was one of the other two, I slammed my heel down on the arch of his foot, spun around and, with all my strength, kneed him in the crotch. That just left one. I leant down, picking up the gun that the doorman dropped and pointed it at him.

“Down on the ground or I pull the trigger!”

He immediately dropped to his knees, his arms above his head, and for good measure I walked over and knocked him out too. The police arrived not long after that. I spent the rest of the afternoon getting x-rayed, stitched up and interviewed by the police about how I managed to take down three armed men. I still have no idea, but knowing that I can makes me feel more comfortable standing on an abandoned platform in the middle of the night with a potential stalker on my heels. By the time I get home it’s 2:30am and I’m exhausted. I make sure the doors and windows are locked, take off my jeans and crawl into bed wearing just my shirt and underwear. I’m too tired to bother changing into pyjamas. It takes me all of five seconds to fall asleep.