The Pledge (The Pledge 1)

“I—I—” I struggled to find the right explanation for what I was doing. “ I—I just got lost,” I finally stammered.

I saw him reach for the wall beside him. Then there was a soft click. I was bathed in the glow of a bare red bulb that was mounted on the ceiling above us, and I found myself staring, wide-eyed, at a man with a suspicious scowl. His dark hair fell loosely around his shoulders, and his scruffy jaw hadn’t seen a razor in days, maybe weeks. But it was his eyes—catlike and predatory—that held me as they reflected the red light back at me.

“You shouldn’t be back here,” he stated flatly. “It’s not safe.”

Unconsciously, I rubbed at the back of my hand, the skin itchy, stinging. “I needed some air,” I gasped. My heart beat faster, and I swayed slightly.

His hand snaked out to grab my wrist, steadying me, as he asked, “Do you need to sit?”

I nodded, blinking. “Yes,” I rasped, scratching at the hand stamp. “Sitting would be good.” The world felt as if it were tilting beneath my feet, and the blood drained from my face.

He slipped his arm around my waist, surely afraid I would topple right there in the corridor, as he led me not back into the club, but to the first door in the hallway—the locked door. He pulled a key from his pocket and opened it before I could find the words to object.

And within seconds I found myself collapsing onto a green velvet sofa that smelled of smoke, from both drugs that were legal and those that were not, as I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

I had never seen a private club room before. In some clubs, they were said to be luxurious box suites perched high above the bars and dance floors, where the elite—those who paid a steep price to the club’s proprietors—were treated like royalty for the night. Others were said to be dens of iniquity, where one’s every wicked desire could be fulfilled . . . for a price.

This appeared to be something else altogether, something both less sinister and less opulent.

I glanced at the man in the chair across from me. He leaned forward, his elbows balanced on his knees as he surveyed me closely. I wasn’t sure I should be here, in this room with him. I wondered where he’d been coming from when he’d run into me.

“Is this your club?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

His eyebrows drew together in a deep scowl and I saw the scar there, running from just above his brow all the way down to the edge of his angular jaw. It was pale and faded—an old wound—but when he frowned like that, the silvery edges puckered. “No, it’s not my club. But the people who run it let me do business here.”

Something about the way he said the word B my eth. “220;business” made it sound illicit.

The constant strobe of lights pulsed from the club, finding their way into the room through a huge window that made up an entire wall. They flickered over his face, casting it in an ever-changing rainbow of hues. On the other side of the window, I could see the threesome, the two men and the black-haired woman, still kissing and caressing one another, and I remembered the mirror they’d been standing in front of.

I got up from the sofa, weaving around the mismatched furnishings to stand before the glass wall. With my fingertip, I traced the outline of their single form, seemingly fused together. “They can’t see us?” I was awed. I’d never heard of such a thing.

He was beside me then, an enigmatic presence. “No. The other side is mirrored; it only works one way.”

“Strange,” I whispered.

I was still dizzy, and having a difficult time concentrating. Everything moved in slow motion, my throat felt dry and tight, and my eyelids were weighted. I couldn’t stop scratching my hand.

He followed my gaze as I peered down at the welt.

“May I?” he asked, his hand reaching for mine. White scars zigzagged across his knuckles.

I stared at him, at the scar barely concealed by his long hair, at his strange silver-flecked eyes. I stared for too long as I tried to make up my mind. Beneath his whiskered jaw, his skin was weathered and his face was hard, but his expression was earnest as he waited for me, so patiently, that I wondered what possible harm it could do to let him take a look.

I allowed him to take my hand in his.

His skin was cool and dry as one of his calloused fingertips followed the swollen ridge of the star. And then he reached into his pocket, pulling out a small black container. Inside there was a salve that smelled like an odd combination of pungent earth and crisp citrus, yet wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

He didn’t ask this time, he just smoothed it over the burning skin, massaging it with his thumb.

I wasn’t sure what to make of that. A part of me insisted that this was a bad idea, that I was allowing a man I didn’t know—a man I wasn’t even sure I trusted—to rub some kind of ointment onto my skin. Who knew what it contained?

But there was that other part of me, the part that just watched silently, curious at myself, at how easily I’d succumbed to his intense gaze.

“There,” he said, closing the container and pressing it into my palm. “You’ll feel better soon.”

He was wrong, though. It was already happening. The skin on the back of my hand had already stopped tingling, and my head had stopped spinning. Already my thoughts were clearer.

“Who are you?” I finally asked.

He cocked his head, smiling. “My name is Xander. And you”—he raised his eyebrows—“are Charlie.”