Nocturnal (The Noctalis Chronicles 1)

“Ready to dance?” Jamie finds me sitting on the counter next to the sink helping some girl put ice in her cup. She gets most of it on the floor.

“I've been waiting for something better to come along.” I grin at him. Smiling seems so easy now, lke someone else is doing it for me.

“Ouch. You've hurt my pride.” He clutches his chest as if I've wounded him before helping me down off the counter. The girl stumbles off with her drink and plenty of ice. She almost does a face plant when she slips on a cube. Jamie leans down to pick them up and throws them in the sink.

“I think that's impossible.” He takes my hand and twirls me around. My can of beer sloshes on the floor.

“Come on.” He tugs me to the pounding living room. With the alcohol, I'm more willing to dance than I would be otherwise. He notices when I'm less-than-graceful. I've barely gotten into the song when he pulls on my arm and takes me away from the speaker. He says something and I put my hand to my ear, telling him I can't hear.

“How much have you had to drink?” he yells.

“Just one,” I yell back, holding up one finger. The strobe lights make him look like he's moving in slow motion.

“Since we got here?” I'm not sure how long we've been here. Feels like a few minutes.

“Yeah.” I try to pull my arm away. His grip hurts.

“You idiot. That's going to come back and bite you. You're not supposed to drink it that fast.” He takes my arm and yanks me back into the kitchen. I protest, but he lifts me up onto the kitchen counter and hands me a glass of water.

“Drink.”

“I'm not a baby. You don't have to take care of me.” It's a lot easier to hear now, but the room is doing this wavy thing I'm not liking too much.

“Yes, I do.” He doesn't say it like a joke. More like it's a fact that he's admitting to.

“Where's Tex?” I say as I take a sip.

“Not sure. I saw her over with the video gamers a while ago. I'll go find her. You stay here.”

I stay on the counter and dutifully drink my water. Jamie is a little overprotective. It's what happens when you have an alcoholic father. Tex has another drink in her hand when he hauls her in.

“I'm going to keep an eye on you two. Pace yourselves. Eat. Don't leave with strangers. Keep your underwear on and your tongues in your own mouths. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” We both say, saluting in unison. He gives us the 'I'm watching you' finger gesture and goes back to referee the beer pong. Tex chugs her drink in protest and I get another beer.

We spend the rest of the night dancing and fending off drunken gropers. Tex more than me, but I blame that on the skirt. What kind of message did she think she was sending? I only think about it for a second, thanks to the beer. I'm not sure how many I've consumed, but I'm past caring. I'm dancing and laughing and not thinking about things. It's awesome.

At some point in the evening, Jamie gets both Tex and me into the car. I'm able to walk straight, but I'm so tired my eyes can barely stay open. I think I remember Tex yelling something about not breaking her shoes, but it's hard to tell. Her voice is all slurry and she's mumbling. She always mumbles when she drinks.

Jamie drives me home, and I'm so tired I nearly fall asleep in the truck.

“How was the party?” My mother's curled up on the couch when I get home. I'm surprised to see her awake. Of course I knock over her purse and spill everything out on the floor in my attempt to be quiet.

“What are you doing up?” I say, picking up a tube of lipstick and a wad of tissues.

“Couldn't sleep. I'm watching Ever After.” She has a bowl of popcorn on the couch with her, as if she's been waiting for me. I'm sweaty and exhausted and I want to go to bed, but I sit down next to her.

“Mind if I join you?” She pauses the movie and then starts it from the beginning. I stink of alcohol and cigarettes, but I snuggle under her arm. She kisses the top of my head.

“Did you have a good time?”

“Not as good as Tex.” Her fingers tangle themselves in my hair.

“That girl needs to slow down.”

“I tell her that every time. She doesn't listen.” When Tex and I started going to parties when we hit high school, Mom had smiled and told me to call her if I ever needed a ride. She's an odd mix of overprotective for some things, and lax on others. Partying is one thing she's never seemed to mind, like it;s one of those rights of passage. She trusts me enough to let me make my own decisions because I'll never do something that will make her ashamed of me. I've never come home wasted.

I only make it through a few minutes before I fall asleep with her stroking my hair and humming in my ear.

I wake in the middle of the night, my alcohol buzz gone. The buzz in my head isn't, thoughts flying around so fast I can't keep up with them. The only thing they hold on to is that memory of looking into those eyes. I can't say what color they are. It doesn't matter. I want to see him again. He'd had another chance to do whatever it was they were going to do last time, and he hadn't.

So, um, that means I can go back and see if he's there, right? I can't stop thinking about him, like a song I can't get out of my head I need to listen to him on repeat to break the spell. If he's not there, then I can stop thinking about him. I have to get it out of my system, one way or another.

The drive takes longer, because I'm too busy telling myself how insane this is to focus on my driving. It's unlikely it is that this weird guy has been camped out in a cemetery for several days, waiting to see if I'll come back. The chances are slim.

***

This time I bring a flashlight, using it like a search beam to scan the cemetery. I think I'm alone until something appears.

“You're still here,” I say, nearly falling down as my flashlight beam bounces over him. He turns around at the sound of my voice.

It's a cold night and I can see my breath in the beam of the flashlight, like smoke. I have to wrap my arms around myself to stop from shaking, I'm so freaking cold.

“I am,” he says. “So are you.” The light jumps in my shaking hand. So much for being confident. Keeping the beam on his dirty feet is the best I can do to minimize my freak out.

“I guess I have no self-preservation instincts.” I want to sit down, because standing is awkward, but I don't want to be the one sitting when he's standing. So I just continue to fidget awkwardly. “I thought you were going to... um...” I can't say kill yourself.

“Yes. But I did not.” There's a pause as I question all the ways this is a bad life decision.