“Wait a second, please. We’re just here to pick up our friend. She’s inside,” I said, stupidly trying to push past him in my agitation. Damn it! What was I going to do?

Scary biker dude pushed me back and scowled. “I said”—he leaned down until he was an inch from my face—“get the fuck out of here.” He literally growled when he said it, and it took everything I had not to be cowed under the weight of his glare.

“Come on, man, we’ll pay the cover. Double, if you want. We’re only gonna be a minute. We just need to find our friend. She called us and she needs a ride,” Brooks tried to reason with the guy.

But the bouncer clearly couldn’t give a shit whether we were there to get the Queen of England. We weren’t getting inside.

The people behind us were becoming antsy and more than a little tired of the holdup. “You heard him, get the hell out of here,” a scrawny man said. He was decked out in black leather, looking like an escapee from an S&M club gone bad.

My lips thinned, and my temper started to rise. I was gearing myself up to do battle, if necessary, because there was no way I was leaving without Renee.

Brooks must have recognized the ferocity in my eyes, because he put a hand on my shoulder, squeezing hard, trying to get my attention. I shook him off and leveled scary bouncer dude with my hardest stare.

“Look, buddy, I’m walking inside this door, and you’re not going to stop me,” I bristled, sounding way more confident than I was actually feeling. In actuality, I was shaking in my Converse sneakers. Bouncer guy didn’t seem to mind if I was a girl or not; he was going to physically remove me.

“Let her in, Randy,” a voice said from the shadows just inside the door. Randy’s face turned a flustered shade of red as he looked over his shoulder at the speaker.

I squinted into the darkness, trying to see who my savior was. All I could make out was the dim outline of a man.

I gripped Brooks’s hand and waited to see whether this anonymous man had enough sway to get us in. After a few seconds, the doorman, Randy, turned back to me and took my money. He stamped my hand and waved me inside without another word.

I turned around to wait for Brooks. The bouncer put his beefy arm across Brooks’s chest. “Uh-uh. She can come in. You wait out here,” he said firmly.

“She’s not going in there by herself,” Brooks argued, pushing against the bouncer’s arm, but it might as well have been made of stone. Randy, bouncer made of steel, didn’t move an inch.

“If you don’t get the fuck out of the line, I’m gonna make you move. You hear me?” Randy asked, his voice dipping low, his words dripping with a barely restrained violence.

“I’ll be okay, Brooks. Just wait out here for me, all right?” I urged, hoping he wouldn’t push the issue. I sort of liked the look of Brooks’s teeth in his mouth.

Brooks frowned. He wasn’t happy. In fact, he was as upset as I had ever seen him. I looked over my shoulder at the dark entrance to the club. The pulsating bass of the music hummed in my head.

I didn’t particularly like the thought of going in there by myself, but it wasn’t worth Brooks losing a limb to come with me.

“I’ll be fine. Renee said she’d be waiting inside,” I reasoned.

Brooks started to shake his head when Randy the bouncer, who had clearly had enough, shoved him roughly to the side. Obviously, the decision had been made for me.

“I’ll be over there. I’m giving you fifteen minutes, Aubrey, and then I’m coming in after you,” Brooks threatened, shooting me a less-than-pleased look.

I pulled the sleeves of my jacket down over my hands nervously and slowly made my way inside. I looked around for the guy who had gotten me inside, but my eyes were barely able to focus in the horrible lighting.

Whoever it was who had saved me from being booted on my ass was nowhere in sight.

I pulled off my hat and shoved it in my pocket, hesitant to move forward. And then, as though I was being pulled forward by an invisible cord, my feet started to move, one in front of the other, until I was standing in the middle of hell.

At least that seemed to be the theme they were going for. Red lights shone through the room, casting everything in an eerie shadow. Barbed wire covered the windows and gave me the feeling of being trapped.

But it was the energy that took hold and threatened to swallow me whole. The music pumped from gigantic speakers suspended from the ceiling, and the floor was a mass of writhing bodies swept away by the beat. The mood in the room was more than just frenetic; it was something I couldn’t describe.

It was hot, and the air smelled of something sweet I couldn’t place. My heart started to thud in my chest, and my hands started to twitch. I had never seen such total abandon before. The music seemed to hold everyone and everything in its snare; the dancers were helpless against it.

As much as I tried to resist it, I was entranced by the scene in front of me. Compulsion terrified me. It was overwhelming and borderline psychotic. But it also transfixed me in a way that had me questioning my own sanity.

Because suddenly I wanted it.

I craved it.

I ached to lose myself in the oblivion.

That is what this place promised. Sweet and total anarchy. And how easy it would be to hand over my careful control to the frightening and intoxicating world laid out before me.

The thump, thump, thump of the music rattled around in my chest. I could feel the vibration from the speakers buzzing in my ears. The darkness was both smothering and strangely comforting.

I closed my eyes and started to sway on my feet.

And then the moment was over. I was jostled from behind as people pushed past me, pulling me out of my momentary loss of reality.

What was wrong with me? I was here to get Renee, not play irresponsible club kid for the night.

The large, open room was full of people, and it was proving impossible to get through the crowd. I looked around, straining on my tiptoes, trying to find Renee. I elbowed and shoved my way to the outer wall.

I stumbled over something. My hands came out as I fell face-first onto the ground. My knees collided painfully with the concrete floor. And I lay there, sort of dumbfounded by everyone’s total disregard for the pathetic girl sprawled out at their feet.

No one offered to help me up. They simply walked around or, in some cases, over me. I tried to get to my feet, but my ankle twisted in protest. I came back down on my knees and suddenly felt like I could cry.

Someone spilled beer down my back at the same time I was knocked sideways. Shit, I was going to be trampled to death. I felt hysteria bubble up in my stomach and overshadow the anger I had felt toward my wayward roommate.

Suddenly a pair of hands gripped me underneath my arms and hoisted me up. I groaned at the pain in my ankle as I steadied myself. A hand pressed into my back, right between my shoulder blades, and pushed me forward.

“Are you okay?” a soft male voice whispered in my ear. I tried to turn to see who was navigating me through the throng, but it was so dark I couldn’t make him out.

I nodded, even though it was a lie. I was so not okay.

I could feel the heat of the guy’s hand through my shirt, imprinting my skin. He was pressed close to me as we moved forward, his front brushing against my back. It was uncomfortably intimate, and if I could have, I would have run far, far away.

“Take a deep breath. You’ll be fine,” the voice soothed, somehow saying the words I needed to hear.

I found myself complying automatically. The voice floating in my ears through the dark held some sort of strange sway that was hard to resist.

The hand at my back began to move in comforting circles, and I found myself start to relax in spite of my trepidation. It was like the dude pumped Valium through his fingertips. He was Club Man, able to calm freaked-out girls with the power of his voice and hands alone! I tried to twist and squint at him again, but I still couldn’t make out more than a silhouette.