“Who the hell was that?” Bree stared at the door as if it had grown a pair of wings. “And why did he tell you not to take the medicine?”

“You know what? I wish I knew.” I grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door. “Come on. Let’s follow him and ask.”

But her feet didn’t follow. Instead, she stayed rooted to the spot, her lips curled down into a frown. She held up the water glass and raised her eyebrows. “You need to take your anxiety medicine, Norah. I don’t care how hot the dude was, that’s no reason for you not to take care of yourself.”

“I’ll take it later,” I said. “If we don’t go after him now, we might lose him.”

For a moment, I didn’t think she would budge. Bree, as much as she was my best friend, had always had a protective parental streak when it came to me, more so than my own absentee dad. Sometimes, I appreciated that someone was looking out for me, particularly since my own family liked to make my life a living hell. Other times, like now, I just wanted her to be my partner in crime.

She must have seen it in the look on my face because she lowered the glass onto the restroom counter and gave me a signature Bree grin. “Alright, I’m in. Let’s find out what he’s up to. But after that? You need to take your medicine.”

I let out a sigh of relief, which made me realize just how much I’d been hoping she’d say yes. The strange guy was more than just a random creep. I could feel it in my gut. There was a reason he’d told me not to take my medicine. There was a reason he wanted to see my ears. He knew something about what I’d been going through, and I was determined to find out what it was.

For the past few weeks, I’d felt like I was going crazy. Maybe, just maybe, there was reason to think I wasn’t.

Bree and I pushed through the restroom door to step back into the neon glow of the club. While I’d been inside, the space had begun to fill. The crowd had thickened, and the bar was surrounded by at least two dozen patrons in need of a drink. It made it almost impossible to pick out a single guy in dark clothes.

My eyes scanned the warehouse. There he was. By the door. He stood with three other guys, their heads bowed together as they spoke. Each of them wore those strange hooded cloaks, though all in different colors. Black, gold, red, and green.

As if they could sense my gaze, they all turned my way in unison, and my lungs tightened in response. Every single one of them was inexplicably gorgeous, just like the one who had cornered me in the restroom. Their eyes were bright and piercing, even at this distance. And their skin…they all had a strange sheen, though in differing shades of brightness. The one in red practically glowed like the sun.

“There they are,” I hissed to Bree, pointing across the warehouse. “What the hell is up with their skin, especially the one on the far left?”

Bree frowned. “Yeah, I see him with some other guys, but I don’t really know what you mean. Their skin looks normal to me. I mean, it’s crazy clear, which I’m jealous of, but that’s about it. I would kill to get rid of my damn acne.”

“No, I don’t mean that.” Frowning, I shot a glance at my friend. “It looks like they’re glowing.”

Bree’s eyes cut sideways, and her jaw flinched. “You sure you don’t want to take your anxiety meds? I feel like maybe it’s a bad idea not to follow the doctor’s instructions.”

“You think I’m making it up.” I took a step away from her, shaking my head. “You think I’m going crazy, even if you like to pretend you think otherwise.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy, Norah, but I think you aren’t quite yourself.” She gestured at the four guys who were still looking our way, watching our exchange with a strange detached curiosity on their faces. “You think they have glowing skin. Pretend for a minute that you weren’t the one saying that. Don’t you hear how strange that sounds?”

I blew out a hot breath and tried not to give into the flicker of pain I felt deep in my gut at her words. Yes, I knew it sounded crazy. And yes, I’d be skeptical if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. And yes, maybe there was something very wrong with me. Normal people didn’t go around thinking people had glowing skin. But I didn’t feel crazy. This felt right. It felt real.

Though maybe no one ever really feels crazy, even if they are.

“Look, I have to talk to them, even if you think all of this is in my head.” I shrugged and blinked back the tears that were beginning to well in my eyes. “Hell, maybe I am imagining everything. But if I talk to them, maybe I can at least find out the truth. Don’t bother coming along.”

I strode away from her, knowing full well that she was staring after me with a conflicted expression of hurt and worry flickering across her pixie features. I’d told her not to come along, so she wouldn’t. Bree was like that. She always did whatever she could to keep the peace.

As I made my way across the warehouse, the four guys turned to each other before casting one last furtive glance my way. The one with bright glowing skin opened the door, and they filed out of the bar quicker than I could reach them. With a frustrated sigh, I upped my pace, desperate to speak to them before I lost them to the nighttime city streets.

When I pushed open the door, a blast of hot summer air rushed into my face, bringing with it the cloying stench of rotting trash, exhaust fumes, and baking asphalt. The city could turn into a heat trap at the height of summer, even at night, when temperatures tiptoed into the mid-90’s at times.

There were a few clusters of smokers camped outside the gray club, lazily discussing the most recent superhero film they’d seen in the theatre. They didn’t even glance my way when I burst through the doors and whirled this way and that to spot the strange four guys with the weird skin that apparently no one but me could see.

There they were, halfway down the one-way street, walking in the direction of Delancey Street. I rushed after them, picking up my pace to catch up with them. They walked side-by-side, their arms relaxed by their sides. One of their backs stiffened—the one who had followed me into the bathroom. He glanced over his shoulder and caught my eye. In an instant, he’d turned toward the others, and soon they were walking at a speed that was impossible to fathom. They didn’t look as though they were running, but they were certainly moving faster than any normal person could.

They reached the corner within seconds and disappeared to the left. I kept following, though I knew it was no use. When I reached the corner myself, they were nowhere to be seen. They’d disappeared somewhere in the depths of the Manhattan streets, and I knew without a doubt that there was no way in hell I would find them. Not unless they wanted me to.

* * *

I shoved open my bedroom window with the tips of my fingers as I perched on the fire escape outside of our third-floor apartment. The chipped wooden frame shuddered at hurricane-level decibels.

I paused and sucked hot air into my nostrils. Closed my eyes and counted to ten. If the noise filtered out of my room, down the hall and into the ears of my sleeping parents, Mom would barrel right through the locked door, her intricately-painted nails clutching the fabric of her nightgown into a silky flower of panic. And then that panic would bubble into anger. And then pool into disappointment and distrust. Just like always.

Next time you sneak out, she’d told me last weekend, you’re grounded for a month.

Even though I was eighteen-years-old, and even though I’d graduated from high school last month, Mom kept a tight grip on what I could and couldn’t do. And if I got grounded for a month, I wouldn’t be able to attend any auditions, my only chance at getting out of my rut of a life. And moving out of this hellhole of an apartment.

But despite the window’s avalanche of noise, not a single whisper of movement stirred inside the apartment. I threw my legs over the window frame hauled myself over the ledge behind it. After I closed the window, I padded over to my bedside table in boots that squished into the carpet, reaching for the neon blue lamp. And when I flipped the switch, several sights smacked me in the face all at once. Open drawers. Open laptop on my desk. Scribbled sheet of notebook paper on my pillow.

The paper held only three simple, non-threatening words. Well, non-threatening in most situations, anyway. But those three words on this particular night. On that particular sheet of paper. In that familiar loopy scrawl. Well, it was enough to make my stomach sink through the floorboards to join the rats that lived there despite the number of times the landlord had bombed them with poisonous fumes.

Living room. - Mom

Brilliant. For a split second, I considered ignoring the note and crawling under my whisper-thin sheets before Mom could realize I’d slithered back home, but deep down I knew it would be way worse if I did. She’d get my stepdad involved. And if she told him about it, my punishment would be far, far worse than a simple grounding.

I shivered at the thought of what he might do.

With a heavy sigh, I kicked off my boots and cracked open my bedroom door. It was silent and still in the apartment, like the calm before a storm. From down the hallway, I could hear the distant sound of snoring, a sound that set my frazzles nerves at ease. Mom might be awake and waiting for me in the living room, but Dan clearly wasn’t.

I didn’t have to be afraid.

My doctor had taught me a few coping mechanisms when it came to panic, though they really only helped when I wasn’t already, you know, panicking. Still, they slowed my rapid heartbeat at times like this, when I dreaded walking from my bedroom and into the rest of the apartment. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths in through my nose and out through barely parted lips, repeating it until the veins in my neck didn’t feel as though they were throbbing against my skin.

I left the safety of my bedroom and tiptoed across the hallway to find Mom waiting for me on the sofa. She glanced up from her book, her long legs curled underneath a scratchy woollen blanket. Even in the dead heat of summer, she always had to have a blanket. Her black as night hair hung in natural waves around her bony shoulders, and her silver-rimmed glasses perched on the tip of her pencil-thin nose. Everything about her screamed librarian, maybe because she was one.

“Norah.” She frowned and eyed me over the rim of her glasses before closing her book. She patted the empty spot on the brown leather couch. I bet she’d been waiting all night to make that exact move. “Come sit.”

“I know what you’re going to say.” I held my ground and curled my toes against the hardwood floor. If she was going to take away the most important thing to me—my auditions, my dancing—then I needed to hear those harsh words standing up. Otherwise, they might knock me flat on my ass.

“I said, come sit.”

My feet tried to grow roots, but it was no use. I made my way over to the couch while the AC buzzed like a thousand angry insects. Mom’s dark brown eyes followed my every movement as I sunk into the soft leather and twisted my legs underneath me.

“By the stamp on your hand, I assume you went out to some club.”

“I did.”

“Did you have a nice time?” she asked.

I blinked at the words. They were a total 180 on her usual rapid-fire accusations and red-faced puffs. She must have found my empty room hours ago, and all the anger boiled off while she waited on this couch, like a whistling kettle left on the stove too long.

“Yes,” I said slowly. “Bree took me out dancing to celebrate my birthday. Since, you know, you and Dan didn’t care enough to want to do anything.”

She winced and glanced away. “You know how your step-father is.”

“Yes. I do.” And you should leave him. Tonight, if possible. Please, Mom. Get away from him.

She let out a heavy sigh and shook her head, shoulders slumped forward in defeat. I hated that I’d been the one to cause her to look so weary, but I had to remember that it wasn’t actually me. Not really. It was Dan, and the way he tried to run this household with an iron fist. And that was more literal than I wanted to admit.

“You know I need to ground you, Norah,” she finally said, eyes still locked on the hardwood floor. “You snuck out. You didn’t tell me where you were going. If Dan knew, he’d...”

She trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence. Truth was, she probably didn’t know exactly how far he’d go, and I didn’t either. I didn’t usually disobey like this, and he flew off the handle if I was even five minutes late for dinner. There was no telling how he’d react if he knew I’d been out at a club all night long.

“Mom, you know I need to go to my auditions, and—”

She held up a hand and shook her head. “Two weeks. No auditions, but you can do your shifts at work.”

“But Mom, I—”

“It’s final,” she said as she reached out to caress my cheek with her thumb. “Let’s just keep what you did between us, though, okay? If your step-father found out...Norah, I worry it might be the thing that finally makes him snap.”

“Then leave him,” I said, pleading with my eyes. “Don’t stay with a man who would react that way.”

But she wouldn’t. If she hadn’t left him yet, she never would.