Feeling like she was trapped in the observation booth at some weird Olympic sex try-outs, Valentina averted her eyes and waited for the finish.

When it was over, she was not even remotely surprised to see the two ardent lovers stagger off in different directions and hook up almost immediately with two other partners.

So many levels of just plain wrong and Valentina was right in the thick of it.

Looking around at the yard teeming with boozed-up puppet masters who were busy pulling the strings of willing and sexually-charged drunken marionettes, Valentina realized what a foolish and dangerous situation she had placed herself in. If Hal was here somewhere, she was probably better off not finding him—she really didn’t want to stop and imagine what he might be doing. Not if what she had seen so far was any indication of what partying it up Saints-style meant. 

Valentina decided that her best bet was to try and make it back to the car. Thank god she had had the foresight to grab the keys from the ignition. So, once Valentina got to the vehicle, she could wait the situation out safely locked inside. However, the thought of having to navigate back through the clubhouse made Valentina cringe. There was absolutely no way she could risk putting herself through that particular horror again. Keeping to the shadows, she began to explore the outlying area around the large bunker style building. There had to be another way around the clubhouse that did not take her through the heavy tree coverage.

With careful steps, she perused the perimeter and discovered a path that ran alongside the building. The narrow trail was overgrown with bramble branches, and it looked like it hadn’t been used in a long time. What appeared to be a huge heating and cooling unit sat halfway down the path, but Valentina was pretty sure that she could make her way around that and land in the front of the building. From there, she could make her way easily to the parking lot.

Now armed with a plan and full of resolve, Valentina started off down the narrow trail. But when a loud screech of a night bird sounded out from above her, she froze in fright. Valentina gave herself a good talking to—if every little noise along the way is going to make you pee your pants and act like a scared mouse, you might as well go back through the clubhouse and offer yourself up to be groped, stepped on, and god only knows what else. Put on your big girl pants and decide one way or the other! 

Just for the sake of argument, Valentina felt around gingerly for the sore spot on the side of her head where it had been rammed against the wall. When she found the beginnings of a good-sized lump, Valentina made her choice.

Deep, dark scary path, here I come.

As if in warning—the first steps that Valentina took brought the searing pain of a deep scratch to her sandaled foot and created a long tear in the denim that covered her thigh.

Damn bramble bush she let out a hiss as she extracted herself from the thin, thorny branch. To Valentina’s consternation, that path was harder to navigate than she had expected. It was narrow and rutted with half-buried, jagged stones that jabbed into the thin bottom of her fashion-forward, but not very practical, delicate sandal.

At certain points, it was almost impossible to push back the overgrown weeds that licked at her heels and made the front of her calves itch.  When the crunch of gravel and the slurred expletive—sonofabitch— came sounding out from somewhere behind her, Valentina swiveled her head to look back from where she had come. She saw a too-drunk-to-stand-on-his-own guy stagger forward, fumble with his pants, whip out his dick, and piss on the side of the building.

To Valentina’s horror, she saw that it was the giant who had almost crushed her foot. Now he turned and faced her. A flash of heat lightening bolted through the sky and lit up the leer of his drunken smile.

“Hey, sweet thing, where ya runnin’ off tooooooo…?” He howled out that last part.

As Valentina looked back in fear, she saw him take a wide, unsteady step towards her. Then he let out a slurred roar as the yellow stream of urine hit his own boots. “Muthahfuckahhhhh!”

As he stumbled forward, another dark shadowed figure joined him— the newcomer’s words were delivered loud and clear, and filled with the need to fight. “What the fuck, brother? You pissing on my clubhouse?”

When she heard the tell-tale crunch of bone and the whomp of a very low blow, Valentina turned away from the drunken brawl only to find herself frozen by the foreboding darkness facing her. Just as she was about to lose her nerve, the moon suddenly broke through the thick cloud covering and cast its glow on the path before her. The light was just enough to bolster Valentina’s nerve. She hurried down the narrowing trail.

“Don’t be afraid, there is nothing to be afraid of,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms around herself for courage and swallowed past the lump in her throat.

Valentina had gone about half way and was at the point where the path veered away from the building to accommodate the space needed for a large industrial sized unit of the HVAC. She didn’t like the thought of venturing deeper into the trees, even just a little bit, but there was no help for it. Besides, if she craned her neck over the apparatus, Valentina could see ahead to where the trail veered in again. As if on cue, the moon began to recede behind the clouds and Valentina felt a cold shiver of apprehension course through her body at the increasing darkness.

But thank god there was still light.

There was still that sliver of moon-glow, and it gave her the courage to move forward. 

She was almost there now— a few more steps and the lights that loomed high over the parking lot would be visible through the tree line.

Home stretch.

In just a few more minutes, Valentina would be enjoying the plush leather seats of the sports car while the AC fanned her face with icy air.

Then Gia could take all the damn time she wanted.

In just a few minutes more.

Valentina picked up her pace and could see where the trail broke from under the canopied trees and hugged the side of the building again.

You got this.

And that’s when she lost the light.

The dense cloud cover shifted again, swallowing up that last bit of moonbeam. It plunged Valentina into the deep darkness— and just like that, she was there again.

Valentina felt herself falling and falling and falling into that black hole while the earth trembled, heaved, and spun out from under her feet. She felt the tremendous heat of the blazing fire and watched in helpless horror as the world came crashing down around her in killing piles of concrete.

Trapped and paralyzed with a crushing weight, Valentina stretched her neck to an almost breaking point as she pressed her face to the one tiny source of air that streamed through the thick, choking dust.

She filled her lungs with that one last life-giving breath.

And then Valentina began to scream.