Lead Me Not

chapter six

aubrey

“devon wants to go back to Compulsion tonight,” Renee said, coming into my bedroom. She didn’t venture far from the door, standing awkwardly as though unsure she had a right to be there.

At one time, she wouldn’t have thought twice about barging in and sitting down on my bed. If I’d complained about having homework to do, she would have thrown a pillow at me and then gone about trying to convince me to get drunk with her.

We would have gone out, and Renee would have gotten wasted. I would have been the DD, but that was all right, because I would have had fun. Because that’s how it had been with me and Renee. That was us.

Now she stood in my room as though she had never been there before. She wouldn’t make eye contact, and even though her bright red hair was perfectly styled, her makeup was just shy of overdone, and her clothing was clearly thought out and planned. This was not the girl who used to invite the entire soccer team back to our apartment for a game of strip poker.

Renee’s eyes were dead, her mouth turned down, and she was uncharacteristically . . . blank.

“What?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“Devon wants to head over to Compulsion tonight. I thought you might like to come with us. Get out of the house for the evening,” Renee suggested with feigned indifference.

No matter how unaffected she tried to act, I knew she was nervous. She did not want to go back to the club. Otherwise she’d never have asked me to come along. She would never put Devon and me in a social situation together unless she was completely and totally freaking out.

“Why would you want to go back there?” I asked sharply. I tried to rein in my bewildered accusation. As much as I hated the reason she was asking, I couldn’t help but feel a smidgen of hope that her asking at all was a sign that our friendship could be salvaged.

Because I missed Renee Alston. A lot.

Renee’s jaw tightened, and her eyes became flinty. “Look, I knew asking you was a lost cause. God forbid your weekend consist of something other than watching The Vampire Diaries for the millionth time while Brooks makes his super-witty comments that no one finds funny but him,” Renee snapped. I felt a flash of anger.

“Look, if you want me to go anywhere with you and that loser you call a boyfriend, you’re going about it the wrong way, sweetheart,” I countered sarcastically, allowing myself to unload some of my anger in her direction.

Renee sucked in a breath. “Fuck off, Aubrey,” she bit out.

“So this is how it’s going to be from now on, I guess. Us barely talking. Me biting my tongue in half instead of telling you what I really think of your fuckhead boyfriend. Both of us ignoring the fact that you’ve changed. Big-time,” I challenged, my voice rising the angrier I became.

Renee’s eyes became glassy, and I recognized the tremble of her bottom lip all too well. Her imminent tears made me feel like shit.

“Forget it,” Renee whispered, and left the room before I could say anything else. I pressed the heel of my hands into my eyes and swallowed down the urge to scream. I took a deep breath. Okay, she was being a bitch, but I could have handled it a little better myself. She had tried to reach out in the only way she seemed capable of at the moment, and I had smacked her hand away. And while hanging out with Devon and his idiot friends for the night didn’t sound like my idea of a good time, being with Renee in whatever capacity was possible seemed like a positive step forward for us.

I went into the hallway with every intention of making peace.

But just as I was about to call out to her, to accept her invitation, however strange and awkward it had been, I heard the front door open and then shut with a decisive slam.

Not two minutes later, the door opened again, and I hurried to the living room to try to repair the unfortunate situation with Renee.

“I’ve told you a thousand times to lock that door,” Brooks scolded as he headed into the kitchen. He really didn’t understand the concept of personal boundaries. Somewhere along the way, my house became his house. My chips became his chips.

My chocolate became his chocolate? Oh, hell no!

I grabbed the bag of Hershey’s Kisses from his hands. “There are lines you can’t cross, Brooks. Hands off,” I warned, putting the bag back in the cabinet.

Brooks looked unfazed as he instead reached for a box of Ritz Crackers and went into the living room.

“I passed Renee in the hallway. She looked as though her ass was on fire. Oh, and she was dressed like a hooch. Let me guess, hot date with her boyfriend, aka I like to kick kittens with steel-toed boots?” Brooks asked, rolling his eyes as I started wiping his cracker crumbs from the couch cushions.

I handed him a paper plate, which he accepted with exaggerated slowness, just to irritate me.

I sat down beside him with a flop. “She went back to Compulsion, can you believe that? And she wanted me to go with her. Sorry, but I just don’t see the appeal of worrying about whether you will be knifed in the bathroom for your lip gloss,” I muttered.

“Shit! Really? You wanna go?” Brooks asked, perking up.

I leveled him with my version of his patented “are you crazy?” look.

“So we can be humiliated when we’re told to go home by the Barbarian Bouncer?”

Brooks tossed the box of crackers onto the coffee table and wiped his hands on his jeans, making me cringe.

“Aubrey, seriously, we should go! Ever since last time I’ve really wanted to check it out, and you know you want to keep an eye on Renee,” he countered.

I started to voice my protests but was rudely cut off by Brooks placing his hand over my mouth.

“Don’t you dare deny it! You won’t be able to relax tonight for worrying about that flaky roommate of yours. So come on, get dolled up, and let’s go get our club on!” I smacked Brooks’s hand away and tried in vain to stay irritated with him, which was damned difficult as he started to wiggle his shoulders in a poor imitation of dancing.

“I don’t think I have anything in my closet that remotely resembles what a dominatrix would wear. There’s no way we’ll get inside,” I reasoned, hoping he’d drop it while simultaneously hoping he’d wear me down.

Because, damn him, he was right. I wanted to go. Though I wouldn’t admit that I had other reasons than just to keep tabs on my friend, that I was actually a teensy bit curious about the world Compulsion offered.

Okay, more than a teensy bit.

Even though I had been in level-ten panic mode during my last visit, something about the music, the atmosphere, the thrilling taste of danger that danced on the end of my tongue, was compelling.

The desire to escape made me anxious. Ever since the phone call with my mother, I had again been held prisoner by memories that I had tried very hard to keep tucked away in my subconscious.

It only took the sound of my mother’s voice to blow open the door I kept resolutely shut.

So the idea of letting go, of submerging myself in a world so completely outside my norm, was a lot more enticing than it ever would have been before.

And then there was the mystery man . . .

My decision was made.

“Okay, let’s do this,” I said suddenly, getting to my feet. I laughed at the wide-mouthed stare I received from Brooks.

I put my hands on my hips and rolled my eyes. “I thought you wanted to go. Come on, help me find something that is sufficiently slutty to get me inside,” I taunted, enjoying the shock on my friend’s face.

I didn’t surprise people very often, but I figured when I did, I might as well make it a doozy.

“Uh . . . okay,” Brooks stammered, following me into my bedroom.

Twenty minutes later I was standing in a sea of clothing that was about to make my OCD tendencies go into full-on meltdown.

“When did my penis become a freaking vagina? I’m a guy, Aubrey! A guy! I don’t know what the fuck you should wear! I’m all about taking the clothes off. Not putting them on.” Brooks was talking from his perch on my bed, where he had stretched out, watching my one-woman whirling dervish imitation.

I groaned and finally grabbed a jean skirt that I never wore, mostly because I liked keeping the girlie bits covered when I was out in public, and a black, off-the-shoulder sequined top.

Once I was dressed and had zipped up my knee-high black leather boots, I looked at myself in the mirror and wanted to immediately change back into my jeans and sweatshirt. It’s not as though I was dressed in anything overly dramatic. It was pretty tame by club standards, but it wasn’t me.

I had curled my long blond hair and opted to wear more makeup than usual. I just hoped it was enough, because this was just about all the energy I was willing to expend.

Brooks gave me a low whistle when I finished. His eyes raked me from head to toe, focusing a little too intently on my legs. His face was unnaturally flushed, and I started to think that perhaps this was a really bad idea.

I cleared my throat, and Brooks blinked and looked away, seeming embarrassed. “You look nice,” he said with a smile as his eyes flicked again over my body.

It was times like then that it was hard to forget that he had seen me naked . . . a lot. Our relationship had surprisingly never been uncomfortable. We had transitioned into easy camaraderie seamlessly. But now I felt a strange sort of tension radiating from him that had everything to do with his overactive hormones.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, hurriedly grabbing Renee’s black leather jacket. After putting it on, I gave him a quick once-over, noting he had gone home and changed while I was getting dressed.

He had turned in the khakis and button-down shirt for a fitted pair of jeans and a tight gray shirt with some sort of band logo on the front. He had styled his hair into spikes.

I leaned in closer, peering at his face. “Did you put eyeliner on? Seriously?” I snorted.

Brooks’s shoulders tensed. “It’s about looking the part, Aubrey. Shut up,” he responded tersely.

Guy-liner aside, Brooks looked good. Really good. Hopefully really good would be enough to get inside the club.

I grabbed my purse and followed Brooks out into the hallway. “Do we know where we’re going this time?” I asked as we got into his Honda.

Brooks gave me a grin. “Well, we have to go figure it out,” he answered cryptically.

I cocked my eyebrow in his direction. “Care to explain?” I asked, not in the mood for guessing games.

“We’ve got to go see the picture. Then we can figure out where Compulsion is tonight,” he said, sounding giddy. I could tell Brooks was excited. His enthusiasm was contagious. I couldn’t help but feel a flutter in my stomach as we made our way to the center of town.

“How do you know where the picture is?” I asked. This really did seem like a lot of trouble just to go to a club. What was with the mystery? Why not just hand out flyers?

“I asked around and was told it’s behind the self-service laundry beside the liquor store,” Brooks explained.

“Can’t we just ask where it is? Why do we have to go to the hassle of finding some crappy piece of graffiti for directions?” I asked, knowing I sounded cranky. But the hurdles we were needing to jump to find the club were deflating my already shaky willingness to go out at all.

Brooks clicked his tongue in disapproval. “Aubrey, this is part of the experience. You need to see the picture, then you can find out where it is. And it’s not crappy graffiti. X is an artist, man. His stuff is unbelievable. I’ve heard people saying that galleries have been trying to locate him for the past year, wanting to sell his work. But no one knows who he is. Or how to find him. It just adds to the mystique, you know?”

I scoffed under my breath. “Why in the hell would a gallery want to sell some squiggles spray-painted on a wall? It’s not exactly Monet we’re talking about here.”

Brooks shook his head. “You have so much to learn, young grasshopper. The urban art movement is huge right now. And X has built a reputation as one of the best. He’s only been doing it for the past three years, but if you Google street art, his stuff will be up there with Banksy. He’s awesome!” he said, as though it made perfect sense.

“How do you know it’s a guy? It could be a woman, you know,” I pointed out almost belligerently.

Brooks shrugged. “Who knows? Does it matter?”

“And what sort of name is X?” I mocked.

Brooks gave me a look from the corner of his eye and didn’t bother to respond. Clearly my lack of appreciation for the mysterious X had lost me a considerable number of cool points.

We pulled down a narrow alleyway between two buildings that ended in a small parking lot. There was a group of people standing beside a Dumpster.

Brooks put his car into park and jumped out. “Come on!” he called out to me, hurrying over to the side of the building. There was a large amount of graffiti—your typical gang tags and names.

But that wasn’t what people had flocked here to see.

It was the portrait of a woman on fire that had their attention. It was at least ten feet high and fifteen feet across. It was massive.

“Please explain to me what this has to do with a dance club?” I whispered to Brooks, who had his phone pulled out and was punching numbers into his GPS. He glanced up at me and gave me a distracted smile.

“Not a damned thing, Aubrey,” he replied. I frowned and turned back to the picture. The wind had picked up, bringing with it the rancid smell of old garbage. The small parking lot was disgusting. But the crowd of people couldn’t care less about their surroundings. We were all here for one thing only . . . to find our way to a club that promised things we couldn’t begin to imagine.

I had to admit that the artistry of the graffiti was impressive. I remembered the picture from a few weeks ago, the monstrous hand with people falling from the sky.

That painting had been dark and almost threatening. This one seemed to convey something else entirely.

Longing.

Wanting something you’ve watched from afar.

Desire.

Blatant, unbridled lust.

Somehow, some way, this smattering of paint on a dirty wall conveyed all of these things. And I knew that Brooks was right. That whoever X was, this person was seriously talented.

The picture depicted the side profile of a woman, her long, golden hair licked by bright red flames as they crawled toward her face. You could see only the outline of her nose and jaw, as she was turned away, looking off into the distance.

The rest of her body was done in dark, bold lines that were almost crude and undefined, until you got to her hand. The hand was painted precisely and almost delicately. The fingers were uncurled, the palm was spread open, and from the hand fell lovely, purple blossoms that reminded me of the aster flowers that grew on campus.

The fire at the girl’s feet reached up and seemed to engulf the flowers that were floating to the ground. It was such a contradiction—the power of the fire and the placid gentleness of the flowers. There was a violent sort of possession in the way the flames seemed to devour the petals that fell from the woman’s hand, almost, but not quite, touching her skin, as though they were reaching out for her yet not quite able to reach her. I noticed the characteristic X enmeshed in the red and orange.

A shiver that had nothing to do with the chill in the air raced down my spine.

“I’ve got it!” Brooks called out, a little too loudly. I jumped with a start, having been so fixated on the painting.

“Come on!” Brooks yelled in my ear, and I gave him a look of annoyance. I noticed others were quickly leaving as well, having gotten what they came for. I glanced back at the picture, feeling strangely sad about leaving it behind.

“Aubrey, it’s already late. We need to hurry or the line will be huge!” Brooks urged, pulling me toward his car.

After I was buckled in, I looked again at the picture, wishing I understood the strange twist of emotions I felt when I looked at it. I stared at it until my eyes started to tear over.

Blinking, I looked over at Brooks, who was programming an address into his phone and then setting it down on the center console. I rubbed at my temples, feeling the twinges of a headache coming on.

I felt oddly unsettled, and a part of me wanted to go home and forget about tonight’s grand adventure. I felt a sense of foreboding that I couldn’t shake, mostly because it was tangled up with an almost euphoric need to let go.

I was a fucking mess.

Clearing my throat, I tried to get my head straight by focusing on my friend, who was practically buzzing with excitement. “How did you get the address?” I asked, knowing that during my free fall into emotional turmoil I had missed a major part of what we were doing there.

Brooks pointed at the picture. “See those numbers painted into the fire at the bottom?” he asked, and I tried to see what he was talking about. And then I saw it. The numbers one and four and then five other numbers intertwined along the base of the flame.

“Yeah, so?” I asked.

“The first two are a street number, the last five the zip code. The stems of the flowers are actually the street name. So you put it into the GPS and voilà, there you have it, the location for Compulsion,” he answered, sounding like a little kid revealing a top-secret magic trick.

“Well, isn’t that supercreative,” I quipped, trying to hide the increasing sense of disquiet unfurling in my belly.

“Just chill out and have fun, Aubrey. Let your hair down for one night,” Brooks teased, and I tried not to get defensive at the implied criticism.

“I can have as much fun as the next girl,” I argued, and tried not to get annoyed at Brooks’s bark of disbelieving laughter.

The rest of the ride continued in silence, and I tried to contain the confusing rush of nerves and excitement that made my heart thud in my chest.

The GPS led us to the outskirts of the city, far away from the lights and bustle of normal, Saturday nightlife. Brooks pulled his car into a field, and I could see people heading off toward a group of trees.

“Let’s go,” Brooks called out as he got out of the car. I exited the vehicle, walked through the tall grass, and headed for a break in the woods.

It was dark, with the lights of a thousand cell phones and lighters punctuating the air around us. I could hear the thudding of music not too far off in the distance. I stumbled over a tree root, and Brooks had to grab me by the arm so I wouldn’t fall. Something about Compulsion clearly had me struggling to stay on my feet.

“There it is!” Brooks yelled into my ear, pointing to a run-down farmhouse that looked as though it had been condemned several decades ago. The building was huge; at one time it was probably a lovely home to a nice family. Now it looked like something straight out of a horror movie.

The windows were either broken or missing glass entirely. The porch was in a crumbled heap at the front. The long line of people wrapped along the side and disappeared around the back of the house.

“Seems like Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the theme for the night,” I muttered, zipping the leather jacket up to my chin in an attempt to stay warm.

Once again, we found ourselves waiting in line for our chance to get inside. I wondered if Renee was already there. I recognized a few students from school, but other than that, it was a mass of strangers.

I groaned under my breath as we reached the front of the line and noticed good ol’ Randy, my bouncer BFF from our last sojourn to Compulsion. He looked as fierce and unyielding as ever, and I hoped like hell he didn’t recognize our sad attempts to fit in as the fake acts that they were.

I was relieved when our obligatory once-over was greeted with a gruff demand for money, followed by a smeared stamp on the back of our hands. And just like that, we were granted access.

Brooks let out a whoop and rustled my hair. “We got in! Awesome!” he enthused, and I tried to smile back. But the deafening boom of the bass and the familiar sensation of anticipation and fear that licked my insides had already taken over.

I had found my escape.