Is this where they find all their clients?
As we approached a valet station, Leo dropped the kickstand, hopping off the bike and helping me down. I whipped my head around as I pulled my helmet off, no longer worried about the state of my hair. “Where the fuck are we?”
It was impossible to get a clear answer in the chaos of the garage. Valets scurried over, taking the bikes along with the bookbags my captors had packed for our trip. My pulse pounded watching someone else touch their bikes, driving off on our one way out of here.
But then the sight of an approaching security guard stilled my heart. They wore some sort of strange logo on the chest of their suit, but I was more concerned with the gun holstered at their hip. “Membership card?”
Dom smoothly pulled a black card from her wallet that matched the logo on the security uniform. The guard gave it a quick glance before nodding and handing it over. “They expecting all of your friends at the booth, Ms. Dumont?”
“Every last one of them,” she grumbled, letting the guard wave a metal detector over her.
Leo went next as Spencer rubbed a hand on my back. “No need to be nervous, Bunny. Unless you’ve got a weapon we don’t know about.”
I nudged her in the ribs before it was her turn to go, cracking jokes to the guard the whole time. But when the guard waved me forward, Dom clasped a possessive hand over my shoulder. “She’s clear.”
The security guard bristled, looking up at Dom like she’d lost her mind. “She gets scanned like everyone else.”
“Lay a hand on her, and I’ll fucking break it,” Dom snarled, making even my jaw drop,
“Dom,” I whispered. “It’s fine, they’re just doing their job.”
As innocent as the security guard seemed, I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of being scanned or touched. But it wasn’t worth throwing everything into jeopardy.
But whatever had come over Dom tonight had her beyond logic. Ignoring my plea, she stepped up to the security guard, scowling. “Did you read the fucking name on my card, or do you need me to show you who I am?”
Waiting just past the guard, Spencer frowned at the way Dom was throwing her weight around. The security guard puffed up their chest, ready to throw back some heat of their own.
But before they could fire back, booted footsteps drew closer through the parking lot. Their supervisor, based on the way they shrank back.
“Dumont. Causing trouble again?” the older guard grumbled, smoothing a hand over her slicked back bun.
“Protecting what’s mine. Thought the dress code around here still meant something.”
My cheeks flushed as she made her claim to me. I had no idea what had spurred this possessive streak, but despite my confusion, something in my body responded to her claim.
“Dress code doesn’t apply to the security guards,” she fixed Dom with a skeptical glance before sighing to her employee. “Just let her through, she’s a regular, and she’s a real fucking headache.”
“But—” the younger guard started, swallowing their words the second their boss looked at them. Then, through gritted teeth, they smiled at Dom before opening a glass door past the valet station. “Enjoy your night, Ms. Dumont.”
“I will,” Dom growled, pressing her palm against my exposed back as she guided me through the glass door.
The moment the door closed behind us, I leaned toward Dom with a hiss. “You didn’t have to do that, I was fine.”
“You were uncomfortable.” She rumbled, “No one gets to make you feel that way besides me.”
My jaw dropped as I looked up at her. I wasn’t sure whether to be touched or offended by the sentiment. But before I could bite back, Spencer and Leo opened a second door for us, plunging us into a world of chaos.
The second the door opened, we were slammed with a wave of pulsing House music. As their broad shoulders parted, I saw a sea of bodies in color-coded ensembles, thrashing and partying to the music at the center of an abandoned train terminal.
It was like the Hollow, but more cleaned up and with a lot more men. Normally, the sight might make me uneasy, but the security guards flitting around the edges of the crowd told me there wasn’t much to worry about.
As my eyes flicked between the defunct train schedules on the far wall and the ticket booth in the distance, I realized that this must be the Station The Oracle was talking about.
But if this is where we’re meeting, then why the fuck did we need overnight bags?
I tried calling to Dom over the pulsing music, but if she heard me, she didn’t acknowledge it, dropping her hand from my back as she returned to the front of our little pack.
We were hardly an hour into the night, and already, our search for answers was leaving me with more questions than I’d started with. What was this place, exactly, and how the fuck was it going to lead us to The Oracle?
