Beta, like most clubs on a Friday night in Highcrest, is packed full of high-born brats. So there’s an unmistakable air of importance clogging the room as we try to make our way to the bar.
I blame the high-priced brew. It’s convinced them this place, with the sticky floor and strobing red lights, is somehow better than the other spots around town. But the truth is, Beta isn’t that different from The Dragonfly or K.C.
They’ve all got the same drinks, same DJs on rotation, same handsy crowd.
The only thing that makes Beta worth the hassle of wading through a hundred moon-drunk college boys, is the girls.
Stationed around the room, high above the reach of the crowd below, are stone pillars, atop which, women of every size and shade dance half-clothed to the heavy bass thumping in my ears.
Kitty pauses to oogle them, eyes wide and glittering.
Looking at her, you might think it was lust, but if you know Kitty, then you know it’s really envy.
“Come on,” I prompt, tugging at her tail. “You can drool over them later. I need a drink.”
It takes a moment before she pries her eyes away and pushes through to the bar. But she stops abruptly when it comes into sight, causing Elsie, me, and half a dozen drunken patrons to crash into us.
“What the fu?—”
Elsie’s words are cut off as her gaze follows Kitty’s, and when I see what they’re glaring at, I reiterate the sentiment.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding,” I sigh.
Standing around the bar, laughing as if they haven’t a care in the world, are Elliot and Dame. Beside them, nodding in agreement, is a man I don’t recognize, dressed in all black, and to top it off, on the other side of the counter, mixing a drink with a bored look on his face, is Dredrick Bloodsoe.
We all groan in unison, and Elsie turns on her heel.
“Let’s go,” she says.
Kitty starts to follow, but I stop them.
“What? We’re just leaving? Just like that?”
Kitty’s eyes roll, and Elsie looks more tired than before.
“I don’t feel like looking at them,” Elsie says.
Fair enough.
“I don’t feel like smelling them,” Kitty says, holding a hand to her nose as if their scent is truly sickening.
“Oh, come on. We can’t let them have this! Why should they get to have all the fun? They’re the idiots! Not us!”
That seems to spark Elsie’s anger, and once that torch is lit, there’s no extinguishing it.
“Yeah, you’re right. They are idiots.”
She snatches us both by the hand, dragging us forward.
Dred spots us first, and the other three heads turn as he mutters something.
Dame is the first one on his feet.
“What are you guys doing here?” he asks, standing between us and the bar.
He speaks mostly to Kitty, but his eyes scan back and forth amongst the three of us as if he is truly baffled to see us outside.
“Did you hit your head or something?” Kitty asks, temper already short.
