Calling my name

***POV - Damion

A bone-piercing scream flies through the club and my heart skips a beat, pulling my intestines into a knot. It came from the VIP section and somehow I know it’s Mel. I drop everything on the stage and start running for the stairs. I have to pry myself from the grabbing hands in the crowd, and I feel like punching my way through, but eventually, I reach the next floor and stop dead in my tracks.

Mel’s lying as if paralyzed on a table, blood on her throat. My heart skips more than 20 beats and for more than just a moment, I can’t breathe. It feels as if I’m dying on the spot.

“Damion” I have to blink a few times. Did she just call me? I must be hearing voices.

“Damion! DAMION!” This time she’s shouting and I notice her body shaking, going into shock. The worry in me takes over and I rush to her, pushing everybody away. I notice Alejandro holding her hand, his face looking like someone punched him in the stomach. Ren is standing next to him, but he seems murderous. I don’t have time for jealousy and shit now.

“It’s ok, I’m here!” She grabs my arms, but her movements are sluggish, almost as if she’s paralyzed. I quickly access the situation and I know she’s been drugged, probably Rohypnol. He must’ve spiked her drink. There’s a cut on her neck and her shirt falls open so her underwear is exposed. Was he trying to rape her? Did he rape her? My eyes quickly scan her pants and I let out a relieved breath. Her pants seem to be intact. Ilkay appears out of thin air and I try to move so he can check on her, but she’s clinging onto me like a nut.

“She doesn’t want to let go, so I’ll hold her then you can treat the wound.” Ilkay nods and I lift her from the table into my arms, closing her shirt as best I can, turning her so Ilkay can have a look at her neck.

“Damion … the clowns … gonna kill me.”

“Shh, I’m here. Just breathe” I’m trying to look and sound calm, hiding the fucking thunderstorm of emotions inside me.

“Don’t leave.” Her voice sounds funny, almost childlike and I smile down at her face leaning against my chest.

“It’s not deep, he just pierced the skin. Take her to Enrique’s office.” I take her to the office and try to place her on the sofa, but her hands are holding onto my shirt with a fierce grip. She must be having hallucinations because of the drug, something about worms, clowns and she thinks I’m the devil saving her, so she doesn’t want me to go. I smile thinking that even her delusional visions are strange.

Logan lays Kiara softly on the one end of the sofa and I realize I was so focused on Mel, I didn’t even notice that she’s been drugged too. I sit down with Mel still wrapped in my arms, her head on my shoulder while Ilkay cleans her wound. He was right, it’s not deep, doesn’t even need stitches. Axel, being trained in first-aid checks Kiara’s pulse. I look at my hand lying on Mel’s thigh and notice it’s shaking. I keep on talking to her, calming her, while holding her tight. Her hands are clinging to my bicep and shirt so hard, her knuckles are white.

“I think we guys need to go and have a talk at the bar.” Enrique gestures with his head. I hold onto Mel until she calms down and falls asleep. Then I move away slowly, lying Mel on the big sofa, moving her behind Kiara so she’s cradling her friend. I grab a blanket from the cupboard and close both girls. Without thinking I stroke Mel’s hair back and push it behind her ear, before kissing her softly on the cheek. When I turn around to leave, Chloe is standing in the doorway. I smile at her awkwardly, feeling like a boy caught with his hand in the cooky-jar.

“What happened?” She looks pissed off. Check the worry in my eye, what do I care about her feelings. I don’t even like the girl.

“They were drugged.” I push Chloe out of the room, calling one of the bouncers to come and guard the door, before joining my friends. I don’t trust Chloe with Mel alone. At this stage, I don’t trust anybody with Mel. Enrique is busy chasing everybody into one corner of the room, making them take a seat there, placing bouncers around them so they can’t leave. I notice Ren drinking some scotch and he glares at me with a murderous look in his eyes, but I turn my focus and anger to Axel.

“You were supposed to watch her!” I shout at Axel, grabbing his shirt. He slowly removes my hands and takes a step back, his body tense as if he’s ready for a fight. Okay, so I’ve been breaking Rule 2 (Never start a fight – don’t draw first blood) more than once these past few weeks, so I take a deep breath and count to 10.

“I was, she went into the bathroom. I’m not going to hold her hand while she pees.” I clench my hands into fists, but instead of taking my anger out on my friend, I throw one of the tables across the room. And then a chair. Nobody tries to stop me, they just stand and watch, patiently waiting for me to get back some control. I take a deep breath and look at Logan, holding onto an empty glass, smelling the contents, a piece of paper in his other hand.

A young waiter is standing between Ilkay and Alejandro, looking pretty uncomfortable. I smile, Alejandro naturally looks pretty scary, and now even more so. His eyes are icy, and he has a scorned look on his face. I might not like the guy flirting with Mel, but something about him yearns for respect. And then there’s the fact that I feel sort of an attraction towards him. Not sexual attraction, no, it’s something else. Confusing I know. It’s not that I want to jump his bones and kiss him or anything, it’s just a strange feeling I have in my guts.

I look back at Axel, still holding his gaze on me as if he’s waiting for me to crack some more.

“Alejandro carried her out.” I look at Alejandro, his shirt has some bloodstains on it.

“I was on my way to the bathroom when I heard a call for help from the ladies' bathroom. I ran into the bathroom and Mel was semi-unconscious on the floor, then that Ren guy joined me,” Ale explains what happened.

“He left the knife and his mask, if we’re lucky we’ll get some fingerprints or DNA or something,” Ilkay says and then he takes the little waiter by the arm and forcefully places him on a chair. Axel moves closer to me and he whispers in my ear.

“I’ve watched the entrance the whole time, only Ren and Alejandro went in and came out.” I look into his eyes and give him a nod. Logan hands me the piece of paper I saw in his hand earlier. I read the message and the palm of my hand makes contact with the bar.

John Blackburn, I need you to come to meet me on Thursday at 11 pm at the BAE System Pier 2.

No police.

I read the message one more time before pushing the paper into my back pocket.

“Why did she call you? Something up with you two?” Logan looks at me with scrutinizing eyes.

“No, nothing’s going on. She was hallucinating and called me the devil, asked me to keep her away from the clowns.” I know I’m lying but I can’t deal with the truth now, I need to focus on finding this D character. I pull the waiter from the chair, turning him around, pinning his arm behind his back.

“Who gave you the drugs to put into the drinks?” I twist his arm a little until he growls in pain.

“I don’t know anything about drugs. Logan gave me the drinks to take to his sisters, that’s all! I promise it wasn’t me.” He looks like he’s going to shit his pants. I shove him forward knowing he’s innocent – else he wouldn’t have drugged Kiara as well. Logan rubs his temples as if his head hurts.

“Somebody must have slipped it in before the waiter took it. I can’t say, with Chloe’s big group here it was rather busy at the bar.” He hits the table with his fist. Axel drags Ren towards us. I hate this guy with so much passion, it’s not even funny.

“So what’s your story?” Logan also doesn’t like his sister's ex-boyfriend for some reason.

“I came out of the bathroom and saw the guy running into the girl's bathroom. I followed him and saw Mel on the floor. That’s it.”

“Did you see or hear anybody else around at that time?”

“There was somebody in the bathroom when I went in, one of the toilets was occupied … and it was still occupied when I went out.”

“I’ll go check it out,” Axel drops Ren’s arm and walks away to the crime scene. I need to get away, to clear my head, so I walk back to the office where Mel and Kiara are sleeping. As I get to the door I hear Kiara’s voice and stop to listen. It is not my intention to eavesdrop, but I do it anyway.

“So you don’t remember anything?”

“No, I remember drinking that blue cocktail, and then it’s sort of blank. And you?” My heart flutters at hearing her voice. She’s awake. She’s going to be fine.

“I think I saw some ants crawling around, and I’m not even so sure about that at this moment. My head hurts bad.”

“I saw worms, but cute green ones, and some ugly motherfreaking clowns with knives, you know. And then the devil himself came from a hole in the roof and saved me from the clowns. And right now I have a motherfucking-thumping headache.”

“The worst part was that I couldn’t move like I was stuck to the table.”

“Yeh, I also had that. Ug, remind me to never drink a blue cocktail ever again.”

They giggle and then both groan, I push open the door. All eyes stretch wide and they look like kids caught smoking by their dad.

“How are you feeling?” Mel just stares at me as if I’m the ghost from Christmas past. I can see she’s tense.

“Okay, I guess.” She sweeps a hand through her hair.

“Who did this?”

“I can only remember bits and pieces that don’t make any sense. I only remember a clown with a knife. Ug, and some green worms.” I see her tense up again and I look down at her face. Then she looks at her torn shirt and she pulls in her breath.

“What?” I need to know everything, painful as it may be. I’m going to get this son of a bitch and strangle him. Now she’s as stiff as a corpse and I see her biting her lip. I almost lose control thinking about what he might have done or was going to do. I want to rip the fucking asshole’s head off and tear him apart piece by piece. It’s crazy to think of the amount of power she has over me, and it scares the living daylights out of me. I know I’ll give all of myself just to keep her safe. Corny, yes I know. But I keep my cool, barely, not wanting to scare her more.

“He said something about showing me how a real man fucks and …” I almost lose it completely and need to bite my cheek so hard that the metallic taste of blood forms in my mouth. She picks up the blanket and looks at her pants as if she wants to make sure he didn’t rape her. I’ve already checked her pants. I can hear her voice is shaky and after a few seconds of waiting for her to continue, I realize she’s stalling.

“AND?” Kiara prompts eagerly.

“… I remember being very scared of the look in his eyes.” She speaks so softly, but I heard every word. I take a deep breath. Shit. I try to cover my emotions as best I can at this moment and rather walk away to find Ilkay with Axel at the bar.

“The window was open. Suppose he could’ve climbed out and down, but it wouldn’t have been easy,” Axel explains.

“Can you and Axel take the girls to your parents? I would feel better if there’s a doctor around tonight and I have a shift.” Ilkay grabs my arm, his worried eyes even more so. I nod in agreement and Axel walks with me to go get the girls.