The Secret Rebellion (Book 3 in The Secret Series)

Chapter 9: Reunion

Chapter 9: Reunion

The sound of heavy, unnecessarily loud music was overwhelming. For the first time in my life, I cursed my superior Asgardian hearing. I fought the urge to stick my fingers inside my ears, and gritted my teeth instead. How anyone could enjoy this type of music was beyond me.

Strobe lighting flashed annoyingly, making the scene before me look like a stop motion film. The colours continuously changed, and the lights served to blind all those who dared enter. 

The underlying stench of sweat was almost unbearable.

The room was bursting with people, most of which were dancing wildly on the dance floor. Unlike a normal club, the dancers were a hazard to both other people and themselves due to the fact that most of them had superhuman abilities.

One man spontaneously set alight, which caused a surge of excitement throughout the room. He milked his ten seconds of attention by making the flames spiral high into the air and dance above the crowd, earning a few gasps which were lost beneath the noise.

A woman was concentrating so much on trying not to trip over in her huge high heels that she didn’t notice the fact that her large, white wings were starting to unfurl and knock people over as she danced erratically.

Another mutant was casually climbing across the ceiling like a tree frog. He also had a disgustingly long, pink tongue which flicked out randomly as he grinned. He spotted my sickened gaze and wiggled his tongue in my direction.

There was even a mutant who was hovering lazily about a meter above everyone’s heads, while casually making a bottle of beer spin in the air beside him as he floated...

This place was insane.

Mel, however, grinned at the sight of the mutants and looked as if she wanted nothing more than to join in the fun. Steve watched sceptically, eyeing the hovering man warily.

Glancing around, I couldn’t see Tony or Bruce from here. We were going to have to delve into the crowd.

“You can go and dance – I’ll look for Bruce and Tony,” I told Mel and Steve, yelling over the noise. I had to repeat myself three times before they finally understood.

“Are you sure?” Steve asked, struggling to be heard over the music.

I nodded, giving him a thumbs up. Mel didn’t waste any time; she grabbed Steve’s hand and they disappeared onto the dance floor. I skirted the edge of the crowd, deciding that the most likely place to find Tony Stark was at a bar.

However, when I finally stumbled across the bar – which was in a separate, quieter room – there were only a couple of people sat in the stools, looking far too happy to be sober. I didn’t dally there for long.

I bravely ventured back onto the dance floor, trying desperately not to be knocked over by someone’s wings or have beer accidently poured over my head.  It was awkward trying to manoeuvre around the ‘dancing’ – if you could call it dancing – mortals.

Eventually, I ended up back at the edge of the dance floor. However, even here proved not to be safe, as I was unceremoniously shoved from behind accidently by an uncoordinated dancer. I stumbled forward, but was luckily steadied by a pair of hands before I could fall. Gratefully, I looked up to thank my saviour, but ended up looking straight into a pair of wonderfully familiar, astounded brown eyes.

Tony looked stunned, but his expression morphed into delighted as he took in the sight of me. My expression mirrored his perfectly.

He looked good, of course. He always did. Casually dressed in a black shirt and dark jeans, you could just make out the faint blue glow of the arc reactor in his chest. A pair of aviators precariously balanced on his tousled dark hair.