Shadows and Stars: A Darker Love ✔

Chapter Twenty Seven

Arriving at this place—this place that shattered every cell inside of me a hundred times over—is more sickening, nauseating and terrifying than I thought it would be, even with the odd slither of alcohol still coursing through my veins.

"This is really where you want to go?" The driver asks as he and I observe the godawful, graffiti covered and neon-lit building that's encased by the dark of the night. In all honesty, I don't know if this is really where I want to go. The last time I came here my heart was ripped into a million pieces by what I saw in there, and now I only fear that it'll happen again.

"Miss?"

"Sorry," I whimper. "Yes, this is where I want to go."

The man nods, and I pull on the handle and exit the vehicle, watching as the car disappears into the dark of the night. For a moment I want to run after it, to hop back inside and ask him to take me home. But I'm here now, and, as much as I'm petrified of what I'm about to do, I decide to make my way towards Jack's Cellar.

My stomach churns as I approach the door. The same, large, bearded and disgruntled bouncer asks for my I.D, and the same feelings of fear, anxiety and nausea that stirred inside of me the night I first came to this place return with a vengeance.

"In you go," the large man says, and I swallow as I retrieve my driving licence from his grip and take a small step into the entrance.

I hate this place. I hate it. Absolutely nothing about this place is nice, whatsoever. Strong smells of weed and alcohol sink into my skin, and smoke—or more like fog—swallows me as I make my way down the dreaded staircase to hell.

Yep. I really hate it.

Reaching the large, open dance area, I stop to take a moment, watching the masses of drugged-up, intoxicated crowds go about their night with little care for anything else in the world. I wonder for a moment what it must be like to go about your life without so much as a smidgen of care; to happily visit this place like it's just another Saturday night. Quite frankly, I pray this is the last time I ever set foot in here.

I lean weakly against a graffitied wall and try to take a breath—which proves hard amongst the thick clouds of dry ice that consume the entire room—but once I'm able to see through the crowds, I stare, my eyes fixed on the corridor that's directly ahead of me, and the dreaded, damned white door at the end of it.

The memories flood back; the memories of what I saw behind that door the first time I came here; the feelings I felt when I found the courage to open the door; the pain that shattered my entire body in just five seconds of observing the room. Everything floods back, and it's enough to make my knees buckle beneath me.

"Shit," I groan when my brain finally catches up to the fact that my legs have met the dirt-ridden floor under me. "Fuck."

Huffing, and after lifting myself back up, I brush myself down and flick my hair behind my shoulders. I need to try and drown out the godawful memories that this place brings me, and I need to make my way to that room.

One way or another, I'm going to find Grayson.

The sight of a drunk—or high—man walking towards me marks my sign to move, so quickly I gather a small amount of courage from within me and fight my way through the masses. My legs take the consistency of jelly, but somehow they pull me through the smoke filled room without so much as an extra push. Finally, when I reach the dark, unnecessarily long corridor in front of me, I take in the largest breath I can possibly take and march to the end. To that dreaded door.

Shit.

     "Come on Mia, breathe. You got this. In and out," I tell myself five times over.