Chatoyant College Book 7: Upon What Soil

Chapter 20: Dancing

They hurried down the stairs. Corrie led the way directly to the girl doing the body paintings. But when they reached her, Dawn was gone, replaced by a blue-haired guy who was having his arms painted. "Shit," said Corrie.

"June," said Naomi, tapping the painter on the shoulder. "What happened to the girl who was here before?"

June shrugged her free shoulder, continuing a long, sinuous black line down the guy's inner arm. "I finished her back. She left."

Corrie groaned, trying to look around the room. "I told her to stay put."

"If she's high, maybe she just forgot." Naomi shook her head. "She can't have gone far. We'll find her." They started to walk through the crowd, skirting past groups at the edges and in the middle of the room. They were having some trouble getting past one group that was blaring some techno music and dancing when Naomi stopped.

Corrie turned her head to where Naomi was looking and cursed again. Dawn was dancing along with the crowd. Her hair was a mess and she was waving her arms with wild abandon. While they watched, a girl grabbed her hands and they started dancing together, swinging each other around and then squeezing close together, to the cheers of the people around them.

The girl looked familiar. Corrie reached into her pocket for her clover. It was the faerie with the antlers. "Oh, no," she muttered. "I never got a chance to warn her about him."

"Who?" Naomi asked, frowning.

"Do you have your clover?"

"My what? Oh. No, I don't."

Corrie gestured at the person Dawn was dancing with. "That's a faerie. A half-naked guy with antlers. I don't know if Dawn has any idea he's glamoured as a woman."

"She shouldn't be dancing like that with him even if she thinks he's a guy," Naomi said, but she sounded more amused than anything.

"No, and it's really weird. Let's get her out of there." Corrie pushed her way through a few onlookers, then past some dancers, not caring if Naomi was following her or not. Someone grabbed her arm and spun her around, but she managed to get free. It took her another minute to find Dawn. When she did, she ran up and grabbed her with both hands. "Come on, Dawn!" she shouted to be heard over the music. "Let's get out of here."

Her dance partner frowned and pulled Dawn closer, her hands on her waist. The cognitive dissonance was making Corrie dizzy. "Excuse you, find your own partner."

Corrie glared at him. "I'm not dancing, and neither is she."

Dawn let out a loud, chalkboard-scraping guffaw. "You don't get to tell me what to do!" She didn't seem unhappy about it, though.

The faerie pulled Dawn away, out of Corrie's grasp. "If you don't like the party, you can just leave," he said, wrinkling his nose at her.

Corrie was almost insulted at being accused of being a party pooper. She lunged forward and grabbed Dawn's hand again, throwing caution to the wind. Maybe in this situation it would be better to reveal what she knew. "You're not yourself, Dawn," she hissed, loudly enough that Dawn and the faerie could hear but hopefully no one else could. "You shouldn't be dancing with this guy."

Hearing that startled him enough that he loosened his grip on Dawn's waist. Corrie pulled her away. Naomi had finally reached them, and together they steered Dawn toward the door. Corrie risked a glance back at the faerie, and found, to her surprise and discomfort, that he was following them, eyebrows wrinkled together in anger. She decided she could use only one hand to hang on to Dawn and grabbed her keys out of her pocket, fitting them between her fingers in the classic self-defense move and waving them at the faerie. He stopped short when he saw that, his hands clenched into claws at his sides.

"Let's get her out into the air," said Naomi. They propelled Dawn past the doorkeeper and out into the chilly night.

Immediately, Dawn tried to turn around, twisting her arm in Corrie's grip. Corrie had to drop her keys to get both hands on Dawn and prevent her from running back in. "I want to go back to the party," Dawn complained.

"Dawn, you are completely high," Naomi said patiently. "You're not going back in there until you're acting more like yourself."

"I am not high!" Dawn insisted. "I was having a good time! Isn't that what you wanted me to do?"

"Yeah, but I didn't want to turn you into someone else to do it. Come on, take a deep breath." Naomi glanced over at Corrie. "One of us should go get Tom."

"Right. I'll do it. I have to get my keys anyway."

"Sure." Naomi raised her voice. "Come on, Dawn, there's another party over this way. It's even more fun." Corrie turned away from them, running back to the building to grab her keys and protect herself from faeries.