The Soldiers look about ready to leave when I arrive back at the club.
Only a couple handful of them are dancing now, the music still playing but not as loud as it was earlier. The Soldier on the DJ's platform is not moving around as enthusiastically as he was when the party first started, but he's nodding his head to the beat of the music just the same, the large pair of headphones still pressed against his ears. I scan the crowd, looking for the familiar pair of dark eyes, but I cannot seem to spot them anywhere among the sea of people. I check the bar, seeing someone who isn't Mia behind there, still serving drinks to a few of the Soldiers.
In one corner of the room are three male Soldiers. Two of them are looking at the third who has his whole body pressed in between both walls at his sides, clutching something white to his face that's stained with blood. None of them are Nox.
I start to turn away but I suddenly feel the injured Soldier staring back at me. I lock eyes with him, watching as he says something to the other two and nods in my direction with something akin to hatred in his gaze. His entire face doesn't look happy to see me. The other two look at me then look back at their friend, shaking their head and saying something that I suddenly wish I could hear.
I turn away from them, still looking into the crowd but not seeing him.
Nox, where are you? I send to his mind, hoping he can hear me over this music.
When he doesn't reply, my heart starts to pound as I make my way farther into the crowd of people, scanning each and every face to make sure that I didn't skip over him. I shake the remaining fogginess from my mind and continue to look.
He's not here.
Where are you? I send again, more rushed and urgent this time.
A few beats pass. Then, I can see you, he says into my mind, the familiar buzzing sensation floating around inside my head. Look up, to the right.
There he is, sitting on some kind of box, a white cloth very much like the other Soldier pressed firmly against his cheek. What happened here, while I was gone? Someone is up there with him, but I can't make out who it is from down here.
I look back down to the ground and silently curse Nox for getting into a fight with one of the Soldiers. The main objective of this mission is to keep a low profile and be background players. He even said that to me. Now it seems this fight was the life of the party. Most of the Soldiers still on the dance floor are murmuring about this, causally glancing up at Nox and over at the other Soldier who he fought with.
"He's up on the mezzanine," someone says from next to me. I turn to see one of the female Soldiers looking at me, waiting for my reply.
"Excuse me?" is the first thing that comes to mind.
She nods up to what I'm assuming the "mezzanine" is. "He's up there," she repeats, eyes lingering where she's looking.
"Thanks," I reply as I make my way to the stairs that lead up to the next level, ignoring the burning feeling of the other injured Soldier's gaze following me up the steps.
Mia looks at me over her shoulder from where she's sitting on a storage box in front of Nox. She smiles and immediately stands up and offers me her seat. I thank her quietly and lower myself onto the crate in front of Nox who still has the white cloth, stained with blood, pressed against his cheek. It would probably look worse than it is, if he removed the material from his skin.
"What happened to you?" I ask in a low voice, looking up at Mia when Nox shakes his head and doesn't reply to my question.
She crosses her arms over her chest and looks down at Nox, her face dropping the longer she looks at him. "There was this fight..." she starts.
"I'll tell it," Nox interrupts, his voice muffled as he looks up at Mia then back to me, "since it happened to me." He removes the cloth and winces, showing me the split lip and a few cuts along his jawline. A trail of blood has dried under his nose, almost touching his lip. It does look bad.
"Jeez..." I mumble under my breath, staring openly at his wounds but trying not to.
"I was dancing with everyone else when suddenly someone was getting closer and closer to me," Nox says.
"I can second that," Mia pipes up, looking at me as she nods her head slowly. "I saw this happen from only a few feet away. I was in the bar."
Nox nods along with her, carefully checking to see if any more fresh blood comes off on his fingers. It doesn't. "Some girl I never met before was dancing around me and maybe a few other people," he continues. "Then the next thing I knew I was pushed away from the crowd and... punched in the face, I think. It was all such a blur."
I raise my brows. "And then you punched the guy back?"
Nox gives me a strange look. "Naturally."
I laugh. This does sound like something Nox would've done if we were still in the Ghetto. I remember what he said to Michael, something about using his head as a football if he kept being rude to Serena. I know now that Nox was probably only half-joking with him.
I shift on the box and take the bloodied cloth from his hand and shake it once at him. "So why did he punch you?" I ask, placing the material on my thigh.
He stares down at the rag then back to me. "Turns out the girl who was dancing and him were together."
I raise my brows, at a loss for words.
"Before you jump to any conclusion," Nox says, interrupting my thoughts, "it wasn't the girl's fault, or mine. All she was doing was dancing with two other of her friends and accidently started coming closer to me and a couple of other guys in the middle of the dance floor. Her eyes were closed—she wouldn't have seen where she was going."
I stay silent, waiting for him to finish.
"I think the boyfriend was drunk," Nox says, and doesn't say anything else about that. "So that's why he punched me. He must have thought I was trying to make a move on his girl or something."
"I didn't think we were allowed to have girlfriends or boyfriends," I say, almost referring to the Soldiers as if I wasn't pretending to be one.
"We are allowed," Mia interjects quickly, coming into my line of sight. "It's not a rule where we can't be in a relationship." She shrugs slowly and a strange look crosses her face as she continues to stare at me. "Hartman just said to make sure it doesn't affect us or our jobs. I mean, come on." Mia laughs. "Even Hartman is getting some. He tries to keep it on the down-low, but everyone knows."
I don't reply, but a small smile escapes me. I push the look she was giving me from my mind as I turn to look at the crowd below. We've only been pretending to be Soldiers for a few days, and already Nox was caught up in a fight? I know it might not have been his fault, but we're supposed to be background characters during this mission, nothing more.
For a moment, as my eyes glaze over the slightest bit and I see red, I think about wiping out the entire Soldier population right now, get it over and done with. I'm that powerful. The world would be a much nicer place if we were trying to survive without having to hide as well.
I focus my attention on Nox again, pushing—forcing—the thoughts from my mind.
I stare at his wounds for a moment, silently cursing myself for not being here to stop this from happening to him. Mia hands Nox over another clean cloth when his lip starts bleeding again. He presses it slowly to his face and hides a wince, heaving a sigh from between his teeth instead.
Mia turns to look at me. "What happened to you, Jackson?" she asks softly, tilting her head curiously. "After you left the bar I didn't see you again."
"I went to the bathroom," I reply, ready to dodge any questions that could be accusing. "Those drinks went straight through me."
She's quiet for a moment, studying me. Her eyes settle on my hair and she squints at me in the dim light. "Why are you wet?"
Why is she asking me so many questions? I smile and push the question from my mind, touching my head casually to see how wet it really is. I run my fingers through it and push it back when I feel the dampness. I guess the walk back here took longer than I thought if my hair is this wet. It wasn't even raining that hard on my way back.
"I needed fresh air," I say slowly, glancing over at Nox once more. "It was raining when I went out there."
For a moment I think she might ask another question, because I see her eyebrows furrow as she looks at my hair again. But then she nods once, smiles, and says, "Fair enough, I guess," and looks back to Nox again.
My chest deflates. I feel my fingers slowly uncurl from where they were clenched into fists on my lap. I feel a sting in the palm of my hand and look down to see a thin train of blood from where my nails were digging into my skin.
Mia's attention drifts to the dance floor, where a few Soldiers are still moving to the soft beat of the music, still not as loud as it was earlier.
I turn my eyes to Nox's, who's already staring at me with an emotion akin to anger floating around in his dark ones. I'm sorry I wasn't here, I say into his head before he can say anything to me first.
He doesn't respond straight away, but I can feel the push and pull inside my mind where he's trying to decide what to say back, ready to put it into my head. He trains his gaze downwards, towards the floor where he scuffs his boot against the box I'm sitting on.
He looks up again. Did you at least end up saving the Freaks from the prison? he finally asks, the anger from his eyes slowly disappearing.
It's my turn to look down as I remember what happened back at the prison. A few of them, I reply. I could have saved more, if I was just that little bit quicker and smarter.
And stronger, I almost send to him, but I end up thinking it instead, the words like a punch in my gut when I realize how much truth they tell.
Just before Nox can reply, a sudden screech from the DJ's table diverts our attention. The Soldier up there taps once, twice, three times on the microphone and raises it to his lips. "All right, guys," he says, his words echoing around the large space, "party's over. Just got radioed by Hartman saying we need to get back."
All at once, the Soldiers down below start for the entrance. None of them seem to be complaining about leaving. I watch them for a moment before rising from the box and heading down myself with Mia and Nox on my tail. When we get to the bottom, I catch eyes with the Soldier who punched Nox. His gaze doesn't have any emotion as he continues to look at me, but they fill with anger as they slide over to Nox behind me. So much anger, in fact, that I swear he's going to punch him again.
"He's not worth it," I hear the Soldier behind Nox's attacker say to him, taking a subtle glance over his shoulder at us.
As we enter the hallway, my eyes seem to automatically glance over at the office where I stole the poncho. I have to stop myself from opening the door and looking inside again as I pass it, clenching my hands into fists at my sides and looking straight ahead so I don't do anything stupid.
"What a night," Mia whispers from next to me, breathing a sigh through her teeth as her fingers brush through her thick dark hair, moving it away from her face. "A strange night."
"Tell me about it," Nox replies, mumbling the words rather than saying them to her. "I'm ready to get the hell out of here."
I smile at the exchange of words but it immediately drops. I keep thinking about what happened at the prison. I was so slow. I had ample time to save many Freaks, but I only ended up saving five. It's not enough, not in my eyes. I can be better, stronger, braver. I can be, if I just tried hard enough; if I pushed myself enough. It's the only way I can complete this mission.
In this world, only Freaks can save Freaks.