Taking Chances Chapter 11

A/N: The shortest chapter I've uploaded, but I feel like I can't add anything more to this chapter without it being ruined, even though I know this could have been a lot better. I thought this was satisfactory.

RPOV

I was trying my best to have fun. The night started out fine, Mia and myself took a fair amount of time getting ourselves ready for this new club that had opened up not far from the strip. She was looking pretty good in a pale mint green dress, made of some light, translucent fabric, and I thought I didn't look too bad myself in a pair of white shorts and a loose white top that flowed over my arms. The music wasn't the greatest, it was just plain house music when we usually like clubs that play a mix of different genres, but it was fine enough with us. We were gad to have worn pale colours, the coloured lights reflected nicely off of the material of our outfits – we attracted a lot of attention that way, something we both liked. However, the love of attention was quickly weening off of me. I did not know why, but I steadily began to feel uneasy about the prospect of eyes on me. I just wanted to have fun with Mia, enjoy the music, then pack up and go home. I felt a particular gaze, one that made me more uneasy than the attention. I felt like I was being studied. I felt so vulnerable. I found myself inside the bathroom, leaving Mia to dance, just to catch my breath. What was wrong with me? Why couldn't I just enjoy myself? I was suddenly overcome with the desire to go home, put on some fluffy pajamas, and watch some nice, girly television. The only thing holding me back from walking out of this place right now was the fact that Mia was having fun, I did not want to ruin this night for her.

The sound of glass breaking outside of the bathroom was enough to snap me out of my odd mood and rush outside in time to witness the bar fight that was tearing apart the normal club scene. My heart started to pound, the fast paced rhythm dully ringing through my ears. The house music was still being played – the dj had obviously ditched. The place was in full chaos.

Usually, when fights break out at bars and clubs, security handles it and every one else goes on as they should.

But I could not see how they were to contain this.

Broken glass was flying through the air, dark, rich liquid spewing all over the white tiled floor. People were shouting, most things I couldn't understand – threats, profanities, names of other people. There was not a single person in that club that I could see not in action. Women were in heaps on the floor, struggling to either fight each other or safely exit the club, men were being held back or brawling. Security were trying to get everything under control, but, how can several large men handle the plethora of anger?

Mia, where's Mia? I thought frantically, this was obviously not safe and we needed to get out of here. When I left her, she was in the middle of the dance floor. If I went anywhere close to all of that fighting, I would get seriously hurt, and I couldn't even focus. How could I? Everything was closing in on me, it was so hot my face was dripping sweat, my body ached from dancing, my heart was racing, I was feeling boxed in by the anger and fear that was dripping off of the people in the club. My senses were shocked, I couldn't move – there was no where to go without getting seriously hurt. I couldn't think straight, I could barely breathe, and I was standing off near the bathroom, the only cleared space in the club.

And Mia was right in the middle of it.

I could not leave her there. She could be hurt. Surely, someone here tonight would end up dead. There was already blood on the wet bar, screams ringing through the air – over the horrible music and the shouts. I made a quick plan of when I got her, to bolt for the bathrooms and exit out of the window, since the entrance to the club was jammed with far too many people. Without thinking about it a second more, I thanked whoever was above that I was wearing shorts and sneakers, and threw myself into the fray.


The shots rang out before I found Mia.

I had barely even broken in through the crowd before the pop, pop, pop that kind of sounded like fireworks caused the chaos level to rise about three levels on the scale of mayhem. I had the instinct to get down, but that would have been kind of stupid for three reasons.

Reason number one: People were going batshit crazy. One hundred, maybe one hundred and fifty people were acting in panic. Which didn't help me in the slightest. I was tempted to turn, run, hide, do anything and everything to get away from this place and the danger, danger, danger, playing out in my head. But I couldn't do that.

Reason number two: Mia. I had to get to her. She was in there, somewhere, looking for me. She wouldn't leave me. I hoped she would. I hoped she would just pack up her panic and run away from this place because she could somehow sense that I could escape from the bathroom window. But I couldn't continue to hope that.

Reason number three: I was being grabbed. Someone put their arm around my torso, their hand around my mouth. And I thought I could feel panic before, but I couldn't. That was their panic, the crowds, rolling off me in waves. This, I thought, this is my panic.

My heart stopped, and I couldn't even try to fight whoever was pulling me away from the crowd. I was wide-eyed and lost in a world with spinning colour and screaming people and shattered glass and danger, danger, danger. I tried to scream for Mia, but it was impossible to scream when your heart was in your throat.

I didn't even see what whoever grabbed me looked like. I couldn't smell anything, either. In fact, I could not do anything but allow myself to be frozen in the panic. Even when the person who grabbed me pressed a substance – that I could not smell because I was so terrified – to my nose, I couldn't even to anything then. I could not do one thing but allow my wide eyes and my stopped heart and my voice screaming danger in my mind to comply.