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Excerpt from "The White Ones"

At the end of the bar, leaning against one of the columns, a guy was watching her. He was graceful and thin, no lipstick or chains but black jeans and gray t-shirt and fair hair slick in the shadows. He looked at her from pale eyes that picked up the strobes from the dance floor. The vodka flipped in her belly; she put down her glass and shifted away from the bar. When she looked up again he was still watching her; she crossed her arms against her breasts and yelled over the music.

"What are you looking at?"

He smiled. "And hello to you."

She scowled. "Look, I'm not—I was just on my way out."

"Just nipped out for a quick drink at the local Goth club?"

She sighed. "Something like that."

He left the column and leaned against the bar next to her. He had an easy, boyish face, clear skin and neat white teeth. "You must have needed one pretty badly."

"Yeah, well."

He seemed amused by her surliness. "Let me get you another."

Warning bells and red flags. "Um, no. Really. I'm leaving." She looked around and shook her head. "I don't even know what I'm doing in here. I just —I felt like—"

"You felt like a drink. We have them here. It must be fate."

She laughed despite herself, at the utter ridiculousness of it all. He smiled at her response and put out a hand.

"My name's Jack."

"I'm Holland."

"A pleasure, Holland. What are you drinking?"

"It was vodka. But you really don't have to—"

"Marcus, another vodka for Miss Holland, please, and one for myself."

The bartender passed two shots to him before he had finished speaking. Jack handed one tumbler to Holland and raised the other. "Cheers," he said, and tipped it back.

She drank the shot and wiped her mouth, feeling the alcohol spread warm in her chest. That would be it, though—she had no intention of getting drunk in a strange place without Iris or Nate to watch her back. She always knew her limit, and she always knew when to say no.

Jack set their empty glasses down on the bar. His lips were dry; she glanced at the counter, but both tumblers were already gone. She peered up into the black alcove; the bartender had disappeared again.

"Better?" Jack said.

It was, actually; after two shots her headache was dwindling, the tight panic in her chest finally starting to ease.

"Better," she said, and smiled. "Thanks."

The dance lights spun and the music changed, a grinding rhythm loud enough to shake the air in her lungs. Holland watched the dancers packed in the gloom, a mass of bodies writhing in unison beneath the quickening strobes. It was beautiful, the motion of it, like paint stirred in dark water. She turned to ask Jack a question.

He was close now—close enough to see that his eyes were blue and smudged with a drag of eyeliner, that they lit to silver with each pulse of the lights, that he was not sweating and his tight t-shirt had pulled down past his left collarbone. Her skin was flushed with crowded heat and good vodka, but above the thin material his skin was matte and pallid. She smelled what must have been the wax in his hair, a scent too soft to be cologne, warm between them in the humid air.

"Dance with me," he said.

She looked down at her white shirt and faded jeans. "No—I'm not dressed for it." She started to draw away. "Look, you're sweet, but I really don't—"

He leaned forward without touching her and spoke against her ear. "You came here for a reason, didn't you?" His breath was cool down the slope of her neck. "You came here for something. I can help you find it."

His proximity made the blood pound in her veins. "I—"

His hand came up and she pulled back, but he was reaching for the barrette that held her hair in check. It fell in heavy curls against her cheeks. Between the strands, she saw Jack smile.

"Dance with me."

She took the hand he offered and followed him into the throng.