"All right. I'll be back in a little while."

I put on my Red Sox hat and my jacket and ventured into the night. The only place open nearby was a gas station convenience store. I took from the shelf every drug that alluded to Skylar's lengthy list of symptoms and went to pay.

At the register, there were two girls in front of me wearing sparkly, low-backed shirts. Though one was blond and the other a brunette, they had matching short, spiky haircuts. Glancing at their necks, I noticed their fairy marks, out in the open for all to see. Judging by the way they were drawing attention to themselves, they never had a reason to live in fear.

When they noticed me, they burst into a fit of whispers and giggles. I forced a slight smile back, one I'm sure they were disappointed with because I put zero effort into it. I was too disheartened by my bad luck. I was stuck in Scumtown, USA for the night, and if that wasn't bad enough, there were fairies in the area flaunting themselves around like bait. I almost felt obligated to remind those dainty little Modifiers how many sword strikes it would take for a Gray Coat to sever their fairy marks from their bodies.

The answer was one.

When I arrived back at the motel, people were amassing in the parking lot. There were even less parking spots than there were before. A party was spilling into the area, its base a few doors down from where Skylar was supposed to be resting.

Just as I found a spot, the two fairies I saw at the gas station were stepping out of the car in front of mine.

Great. . .

It could have been a coincidence. But it felt like I was being followed. And the Jaguar seemed to warrant added attention as well. As I shut the car door, there was a small army of disco junkies flocking toward me. 

"Hey man, how's it hangin'?" a tripped-out guy with purple pants said.

"Fine," I stated as I moved past him. 

"Dude, that car is gravy!"

I pushed forward, mostly around humans, although there were a few exposed necks with marks.  

"Right on, brotha."

And then a passing body sideswiped me. I nearly tripped into the fairy blond. "Aren't you foxy?" she said as her eyes shot to my belt.

"Don't you want to hang with us?" her friend said.

I rattled my bag of fever, cold, cough, and anti-nausea meds. "Sorry. Sick girlfriend."

They tagged along at my heel. "Then she won't miss you," said the brunette. "I bet you've never partied with our kind before."

"I know your kind all too well."

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

I think the blond was talking about my fairy mark, but the way she said it, she could have easily meant it the way a human would interpret it.

"Good-night ladies," I said as I unlocked my door. "And do me a favor and keep it down." I slipped inside, closing and locking the door in their eager faces without remorse or hesitation.

Skylar didn't stir when I flipped on the bedside light. She was that tired and that sick. I felt terrible for waking her, but she needed the medicine. Unfortunately, the pills, the syrups, were all too much for her. We had the hardest time getting anything to stay in her system. We kept trying, though, and eventually, she fell into a heavy, medicated sleep. And I finally gave myself permission to rest too. But my sleep was the light, paranoid, restless kind that was further punctuated by noise from outside. I wasn't concerned until I heard screams.

Probably just the cops breaking it up. And it's about time!

I went over to the window and peeked between the blinds.

Oh . . . fuck me. . .

~~~

Bee Gees. Stayin' Alive (1977).

https://youtu.be/fNFzfwLM72c