I woke up with a heavy sense of impending doom.

Or mostly just a hangover, but an impending doom nonetheless. Because for the first few minutes, all I could do was stare up at the ceiling as I gradually woke up.

Because something was so so wrong.

There was a knock on the dark mahogany door and there was a scared, startled noise--a noise that came from my mouth right as someone shouted from the other end of the closed door, "Room service!"

Room service. I was in a motel room. It took me way too long, way too many minutes, plus the room service lady to finally give up and walk to the next room, for me to realize I was in a cheap motel room. One that I remembered nothing about.

Last night. I tried thinking about last night but couldn't come up with much of anything. I remembered talking with Professor McAdams at some point. I remembered receiving a call from Mom which, like always, hadn't gone well. I remembered the anger and frustration after that phone call.

A small wince left my lips at the dull throbbing in my head just as a loud thud came from the room beside mine.

And then I remembered Nico. Nico and I had gone out, hadn't we? We'd gotten drunk, seriously drunk judging from the pounding in my skull and the hotel bed I'd been sprawled on seconds ago. I pushed aside the sheets and stumbled out of bed, strangely relieved that I had all of my clothes on from last night. There was this niggling feeling in my chest, a warning of some kind, but I couldn't understand it. Not right then at least.

It would've been more alarming and scary and maybe even a little terrifying that I couldn't remember even a single thing--that everything from the point I chugged down my first vodka shot was a black blur--if I wasn't so busy fighting down the sudden wave of nausea.

My stomach lurched. I gagged and ran towards the bathroom. I couldn't even make myself glance around the dirty bathroom as I fell on my knees, gagging once again before I threw up everything that my stomach contained right then. My knees dug into the hard floor as I leaned over the toilet, breathing heavily. Moving back a little, I closed my eyes briefly and grimaced at the taste.

Nico must've brought me here, I thought. But then where was he? And why would Nico bring me here and not the dorms?

There was a soft buzz from outside, somewhere in the bedroom, and I managed to stand up on my wobbly knees, heading towards the sink and cupping cool water into my hands. It was a momentary relief from everything as I washed my mouth and my face. The throbbing in my head was so bad, I almost wished I had a bucket full of ice water so that I could dunk my head in it. I hated the dry taste coating my mouth and I hated the dull throb between my eyes and I hated hated hated that I smelled like cheap booze.

"Okay." I breathed out, grabbed the doorframe of the bathroom, and closed my eyes. "Deep breaths. No need to freak out." This had been my idea after all, hadn't it? Just because of that one phone call from my mother. What had she even said? God, I couldn't even remember what she'd said on that phone call. What if it had been something important? Something she'd asked me to do but I couldn't do it now because I didn't even remember it?

And why the fuck couldn't I remember? What had I even drunk last night that had got me so fucked up?

Taking in two deep frantic breaths, I tried once again to calm myself down and headed back towards the bed, the empty side of the bed where my phone lay. The screen lit up with a text.

It's all fine, I reminded myself.

Only that it wasn't really fine at all. I realized that when I grabbed my phone and saw a text from Ryder.

Ryder: what is this?

Confused, I tried to figure out what he meant by that and scrolled up our text conversation, only to completely fucking stop breathing when I noticed the multiple texts I'd sent him hours ago while I'd been drunk out of my mind. And every single one of them was even worse than the one before.

Is it crazy that the stars are so prettier than the moon even tho theyre so tiny compared to the big big moon

Hey so I was wondering if maybe I could see gem again. Can I see gem again???

Have I told you

Your eyes are so pretty

There is are things

Wait. I can say this porperly.

Ohmygod i probably shouldnt be texting you buuuut. Can I see you sometime soon like tomorrow or today or the day after today

I miss you I miss gem and I've got a friend here but he says I shouldve talked to you. About what I don't know. He's gone now and im bored. Can I see u tonite

Wait I know thats not how you spell tonite. Tonight*******

Jesus fking Christ

I dropped down on the bed and held my head in my hands, cursing out loud. Fuckfuckfuck.

This was a mess. What had I done? What had I been thinking? Clearly, there had been no thinking involved.

I'd thrown myself blindly into this embarrassing, colossal mess.

I made myself look back down at the only text Ryder had replied to me with, just minutes ago, and the embarrassment I felt right then increased tenfold because once again, what had I been thinking? I probably should've locked my phone away into a drawer or my closet or anywhere really before thinking of getting drunk. Because drunk Alice was a disaster who only just created even more major disasters.

I gripped my phone and thought of replying. What could I even say to downplay all those awful, embarrassing texts?

The only thing that came to my mind was,

Me: I'm so sorry. I was drunk.

As if that was a valid excuse. It wasn't.

Ryder didn't reply fast enough and I was jittery, and in the need of water and a cup of coffee, so I gathered my things and exited the motel room with as much grace and dignity as I could've mustered in that moment.

Outside was cloudy, way too cloudy to indicate it was probably going to rain or storm or whatever weird shit happened in this city sometimes. I was shivering because I didn't have my jacket and my eyes were hurting.

I took out my phone once again, heavily disappointed when there was still no response from Ryder (I'd probably, most definitely weirded him out this time), and dialed Nico's number.

"Fuck you, Rhodes." Was his way of greeting me. "You were supposed to stop me from doing this to myself."

By the way he was grumbling and whining, I gathered he was hungover as well.

"I..." I winced and rubbed my eyes--a momentary relief before the pain came back with full force. "Why the cheap motel, Nico?"

"Huh?"

"I woke up in a cheap motel room." I lowered my voice as I crossed the street. At least the motel hadn't been much far away from the dorms. "I can't remember anything from last night."

"Well, no shit." He groaned. "We went overboard with the vodka. Fuck, I hate my life. I hate it. I hate you."

I sighed and told him to drink some water.

"No, you drink some water." He muttered grumpily before hanging up.

I was in the middle of thinking about every little thing I was going to do as I headed back to my dorm, after inhaling some cheap instant coffee from the cafeteria (desperate times called for desperate measures and whatnot) when my phone chirped again.

My heart raced when I saw Ryder's name and scrambled around to open the text.

I was expecting every bad thing, everything that started with him telling me to stop being a fool and with him ending it with blocking my number, but I wasn't expecting that.

Ryder: You can visit.

Ryder: To see your cat.

The cat. Of course, the cat.

•••••

I was exhausted by the time I convinced myself that it wasn't too late to accept Ryder's offer (still didn't think it was an offer, but more so a pitying response to my drunken texting) and visit the address he'd texted me.

It also happened to be the same address the counter lady at Ivy and Co. had recited to me from her thick binder. Obviously, I knew now it was Ryder's address because he'd ordered those flowers for me. He'd told me so.

I still somewhat found it a little difficult to believe he'd done that.

And a kitten. Shit, I vaguely remembered blabbering excitedly about Gem and the sunflowers last night in the bar. To whom? To Nico? I couldn't remember.

Since I was still hungover even after the coffee and a few pills to cure the headache, and even after a pity blueberry muffin Macy ordered me when I'd made a stop at The Bakery, I was annoyed and exhausted both. So I spent the next few hours curled up on my bed and wincing at the harsh sunlight that peeked through the window. Nico messaged me somewhat in between, telling me that his hangover was 75 percent cured and 25 percent still making him want to kill himself.

I didn't reply to him because mine wasn't even 25 percent gone. My head and my temples and the space between my eyes ached. It hurt because I could hear my mother reprimanding me and telling me that this was exactly why she hated me for wasting my life away on alcohol.

When the wallowing in self-pity was rising to a much unbearable level, I grabbed a pair of sunglasses and a thick fluffy grey scarf over my pity hangover clothes (which happened to be an oversized tee and sweatpants. Yes, dull grey sweatpants that I would never let myself wear outside under normal circumstances) before stepping out on the streets and hailing a cab.

Weekends were the worst because everyone was just so cheerful and happy to be roaming about on the streets and outside the malls and the cafes, and perhaps that niggling frustration beneath my skin should've been my first clue that something was wrong. Really really wrong.

I didn't glance twice at the cab driver or outside the windows at the cloudy sky outside. I only slouched in my seat and tried to pretend everything was quiet and peaceful. Which it wasn't. Because people were fucking shouting and blaring their loud fucking car horns outside.

"A bit of a traffic situation." The cab driver told me when I glanced up at him questioningly from behind the safe cocoon of my sunglasses. I shrugged and continued back to staring down at my lap.

It took seconds, minutes, lots of minutes before we reached the busy part of the city. Tall buildings and traffic. Enough traffic to make me anxious. So many cars. What if there was an accident? What if someone stepped on the road at the wrong moment and got hit by one of those cars?

I squeezed my eyes shut, exhaling through the stabbing pain behind my eyelids and only opened them when the driver stopped by on a street that, I noticed, was surrounded by buildings--tall buildings, apartments and expensive penthouses. So different from the part of the city where my university and the dorms and the cheap bars and motels were. I didn't even think we were in the same city anymore.

I paid the cab driver and ended up giving him a handful of tip because I felt a little guilty deep down for making him go through my sullen mood the whole ride.

When he drove off, I turned around and faced the tall building in front of me, suddenly just so nervous about even stepping inside.

Had Ryder just been humoring me when he'd sent me his address? Worse, what if he'd just been sarcastic? How was one supposed to detect sarcasm in a text?

What if he'd meant for me to visit earlier or at night?

Gritting my teeth, I stepped past the entrance and was greeted by a guard, a nice old man who I wished I could return the smile to (but couldn't because I was in pain and kind of freaking out) led me towards the grand elevators once I'd been buzzed into the penthouse.

He was nice and seemed familiar with Ryder, or that's who I think he was talking about, before the elevator doors fell shut between us and I slumped back against one wall, breathing deeply.

The penthouse entrance left me even more rattled because it was too big and way too posh. I wasn't used to it because I didn't want to be. It reminded me of all the rich houses my mom used to take me to, from one of her rich friends to another when I'd been little, and it made my skin buzz with sickening unfamiliarity.

The front door was open and the moment I stepped inside, hesitating, I was almost instantly welcomed by Gem. My kitten.

"Hey." A small laugh bubbled in my chest and I let it fall from my lips, leaning down to pick her up as she sat right there in the most patient way, looking up at me like the best kitten ever. "Aw, come here."

She purred and licked my chin in greeting, and I laughed again. It was relieving because I felt bits of tension leaving my body.

"Asombroso, so you have bonded already!" A gleeful voice came from somewhere on my right.

I was startled as I looked that way to find Raff standing just a few feet away, dressed just as immaculately as he'd been the last time I saw him, with his hands clasped together like he couldn't believe I was petting a baby cat.

"Hey." I smiled at him because fortunately, I'd gained bits of politeness once again. "I didn't think you'd be here."

He grinned. "I am the only one here."

What? "What?" I asked, confused. Ryder had sent me his address. Didn't he live here? Had he sent me Raff's address instead? Was he keeping Gem with Rafael and not with him like I'd asked him to do? Wait, what?

"I see you're confused." He said with a placating gesture as if I was going to do something drastic. I wasn't. I was only just staring at him confusedly.

"You live here?" I frowned.

He blinked.

"I thought Ryder would be here."

He laughed then and it was a knowing laugh.

"What?"

"Geez, princesa, you seem to be in a sour mood just as much as Octavio." He narrowed his eyes. "Something happened?" He wagged a finger between me and a specific empty spot beside me. "Between you two?"

Gem wiggled in my hands and tried to claw up my shoulder. I brushed my fingers over her ears and she purred again.

"No," I said, still so confused.

"No?" He looked confused too now. But then he clapped his hands and all of it went away. "Well then, it's good you are here! You can taste test the coffee I prepared just for this moment."

I followed him past the lounge, glass windows overlooking the cloudy sky outside and the busy streets below. The house was minimalistic when it came to the furniture, bland and grey and too colorless for my liking. Hungover Alice with grey sweatpants fit here just fine. But there was also something about here, the peace and the quiet and the emptiness that wrapped me up in a warm, relaxing embrace. Maybe this was just the hangover thinking.

Rafael stopped when we were inside the kitchen, polished black marble with zero dirty dishes in the sink. It was clean and immaculate and I felt so out of place all over again. I sat down on one of the counter stools, because that way I didn't have to stress out about the situation I was in, and Gem happily curled up on my lap. I gingerly took off my sunglasses and winced at the sudden direct exposure to light.

"See, I came up with this amazing concoction, which is not mine mine but one that runs in the family back at home, yes?"

I nodded, trying to keep up with him.

"I was hoping Octavio would test it out because he's a right grump when he wakes up and what's better than caffeine and tequila to wake you up, right?" He glanced up at me expectantly. I nodded again. "Well, that's what I was hoping for but he straight up told me to go shove it up my ass when I offered it to him before he barged right out of that door."

I blinked, furrowing my brows in confusion, before asking, "So he's not here?"

"No, he left." Raff stared at me. I stared back at him. "He did say you'd be coming by, if that's any better?"

It didn't. I don't know why it didn't. But I also somewhat understood because I had texted him hundreds of texts while I'd been drunk, so it was understandable that he didn't want to actually see me when I came here.

"Coffee then?" He waved the prepared coffee towards me in invitation.

I shook my head cautiously. "I can't. I've...um...got a bad headache."

Raff tsked sympathetically.

"I'm sure it tastes good though." I added weakly even though the thought of tequila and caffeine mixed together made me want to puke.

Rafael smiled that charming smile, one that I couldn't not reciprocate, even if mine came out a bit strained.

He joined me on the stool across from me and we fell into a pretty nice companionable chatter. It was mostly him who talked. He told me about stuff, most of which I didn't understand but indulged in anyway because at least he was here and willing to sit by and talk to me. He wasn't being loud and boisterous like the traffic outside and Gem was still curled up on my lap cozily so everything was perfect for a moment there.

He talked about his family which was odd because he also told me he knew Ryder since their childhood. He mentioned Ryder's name twice but always changed the topic whenever he came anywhere near saying anything about Ryder's background, and by the third time it happened, I was itching to ask why he kept diverting from that topic. Whenever he almost said anything about Ryder's own family, he backtracked so quickly that it left me bewildered. Almost as if that topic was off-limits. It only made me more curious.

Then we were talking about Gem and he seemed delighted with her name when I told him about it. It was a pretty nice afternoon despite how it had begun and I almost forgot about the throbbing between my eyes and the dull sting above my left wrist. At least until the front door was thrown open with a loud slam, enough to startle Gem and me, both.

"Octavio!" Raff exclaimed with a big grin, waving his hand at me. "Look who's here!"

I straightened up hastily and turned around on the stool to look at Ryder, only to blanch at the very first sight of him.

Ryder stopped for a second, a long minute maybe, eyebrows pulled together in a deadly scowl and narrowed eyes darting from Raff to me. And I stared in horror as a trickle of blood ran down the scrape along his cheekbone, dark strands of his hair matted across his forehead as he glared at me.

I stiffened, eyes widening. Before I could've said something, anything, or before even Raff could've said something else, he curled his hands into fists and walked away to another room, going inside and throwing the door shut behind him.

I stifled the flinch at the loud slam and tried to blink away the image of him in that dirtied jacket of his, covered with mud and blood and bruises and hateful anger. He'd given me that look. Or maybe it had been for Raff. Or not.

"Someone's still in a mood, I see." Raff mused before helping himself to another mug of his homemade coffee. He didn't look even a tiny bit perturbed by Ryder's disheveled appearance, almost as if he was used to seeing him like that by now. I tried to will my heart to stop racing. "Maybe I shouldn't leave this for him. He's gonna be a right bastard about it anyway."

I cleared my throat when he sat down before me once again. "Is he." I tried to say. "Is he all right?"

"Yeah, why?"

I blinked. "He looked... There was blood on his hands and on his face."

"Oh, yeah." He nodded and snapped his fingers at Gem's face when she made a move to climb up the marble counter between us. She mewled and pawed at him. "He'll be fine."

I didn't understand why Raff wasn't looking even a little bit disturbed. Ryder had been bleeding. He'd been hurt.

"It's probably much less of his than the person on the other side of his fist." He added.

"What?" I whispered.

"The blood." He gestured his hand over the entirety of his face. "Don't worry. He gets like this sometimes and it usually wears off."

I didn't know what he was talking about and I didn't think I had it in me to ask him to elaborate right then. There hadn't been too much blood, or none that had been visible to me in that short moment at least. Where had he gone and why was he covered in scrapes and bruises? I gripped the sides of my seat, furrowing my brows, and wondered why he was hurting.

Shit, I thought. Was he angry at me for all those texts? Had it been a mistake to come here?

"What are we gonna do with you? You wanna go for a walk, hm?" Raff cooed and it took me a moment to realize he was talking to Gem, and not me. Gem was still trying to paw at his face (in a friendly way) and I helped her up, lifting her to the empty counter as she bounded towards him. "Hey, no sharing the tequila, joya. That's all mine."

I huffed out a soft laugh at the way he slid the half-filled mug towards me and gathered the kitten in his arms. "Would you look at that? It's gone." His face scrunched up in mock horror.

Despite the quiet nagging in the furthest part of my brain, the part of my brain that nagged at me to think and ask why Ryder had looked so worn and pissed off, I still slumped forward into the cool counter and breathed deeply.

I'll apologize to him for the texts again, I told myself as I took out my phone and switched it on to find one text from Nico.

at least someone had fun last night, it read.

I frowned and typed a reply.

Me: what?

Nico: I just read the text you sent me before you left the bar

Nico: with the boytoy you picked for the night, I assume

Nico: I did see you two mixing and matching your life stories

I frowned harder at his words because none of them were making any sense. Scrolling up, I looked at the one text I'd sent him sometime after midnight.

Me: done for the night. Letting you know so you don't start searching for me.

What was alarming was that I didn't even remember typing out those words. I swallowed and tried to scroll up further, but the rest of the texts weren't from last night.

What if, I thought with belated horror, what if someone else had sent this text to Nico from my phone? He'd mentioned something about a boytoy, hadn't he? I'd been with someone last night at the bar. Someone who hadn't been Nico.

I blinked and blinked and stared at the edge of the counter before me, trying my hardest to think. Think think think. The pain behind my eyes pulsed hotly and it hurt if I tried too hard to remember. That had never happened before. I knew there were days when I'd drunk far much more than those few vodka shots from last night, yet I still remembered the hazy bits when I woke up. But why not this time? What had been so different--

I tensed in an instant, feeling my heart skip a slow, horrifying beat.

"You see, this right here is a spoon." I could hear Raff but he sounded like he'd walked to the other end of the room. "And this is a fork, joya. You don't play with forks 'cause they might end up somewhere where it'd hurt you."

I remembered. I'd gone to the restroom behind the bar. I'd returned and there had been another drink on the bar counter waiting for me. A different one. One I hadn't bought for myself. Yet I'd still inhaled it all in one go.

"Hey, Alice, what do you say..."

Dark eyes that had glittered with intensity under the moonlight. The moonlight. I didn't remember the moonlight, but I'd still been there standing outside the bar and there had been a hand on my wrist, my left wrist, two fingers caressing the spot above my pulse. The stranger. A boy with dark eyes and a hidden, sad grin.

I shuffled a little away from the counter, the stool scraping against the floor. My fingers trembled as I gripped my phone, as I flipped it, and pulled off the cover from the back.

I didn't remember anything from last night. I didn't. But I remembered that somehow--I remembered sitting on that motel room bed, I remembered glancing at the moon from the window, I remembered the torn paper being placed in my hands. I remembered laughing and giggling and the drunken haze I was under. I remembered scribbling something on the paper, hushed words being whispered to me by someone else, soft lips brushing over my ear. I'd folded the paper and slid it into the back of my phone.

I didn't remember, but then I did.

I stopped breathing altogether as I looked down at my phone and found the tiny folded paper still there. I hadn't been imagining. Although this time the lights were bright and there was no moon in the sky. I wasn't in the cheap motel room, but I was at Ryder's house.

I unfolded the paper with frantic haste and stared down at the words scribbled in my own handwriting. Letters inked somewhat diagonally and not in a straight line, because I'd been drunk out of my mind. I hadn't known. I stared and I stared and I felt my insides twisting sickeningly.

Brooke is g̶o̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ dead.