Almost thirty minutes later we were pulling into a large parking lot teeming with cars. The usual crowd of raver kids and emo rejects were milling about, making their way to a dark building in the distance.

And just like every time I approached Compulsion, I felt an instant rush of excitement and anticipation. I was becoming more than a little addicted. It was exhilarating and sort of scary. But it wasn’t the type of scary that made me want to run in the opposite direction. Not anymore. It was a scary that I wanted to explore and embrace.

Brooks pulled me toward the huge line, and we took our places. Part of the fun was the people-watching. Compulsion brought out all kinds—from the preppy boys trying their hand at dressing like badasses to the truly freaky. Take the woman wearing pasties and black leather panties—this dominatrix queen held a metal chain attached to a man dressed as a gimp, complete with ball gag.

Brooks discreetly pointed out the group of women, possibly in their thirties, who looked as though they had taken a night off from the coven, with their long, flowing dresses, flower garlands, brightly painted, talon-like fingernails, and necklaces made from what appeared to be human teeth.

We passed the bouncer’s keen inspection, and then we were inside. I felt as though the heat and the music were smothering me. It was exactly what I needed.

This time when I ordered my drink, I didn’t take my eyes off the beverage. I had learned my lesson. Brooks had gone to dance; I had politely declined, wanting to soak it all in. I also wanted to see if my mystery man would make an appearance.

Finally tired of playing wallflower, I moved into the crowd and started dancing. I had never been a great dancer, but I liked it anyway. Lucky for me, the dancing at Compulsion didn’t require a lot of skill. People were bobbing on their feet, glow sticks between their teeth.

I sort of rocked my head from side to side, swinging my hair into my face. My arms rose above my head, and I started to move in time with the thumping bass.

Dancing at Compulsion was a communal experience. Complete strangers pressed against me, and we moved together like one primal beast of sweat and heat. My OCD had taken a backseat to the energy. It was unreal.

A girl with bright purple hair grabbed my hand and looped my arm around her waist. We rocked our hips together, dancing, two people who enjoyed the music, nothing more, nothing less. There was something incredibly freeing about being physically close to so many people who were all here for the same reason.

To escape.

I felt a set of hands on my hips, and without bothering to look behind me, I pulled purple-hair girl into me, and I was dancing in a crazy, debauched sandwich.

It was completely out of character for me, but for once I just went with it. That was the real beauty of Compulsion. It made what was out of the ordinary seem possible.

I loved it. I never wanted to leave.

One song bled into the next without pause. As my dancing partners changed, I barely registered their faces. I didn’t talk to any of them. Words weren’t necessary. We weren’t here to make friends.

We were there to just be.

It could have been minutes later. It could have been hours. But I finally realized how tired and sweaty I was. My legs felt wobbly from all the bouncing and jumping. My hair was plastered to the side of my face, and I was way too warm.

I pulled away from my newest dance partner, a guy with more tattoos than uninked skin. He didn’t protest, just turned and started dancing with someone else.

I pushed through the throng and leaned against the back wall, trying to control my breathing. I couldn’t see Brooks. I only hoped he was still around somewhere. I couldn’t imagine him leaving me behind, but when I pulled my phone out of my pocket I was shocked to see that it was already one-thirty in the morning.

This place seemed to suck you into a void, and before you knew it, you’d lost all sense of time.

A girl wearing barely any clothing came up next to me. “You lookin’ for anything?” she asked, yelling into my ear.

“What?” I asked, not understanding what she was asking.

The girl rolled her eyes and pressed a small bag in my hand. I held it up in front of my face and saw that it held a tiny pill. The girl pushed my hand down. “Don’t be so obvious about it,” she said in irritation.

I tried to hand it back to her with a shake of my head. “I’m not interested in this stuff.”

The girl shoved my hand back. “It’s a free sample. You want more, you’ll have to find it yourself. Don’t be a narc; just enjoy the ride,” she said, her head bobbing in time to the beat. With a final pointed glance in my direction, she disappeared into the crowd.

I didn’t want the drugs. But I didn’t know what to do with them, either.

I shook the small plastic bag, wondering what exactly the girl had given me. I was intrigued, despite my better judgment.

I shook the pill onto my palm and stared at it as though it would give me the answer. But I knew one thing: This stuff was bad. I knew this was the kind of crap that had killed my sister.

Yet I was curious.

What was it about being in this place that made me want to indulge in the scary and unknown? It was nuts. It was completely illogical.

And I was smarter than that.

I had to be.

I hastily put the pill back in the baggie and dropped it on the floor, smashing it under my boot.

I felt jittery. The brush with a temptation I didn’t entirely understand rattled me, but I felt proud of myself for not giving in.

And then I saw him.

The guy with the baseball cap. The one who had stopped me from becoming a rapist’s plaything. The man who had prevented me from being trampled to death my first night at the club.

The guy whose face was still a mystery.

He was talking to a man not twelve feet from me. They were partially hidden in a dark corner. Their discussion appeared heated, but it was definitely my faceless guy. I recognized the broad width of his shoulders and the telltale cap pulled low over his eyes.

I started to walk toward him. It was as though I was being pulled toward him.

I watched as he took some money, tucking the wad in his back pocket. I noticed my mystery man put something in the other guy’s outstretched palm. The subtle exchange was carried out in less than thirty seconds, but it was obvious what was happening.

My mystery guy was a drug dealer.

Remembering the baggie I had discarded on the floor, I had to wonder if he was the one circulating that shit in the crowd. Considering the steady flow of “customers,” it was an easy association to make.

Nice guy, my ass. It was obvious he was like every other predator looking for an easy mark. I was devastated by the new assumption that perhaps our encounters had been nothing more than a chance for him to acquire a new customer. And here I was thinking I was special.

After another guy secured a pocketful of something that clearly made him very happy, a girl took his place and pressed into mystery dude, her breasts brushing his arm. She opened her mouth, and he dropped something onto her tongue. She rolled her head back, her barely concealed breasts popping out of her shirt.

The girl wrapped her arms around mystery guy’s neck and rubbed against him provocatively. I couldn’t see his eyes, but his mouth was grinning. He put something in his mouth and continued to allow the girl to move against him.

The girl reached up and pulled his cap off, and for the first time I could see his hair. It was blond and curled around his ears in a very familiar way.

I pushed through the crowd, getting closer. And then I stopped, frozen in place.

The guy turned, his hands resting on the girl’s hips while she writhed against him. His cap had been discarded on the floor, and I could see his face in the red light that hung above him.

It was Maxx.

Suddenly something dark and ugly unfurled in my belly—something that was possessive and territorial and that pierced with the sting of betrayal.

Only a few hours ago he had been pressed intimately against me. A few hours ago, I thought that we had connected, that I had meant something to him.

But watching him here, in the flickering shadows, wearing the face I recognized but didn’t yet understand, I felt like a complete and total idiot. How did I not recognize Maxx in the broad set of the mystery guy’s shoulders? How had I missed the soft curls that I had felt with my fingers just a few hours ago?

I watched as he popped another pill in his mouth and then pulled away from the girl, who reached after him. He gave her a less than gentle shove, and she stumbled back, almost losing her balance. He bent down to pick up his cap and set it back on his head. He pulled it low over his eyes, hiding his face again.

But there was no more hiding who he was. He wasn’t a mystery. He wasn’t a hidden savior.

He was something else entirely.

I desperately tried to ignore the twinge inside me that screamed, Wait, there has to be more to him than this.

I backed away, using the mass of bodies as a shield between me and the boy I had briefly allowed inside my carefully constructed walls.

Maxx started to move through the crowd, shouldering people out of his way. I don’t know what possessed me, but I began to follow him. I stayed far enough back that he couldn’t know he was being shadowed.

My stomach was a twisted knot.

Maxx was stopped frequently, and he would lead people to the outskirts of the dance floor, where he would conduct his “business.” It was easy to see that he delighted in his role in this world. He teased the girls who begged for what he had tucked in his pockets. He aggressively stared down the guys who were equally desperate to procure his goods.