Valerie

The plan

Looking around and searching for it with her eyes frantically, using her left hand she held her hair in place as she glanced around the floor looking for her phone while blocking her eyes with her right elbow to avoid the flickering lights that was hurting her eyes.

" Looking for this ?,"

Valerie halted and looked up. He was holding out her cellphone to her. She looked from her phone to his face wearing a questioning look.

At the moment he seemed mesmerized with her beauty and innocence he just stared back at her.

Valerie grabbed her phone off his hands quickly.

"Thanks." She muttered and started to walk away quickly

Realising himself he started to explain In a stutter.

"I...I caught that while you were falling," he said shouting the latter part so she could hear him over the loud music.

But she had already disappeared into the crowd.

Valerie wanted to be far away from that guy, he was giving her these vibes she honestly wanted to erase, she wasn't supposed to feel that way concerning anybody except her fiancée, speaking of Kelvin she had to find grace , they needed to get out of here immediately, the smell of weed and cigarettes assaulted her senses.

She managed to walk past all the crowd and find herself in a corridor with steel like looking walls. The corridor was dimly lit with deep blue lights, giving it a hazy calm atmosphere.

She walked self consciously, bringing herself not to look at couples making out in the corners by the wall. A girl was moaning so loudly. A guy was carrying her, his trousers half pulled, but covered with his shirt. They were having s*x. The sound of him hitting her v****a could be heard so loudly while the girl screamed non chalantly.

Valerie placed her both palms on her ears and walked quickly, running a little in a bid to drown their noises. Everyone here seemed crazy.

" Come on beautiful, I could make you feel like a real woman." A weird looking guy offered coming so close to Valerie she could smell the booze on his breath.

Valerie froze, and starte taking small steps backwards. Where the hell was Grace? They needed to leave this mad house immediately.

The guy kept coming closer, baring his disarrayed teeth, which several were replaced with golden teeth.

He was chuckling and rubbing his palms together like one about to eat a delicious snack.

Valerie was terrified, she kept moving backwards until her back hit the wall and surprisingly it gave way. Stumbling she tried to find her footing, but still fell on all fours close to someone's feet.

"Valé!," A familiar voice rang out.

Valerie closed her eyes in deep gratefulness.

"Look what you've done!," Grace swore.

Forced to open her eyes Valerie discovered that she had spilled grace's drink into her clothes when she fell.

She looked up at her friend's crossed face. And then at the other four people in the room.

It was Madison, Tyler and two guys whom Valerie could mentally guess were their boyfriends.

"You clumsy fool." Grace grated out.

Valerie was shocked. The other four laughed, they were hung up on eachother and so cuddly smoking and drinking. They kept passing cigars around.

Tears filled Valerie's eyes threatening to fall. Still on all fours she bowed her head trying to hide the forming tears. Why was Grace sounding so irritable to her, she hadn't offended her.

"Hey,"

Valerie looked up to see grace stretching out a hand to her.

"Get up. Please."

Without hesitation Valerie took her hand and let grace pull her up.

"Here. Sit," grace said smiling. She pushed her gently into a pillow couch placed on the floor beside a very low table.

Valerie could see bottles littered across the table. She watched as grace took a mouthful of drink and put a cigar stick in her mouth. Bending over the table towards Madison amd Tyler who sat across the table.

Madison lit up the cigarette in grace's mouth.

Valerie was shocked. She didn't know grace smoked.

Madison signaled Grace nudging her head towards Valerie.

"Here. You should drink this." She said pushing a glass towards Valerie.

Unsure of what to do for some seconds, Valerie shook her head.

"No, I'm fine, I think you should finish up let's go, Kelvin might be worried by now."

"Kelvin?," Grace scoffed.

"Of course he would be worried. You are his fiancée." She added bitterly staring into the golden liquid in her glass absent mindedly.

For a moment Valerie was confused. Why was Grace sounding like that?

Realising her mistake, Valerie smiled brightly.

" But you still need to drink something, I mean you came for a party, yes? You need to act like it." She said filling the little glass cup with alcohol and pushing it again towards Valerie.

"I...I can't__,"

"Drink it! Drink it ! Drink it! ,' Valerie started chanting and hitting the table.

The other four joined in, soon they were all singing.

"Drink it! Drink it!,"

Valerie glanced around the room, they all looked back at her with expectation. She looked in grace's direction for a go ahead.

"Go on valé," grace be encouraged.

Taking up the glass, Valerie gulped down the whole drink at once.

"Woah," the guys In the room exclaimed.

Valerie squeezed her face and held her chest as the drink burned down her throat to her stomach.

The room was dead silent. They all watched her face to see her reaction.

When the burning sensation stopped, Valerie lifted the glass and laughed.

"I'm okay!," She screamed laughing.

They all joined her in shouting and laughing.

"How do you feel? ," Grace asked her.

"I feel so good." She replied.

"Want more?,"

"Yes please." She replied. she kept her phone on the table quickly eagerly picking up her glass she held it out for grace to refill.

"Drink up. I got you." Grace said.

Holding the glass with two hands Valerie chunked the drink down and raised an empty glass. They all cheered her on.

She couldn't even hear her phone ring severally. It was Kelvin.