What I do remember is what happened when they began to move me towards the door. One moment I was in the middle of the three of them and the next I was stood alone. I heard a deep voice booming out, "Time for you gentlemen to leave."
"Who are you, her Dad?" one of my suitors replied.
"Close enough. Off you go."
"We're not going anywhere, Pops, why don't you-?" The voice was cut off as I caught a blur of movement. The door swung open and he was gone. I still had no idea what was happening. The other two men looked at the owner of the voice and I turned too, wanting to see who the hell it was that was ruining my evening.
It was the guy who'd been staring at me. He had hold of the two men, one in each crumpled fist. He was shoving them towards the exit, ignoring their protests as I watched in disbelief.
"What's going on?" I tried to say but what came out was little more than a drunken mumble. I took a step back from the brute as he turned from the door, towering over me. I managed to screw up my backwards step, stumbling into a table. I tried to catch myself on it but my balance went and I was on the floor a second later.
"Oops," I said, giggling to myself.
"Come on," he replied. "Let's get you some water."
He put his hands under my arms and pulled me upright, leading me back to my stool and not letting go of me until he was sure I wasn't going to slip back down to the ground. He sat next to me and I got my first proper look at him as he stared back at me in disgust.
He was much older than me, probably by ten or maybe even twenty years. Handsome too, though there were flecks of grey in the corners of his dark brown hair, a couple of wrinkles on his forehead. I was caught by his eyes when I saw them close up, the darkness of them took me by surprise, as if he'd seen a lot of things in his time, most of them bad. His jaw was firm, his mouth unsmiling as he turned to the barman and ordered two mineral waters. He scared me.
"Drink this," he said, pushing a glass across to me. "You need it."
"Try my wine first."
"I'm good, thanks."
"I'll drink your water if you drink my wine."
"Fine," he sighed, taking a sip. "Happy now?"
"Very," I replied with a smile. "Who are you?"
"A friend."
SEVEN
ISABEL
A friend, he'd said. What the hell did that mean? Friends weren't so threatening, so menacing, so scary.
I looked at him and then he turned into two people, then four. I blinked and two of them vanished. With a groan I closed my eyes again, opening them a few seconds later to find him holding my water. "Here," he said, holding the glass towards my lips. "Drink this."
I did as he said, opening my mouth just enough to feel the icy cold water run down the back of my throat. It didn't take the nausea away but it took the edge off it and when I looked at him again, there was only one of him looking back at me.
"You should be more careful," he said, giving me another sip before putting the glass down on the bar. "On your own with guys like that around, you could get yourself in trouble."
I shrugged. "I can handle myself."
"I bet you can."
We lapsed into silence. He sipped his drink, his eyes fixed on mine. I felt uncomfortable with him staring at me like that, as if I was an experiment he was observing, an experiment that repulsed him.
"What?" I snapped at last. "What's wrong with me?"
"You need an answer?"
"You look disgusted with me, think women shouldn't be allowed to drink, is that it? Got a daughter my age, blah, blah, blah."
"I don't have children."
"Come to kill me then? Serial killer on the lookout for your next victim?"
"What would you do if I said yes?"
"Get you to buy me another drink first."
"Then what?"
"Then I'd call my father to come and get me and have you arrested."
A flicker of a smile crossed his lips. "Go on then."
"Go on what?"
"Call your father."
"I will, don't think I won't."
"Go on, then."
"I'm going to call him right now."
"I'm waiting."
I dug my phone out and held it so he couldn't see the screen, wanting to call his bluff, scare him off from whatever he had planned. He didn't know I couldn't ring my father. I tapped the screen and then held the phone to my ear. "It's ringing."
He reached over and grabbed it before I knew what was happening. "No it isn't," he said, putting it on the bar between us. "Why don't you want to ring him?"
I sighed. "It's a long story."
"Care if I take a guess?"
"What are you, a psychic?"
"Nope. I'm just good at noticing things."
"Like what."
"Like the fact that you're underdressed for the weather."
"So?"
"So that means you're not great at planning. You've only just arrived here, I know that too."
"Have you been stalking me?"
"You're in the worst bar in the town. No one from round here would choose this place." He twisted to face the barman. "No offence."
"It's a shithole," the barman replied with a shrug.
"You don't know me," I snapped, getting annoyed with how cocky he was.
"I know you've run away from home and you don't want to go back. That's why you faked the phone call. I know you left in a hurry and that's why you're sat here without a decent coat. I know you're worried and you're trying to drown out that worry by getting drunk. I know you're not very sensible or else you wouldn't have needed rescuing from those scumbags."
"I didn't need rescuing!"
"I suppose you would have been happy to be fucked by the three of them at once, that your kind of thing, is it?"
"I'm not that type of girl. We were just having fun, that's all."
"I think you've a different idea of fun to men like that."
"Is that what it is? You want sex? I'm not looking for sex, you dirty old man."
"Why are you here, then?"
I scowled at him, he was the most irritating man I'd ever met. "For your information I am on my way to see the love of my life."
He paused for the briefest of seconds, long enough to prove I'd thrown him. There was something Mr Prediction hadn't predicted. "You are?" He raised his eyebrows, as if he thought I was lying.
"I am."
"So you're in love?"
"I am."
"But you're still happy to be picked up by three guys at once?"
"Fuck you."
I lunged at him, trying to push him off his stool. My hand bounced back off him and I lost my balance, slipping from the stool and thumping down to the floor.
"Smooth," he said, leaning down to offer me a hand.
"I can get myself up," I replied, batting his hand away.
"Course you can," he said, taking my hand and gripping it tightly. "You don't need any help at all."
"Well," I replied, feeling him pull me to my feet, seemingly with no effort at all on his part. "I don't."
The water he'd given me had been overpowered by the wine inside me. I swooned slightly against the bar, the walls beginning to spin as I felt nausea washing over me. "I think I'm going to be sick," I muttered, staggering for the bathroom. "Excuse me."
I made it into the ladies, landing on my knees in the nearest cubicle. I sat there feeling at my absolute worst, looking down into the bowl and wondering just how much wine I'd had. It wasn't enough to make me feel like this, was it? Had those guys put something in my drink? Had he? Had he put a pill in my water? Would I have noticed?
It would explain why I felt like death, my insides churning as I sat there, heat crawling across my skin, my nerves shot. I closed my eyes, my head slumping downwards. I didn't want to pass out. He was still out there and I didn't trust him. But a second later, it happened anyway.
EIGHT
JAKE
I woke up the next morning to find her gone from the bedroom. That was unexpected. Everything else had gone how I'd expected. I'd dragged her out of the toilet with the help of the barman, finding her unconscious in there. "Drugs?" he asked, looking at her slumped form on the floor.
"Too much drink too young," I replied, checking she was still alive. She was. That made life easier. I hefted her over my shoulder, carrying her caveman style out onto the street, leaving the barman with a warning to keep his mouth shut. The twenty I'd given him would help with that. I didn't need the local police investigating, it would just complicate things.
The three men I'd thrown out were visible in the distance, arguing with the doorman of another bar. I swore silently. My car was down that way and I wouldn't be able to get her past without them noticing. Looking around, I thought what to do. Across the street from the bar was a hotel, not a good hotel, but perfect for my needs. The man behind the counter barely lifted his head from the racing pages when I entered. "Forty a night," he said, his hand outstretched. "In advance."