That was it. I was done with this nonsense. I brought the hose to my lips, took a deep pull, then stepped in close to Chris, backing him up against the bar. I angled my leg between his and pushed in until every part of me was brushing up against every part of him. The green apple burst and stretched until it was part of a brilliant rainbow, a curtain of color between us. I snaked my hands up over his shoulders, cupped the back of his neck, and leaned in. With my mouth only centimeters from his skin, I exhaled. I could feel him relax around me, and then, with effort, straighten up again.

“You should at least try to loosen up a little,” I said. But before I could say any more, I was distracted by a familiar laugh. I whipped around and saw Shelby Gray puffing on a hookah in a barely there backless halter and painted-on jeans. She was sitting on the couch, draped over the lap of some guy I didn’t recognize. Definitely not Gibson. Guess Vee was right—they were Split City. Shelby tilted her head back and the guy nuzzled her bare shoulder.

I forgot all about the green and the rainbow and the smell of Chris’s aftershave. My heart sped up and I felt a little tingly and dizzy. Probably part adrenaline and part green apple. Well, and part Chris, if I was being really honest.

“I’ll be right back,” I said. I started to weave through the crowd. Chris was saying something to my back, but I was singularly focused on one thing and one thing only: getting to Shelby Gray. Finding out where Luna was.

To get to Shelby, though, meant I had to cross the dance floor, which was like trying to swim upstream, if upstream was filled with flailing arms and whipping hair. The DJ had just started a new song—a grinding remix of something familiar—and people were flooding the floor like crazy. I lost sight of the couch and caught myself balling up my fists at my sides, my shoulders tensing. If Luna was here, there would be no better place to shank me and take off.

The DJ yelled into the microphone about partying, and ratcheted up the volume another notch, which I wouldn’t have thought was possible. I turned to plead for help from Chris with my eyes, but I’d been cut off from him too. The crowd had closed in, and all I could see were the people surrounding me.

I didn’t like being surrounded.

I began to get disoriented as the lights went crazy, flashing and strobing and zipping colors up walls and across faces and clawing across the darkness of the ceiling like meteorites. My head began to pound from trying to keep it all straight.