“Yeah. I had to give him ten bucks, but he finally told me that The Depot is like this superexclusive emogamers’ nightclub in the city. And for another twenty bucks he gave me the address.”
She opened her drawer and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper.
“What … really?” I reached for it.
April pulled it away. “I don’t know if I should tell you where Jude is.”
“Why?”
“Because if I tell you, then you’ll go tell Daniel or your dad, and they’ll go down there and just scare him off. If he wanted them to find him, then he would have contacted them … not me.”
“Not us. Jude contacted me, too.”
April looked down at the folded piece of paper. She turned it over in her hand a couple of times and sighed. “I don’t know if this will even do you any good. You can’t just walk into The Depot. I told you, it’s, like, superexclusive. Not even the kid who gave me the address had actually even been inside yet. You have to have a special keycard or you can’t even get in the door.”
Keycard? I stuck my hand in my jacket pocket and pulled out the plastic card I’d found at the market yesterday. “You mean like this one?”
April’s jaw dropped. “How did—?”
“You’ve got the address. I’ve got the card. We can do this together, or not at all.” I took a step toward her. “What do you say?”
“Okay.” April stood up. She shook in that excited-nervous way of hers. “But we’re going to need makeovers.”
I almost dropped the keycard. “We’re going to need … what?”
THAT NIGHT
Yeah, so this is pretty much the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, I thought as I listened to the weird vroom-vroom noise the borrowed pair of vinyl pants I wore made as I walked. The sound was so distracting that I didn’t see the crack in the sidewalk, and stumbled in the high-heeled red leather boots April had insisted that I wear.
April caught me by the arm before I fell. “Those are hard to walk in, huh?”
“The pants or the boots?” I grumbled. “Seriously, why do you even have vinyl pants?”
“They’re for my Halloween costume. I’m going as Lady Gaga.” She pointed to the pink sequined top she wore with a denim jacket and a black miniskirt. “This goes with it.”
Great, I was headed to a nightclub for the very first time in half a Halloween costume. I wrapped my arms around my waist, trying to cover up my bare midriff. This lacy red top was far too short for my taste, but April had forbidden me to wear my wool jacket over it because she said it would ruin the “ensemble.”
And not only was I dressed like a pseudohooker, I was also walking down a street only two blocks away from Markham—the worst neighborhood in the Midwest—after dark. Yep, this definitely ranks on the list of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.
April looked down at the paper in her hand and then did a full circle, looking at all the buildings on the street. “This is supposed to be the address, but this doesn’t look like a nightclub to me.”
I’d been so distracted by my ridiculous clothes, and the prospect of getting mugged and/or solicited by a total stranger, that I hadn’t even paid attention to the architecture around us. I looked up at the building we stood in front of. It was long and wide, with boarded-up windows and a huge chain wrapped around the handles of the decrepit double doors. I could feel a slight vibration under my feet. “Isn’t this that abandoned train station they’re always talking about on the news? How it needs to be demolished?”
April shrugged. “All I know is that I’m going to punch that stoner kid in the ’nads if he doesn’t give me my twenty bucks back. He totally ripped me off.”
I took a couple of steps closer to the building. The vibration in the ground got stronger, rumbling through the soles of my shoes and up the pointy four-inch heels. Another two steps closer and I could feel the vibration in my ears now. Music—coming from somewhere nearby. Underneath us, perhaps? If it weren’t for my powers, I probably would have missed it.
“No,” I said. “I think we’ve found it. The Depot? Train station? Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“I guess,” April said. “But this place is totally boarded up.”
I motioned to April as I followed the musical vibration around the side of the building and down the narrow alley between the train station and an equally abandoned-looking warehouse. Stupid, stupid, stupid, I kept chanting to myself with every quick step, but if this was the only way to track down Jude, I wasn’t going to turn back now. The sounds of a screeching car and a shouting man back out on the street made me pick up my pace until I came to a metal door on the side of the building. It looked far more modern than the chained-up doors out front. The vibration was strong from behind the door, and I could even pick up the faint rhythmic pulse of techno music.
“I think this is it.”
“Are you sure? This doesn’t look like a club entrance. I mean, shouldn’t there be bouncers or something?” April’s earlier courage seemed to have washed right out of her. The pale look on her face made it seem like she’d been half anticipating/half hoping we wouldn’t be able to get into the club without fake IDs. A consideration I hadn’t even thought of until now.
I tried the handle, but a bolt in the door stopped it from opening. Then I noticed a keypad next to the doorway with a small red light. “I think all we need to get into the club is the keycard.” I pulled the card out of my pocket—a harder feat than it sounds when your pants are made out of vinyl—and swiped it through what looked like a credit card reader. The light on the keypad turned green, followed by a loud clicking noise as the bolt in the door unlocked.
I pulled on the handle. The door slid open, and a wave of pulsing music flooded the alley. “You ready?” I asked April.
“I guess so.…” She straightened her miniskirt. “I mean, yes,” she said with only a hint of a tremble in her voice. “Let’s do this.”
Just inside the doorway was a long staircase. I grabbed on to the railing and prayed I wouldn’t slip in my high heels as I navigated my way down the cement steps. At the bottom we went through an open doorway and entered the club. It buzzed like a hive with gyrating people, flashing lights, pulsing music, wafting fog from a dance floor in the middle of the room, and flickering plasma TVs as big as cars extended from cables attached to the ceiling. Groups of guys, mostly in their early twenties or younger, crowded around the TVs. They cheered and shouted while playing video games that mostly involved shooting, speeding cars, and almost-naked women. The gaming crowd was dotted with a few girls—dressed just as scantily as the ones on the screens. But mostly the only females in the place crowded around the bar on the far end of the club, or partied on the dance floor in corsets and leather getups that put my attempt at a tough-girl outfit to shame.
The guys who filled the expansive room were a weird mix of hipsters and Goths. I’d never seen so much nasty facial hair, so many tight pants, piercings, and tattoos in one place. I couldn’t help thinking of the party I’d happened upon at Daniel’s old apartment on Markham Street—the one that had sent me running scared into the night—only this was twenty times worse. This was definitely the kind of place I always imagined the adults in Rose Crest were trying to keep us away from when they told us stories about the Markham Street Monster.
“There’s the Wi-Fi station,” April said. Her voice still shook a bit. “That’s gotta be where Jude contacted me from.” She started toward a group of narrow metal tables with rows of bolted-down laptops on the far left-hand side of the club, slightly removed from all the commotion.
“What are you doing? I thought the plan was to stick to the shadows?”
“You’re supposed to stick to the shadows. Keep an eye out for your brother, maybe ask around. I’m the bait.” She fluffed her curls and plumped her pink lips. “If Jude’s here, then I want him to see me. We’ll lure him out into the open.”
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.” Even from our spot in a dark corner, I could tell we were drawing more attention than I cared for. I knew April had been going for sexy with her choice of outfit, but her denim jacket and pink-sequined tank stood out like a neon HELLO, I’M CLUELESS AND VULNERABLE! sign in this sea of black leather and piercings.
And vinyl pants or no vinyl pants, I’m sure I looked just as poseresque as she did.
“If Jude’s here, then the person he’s most likely to approach is me. Just stick to the shadows and keep an eye out.” April sauntered over to the
Wi-Fi station. With a flourish, she swept her blond curls over her shoulder and sat at the computer. I cringed at how innocent she looked, sitting there out in the open.
I decided to stay close to the perimeter, circle the room, and keep one eye out for Jude and the other eye on April. I made it once around the whole club without making eye contact with anyone, but then realized that I probably did need to ask around if I planned on finding anything out about Jude. I stood in a corner for a minute, working up my courage, and then noticed someone I actually recognized among a group of guys at one of the gaming stations. Under their tattoos, most of the guys looked like they couldn’t be much older than me, and the one sitting with a wireless game paddle off to the side of the group looked all too familiar.
Pete’s friend … the one he called Ty. I glanced around me, wondering if that meant Pete was somewhere nearby—he was the last person I wanted to run into in this place—but it seemed like Ty was here without him. I knew the guy had thrown me against a brick wall the night before, but I hoped he was still freaked enough by Daniel leveling his friends that he wouldn’t give me any trouble if I tried to question him. Besides, he seemed relatively docile compared to most of the guys at his gaming station.
Ty frantically pushed buttons on his controller and chanted, “Come on, come on,” under his breath, so he didn’t notice me sidle up behind him. I was about to tap him on the shoulder when the tattoo-painted guy next to him shot straight up and started screaming obscenities at the screen.
“Who just killed me?” he roared.
Ty dropped his controller on the metal table in front of him and tried to scramble out of his chair, but the angry gamer grabbed him by his jacket and yanked him up so hard his feet dangled just above the concrete floor.
“Did you just kill me?” the gamer shouted into Ty’s face.
“I’m sorry, man.” Ty’s voice quavered. “I’ve never played this game before.”
“Who let this newb in here?”