Mind Games

Chapter Twenty-One: The Devil's Drummer Boy

Lucca woke to the feeling of a balloon being blown up inside of her head that threatened to break the capacity of her cranium as the pressure mounted to an ache that lacked a desirable end. Her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth, a bitter taste and dryness at the back of her throat served as a painful indicator to her misgivings the night previous.

She knew instantly why people called it a hangover. Why the sun felt like your biggest enemy and as though the blackest and heaviest of dark clouds were hanging over your head. It was a headache that affected the entire body.

She could feel herself being weighed down by the toxins of the alcohol. As though the magical solution to her problems had really been a poison in the reality of a new day.

Distantly, she knew why the devil had so many sinners knocking at the gates of hell, as they over indulged in the poisons that served as an unhealthy aid in the commitment of their sins. If becoming sober in the light of God was this painful, why wouldn't they turn back and re-walk the path of which they came?

Not many would be able to resist the temptation.

Lucca would consider herself among them. What she wouldn't give to silence the little drummer boy circling around inside her head. The Devil's advocate rather mercilessly tapping out a beat that was in sync with her heart, except louder and a lot more annoying. The demons having survived their drowning were dancing along with him. Taunting and teasing her.

A hair of the dog hangover cure would have the drummer drumming no more. The demons would resort back to their shadows.

Though, admittedly, she wasn't feeling as bad as she knew she otherwise should have been.

Which didn't stop her from groaning as she opened her eyes and was met with a warm darkness. Even with blurry vision, she could tell that the setting was unfamiliar. She looked around at the shadows, discovered the window across from her, and knew it shouldn't have been there. Knew that the satin-blend sheets she'd been sleeping on should have been a slightly higher thread-count, laced with the scent of her body wash and perfumes rather than the neo woody scents clogging her nose.

Her eyebrows drew together in a frown and she rolled slowly over onto her back, stared up at a white ceiling, at the dark shadow she figured to be a light fixture. She tuned her ears to every sound, and scent. Knew the headiness of the smell as well as Jake's, as well as Giada's. If she were in her own room, she knew she wouldn't be smelling it, but she was.

Because she was in Kanas's bedroom.

In his bed. Surrounded by his sheets... wearing his shirt.

The change of her clothes was a new revelation. The cloudiness of her memories did little to remind her of how she came to be out of them and in someone else's.

She recalled drinking at a bar after receiving a text from Ethan. She remembered the bar fight, and the blood. Being arrested. A conversation with a cop, another with Kanas. And something that had happened with Kanas had obviously landed her in his bed.

She frowned as she tried to remember her time with him. Came out with nothing more than dinner (or was it breakfast?) and a conversation. But there was more. There was the way he'd tended to her wounds, the way he had so graciously bailed her out and looked after a drunken Lucca.

She knew it to be no minor feat. If she had a sharp tongue when sober, there wasn't an easier way to describe how cruel she could be when inebriated.

But what had happened between them that had landed her in his bed?

Her stomach rolled as she thought of what she might have told him. Then she grimaced as she wondered if his actions following any revelations were done out of pity or decency. She'd told him that she wanted to kill him.