Joss realized, with a sinking feeling that she wasn’t going to get more prompting then that. She swallowed again, her hands wringing together in her lap. They suddenly felt dirty, despite how much she’d scrubbed them in the water before. “We danced,” she said again. “And then there were these police lights. They had to be after me.” Not the others. It still was about her – the police had been after her and this was her fault.
“He saw the lights and I distracted him. We moved to a corner and you know, it was nice for once. He was gentle about it-” Or was it her memory making it better than it was? Her eyes grew hot as she shook her head. “Badr and I both liked him, a bit more than the usuals. He was actually paying attention, he was kinda nice for a guy on a dance floor-”
There was a long pause before she forced herself to continue. “The police came in and it was chaos – shouting and screaming and fighting. They started firing and there were gunshots. And – and he fell on me, just as the first ones went off-” Her voice hitched as she began to cry again. “And it was horrible. The whole thing – it was so, so horrible. It wasn’t exciting or fun, or great – it was fucking horrible.”