Trust In Me

Chapter 1: Believe Me

"No," Kit says flatly, pulling his pillow over his head. "I'm not going."

The mattress dips as Ming flops down beside him, tugging at the pillow to uncover Kit's grumpy face.

"Pretty please, P'KitKat? It won't be any fun without you."

Ming is smiling his most persuasive smile and wheedling in his sweetest voice, but Kit is having none of it.

"Hell no," he says, glaring as Ming continues to give him sad puppy eyes. "I hate dance clubs and I don't know any of your old high school classmates except Yo. Why should I go along to celebrate the birthday of somebody I've never even met?"

Ming plants a kiss on the nearest body part he can reach, which happens to be Kit's nose. "Because I want to show off my handsome boyfriend? And have him protect me from nasty girls?"

"Who said you could tell the whole world I'm your boyfriend?" Kit mutters with a scowl. "I didn't agree to—" He halts as Ming's words register. "Wait. Nasty girls?"

Ming pulls the same face he makes when he bites into something sour. "I'm pretty sure Moowarn will be there," he admits. "The birthday boy Rune is her cousin, and one of her best friends is dating him."

"Ughh," Kit says with an exaggerated gagging sound. "All the more reason for me to stay away. Take a machete with you instead. If she lays a hand on you, chop it off."

"My Kitty is so fierce." Ming sidles closer and nuzzles his face into Kit's neck. "Come on, P'Kit. Yo asked Pha to join us but he can't make it—he's gone home for his parents' twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. You wouldn't want Moowarn to scratch up my handsome face, would you?"

Kit snorts derisively even as he tips his head up to give Ming easier access to his neck. "For the third time: No. You're as tall as the King Power skyscraper, Ming. I'm pretty sure you can fend off one petite girl with a grudge."

Those words will come back to haunt him later.

~

Kit hears his phone ringing while he's showering before bed but doesn't think much of it. By the time he's dried himself off, though, Yo's ringtone is sounding for the third time in as many minutes and Kit feels the first faint stirring of alarm. He snatches it up from the bathroom counter.

"Yo? What's up? I thought you and Ming were out with—"

Yo interrupts then, his voice high and frantic above the bass beat of a dance tune in the background. "P'Kit, can you come right away? Something's not right with Ming and everybody else is just laughing about it, and I—please, can you come?"

Kit's blood runs cold. "Ming? What's wrong with Ming? And where are you? Text me the address." Before Yo can even reply he's throwing on his discarded clothes and hunting for his keys.

As he drives—the destination is a nightclub in a trendy waterfront district, popular with the privileged rich crowd he loathes—he puts Yo on speaker to get the details he missed while racing out of the dorm.

"Ming's not acting like himself," Yo shouts against a loud backdrop of club noise. "He's only had a couple of drinks but he's slurring and stumbling and—P'Kit, don't get pissed off, OK?—he's letting Moowarn and her friends put their hands all over him."

The sound Kit makes then isn't human, it's pure animal fury, a snarl that would do a wildcat proud.

"That reeking, festering piece of shit!" he screams, the words echoing painfully loud in the confines of the car. "When I get there that asshole is going to die."