01: Iris's Night Out

"Finally!" Iris mutters to herself taking a sharp breath.

She cleans her dirty hands with a tissue paper after brushing away the dust from her expensive designer clothes that she has recently bought. She had to jump off a high wall to get away from the her bodyguards before sprinting off to get to her friends.Thankfully,they are waiting for her just 10 minutes away from her home.

Well,she could finally do it. Smirking to herself she runs forwards, having no time to waste. She will be considered dead if she gets caught now. Keeping it in mind that anyone from home can come look for her anything,occasionally she looks back to see if she can find or hear any traces of her bodyguards coming for her. For the time being it is confirmed that they don't have any idea about her whereabouts,feeling relieved she releases a sigh of relief. It was a great idea to act tired and sleepy for getting her bodyguards losen up a bit,she admits. 

Iris Smith isn't exactly a rebellious 19 years old but certain things get her all worked up and that rarely happens as she prefers to keep it to herself until it becomes too much to handle. Being all surrounded by bu sharp eyes ofnch of old bodyguards and confined within the four walls of her home is suffocating,she needs to fight to be able to be free and breath properly. The urgency of being free from eyes watching her every movement and having her alone time  make her want to do rebellious things by defying her father. 

She is absolutely grateful to have such a loving and concerned father but to have her watched by bodyguards 24/7 for her so called safety sometimes is too much for her to tolerate.It bothers her that It's always other unknown people around her,her father being absent most of the time for business purposes.

Being the only daughter to Billionaire businessman Richard smith  has Its own perks. It was already hard and lonely for her to be grown up without a mother,but as days passes by her dad becomes busier with his work,probably even forgetting her existence. She really hopes her thought isn't true. 

However,she doesn't mind spending her father's money and sometimes using his name to get away from the problems and chaos that she may create time to time,she also has to pay the price of being followed by dudes with black suits on and bluetooth connected to their ears. 

"Iris! Over here!" Iris looks ahead after being called to find her group of 3 friends standing in front of a car, Grace's car,waving at her while showing their not so white teeth. A sign that they are happy she could join them. Well,she has a black credit card so that explains the reason behind their unbound joy, necessarily that's not the only reason.

"Hey,you guys!" She greets them with the same smile once she gets closer to them still panting as she had to run all the way up here.

Running isn't actually her fortè. Ever after being trained for self defense and all,she feels out of breath even if she lifts up a jug of water. Yeah, being lazy has its own perks too.

"Took you long enough." Emily,one of Iris's friends speaks up causing her to chuckle. Iris takes a moment to reply to her obvious question. They didn't have to sneak out to have a night out like her.

"Be grateful that I could make it this time." Iris replies,darting her eyes at Emily. 

What a great trouble it was when Iris got caught while trying to sneak out of home! Her father was beyond angry which led them to have a terrible fight. Her being grounded for a whole week was like a cherry on the top. It's been almost a year since then. Although,she promised her loving father that she wouldn't cause anymore trouble,she denied to keep her words because he didn't keep his.She may have a bit of stubborn and brat bones in her body.

"You could have made it last time too if Lilith didn't made a total worthless joke about breathing in hell which had Grace laughing like a fool ." Emily scoffs remembering their stupidity that night.

"It was funny though" Grace defends herself,It's not her fault that she finds stupid nerd jokes funny.

It's true, Iris could have made it last time if Grace hadn't laugh like a maniac. No offense, Grace Williams is the perfect definition of tall,blonde and beautiful but her laugh overshadows all of her perfection. Nonetheless, her maniac like laugh is also a perfection of Its own. Iris had a perfect plan that night. After distracting the two guards assigned for her,she would go into the backyard since It's always empty, there her friends would be waiting for her near the flower garden as she couldn't jump off the high wall of her home then,Grace and Lilith insisted they could help her with it. And the rest is Iris's horrible history.

"Let's get going before someone comes out to look for me!" Iris hurries her friends before they can start gossiping. Oh,how these girls like gossiping about nostalgic stuff!

All of the 3 girls nod their heads at her and hurry to get into the car. After making themselves comfortable on the car seats,all buckled up, Grace makes the car roar to life. 

"Shit,it's already midnight." Iris curses under her breath. Should she actually do it? It's so late already. 

Come on,girl.Stop overthinking. You are dead either way so enjoy before you get your ass kicked. 

"The night starts when the clock hits Zero'0 clock,baby." Snickers Emily, causing Iris to laugh through her nervousness. 

It's her first time going somewhere at this hour without any of the guards or her father himself.Yeah,she is now considered an adult but yet she has to be dependent on others. It's a whole level of frustration. 

So, it makes her feel  lucky that she has managed to develop friendship with these girls.Earlier this year,she didn't have much friends till she was enrolled into Milestone University. It's not like that she isn't friendly or social enough. She can be defined as one of the most cheerful and friendly and sometimes funny people. But due to her father's overprotective nature she wasn't able to make many friends.Her father is always worried people are fake and will try to use his daughter to extract money from him. Her dad's fear will turn her into a loner someday who will have to die alone if this continues.

He wasn't like this before as far as she recalls. She didn't have to have people around her till she was 16. Something suddenly changed around that period of time  that made her father so stern about her protection but he is unwilling to share the reason with her.Part of why she thinks she doesn't need any kind of protection as in the last 3 years nothing happened that could be harmful for her. It's just her father's useless fear and controlling behaviour. That's probably the only thing she despises about her dad.

"You sure that we can go there without id cards? I mean,we are just bunch of minors." Iris inquires,being unable to process her friends' words.

"We wouldn't be on our way to get there then." Grace replies,a smirk adorns her face,probably because she was the one who found out about this place and told her friends to tag along. 

"Which kind of clubs allow underage drinking?!" She exclaims.Although she was excited about her night out, now she is rethinking her decision.Trying to tag along with her cool friends to feel cool herself and take her kind of revenge on her father was definitely a terrible idea.

"The one who needs to earn some extra cash." Grace replies to a distressed looking Irish. 

"And the one which is definitely illegal." Chirps in Lilith who spoke for the first time tonight when they are already together for like an hour now. Yeah, definitely the quiet one of the group. 

"Oh? Someone has found her mouth finally?" Emily looks back to eye Lilth who is sitting right beside Irish on the back seat. 

"I was blessed with a mouth when I was born unlike someone who has lost her brain doing stupid stuff." Lilith jokes back but her tone is flat as if she were bored. Well, that's how she always sounds. 

"You-" 

"Guys I don't think we should go there." Iris tries to pursue her friends all of a sudden,not minding them two bickering with each other. 

"Don't chicken out now,Iris and trust me. It's not my first time there, everything will be fine and fun!"Grace tries to reason with her while keeping her eyes on the road as she is the driver tonight. 

"Yeah! Think about drinks and boys! I'm gonna surely bang if I find a fine ass there." Emily admits with an over enthusiastic tone with dreamy eyes. 

"If any guys find your ass fine enough but I guess that's a bit hard." Lilith's comments put water in Emily's burning fire of desire. 

"You fuck-" 

"What if we get too drunk? Who is gonna drive us home?" Iris tries persuing them but It's already in vain,she knows. They are a bunch of reckless teenager,so she is. But right now she is trying to think rational.

"Dude,don't cut me off again,It's freaking frustrating." An annoyed Emily complains.

"I will try to stay sober. Don't worry,my alcohol tolerance is very high." Grace assures her,to which Iris nods her head.

"You did agree though when we asked if you wanna join us to a club" Lilith mutters silently with a bored tone,reminding Lilith of her own mistake.

That was her fault, yeah. There will be a darn punishment waiting for her if her father comes to know about her little adventure. But that's what she wanted. Gaining her father's attention is the main reason why she is here,battling with a dellima whether she should go. 

She finally decided to do something reckless after being coaxed by her friends for 30 minutes straight and now they are at their destination but things aren't going how they have planned earlier.

                                                        ●●●

They are now standing outside of the club after being refused to enter the club without their identity cards. 

"We don't need Id cards you said." Iris mocks all three of them. 

"Come on now, let's go somewhere else." She insists when no one takes a move forward, they just continue to stand beside the queue of the entrance without even uttering a word.

"I swear I had come here before twice with my friends. They didn't even ask for Id!" Grace exclaims,throwing her hands on the air to make dramatic effect,hoping that would be enough to let them know how frustrated and embarrassed she is right now. 

"Maybe those guards were into you or your friends that day but today you look like a pale vampire." Lilith comments,trying to joke but her voice sounds dull as usual. 

"Yeah,they aren't the guards Who were at the entrance that day" before confirming Grace checks out the guards,taking Lilith's joke seriously. 

"Wait what? Did you just call me ugly?" It takes her a moment to realise what Lilith had actually said. 

"Don't start now,please. Let's just go somewhere else." Emily suggests being run out of patience and tired of standing beside the queue for like 15 minutes now.

"You heard her guys." Iris hurries,trying to get away from this place. 

Just when they are about to make a turn to walk towards Grace's car they hear a sudden loud sound resembling the exact sound of a gunshot.Eveyone and everything halts for a while before the hell breaks down.

Within a blink of an eye,everyone starts hurrying to run away,people shouting everywhere just when another gun shot is heard. Panic runs through Iris's entire system,she feels herself getting shut down,suffocated being stuck among a sea of petrified people.