The studio opened up around me in a way that made it hard to tell where one thing ended and the next began. Ceilings stretched high, wooden beams exposed, while streetlights spilled through the wide front windows, washing everything in a pale, borrowed glow. The air carried sawdust and metal, cutting and earthy, with a faint trace of whatever chemical someone had used to mop up after a bad date with a power tool.
Sculptures stood frozen mid-process, flanked by bins of parts and scraps. Table legs leaned like they were gossiping with rusted chains and shards of glass waited in neat little piles. It was messy, sure—but the kind of messy that made sense if you lived there. Nails sorted into coffee tins, chains coiled like snakes on the floor, canvases leaning in a row as if waiting their turn.Nothing about it felt abandoned; it all carried the weight of someone’s hands, someone who didn’t mind leaving fingerprints on their work.
Compared to the penthouse above, it was almost laughably unrefined. Nothing matched, nothing gleamed, and yet, in its quiet chaos, it felt more like home than all the coordinated perfection upstairs.
Three people surrounded the long central worktable. The artist hunched over a half-sanded slab, sleeves shoved up, muscles flexing tight as he worked the edge smooth. His friend had claimed a stool as if this were his living room, lounging easily with a grin tucked in the corner of his mouth. Beside him, a woman in a tank dress—plain in theory, unfair in execution—balanced a mason jar of beer so hazy it could’ve passed for juice.
Nancy darted straight toward them like she was meeting up with old friends.
I followed, determined to reenter the room like a normal person and not someone who had recently expelled the contents of her stomach into a piece of commissioned art.
“Hey,” I croaked.
Three heads turned at once.
The artist kept his face locked between focus and a scowl. His friend, though, wore the opposite—open, easy, a teasing grin with a trace of kindness tucked in behind it. And the woman? Her gaze swept over me like a scanner at checkout, one brow quirking. Not judgment, exactly, more so cataloging everything for future reference. Blonde curls tumbled over sun-warmed shoulders, and she looked effortlessly put-together in that maddening, Savannah-cool kind of way.
“I’m… better,” I lied, though no one bothered to ask. My voice cracked at the end, which didn’t help the illusion. “Sorry about the mess.”
“You sure?” Not-A-Cop’s friend asked, already pulling a stool out with his foot and nudging it toward me. “You kind of went full exorcist out there.”
The woman passed me a clean glass of water without a word, her eyes softening—slightly—when our fingers brushed. The artist still hadn’t spoken—he stood there with his arms crossed, watching me like he wasn’t entirely convinced I wouldn’t unravel in front of them. Beside him, the blonde gave me a deliberate once-over, trying to look unimpressed, and almost succeeding, but there was warmth there.
“I’m Sutton,” she said finally. “And you are—”
I opened my mouth, but Nancy cut me off with a sharp, accusing bark that ricocheted through the room.
And that’s when it hit me.
My stomach knotted, and a cold sweat prickled across the back of my neck. The air got thick, and every breath felt like work.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
The floor lurched. My vision smeared at the edges. I turned toward Not-a-Cop, scrambling for words—an apology, a warning—but nothing came out.
Then the room tilted, and everything went dark.
***
I came to slowly, my head pounding with a heavy, dull rhythm that felt like someone had set up a bass drum behind my eyes. My mouth was desert-dry, my tongue thick, and I was sprawled out on an object that was very much not a bed. The surface beneath me was cool, a little sticky, and almost certainly never advertised as a place for human recovery.
Voices bled in and out. Blurry shapes hovered above me—three of them, close enough that their expressions came into focus. One looked genuinely concerned, another hovered in thatawkward limbo betweenshould I helpandplease let this not be my problem,and the third—arms crossed, mouth pressed tight—looked about five seconds away from dragging me to the curb.
“Is she breathing?” Sutton asked finally, tone flat, eyes locked on me with the kind of bored precision that made it clear she was not thrilled about her role in tonight’s drama.
Then, apparently deciding I wasn’t dead enough to warrant panic, she uncrossed her arms and plucked my wallet from the mess on the table. With a sigh, like this was the last thing she had time for tonight, she started flipping through it—slow, deliberate, every movement laced with judgment. ID, punch cards, a receipt for what I washopingwas pizza and not a cry for help—all of it examined like clues at a crime scene.
Not-a-Cop—the only name I had for the artist pacing like a lunatic nearby—ran both hands through his hair again, making it stand on end like he’d stuck his head in a dryer vent. He looked equal parts furious and deeply inconvenienced.
His friend hovered off to the side, holding his phone in both hands as if he expected someone else to take over and tell him what to do. His thumb hovered above the screen, but he didn’t move.
“She’s Doyle’s cousin, or maybe sister,” Sutton said excitedly, holding up my ID like she was announcing the winning raffle ticket. “Tallulah River Aden. Does that ring any bells to either of you?” She glanced at the guy looming over me. “Dude, why are you glaring at her like that?”
The artist squinted, like the name had lodged somewhere in his memory but hadn’t fully surfaced. He leaned back on his heels, finally out of my face.
“Aden. Wait—Doyle Aden?”
The friend was already dialing. “Doyle’s not picking up. Let me try Jordan.”
