I pull out my phone and fake checking messages. My thumb swipes open the camera and I take one quick shot.
Click.
Everything stops.
The music stutters, then picks back up, but it’s wrong now—strained, strangled, like someone grabbed it by the throat. Conversations cut off in jagged edges. A ripple—cold, sharp, surgical—moves across the room.
Masked heads turn toward me. All of them. Someone saw. Someone didn’t like it. And this place… looks like it doesn’t tolerate curiosity and has a no-camera policy.
From the balcony above, a figure stands half in shadow, half in smoke. Tall. Still. He’s wearing a mask of white and gold, sharp angles catching the light like a blade.
He looks down at me. And I feel it—heat, weight, scrutiny—peeling me open without lifting a finger. Even masked, he feels unmasked.
He tilts his head. Whispers something to the man beside him. He replies with a nod.
Two men peel away from the wall below him, descending like wolves.
I force myself to breathe. Slow. Calm. I pretend I belong.
But my body betrays me—too tight, too aware, too conscious of how badly I’ve just miscalculated.
This is a dangerous game you’re playing, Row.
One of the men blocks my path, his frame eclipsing the strobe lights. Silent.
The other smiles—a perfect smile practiced in dark mirrors, polite enough to sound harmless but wrong enough to curdle something in my gut.
“Lost?” he asks.
“No.”
He steps closer. Close enough that his heat touches my skin, and I can smell him—smoke and something darker, something that feels carnivorous.
“Then you’re right where you’re meant to be.”
The air shifts. Thickens. Heat crawls under my skin. Every instinct screams for me to run, but I freeze, caught between fear and a fascination I hate myself for feeling.
“Excuse me,” I manage. My voice feels scraped raw. I shoulder past him.
A hand brushes my arm—not a grab, just a warning.
“Easy,” he murmurs. “We’re just talking.”
Talking. Right.
The crowd tightens around me like it has its own heartbeat. Faces blur. Lights smear. The music turns predatory again. I move faster. Pushing. Shoving. The exit flickers into view like salvation.
The bouncers see me coming. And the moment they look into my face, they understand.
They step aside.
I burst out into the night.
Cold air claws at my lungs, ripping through the fever the club poured into my veins.
The door shuts behind me. The music dies. The silence feels like a verdict.
I keep walking, but I feel him—the man on the balcony. His gaze clings to me long after I vanish into the dark.
