“Cynna the redhead?” he asks.
“Loud. Beautiful. Owns her own batons.”
He makes a grunt of acknowledgement, the kind that saysyeah, I clocked her the second you walked in.
“She dared me,” I say, quieter now.
“To slap me?”
“To make myself visible, so I came and talked to you.”
He tilts his head, considering. “That’s one hell of a dare.”
“She doesn’t think I take enough risks.”
“Do you?”
I pause.
My pulse is still too loud in my ears. My breath too shallow. But I’m upright. I’m talking. I’mhere.
“I’m working on it.”
He doesn’t nod. Doesn’t agree or disagree.
But I get the sense hebelievesme.
The crowd starts shifting, music segueing into something faster, more chaotic. Around us, dancers spin and twist, hips and hands colliding in messes of movement. Someone’s laughing too hard. Someone else is crying in the corner. The club smells like endings and bad ideas and stories that won’t be remembered right.
And we’re just standing here.
Dancing. Sort of.
Pretending we’re not unraveling.
I glance up at him again.
“Who areyou, anyway?”
He hesitates.
Then leans in.
Voice low, like thunder in a box.
“Call me Vrok.”
“Vrok?”
“Like Vrok and Roll, baby.”
I snort, surprised. “Wow. So…clever. Do all the girls melt for that line?”
He arches a brow ridge. “Do you?”
“I have a thing for walking hazards.”
He huffs something that might be a laugh, might be contempt. “Then you’re in the right place.”
