SINS & SPIRITS
Where Darkness Drinks
One photo.
A shot of the bar’s exterior—low lighting, motorcycles lined up out front like metal sentries, neon signs glowing red against brick.
And something about it makes the hair on my arms stand up.
‘Come home.’
Letting out a frustrated groan, I roll my shoulders and close the browser, shoving the phone away as though it burned me.
I’m losing it.
That’s theonlyexplanation.
Working too many shifts, sleeping too little, seeing too much death. The mind fractures under that kind of pressure. It was a lesson I learned in foster care, watching other kids crack under the weight of too much trauma and not enough safety, you either build walls or break with them.
I survived by keeping my head down, by staying small, staying quiet, stayingsane.
So why do I suddenly want to walk into a biker bar in the worst part of town and see what happens?
‘Because you’re tired of staying small,’a voice whispers in the back of my mind.‘Because you’ve been running from something your whole life, and you’re finally too exhausted to keep running.’
“Screw that!” I mutter, pushing back through the doors into the emergency room. I’ve got forty minutes left on shift, three more patients to stabilize, and a mountain of paperwork. I don’t have time for existential crises or mysterious pulls toward dangerous dive bars.
But as I’m cleaning blood off my hands in the scrub sink, I catch my reflection in the metal paper towel dispenser. And for just a second, just a heartbeat, I swear my eyes flash gold. Then it’s gone, and I’m me again—an exhausted, bloodstained, human.
“Get a grip, girl,” I mumble, then take off for the remainder of this chaotic night.
The end of my shift comes in a blur.
I clock out and drive home through empty streets, the radio playing too loud to drown out my thoughts and the random voices.
And I absolutely, definitely do not drive past Sins & Spirits to see what it looks like.
Except I do.
The bar is alive at this hour, motorcycles gleaming under streetlights, the growl of engines and low thrum of bass spilling into the night. There’s something primal about it. Something raw and real in a way the sterile emergency room will never be.
I slow down as I pass, only for a second, and I swear someone standing by the entrance turns and looks directly at me. A man. Tall, broad-shouldered, leather-clad. Even from this distance, even in the dark, I feel the weight of his stare as a physical thing. There’s something about him, about the way he moves, it’s slow, yet fast at the same time. I can’t explain it.I feel it.And as I drive past him, it’s almost as if he stares right through the windshield and locks eyes with me.
My heart slams into my chest, knocking my breath from me, and in the rearview mirror, I swear I see my eyes flicker gold again.
“Shit, fucking, shitty, fuck, fuck!” My foot hits the gas before I can think, my tires sliding out from behind me, smoke pluming out from behind my car as I speed down the street as if something is chasing me.
“What in the ever-loving Christ? I reallyamgoing insane,” I mumble to myself, moving my hand up to my rearview and turning it away from me for the remainder of the ride.
When I finally arrive home to my shitty studio apartment, I lock the door, check it twice, and collapse into bed with all my clothes still on.
Just as exhaustion hits and I am about to doze off, that voice hits, this time with a vision behind my closed eyes.“Soon,”she whispers, her smile full of teeth and promises.“Soon you’ll remember what you are.”I wake gasping, my fingers clutching the sheets, sweat pouring down my temple, and when I look down, my palms are stained red.
But it’s not blood.
They’re faintly glowing in the dark, flicker, and then finally fade.
“What in the hell?” I whisper-yell, panic beginning to settle deep inside me as I bring my knees up to my chest, my body trembling all over.
