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Chapter 1

The Devil

“SAVEYOURSELF” BY ASAVA

The first rule of the House was simple.

Don’t touch the freaks.

It was printed on the back of every black admission card in gold lettering, right between NO PHOTOGRAPHY and ENTRY IS VOLUNTARY. People didn’t come here to touch us. They came to stare, pressing against velvet ropes and whispering behind jeweled masks, laughing nervously whenever one of us got too close. That high, breathless sound people make when they want something dirty. They told themselves their fascination was disgust so they could sleep at night, convinced the men chained beneath the lights were less human than the crowd paying five hundred dollars to watch us bleed.

That night, the House was full.

Hundreds of boots moved across the floorboards above me, shaking the ceiling with a continuous vibration that mixed with the heavy bass and loud laughter. Every so often, a scream cut through the noise—the kind produced on cue to make guests feel like they were in danger without actually risking anything.

Some of those screams were real.

Most weren’t.

Yet.

Beneath the main stage, I sat alone on the edge of a cot, turning a hunting blade between my fingers. Silver blade. Black handle. Silver blade. Black handle. Over and over until the steel warmed against my skin, the iron chain bolted to my leather waistband lay slack across the concrete floor.

They’d stopped locking the other end years ago.

A cage works just as well once you teach the animal there’s nowhere to run.

Overhead, the music faded, and the announcer’s voice echoed through the floorboards.

Ladies and gentlemen, tonight you’ve entered a place without judgment.

A lie.

Without shame.

Another one.

Without rules.

That one almost made me smile. This building ran on rules. Guests wore masks for privacy. Freaks wore them because the House owned us. Guests stayed behind the ropes. Freaks stayed inside designated rooms. Guests walked out the front doors at midnight back to their normal lives. Freaks stayed until we rotted.

And nobody—ever—opened the red door.

Three sharp knocks hit the door behind me.

“Showtime.”

I stood, the iron chain scraping the floor. I slid the blade beneath the mattress in the corner, worked the stiffness out of my shoulders, and started toward the door.

Another knock came, faster this time.

“Thirty seconds.”

“Fuck off.”

A nervous laugh slipped through the wood, quickly swallowed. New employee. They always laughed when they were scared of me.

My hand was inches from the handle when the air shifted. The bass still thumped, the crowd still roared, but beneath it all, metal ground against metal.