I glance up toward the DJ booth, and I stop breathing.
He’s pale under the strobes, like smoke made solid. Silver hair half-shaved, chains coiled over one bare shoulder, tattoos in sharp black script slicing across his skin. Cold eyes—gray, maybe—rimmed in shadow, locked on me with a look that pins me in place like prey. His fingers slide over the decks like they’re part of him. Like heownsthe sound. The fucking architect of this chaos.
He’s not supposed to be watching me.
Yet he is, and the look on his face?
Jealousy. Hot and fucking bitter. So sharp I feel it like a slap.
That can’t be right. He doesn’t even know me.
Idon’t even knowhim.
I blink. He’s still staring. His jaw tight. His mouth a grim line. Like the bodies grinding on me are a personal insult. Like he’s about to crawl across the booth and rip them off with his teeth.
What the actual fuck.
You're stoned, Blair.That’s it. That’s all. You’re flying too high bitch. Brain boiled in neon. That’s gotta be it.
Except…
His gaze shifts. Just over my shoulder, and I turn.
Dagger.
Leaning against a pillar like he’snotwatching. Like he doesn’t care. But his fists are clenched, jaw ticking, chest rising slow and hard like he’s trying to smother the urge to wreck something.
My pulse stutters.
Both of them are staring at me. Then at each other.
Like they’re sizing up who gets to set the match to my fuse.
Nope.
Not real. Definitely not fucking real. You're hallucinating. You're dreaming. You're?—
The track switches. A bass drop like a gunshot. The strobes crack like lightning. The world dissolves into color and static and sweat. The girl pulls me back into her, her body swaying with mine to the beat, and just like that, I don’t care.
Let them watch. Let them burn. Let them fucking tear each other apart in the shadows while I vanish into the noise.
I throw my arms up, tip my head back, and drown in the sound.
The music wraps around me like silk. The pill tightens in my veins like a vice. And for one glorious moment?—
I feel nothing.
Finally.
Blackout.
Two
Noir
Of fuckingcourse he’s watching her too.
I clocked her the second she walked in—half naked, glitter under her eyes, that half-dead, half-starved look some girls wear when they’ve got nothing left to lose and want everyone to feel it. I knew she was going to be a problem the moment she stepped over the threshold. I just didn’t think Dagger would sink his teeth in first.
