The lighting is different here—darker, redder, making everything look like it's been dipped in blood.
The music is lower, a bass line that feels like a heartbeat.
But it's the other sounds that make my breath catch.
Crying.
Begging.
The sharp crack of impact on flesh.
Moans that could be pleasure or pain, or both.
There are fewer people here, but they move with purpose.
A naked woman crawls past on her hands and knees, tied to a leash held by a man in an expensive suit.
Another woman is pressed against a wall, tears streaming down her face as someone whispers in her ear.
She's nodding, consenting, but the fear is real.
My body responds in ways that should horrify me.
Heat pools between my legs.
My breath comes faster.
This is what I've been looking for without knowing it.
The honesty of it.
The rawness.
No one here is pretending things are safe or soft or kind.
A hand grabs my arm.
"You're in the wrong place, sweetheart."
I turn to find a massive man with neck tattoos and dead eyes.
He looks at me like I'm a lamb who's wandered into a wolves' den.
Which I suppose I am.
"I'm exactly where I want to be."
He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You have no idea what happens down here. This isn't Heaven. There are no safe words that matter. No limits that can't be pushed. Some people who come down here don't?—"
"Don't leave unchanged?" I interrupt. "Good. I don't want to be unchanged."
He studies me for a long moment. "Boss might be interested in you. Or he might let the others have you. Either way, once you're noticed down here, there's no going back upstairs. Last chance to leave."
Boss.
Someone runs this level, then.
Someone with enough power to decide who stays and who goes.
