Chapter 3 #2
I break the kiss. Breathless. Dagger’s hand tightens briefly, then falls away. My head turns.
The DJ.
Headphones slung around his neck, cigarette dangling from his lips.
“Noir,” Dagger mutters without even looking, voice tight with irritation. Like the name alone gives him a fucking headache.
A beat later, he finally turns his head, eyes narrowed, jaw flexing. “Don’t you have a booth to babysit?”
The drawl is lazy, but every word drips with territorial bite.
Noir exhales a slow drag of smoke, leaning back against the nearest brick wall like he’s got nowhere to be and all night to piss Dagger off. “Don’t you have a gutter to crawl back into? Or are you too busy handing out poison to people dumb enough to swallow it?”
The air thickens.
They’re facing off now. Two storms on a collision course, and I’m the damn lightning rod between them.
I glance between them, and for a second, everything slows.
Dagger, still pressed close, heat radiating off him like a fucking furnace, his hand still curled possessively on my hip. Noir, cool and unreadable, smoke curling around his fingers, eyes like ink but locked on me.
Both of them watching. Both of them claiming , even if neither says it.
I feel like a track they’re fighting over who gets to drop first. Like a fucking prize.
My pulse kicks, and then the world shifts. Too fast and hot. The concrete tilts. My knees buckle slightly and I blink hard, gripping the wall to stay upright.
Noir straightens from the wall. “You good?”
But before I can say a word?—
“She’s fine,” Dagger snaps, sharp and immediate, like it personally offends him that someone else dared to ask.
Noir lifts a brow. Doesn’t say anything. Just looks at me again, longer this time, like he’s not buying it, and for good reason.
Because my head’s spinning. My lips are swollen. And Cyanide is still chewing through my brain like acid.
The heat. The tension. The way they’re both still watching me like I’m some dangerous little secret they just uncovered…
I need a fucking drink. Or an exorcism.
Maybe both.
Noir doesn’t smirk. Doesn’t blink. Just steps forward, gaze flicking over me as he shoves Dagger to the side. “You’re burning up.”
I open my mouth to protest but realize he’s right. My skin’s on fire. Sweat slicks every inch of me.
“I think I need a drink,” I mutter, louder than I mean to.
Noir takes that as a cue. His hand wraps around my wrist—not rough, but firm, and he pulls me away from Dagger and back inside.
I don’t resist.
Shit—I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Not with the way I’m floating. Slipping through sound, skin and sweat like I’m made of smoke.
The crowd swallows us whole again, neon slicing through the fog as Noir pulls me along like he owns the place and me. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t look back, just cuts through the bodies like he’s got a mission and I’m the center of it.
We hit the hallway and I know where we’re going before he even reaches the door.
The bathroom.
It’s packed with girls—smudged eyeliner, lashes half hanging off, lipstick dragged halfway down their necks. Glitter in places glitter shouldn’t be. The whole place smells like perfume, vodka, and regret.
Noir doesn’t even blink.
Doesn’t need to.
Because the second he steps inside, they see him. And holy shit, do they react.
Every head turns. One girl actually gasps. Deadass gasps like we just walked in mid-rom-com. Then her eyes flick to me, to his hand still gripping my wrist, and her brows shoot up like well, this is new .
There’s a beat of silence, confusion hanging thick.
He doesn’t wait.
“Out,” he says, voice low but final. Not yelling or begging.
Just commanding .
They scatter like roaches under a light.
Some with wide eyes. Some whispering. A few casting one last glance over their shoulders like maybe they’re waiting for a punchline. Because Noir doesn’t do this. Noir doesn’t drag random girls into bathrooms.
Yeah, well… guess I’m the fucking exception tonight.
Lucky me.
He shuts the door behind us, flicks the lock, and turns to me. It hasn’t even been three seconds and his shirt’s already coming off.
Whoa. Okay.
Abs like that should come with a fucking warning label.
Tattooed. Sculpted. Veins in all the right places.
Okay Blair, don’t say thank you by licking him.
He turns on the tap, wets his shirt, and then presses it to my face. Cold water, and rough cotton.
He starts at my cheeks, then trails down the column of my throat until he’s dabbing the cool fabric along my cleavage.
“You shouldn’t take the shit he gives you,” he mutters, voice low, steady.
I scoff. “Didn’t realize you were the drug morality police.”
His eyes meet mine. “Just don’t like watching girls destroy themselves for sport.”
“Well,” I grin, “some of us like a little danger with our dopamine.”
He doesn’t reply. Just keeps wiping me down. Gently.
It’s stupid how good it feels.
Even more stupid how safe he feels.
Considering he’s a complete fucking stranger who just dragged me into a bathroom, locked the door, and didn’t even ask if I was cool with it.
I mean, I was. But that’s not the point.
Noir’s a walking contradiction.
All shadows and silence, carved like he was chiseled out of midnight—broody, unreadable, probably a little unhinged.
But his hands?
Careful. Almost… reverent.
Like I’m something delicate. Breakable.
Which is hilarious, considering I’ve been broken for months.
When I finally cool down, my skin less lava and more lukewarm regret, I lean back against the grimy wall, still panting like I just ran a goddamn marathon in heels.
“Thanks,” I mutter, more breath than voice.
Noir grabs the plastic cup from the sink and fills it again, then holds it out to me.
“Drink.”
I eye the cup, then the faucet. “Ew. Out of the tap? I’d rather die.”
His eyes narrow. “You’re popping mystery pills from Dagger like they’re Tic Tacs, but this is where you draw the line?”
I open my mouth, but he cuts me off.
“Shut up and drink the fucking water, princess.”
I blink. Then I grin. Because, yeah. Okay. That?
Was kinda hot.
I take the cup.
It’s lukewarm, slightly metallic, and tastes like every bad decision I’ve ever made but I down it anyway, because apparently I have limits now.
While I’m drinking, his voice cuts through the silence again, low and rough.
“What’s your name?”
I lower the cup slowly, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “Blair.”
He doesn’t react. Just stores it somewhere behind those dead-serious eyes like he might need it later.
“You good now?”
I pause, checking in with the spinning in my skull, the sweat cooling on my chest, the heat in my thighs that has nothing to do with the rave.
“Define good.”
He doesn’t smile, but there’s a flicker in his expression. Almost amused. Almost.
“C’mon, Blair.”
He unlocks the door and holds it open.
And just like that, I’m being led back into the neon chaos by a complete fucking stranger, who feels less like a stranger and more like a warning label I want to lick clean.
We return to the floor together, his grip steady, heat still thrumming under my skin. He doesn’t let go until we reach his booth.
I try to peel off, slip into the crowd and let the music swallow me whole, but Noir doesn’t let go.
“No,” he says, flat and final. “You’re coming with me.”
No questions. No hesitation.
He leads me toward the booth, cutting through the bodies like they’re nothing. And then—without a word—he lifts me.
Just picks me up like I’m a fucking feather.
Cool. Love that for me. Nothing like being manhandled by a brooding shadow-daddy with forearms carved out of concrete and zero patience.
The music hits me harder this time, like it missed me while I was gone. I close my eyes and sway, feeling every pulse of bass ripple through my bones. My skin hums. My hips move on their own. I don’t even care if I look insane—fuck it, maybe I am.
Maybe I was born that way. Or maybe I just broke somewhere along the way. Somewhere back where she is.
No. Not doing that. Not now.
I shake the thought loose with a twist of my hips, drowning it in the neon haze and chemical heat. But somewhere between the beat drop and the strobe exploding overhead, my gaze wanders.
I scan the crowd, breathless and spinning, limbs still liquid from the comedown. Lights smear across faces—blues, greens, violent pinks, and for a second it’s all a blur.
Until it isn’t.
Because I find him again, Dagger.
He’s down below, leaned against a post, a bottle in one hand, gaze fixed right up here.
Right at me.
No—past me, to Noir.
Their eyes lock. I feel it. Like some electric wire stretching between them, too thick with tension to be ignored. Noir doesn’t flinch. Just smirks, cool and smug, like he’s already won whatever the fuck they’re playing at.
And me? I’m the prize apparently.
I roll my eyes and tilt my head back, letting the lights sear my retinas and the sweat drip down my spine. Whatever rivalry they’ve got going on, whatever grudge match they’re locked in, it doesn’t matter.
I’ll never see either of them again.
Odds are slim. Hell, I don’t even know their real names.
So I dance like it.
For him.
For me.
For whatever version of myself exists right now in this hazy, glowing fever dream.
And from the corner of my eye—I swear—I feel them both still watching.
Like predators circling.
Like I’m not prey. I’m the fucking bait.