Chapter Five
Noir
SHIVER - JOHN SUMMIT
The controller clicks rapidly beneath my fingers while gunfire explodes through the apartment speakers loud enough to rattle the empty cans scattered across my coffee table.
“Fuck off—”
My character slides behind cover just before somebody nearly blows his head off onscreen, neon light flashing across the dark apartment while smoke curls lazily from the cigarette burning between my lips.
The city glows outside the windows.
Music from somewhere downtown pulses faintly through the open balcony door while some idiot online screams into his headset about hacking my account because I killed him twice in a row.
Relaxing evening overall.
My phone buzzes against the couch beside me right as I’m lining up a shot through the scope.
Dagger.
I swipe my thumb across the screen, hit speaker, then toss the phone down beside me without taking my eyes off the TV.
“You better be dying.”
“Blair’s back.”
My character gets shot directly in the fucking face.
DEFEAT flashes across the screen while silence detonates inside my chest hard enough to physically hurt.
For a second, I just stare at the TV.
Then slowly—
“What.”
Dagger swears under his breath on the other end of the line.
“She’s fucking back.”
Every muscle in my body tightens instantly.
Not fear exactly.
Worse.
Because the entire point of leaving her behind was this exact fucking scenario never happening.
Weeks.
Weeks of wiping every trace of ourselves from her life. Clearing out the warehouse. Feeding everyone bullshit stories about construction while Dagger practically lost his fucking mind pretending staying away from her didn’t bother him.
All of it just to keep her breathing, and now she’s back anyway.
Of fucking course she is.
I mute the headset while some twelve-year-old aggressively threatens my bloodline through the speakers and lean forward slowly, elbows braced on my knees.
“When?”
“Last night.”
My jaw tightens instantly.
“Stone called it in after a drop,” Dagger says. “Said he spotted her at some afterparty looking fucking wrecked.”
I straighten slowly from the couch, irritation already starting to crawl beneath my skin.
“And you didn’t call me then?”
“I went to get her first.”
Of course he did.
I already know where this is going before he even says another fucking word, because Dagger’s predictable as hell when it comes to Blair. Pathetic too, honestly, but I usually keep that part to myself.
Mostly.
“I found her outside the place half out of her fucking mind,” he mutters. “Brought her back to my apartment.”
There it is.
I laugh once under my breath and drag the cigarette from my mouth.
“You fucked her.”
“Fuck you.”
“Did you?”
A hesitated sigh.
Interesting.
“Yeah,” he snaps immediately this time, defensive irritation cutting sharp through the line. “I fucking fucked her. Happy?”
Something ugly twists low in my chest instantly.
Possessive and mean.
The kind of jealousy I usually keep buried because me and Dagger have been doing this dance too long to start pretending we don’t both want the same fucking girl.
“But it’s not like I fucking planned it. That’s not what it was about,” he adds roughly before I can answer. “She was high out of her mind, Noir. I was trying to get her off the fucking street before somebody saw her and everything he did was for nothing.”
“And what? Your dick just accidentally fell inside her during your solo rescue mission?”
“Fuck you.”
I push off the couch and start pacing slowly through the apartment now, irritation building heavier with every second.
“You should’ve fucking called me.”
“I handled it.”
“You didn’t handle shit,” I snap. “You brought her back to your apartment, fucked her, fell asleep, and woke up without her. If anything, Blair handled your dumb ass.”
That lands hard enough to silence him for a second.
Because we both know I’m right.
“How the fuck was I supposed to know she’d dip?” he snaps, frustration grinding rough through his voice now. “She came back here looking for us, Noir. Thought maybe for five fucking minutes she’d stay put instead of disappearing the second I closed my eyes.”
I rub a hand down my face slowly, exhaustion and frustration grinding together behind my eyes.
Of course she disappeared.
Blair runs toward chaos every single fucking time somebody tries keeping her still long enough to breathe.
It’s practically instinct at this point.
“Where the fuck would she even go?” I mutter aloud more to myself than him.
The city glows through the apartment windows while distant bass rattles faintly through the night air outside. My eyes drag absently across the mess on the coffee table—
Empty cans.
Ashtray.
Flyers.
Then stop.
A bright neon flyer sits half-crumpled beneath my lighter advertising some massive beach rave happening tonight.
FOAMHOUSE FESTIVAL. ONE NIGHT ONLYLIVE DJs. BEACH STAGES. SUNRISE SETS
My stomach tightens instantly.
Of fucking course.
“That’s where she went,” I say flatly.
“What?”
I snatch the flyer off the table.
“The beach party.”
Silence crackles briefly through the speaker before Dagger swears quietly under his breath because he immediately realizes I’m right too.
I stare at the flyer for another second before my jaw tightens.
“Whatever she took last night’s probably wearing off by now,” I mutter.
Silence crackles through the speaker.
Then Dagger swears quietly because he immediately understands where I’m going with this too.
Blair doesn’t come down quietly.
She chases the next high before the last one even fully leaves her bloodstream.
And there’s no bigger supply tonight than the fucking beach party.
“She’ll be looking for another hit,” I say flatly, already heading toward my bedroom. “And where better to find one than a beach rave full of dealers and idiots with god complexes.”
Dagger goes quiet for half a second too long.
Because we both know the real problem isn’t Blair getting high.
It’s who she might buy from.
Dante’s people move product at those parties constantly. Pills. Cyanide. Coke. Whatever the crowd wants bad enough to ruin themselves over.
And if Blair walks up to the wrong fucking person tonight—
My stomach twists hard enough to feel violent.
“She can’t be there alone,” Dagger mutters.
“No shit.”
I grab a black shirt off the floor and yank it over my head while tension crackles heavier through the line now.
Still there.
Always there.
Because even underneath all the fear and panic surrounding Blair, there’s still us. Years of rivalry. Violence. Possessive bullshit neither of us bothers pretending doesn’t exist anymore.
And now he’s touched her again.
Fucked her again.
While I was sitting here playing fucking games thinking maybe we still had time before this whole thing detonated in our faces.
The thought settles ugly in my chest, sharp enough to make my jaw tighten while I yank open my bedroom drawer looking for my knife.
“You going?” I ask finally, forcing my voice flat.
Through the speaker, I hear the scrape of Dagger grabbing his keys.
“You really asking me that right now?”
Fair.
I shove cigarettes into my pocket and head back into the living room while bass from the distant beach rattles faintly through the open balcony door.
Even from up here, I can feel the city vibrating tonight.
Thousands of bodies packed together down by the shoreline, music shaking the sand while dealers move product through the crowd like sharks cutting through water.
And somewhere in the middle of it—
Blair.
High. reckless. probably laughing at something stupid while pretending she’s not actively self-destructing.
My stomach twists hard enough to piss me off.
“You know, she’s gonna run the second she sees us,” I mutter.
“Yeah, I know,”
The words settle heavy between us.
Because underneath all the irritation and jealousy and unresolved shit twisting between me and Dagger, there’s still the same ugly truth neither of us can escape:
We almost lost her once.
And if Dante’s people spot her before we do tonight—
We might not get lucky twice.
I grab the beach flyer off the table again, staring at the massive neon lettering while dread crawls steadily beneath my ribs.
Dante’s crews always move heavy at parties like this.
Too many tourists. Too many wasted idiots looking for their next high without asking questions.
It's the perfect hunting ground and the perfect place for Blair to disappear.
“Fuck. She shouldn’t have fucking come back,” Dagger mutters quietly through the phone.
But he sounds wrecked saying it.
Not angry.
Terrified.
And that hits harder than it should because I know exactly what’s sitting underneath it.
The hospital.
That fucking hallway.
Watching nurses swarm around Blair while both of us stood there realizing we’d already failed one girl in this world.
Neither of us survived Brynne properly.
Losing Blair too?
That’d finish whatever’s left.
“No, but thats Blair. You do know, there’s no way to keep her safe while Dante’s still breathing,” I say finally.
Silence crackles through the line.
Then—
“I know.”
The words come out rough. Immediate. Like he’s already had the same thought sitting in his head for weeks.
Maybe he has.
Hell, maybe we both have.
I grab my jacket off the back of the couch and shove my arms into it while tension thickens heavier through the apartment.
“Then we stop fucking dancing around it,” I mutter. “Because this hiding-her-away shit clearly isn’t working.”
Dagger goes quiet for a second too long.
Then—
“For her,” he says lowly, “I’ll put a bullet in every motherfucker tied to him if I have to.”
Something cold settles into place inside my chest at that.
Not shock.
Agreement.
Because the fucked up part?
I’d help him do it.
Without hesitation or an ounce of fucking guilt.
For Blair?
There’s suddenly not much I wouldn’t burn down.
“You still at your apartment?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll meet you there first.”
“No,” Dagger says immediately. “Beach first. We waste time and she’s gone again.”
My jaw tightens slightly because he’s right.
I hate when he’s right.
“She’s gonna fight us,” I mutter.
“She can fucking try.”
Despite everything, a quiet laugh almost drags out of me at that because yeah—
That sounds exactly like Blair.
Fighting us half-drunk and glitter-covered in the middle of a beach rave while we try dragging her out before somebody kills her.
Pretty little addict. Pretty little problem.
Pretty little thing we’d burn the world down to keep.
The realization lands ugly and possessive before I can stop it.
Dagger exhales slowly through the speaker. “Noir.”
“What.”
“If Dante’s guys touch her tonight—”
“They won’t.”
Not because I know for sure.
Because they fucking can’t.
Not if we get there first.
The line goes quiet again after that, thick with all the shit neither of us says out loud.
Jealousy.
Fear.
Possession.
The ugly understanding that somewhere along the way, protecting Blair stopped being about responsibility and turned into obsession instead.
And none of us know how to walk it back anymore..
For a second I just stand there in the middle of the apartment listening to the distant bass rolling up from the beach below.
Then I grab my keys and head for the door.
Because somewhere out there, Blair’s chasing another high while the city circles her like blood in water.
And tonight?
Either we get to her first—
Or Dante does.