Chapter 7
KROSS
If hell ever decided to throw a rave, it would look exactly like this—sweat-slick bodies, seizure-inducing lights, bass heavy enough to rattle your fucking teeth.
Same circus, just a different fucking night.
The floor sticks to my boots like it’s trying to fucking claim me.
The bar is overcrowded and feral, slick with spilled liquor, sweat, and bad intentions.
The air’s thick—hot, humid, and heavy with perfume, sweat, and that metallic bite of adrenaline that always shows up when too many bodies get packed too goddamn close together.
The bass crawls up through the soles of my feet and settles in my chest, slow and relentless, like a second heartbeat that doesn’t give a shit if I make it out alive.
I fucking love places like this.
Not just because they’re fun, but because they’re honest as hell.
Raves strip people bare. Rip the manners and filters right off and leave everyone louder, bolder, and way more willing to grab for whatever the fuck they think they deserve.
People come here pretending they’re free—free from their jobs, their shitty relationships, their boring little lives they hate, but really they’re just burning it all off in sweat and noise and bad fucking decisions for a few hours.
And honestly? I respect the shit out of the hustle.
You can always tell who’s hunting and who thinks the lights and the crowd mean they’re safe. Who’s here to disappear, and who’s here to be seen. Who’s pretending this is an escape, and who knows exactly what kind of mess they walked into and showed the fuck up anyway.
I lean into the bar as much as the wings allow, forearms braced against the slick wood, feathers brushing backs and shoulders behind me like a warning I’m not really in the mood to repeat.
I tip my head forward, paying my respects to the altar of terrible fucking decisions.
Sweat slides down the back of my neck, trapped under straps and heat and too many bodies packed too goddamn close.
Some asshole slams into my wing and shoulder hard enough to snap my jaw tight and keeps moving like he’s got a death wish and zero self-awareness.
No apology, or fucking acknowledgment.
Like the drugs pumping through his body make him completely oblivious to everything going on around him. Fucking idiot.
My pulse still hasn’t slowed since the dance floor.
Since her, and those sweet fucking sounds she made when she forgot where she was.
Forgot how many people were around us, watching while she came apart at the hands of a killer.
Those sounds are still echoing through me, living somewhere behind my ribs, and humming under my skin like a live wire I haven’t decided what to do with yet.
Fuck.
A shot glass slides across the bar toward me.
I don’t remember ordering it. Don’t care what it is either.
I just wrap my fingers around the cold like it might ground me, lift my mask just enough to expose my mouth, and knock it back in one pull—burn, cheap sweetness, and a whole lot of regret.
Tastes like tomorrow’s headache and a decision I’ll likely stand by without apologizing.
It barely registers against the buzz already wired straight into my bloodstream.
Yet it’s still not enough to make me forget how she felt.
I catch my reflection in the mirror behind the bar and realize I’m grinning—loose, feral, and halfway already fucking gone. The kind of grin that makes bouncers nervous and mothers disappointed. I’m just settling into it when I hear her name.
It’s loud, ugly and slurred with fucking entitlement.
My grin dies instantly.
I angle my head, pretending I’m deeply invested in the liquor selection, and listen.
“I fucking knew it,” he says, voice sharp and slurred with accusation. “This was your idea, wasn’t it? You dragged her here. You always did that shit—always stirring things up.”
He scoffs, “You were always the problem friend. You and that other girl. You two never fucking liked me. Never even tried to give us a real fucking chance.”
His lip curls, eyes hard with resentment. “Always sticking your nose in our relationship. Whispering in her ear. Filling her head with bullshit until she thought she was better than me.”
Mark.
Of course, it’s fucking Mark.
His voice hits like stepping on a fucking Lego you forgot to clean up—sharp, stupid, and instantly rage-inducing, especially when he’s using it to talk about her.
I flag the bartender with two fingers, already annoyed and needing something to do with my hands before I do something dumb.
“Beer,” I say. Short and flat in that, don’t fucking talk to me tone.
He pops the cap and sets it down. I hook a finger under the edge of my mask, lift it just enough to get the bottle to my mouth, and take a long pull. Slow and controlled. Like if I drink carefully enough, my pulse might get the message and stop trying to break out of my fucking ribcage.
Breathe.
Count it down.
Don’t make this a scene.
Kade thinks first. I don’t. I’ve always been the one who swings and deals with the bill later. So yeah—I’m trying real fucking hard not to do that right now.
He’s standing too close to a woman I recognize immediately.
One of the girl’s Aeri was with earlier stands next to him, clearly uninterested.
Sharp eyes. Tight posture. Shoulders squared like even she’s ready to knock his pathetic ass to the ground.
The kind of girl who clocks exits and danger without making a show of it.
The kind who doesn’t smile just to keep men comfortable, nah she's got a similar fire to Aeri’s. Make’s sense why they’re friends.
“She thinks she’s hot shit now,” he says, voice raised. “Running around half naked, grinding on strangers like she’s not even phased we just broke up. And to think she always wanted me to take her seriously.”
I take another slow sip. My jaw clenched so hard it fucking aches and then ease the mask back down covering my face. The bottle hits the bar with a soft tap—measured, and deliberate.
My fingers curl into the wood of the bar.
The girl doesn’t flinch or back down. She just stands there, looking at him like she’s already tired of his bullshit.
Shit, same.
“That’s wild,” she says coolly, “considering you spent the entire relationship with your dick in someone else’s inbox. How many girls did it take before you got bold enough to bring them back to her place and christen her couch, Mark?”
Oh shit.
I bite down hard to keep the laugh in.
Mark’s face darkens and his jaw tightens as he leans closer.
Too fucking close for my liking.
“You don’t know shit,” he snaps. “She’s nothing special. Not now, not even before she started pulling this attention-seeking bullshit. Any whore can dress like that and get looks.”
Whore?
The word lands wrong. Ugly and heavy. It’s the kind of word men like him use when they’ve run out of excuses and need something sharp to throw instead. Like calling her that somehow makes him bigger. Cleaner. Less of a fuck-up.
Something in my chest locks.
The bass surges, deep and punishing, vibrating up through the floor and straight into my bones, rattling my ribs like it’s trying to shake loose whatever restraint I’ve been white-knuckling this whole goddamn time.
My pulse spikes hard and fast, blood roaring in my ears, every instinct screaming the same thing.
Kill him.
Then, something snaps. Like a switch flipped and took all the patience I was clinging to with it, I fucking let it.
Because nobody gets to say that about her and keep breathing easy in the same fucking room as me. Least of all him.
The music shifts and stops being background. It turns into a countdown instead. Every bass drop a heavy fucking tick closer to the end of his luck.
I don’t fight it.
I let the sound swallow everything—the crowd, the lights, the sweat-soaked chaos. Let it fucking blur until there’s nothing left but instinct and pure intent, and in that split second of overload, the decision locks in.
Quiet.
Final and fucking irreversible.
I roll my wrist once, slow and controlled, like I’m loosening it before a fight, and finally give them my attention.
Mark clocks me right away.
Even with the mask on, and the lights stuttering and the bass shaking the floor like it’s trying to punch its way up through my boots, his eyes lock on me and narrow. Recognition curdles his expression like a bad taste he can’t spit out.
Big fucking mistake.
His chest puffs out, shoulders rolling back like he’s just found an audience. He takes half a step closer to Aeri’s friend, angling his body so his buddies slide into view behind him. Backup. Witnesses. The illusion of safety.
“You.” He points at me like he just spotted the source of all his life’s fucking problems. “You motherfucker. See? This is the shit I’ve been talking about.”
He laughs, ugly and sharp, eyes flicking over my mask like it personally offends him. “She was all over this fucking loser earlier. Grinding on him like a bitch in heat.” He steps closer, breath hot. “Bet you loved it. Bet you thought a freak like you finally fucking won something.”
The bass thunders, swallowing a few heads turning our way, but the shift still happens. You can feel it when a pocket of a crowd tightens, when people sense something ugly about to break and don’t know whether to watch or back away.
Something inside me goes still.
Not rage. At least, not yet.
Just that quiet click when patience runs out and something irreversible lines itself up.
The girl lets out a short laugh, sharp as glass. “God, you really can’t help yourself, can you?”
Mark whips toward her. “I wasn’t fucking talking to you.”
She doesn’t move. Bitch doesn’t even blink. “Like I give a shit,” she says flatly. “You’re talking about her. You’re talking about my best fucking friend.”