Chapter 1
One
Blair
The warehouse pulses like a second heart, thumping too loud and too fast, like it’s trying to beat itself to death before the roof caves in. And honestly? Same.
It’s a rotted-out monster of a building, all rusted beams and graffiti-covered walls, parked crooked near the edge of town near the shore, like it wandered off from civilization and no one bothered to drag it back.
Lights flicker. Bass throbs. The air stinks like sweat, smoke, and decisions you’re definitely going to regret but will absolutely make again.
I step inside, and it hits me—hot, wet, unbreathable. Like inhaling someone's panic attack. The floor’s sticky. The walls tremble. Chains dangle from the ceiling. Either this place used to be a slaughterhouse or still is.
Someone brushes past me, glitter all over her like a goddamn Lisa Frank sticker melted in the sun. She grabs my hand like we’re friends.
We’re not.
“Oh my god, you’re stunning!” she yells, which is how I know she’s rolling. “Where’s the Cyanide? Anyone seen Dagger? He had the pink ones!”
Dagger?
I blink. “You… name drop your dealers now?”
She grins, eyes glassy and way too wide. “You’re new. That’s cute.”
Before I can respond with something appropriately snarky, she digs into the front of her holographic bra—yes, her literal bra, and pulls out a tiny zip baggie. Inside are hot-pink skull-shaped pills that sparkle like the bastard offspring of glitter and Fentanyl.
“What the hell is this?” I ask, eyeing the skulls. “Barbie’s last rites?”
She giggles and hands me one. “Cyanide. It doesn’t kill you, but it makes you wish it did—in the best way.”
“Sounds fake.”
“Tell that to your brain stem after it hits.” She nods her chin toward the other side of the dance floor. “That’s him.”
I follow her gaze, and land on him.
Leaning against a pillar like it personally offended him. Leather jacket, chain around his neck, hair a little too long and too perfect in that “I don’t give a fuck, but secretly I do” kind of way. His eyes meet mine across the crowd.
Boom. Static. The kind that prickles your skin and makes you forget how breathing works.
Oh. Okay. So that’s Dagger.
Of course it is.
I raise the pill between two fingers like a challenge. His gaze doesn’t flicker. Just watches. I pop it.
It tastes like bubblegum and ash.
The girl who gave it to me— name still unknown —drags me into the mess of moving bodies, and I let her. What the hell else am I gonna do, say no?
The music swallows us. Lights fracture and smear.
People blur into colors, heat, limbs. She’s soft against me—tallish, blonde, a holographic bra and thong glowing under UV lights, matching fishnets ripped at the thigh.
Her lip ring gleams every time she smiles at me like she knows something I don’t.
I lean into her. She smells like coconut oil and cherry lip balm. Our bodies press and pulse and tangle. Her hands find my waist. Mine curl into her hair.
I forget my name for a second.
My outfit is some unhinged cocktail of glitter, kinks, and questionable coping mechanisms—an iridescent micro-bikini top with straps that do absolutely nothing to help, a holographic pleated skirt that barely pretends to be clothing, and matching panties that are more suggestion than fabric.
Thigh garters cling to my legs like a threat, all pink straps and lace, and my platforms add at least four inches of “please break my ankles.”
I sparkle like a disco ball with daddy issues—and yeah, I know exactly how it looks.
The pill hits hard.
Like a truck made of honey and claws.
Everything bends. Everything breathes, and the beat turns liquid under my feet.
Eventually, I stumble off the floor in search of hydration or death. Either will do.
I find the bar—if you can call it that. It’s a plywood slab on cinderblocks, covered in glowstick bracelets, napkins, and what might be a human tooth. Behind it is a girl with space buns and piercings for days, pouring drinks like she’s mad at them.
“What’ll it be?” the bartender barks, barely glancing up from whatever war she’s waging against the blender.
“Something that burns on the way down and maybe takes a few memories with it,” I say, resting my elbows on the plywood bar like I own the damn place.
She snorts, slamming a plastic cup under the tap. “So, everything I’ve got.”
She slides me something blue and bubbling like it was carbonated with regret. No questions asked. No ID. No bullshit.
I take a sip. Wince. “Jesus. This tastes like a dare.”
“That’s the house special.”
I’m halfway through the drink when I spot him again.
Dagger.
Same leather, same boots, same fuck-me-or-fight-me energy. He walks like he owns the floor and maybe he does—judging by how every neon-drenched girl parts for him like sin wearing a smile. He zeroes in on me without a blink, and yeah, okay, maybe my pulse stutters a little. Just once.
“Still standing,” he says, all gravel and grin, arms crossed like he’s waiting for me to crumble.
I smirk around the straw. “Sorry to ruin your ego trip, but your little poison pill? Barely a tickle. I’ve had more fun snorting Fun Dip in a Taco Bell bathroom.”
That earns a laugh, low and dark and way too amused. Like he likes that I bite.
I set my drink down. “Maybe I need another to really feel it.”
He raises a brow. “You sure about that?”
“Oh, what’s wrong?” I tilt my head, saccharine sweet. “Afraid I’ll overdose on your mediocre product?”
His mouth twitches and fuck, it’s a good mouth. Full, cocky, just a little dangerous. And when he speaks, I catch the flash of metal on his tongue.
A ring.
Of course he has one. Of course it’s him.
“Think you can handle a second one?” he teases, already fishing in his pocket, like he didn’t just light my nerves on fire with that grin and a flick of silver.
I don’t blink. Just shrug. “You tell me, dealer man. Or is that little bag of skulls just for show?”
He reaches into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out a baggie of those pink skull pills—same kind of poison, same candy-coated temptation. The light catches it just right, like the universe wants to make sure I see exactly what I’m about to regret.
He holds it up between two fingers. Casual. Cocky. Like he’s offering gum instead of something that might rewire my brain.
I raise an eyebrow, sipping the last of my drink like this is just another Thursday.
He pops the bag open with a flick of his thumb and pulls out a single pill. Rolls it between his fingers. Doesn’t offer it. Not yet.
“What’s the catch?” I ask, trying not to sound too eager. I probably fail.
He leans in, close enough that I can smell him—leather, smoke, and something dangerously untraceable. His voice drops like gravel laced with silk.
“This one’s on me.”
“Why?” I narrow my eyes, suspicion curling around my ribs like barbed wire.
His smirk deepens. “Because I like watching people take things they shouldn’t. And I haven’t decided yet if I want to save you… or watch you burn.”
My stomach does a goddamn somersault.
Chill the fuck out, Blair. It’s not like he just dropped the sexiest line of your entire depraved little life.
I reach for the pill, but he pulls it back, just a little. Teasing. Waiting.
“What’s your name?” he asks, still holding it just out of reach.
I cock a brow. “Why? You planning on writing me a thank-you note after I OD in your arms?”
He doesn’t blink. Just watches me with that maddening almost-smile.
I scoff. “Didn’t realize names were part of the transaction. What is this—drug dealing with a dash of intimacy?”
Still, he waits.
I huff. “Blair. Happy now?”
He says it slow, deliberate. “Blair.”
The way it rolls off his tongue? Dangerous. Like he already knows how I taste.
He leans in, close enough that his breath ghosts against my cheek—smoke and something darker, something addictive. His voice drops low, slow, like a secret he wants to press into my skin.
“Careful, Blair,” he murmurs, eyes locked on mine. “Cyanide has claws.”
And the way he says it?
Not a warning.
A promise.
Fuck he’s hot as fuck.
Like, ruin-your-life-and-beg-for-more hot.
I pluck the pill from his fingers and pop it onto my tongue like defiance.
“So do I,” I purr, letting the words drip sweet and venomous.
Then I blow him a kiss—slow, cocky, and razor-edged, before spinning on my platforms and melting back into the chaos.
Gone before he can throw another warning or a reason to stay.
The beat grabs me by the throat, sinks its claws into the meat of me, and drags me under. It pulses through the floor, through my bones, through the cheap plastic soles of my platform boots until I forget where I end and the bass begins.
Bodies blur into each other like smeared paint.
A girl in rhinestone pasties grabs my waist, laughing as she spins me around and pulls me into her.
Her lips are slick, her skin electric. I don’t know her name, and I don’t fucking need to.
We dance like we’ve done this forever, like we’ve been stitched together for this one moment of shared chaos.
Then a guy joins us, shirtless, glitter-slicked, reeking of citrus vodka and something dirtier.
His hands find my hips. Her teeth graze my neck.
And I let them.
I don’t push away. I don’t flinch. I just melt.
Because the second pill hits—and fuck . It’s a full-body kiss from something unholy. Like a scream that never gets loud enough. My skin buzzes, nerve endings sparking. My spine bends like liquid. I forget who I am, forget I’m supposed to be human. I’m just rhythm, sweat and a heartbeat.
I kiss the girl. Deep, open-mouthed and shameless. I kiss the guy too, just because I can. His lips are soft. Hers are better.
Hands are on me. Tongues. Teeth. Sweat-soaked euphoria dripping from every stranger’s touch.
It’s too much, and yet, not enough.
Then I feel him.
That slow creep of awareness. That drag in the air. Like being watched by something that doesn’t blink.
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 he owns the 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.
I don’t even know him .
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’s not watching. 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.