Ravage (Ruin: Prequel)

Chapter 1

Selene

The wine glass shatters against the wall, burgundy liquid running down white paint like blood.

David stares at me, mouth hanging open, his perfectly pressed khakis now splattered with a sixty-dollar Malbec.

For three years, he's never seen me raise my voice, let alone throw things.

I’ve always been the good girl.

The trauma survivor.

The one who needs to be handled with care.

"Selene, honey, you're not thinking clearly?—"

"Don't." I grab another glass from his pristine kitchen counter, just to watch him flinch. "Don't 'honey' me. Don't tell me what I'm thinking. And definitely don't look at me like I'm about to break."

"But you are breaking." He takes a cautious step forward, hands raised like I'm a spooked animal. "This isn't you. Ever since the anniversary of your parents?—"

"Stop." The word comes out sharp enough to cut. "This isn't about them."

Except it is.

Everything is.

Every safe choice, every suffocating day, every moment I've spent in this beige apartment with this beige man living this beige life—it all traces back to that night eight years ago.

The night I learned that safety is an illusion, and control is the only thing that matters.

"I'm done," I say, setting the glass down with deliberate calm. "We're done."

"Selene, please. We can work through this. Dr. Morrison says?—"

"I don't give a fuck what Dr. Morrison says." The profanity feels good on my tongue, foreign but right. David actually gasps. "I quit therapy this morning. I'm quitting this relationship now. I'm quitting everything that keeps me in this bubble-wrapped existence you all seem to think I need."

I move toward the door, but he grabs my wrist.

Not hard—David would never—but it's the first time he's touched me without asking in months.

My body reacts before my mind does, twisting out of his grip with a violence that surprises us both.

"Don't touch me."

"I'm trying to help you!" His voice cracks. "Selene, you're spiraling. This is exactly what Dr. Morrison warned about. Trauma survivors sometimes?—"

"Trauma survivor." I laugh, and it's not a nice sound. "Is that what I am? Is that my whole identity? The girl whose parents were murdered?"

His silence is answer enough.

"You don't see me ," I say, gathering my purse, my jacket. "You see a victim. A project. Someone to save with your psychology degree and your gentle hands and your missionary position sex twice a month."

He flinches at that.

Good.

"That's not fair?—"

"No, what's not fair is that I've been sleepwalking through life for eight years, and everyone seems perfectly content to keep me unconscious." I pause at the door. "I need to feel something real, David. Something that isn't filtered through therapy talk and good intentions."

"What does that even mean?"

I think of the card hidden in my wallet.

Black with silver lettering.

Purgatory.

A client at the victim advocacy center had dropped it during our session last week, babbling about her ex-boyfriend, about the things he did to her there.

She'd been horrified. I'd been intrigued.

"It means I'm going to find out who I really am."

The door closes on his protests.

My phone starts buzzing before I even reach my car.

David:

Please come back. We can talk about this.

I love you.

Don't do anything dangerous.

I delete them all and call Emilia.

"Hey babe! Are you coming to dinner? Dad's making his famous?—"

"I broke up with David."

There’s an initial silence, and then she speaks. "What? When? Why? Sel, what happened?"

"Can you meet me at my apartment? I need..."

I need an alibi.

I need someone to believe I'm having a normal post-breakup breakdown instead of what I'm actually planning. "I need my best friend."

"Of course! Oh, honey, I'm so sorry. I'll bring wine and ice cream. Give me twenty minutes."

Twenty minutes.

Enough time to get home and change into something that looks like pajamas instead of what I'm actually wearing underneath—black lace that David has never seen, and never will see.

Soon enough, Emilia arrives with two bottles of wine, a pint of Ben & Jerry's, and that look of concern I've grown so accustomed to.

Everyone looks at me like that—like I might shatter if they breathe too hard in my direction.

"Tell me everything ," she says, curling up on my couch in her Yale sweatshirt, looking exactly like what she is—safe, privileged, untouched by darkness.

So, I tell her a version of the truth.

That David was suffocating me.

That I need space.

That I'm tired of being treated like a patient instead of a person.

"But he loves you," she protests. "He's been so patient, so understanding about... everything."

"That's the problem." I take a sip of the wine I don't want. "I don't need patient. I don't need understanding. I need..."

Pain. Control. Someone who sees the darkness in me and doesn't try to fix it.

"What do you need?" Emilia asks, genuinely curious.

"I don't know," I lied. "That's what I have to figure out."

We talked for another hour. She tells me about Preston, her investment banker boyfriend who's planning to propose at Christmas.

She talks about law school, about her father's latest case, about the normal life she's building.

The life everyone expected me to build, too.

"I should go," she finally says, checking her phone. "But are you sure you're okay? You seem... different."

"I'm fine. I just need a night to myself. To process."

She hugs me, enveloping me in her expensive perfume. "Call me if you need anything. And Sel? Maybe don't make any big decisions right now. You're emotional, and?—"

"I won't," I lied again.

She leaves at 9:47 p.m.

By 10:15, I'm dressed and out the door.

I hate admitting this, but the outfit took me an hour to decide on.

Not too desperate, not too conservative.

A simple black dress that hugs every curve, short enough to be provocative but not cheap.

Heels that make my legs look endless.

Red lipstick like a wound across my mouth.

I look like someone else.

Someone dangerous.

Someone who belongs in the dark.

The drive to Purgatory takes me about thirty minutes.

It's in the warehouse district, where the city pretends respectability doesn't matter after midnight.

The building looks abandoned from the outside—no sign, no indication of what lies within.

Just a door with a man in a suit standing beside it.

I pull out the card and hand it to him with fingers that don't shake.

He looks at it, then at me.

His eyes travel down my body and back up, assessing. "You sure you're in the right place, princess?"

"I have an invitation to Heaven."

It's a lie.

The card is just a card, but I've done my research.

I know Heaven requires an invitation.

I know the right words to say.

I've spent the last week preparing for this moment.

He studies me for another beat, then opens the door. "Elevator to the second floor. Don't go downstairs unless you're invited. And princess? Heaven might be too tame for what you're looking for."

The words shiver through me. "What makes you think you know what I'm looking for?"

His smile is sharp. "I've been doing this a long time. I know the difference between tourists and residents. You? You're looking for Hell, whether you know it or not."

The way he says it makes my skin prickle with excitement. Or warning.

"Maybe I am," I say, holding his gaze.

He chuckles, low and dark. "Careful what you wish for, princess." He steps aside, pulling the heavy door open wider. "Welcome to Purgatory."

I step through the threshold and immediately understand the name.

The entrance is a narrow, dark hallway that seems to pulse with bass from somewhere deeper inside.

Red lights line the floor like a runway to damnation.

The walls are black, adorned with classical paintings of angels falling from heaven, demons rising from flames, and souls caught between salvation and damnation.

The air changes the further I walk—thicker, heavier, charged with electricity that makes my heart race.

At the end of the hallway, heavy velvet curtains part automatically as I approach, and that's when it hits me hard.

Music that's more sensation than sound, vibrating through my bones.

The air is thick with smoke and something else—sex, danger, possibility.

Dancers writhe in cages suspended from the ceiling, their bodies painted in gold and shadow.

The bar runs the length of one wall, bartenders in various states of undress serving drinks that glow in the dark.

But it's the energy that makes me pause.

This isn't a normal club.

The people here move differently, look at each other differently.

There's a predatory quality to every interaction, a sense that anything could happen.

That everyone here is either hunter or prey.

Or both.

I make my way to the elevator, aware of eyes on me.

Men and women both, their gazes like a physical touch.

The elevator is mirrored on all sides, forcing me to confront my reflection.

I look flushed.

Alive.

My finger hovers over the button for Heaven, but then I hear it…a scream from below.

Not playful, not performative.

Real.

The elevator has three buttons. Heaven. Main. Hell.

Hell has a keypad next to it.

I shouldn't know the code.

I definitely shouldn't have overheard it from a client who broke down sobbing about the things her ex did to her there.

About how he knew someone who knew someone, how the code changes weekly, but she remembered it,

God, she'd never forget those numbers.

6-6-6-9.

My fingers type it before my brain catches up.

The button lights up red, and the elevator descends.

My heart hammers against my ribs so hard I'm sure it's visible through my dress.

Every rational thought screams at me to hit another button, any button, to stop this descent, but my hand stays frozen at my side.

This is what I came for, even if I didn't admit it to myself until now.

The elevator seems to move slower than it did going up, or maybe that's just my perception warping reality with anticipation. Each second stretches, taut as a held breath.