The red-lit booth was not the end; it was the prologue.
The air in the club grew heavier, thick with the smell of spilled gin and the metallic tang of Kyra's own fear.
"Where is the money??" Mille asked as she rummaged through her bag.
Kyra looked up and said, "It's on first pocket of bag."
Mille looked and found it as she counted the money, her brows furrowed as she calculated it was just twelve hundred dollars.
"Why is it only twelve hundred dollars; I asked you to bring fifteen right!!"
Listening to Mille's voice which became sharp, Kyra mustered her courage saying, "I can oy earn this much..I.."
Mille cut in as he looked at her and said, "You went to your so-called classmate home to do assignment.So,you got three hundred dollars from her.
And previously you said you had seven hundred dollars already.
So, you only accumulated two hundred dollars in ten days;"
"Yes..." Kyra replied.
SLAP!!
"Have your wings really harden?? Or did you really forgot those previous lessons."
Mille said as she slapped her and pulled her to ground.
Kyra fell to the floor, her knees brusing.
For a moment,she doesn't want to think of consequences and retaliate but as if suppressed, she remained silent.
Andrew looked at Mille whose face was contored with anger and said to her, "Okay, Mille. Don't be angry!! It's bad for your health."
He stood up, his heavy boots thumping on the sticky floor, and grabbed the ashtray from the table.
"You think school makes you special?" he sneered, swinging it to Kyra.
Kyra startled turned to hide her face as the ashtray hit her shoulder where the burn happened.
Feeling the sharp pain, Kyra eyes were filled with tears as she suppressed the scream in her throat.
Lookimg at Kyra, Mille felt her frustration vanish as she laughed, a sound like shattering glass.
She reached out, grabbing Kyra's ponytail and jerking her head back until Kyra was forced to look at the ceiling. "She does, Andrew. She thinks she's a 'student' now."
Mille took a mouthful of her drink and spat it directly into Kyra's face. The stinging alcohol flooded Kyra's eyes, blinding her.
For the next thirty minutes, it wasn't about hell but more cruel than hell.
It was about the systematic erasure of her dignity.
They forced her to kneel on the floor—the cold, grimy floor covered in glass shards and old cigarette ash—and recite her school grades while Andrew used her back as a footstool.
Every time her voice trembled, he shifted his weight, pressing his heel into the fresh cigarette burn on her shoulder.
"Louder!" Mille commanded, kicking Kyra's shin with a pointed heel. "Tell us how 'smart' you are while you're down there."
By the time they let her go, Kyra was like a destroyed doll.
Kyra emerged from the club like a ghost escaping a tomb.
The sun was setting and the wind was a physical blow against her raw skin.
She fumbled with her bag, pulling out a thick, moth-eaten scarf she kept for emergencies.
She wrapped it high, burying her face up to the bridge of her nose to hide the blooming purple smudge on her jaw and the split in her lip.
She threw a dark windbreaker over her scorched uniform, the fabric dragging against the blistered skin of her shoulder.
Every movement was a negotiation with pain.
She didn't go home. She went to nearby hospital.
The fluorescent lights of the emergency room were blindingly white, a cruel contrast to the red hell she had just left.
She sat on the crinkly paper of the exam table, staring at a poster of the human skeletal system.
The doctor, a woman with tired eyes and graying hair, peeled back the singed fabric of Kyra's shirt.
When she saw Kyra's back, She let out a sharp, hissed breath. "This is a deliberate burn, young lady. And these marks on your body... someone did this to you."
Kyra didn't look at her. She watched a fly crawl across the windowpane. "I was cooking. The grease splashed. Then I tripped on the stairs."
"Dear," the doctor said, her voice dropping to a low, urgent whisper. "I can call the social workers. You don't have to go back to wherever this happened."
Kyra finally looked at her. Her eyes were flat, dead pools of amber. "Just the bandage, please. I have a chemistry test tomorrow. I can't be late."
The doctor sighed, the sound of someone who had seen too many "clumsy" girls.
She applied the cool, antibiotic cream—the first mercy Kyra had felt in hours—and wrapped the shoulder in thick, white gauze.
Kyra didn't cry. She didn't even flinch.
She had already retreated into the small, dark room in her mind where the pain couldn't follow.
As she exited the emergency ward, her hand hovering over her bandaged shoulder, she saw them.
A group of boys in leather jackets, their voices loud and jagged, were walking out of the trauma wing.
Kyra froze, her heart hammering against her bruised ribs like a trapped bird. She recognized the walk.
Those were Lucifer's "brothers"—the boys who followed him like starving dogs.
He's here.
A cold, sickening dread washed over her. She should run. She should vanish into the subway and never look back.
But then, she remembered the sound of the vase hitting his skull. She remembered the way the blood had looked—too bright, too much—against his dark hair.
What if he's dying? What if It is really serious?
The inner conflict was a physical ache. Part of her wanted him gone, erased from her life.
But another part—the part of where she has regarded him as light—couldn't bear the weight of cutting everything cleanly.
'Just one last time.' She whispered to herself.
She slipped into the trauma ward, moving like a shadow. She checked the charts at the nurse's station when no one was looking. Room 302.
She stood at the door, her hand trembling on the handle.
Through the small glass pane, she saw him. Lucifer was sitting up, a thick bandage wrapped around his head.
He looked pale, staring at something in his phone as he let out occasional laughs.
He looked alive. He looked okay.
Kyra let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.
'Good. He's fine. Now I can leave. Now I can finally be done with all of them.'
She turned to slip away, but a nurse rounded the corner with a metal tray.
CLATTER.
A kidney dish hit the floor.
Lucifer heard the sound as he looked towards her.
His eyes, dark and predatory, locked onto the figure in the doorway. "Kyra?"
She had no choice but to step inside.
She stood by the foot of the bed, her jacket zipped to her chin, her hands buried in her pockets so he wouldn't see the tremors.
"You're okay," she said,her voice was a dry rasp.
"Kyra... come here," Lucifer said. His voice wasn't the roar she expected. It was soft, almost pleading.
He reached out a hand. But she stepped back, her eyes darting to the door.
Lucifer eyes darkened silently but it changed again as the corners of his eyes red rimmed.
"I'm sorry. For that day. I went too far. But you have to understand... I love you. I've never felt this way about anyone."
Kyra looked at him—really looked at him.
She saw the expensive watch, the arrogance in the set of his jaw even while injured, and the "love" in his eyes that looked more like the hunger of a wolf.
"Do you?" she asked quietly. "Do you love me, Lucifer? Or do you just love the idea of something you can't have?"
"I want us to be together," he insisted, his voice rising. "We can forget all of this. I promise I will never do anything like this again."
He tried to stand, his face contorting as the movement jarred his head injury. Kyra turned to leave, her heart turning to lead. "We will have nothing to do with each other, Lucifer. Ever."
She made it to the door when he lunged.
Despite his injury, he was fast. He caught her from behind, his arms locking around her waist, pulling her back against his chest.
"Don't go!" he whispered into her ear.,his voice filled with resentment towards his friends but no guilt.
"It wasn't my fault! My friends... they told me this was the only way.
They said if I just... if I took you, if I made it so you couldn't look at anyone else, you'd never leave me.
They gave me the idea! I just wanted you to stay with me forever!"
Kyra went perfectly still. The last shred of expectation she had for him—the tiny hope that there was a soul beneath the monster—snapped.
He didn't even realize he was confessing to a nightmare. He was blaming his "friends" for his own cruelty, as if that made it romantic.
She took a deep, agonizing breath, stabilizing the scream that wanted to tear out of her throat.
"It's okay," she whispered, her voice hauntingly calm. It was the calm like stilled water. "I understand now."
"You do?" He loosened his grip, a flash of triumph in his eyes.
"Yes. But we are truly over." She pulled away, her movements slow and deliberate. "Don't ever speak to me again."
She walked out, her spine straight, her head held high.
It was only when she reached the elevator that her eyes filled with hot, silent tears.
She didn't sob; she just let them fall, dripping onto her scarf as she stepped into the cold night.
Her phone buzzed. A message from her mother.
[Mom]: Come home early today. Your uncle is coming over. I need you to help with the tea and the cleaning. Don't make me ask twice.
Kyra stared at the screen until the words blurred. She walked into the subway station, the smell of damp concrete and electricity filling her lungs.
She sat on the plastic seat of the train, her head leaning against the vibrating window.
The train roared into the tunnel, the lights flickering. In the reflection of the glass, Kyra didn't see herself. She saw the girl from ten years ago.
She saw a small apartment. She smelled the scent of cheap beer and heard the heavy, rhythmic thump of a belt hitting the floorboards.
She remembered the very first time she had learned that the world wasn't a playground—it was a cage.
And the person holding the key was always the one she loved most.
The subway sped deeper into the dark, and Kyra closed her eyes, falling back into the memory of the very first bruise..