The club's VIP room glows like a wound—neon purple bleeding into electric blue, strobes slicing through the darkness in violent flashes. Music pulses beneath the floorboards, a heartbeat that isn't mine, vibrating through the soles of my shoes, settling somewhere deep in my chest where I don't want to feel anything.
Beautiful bodies move in the half-dark. Hosts draped in silk and sequins, their smiles painted on, their eyes empty. They dance like no one's watching—because no one is. Everyone here is too busy drowning in their own hunger.
I sit on the leather couch. It gives beneath me—soft, expensive, broken in just enough to feel familiar.
The whiskey glass is cold in my hand. I swirl the amber liquid, watching it catch the light, lose it, catch it again. Ice clinks against crystal. A small sound. Almost gentle.
I drink.
