I frowned. "Huh."
Bianca looked at me slowly. “Uh oh.”
I lowered my phone. “I think… I mixed up the names. I was looking for a club called After.”
“Oh my God,” Alessia gasped dramatically, but the other two girls looked interested. Before I could defend myself, the doors opened. Warm air rolled outside. Dark amber lighting spilled across the sidewalk. And every instinct inside me screamed that something felt...off. Not dangerous. Just different.
People moved inside dressed in black silk and leather and sharp expensive suits. Women wore impossible heels and red lipstick. Men wore tailored jackets with top buttons open at their throats. The place smelled faintly of expensive perfume, whiskey, and something darker underneath it all. Something I couldn't place. Something that made heat crawl slowly up my neck.
A beautiful woman wearing black smiled at us. “Welcome, little girls.”
Alessia made a tiny choking noise as a woman on an actual chain leash walked past us, led by a tall, shirtless man. I turned back toward my friends.
“I think,” I whispered carefully, “this may not be a normal nightclub.”
The answer was yes. This was absolutely not a normal nightclub. I realized that approximately thirty seconds after we walked inside, Bianca disappeared with a horrified little gasp toward a group of attractive men playing some sort of card game in a velvet lounge area.
Alessia vanished after because apparently a shirtless man with tattoos and suspenders had smiled at her. Traitor. Sofia lasted maybe another twenty seconds.
"Aurora, I just want to look around," she'd promised.
Then she'd spotted some gorgeous guy in black leather laughing near a staircase and wandered off like she'd been lured away by woodland fairies. Or demons. Definitely demons.
And... I was alone. Completely alone. I stood in the middle of the club staring after all three of them with betrayal flooding my chest. I turned in a slow circle. No one returned. I hated them. Actually hated them.
Around me, the club seemed darker now without my friends beside me. The amber lighting spilled over black leather couches and polished marble surfaces, casting shadows that moved across walls and bodies and expensive fabrics.
Music rolled through the floor beneath my heels in slow pulses. Not loud music. Heavy music. The kind that seemed to settle somewhere beneath your skin. People drifted around me carrying glasses of amber liquid and wearing expressions that made me feel like I had accidentally walked into some secret society meeting.
Nobody looked uncomfortable. Nobody looked embarrassed. Nobody looked like they were currently questioning every decision they'd made tonight. Unlike me.
Heat crawled up my face as I accidentally looked left. Huge mistake. Absolutely catastrophic.
Because a couple had disappeared behind dark curtains and she was topless… Nope. Nope nope nope. I looked away so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash. My face felt approximately nine hundred degrees. I headed toward the nearest bar because sitting down felt safer than existing.
The bar curved through one side of the club beneath hanging amber lights, bottles glittering behind glass shelves like liquid gold. I climbed onto a stool and smoothed down my dress like I hadn't just fled across the room in visible distress.
Play it cool. Totally normal. You are a grown woman. An adult. Adults absolutely walked into weird mystery clubs all the time. Probably.
A bartender appeared beside me. "What can I get you?"
I opened my mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again. "...Do you have lemonade?"
Silence. The bartender stared. I stared back. Then one corner of his mouth twitched.
"Yeah," he said carefully.
I narrowed my eyes. "Don't judge me."
"I'm not judging you.” He shrugged, not a care in the world.
"You are a little."
"I'm really not,” he insisted.
He was absolutely judging me. My phone buzzed violently against my clutch. Then buzzed again. And again. I frowned and pulled it out.
WHERE ARE YOU
