Page 9 of GlitchBorn Heart

I slip past the doorman as he’s arguing with two younger girls trying to flash their breasts and charm their way into the club. I try to stay hidden, but it’s difficult to be light in a cavern of shadows.

I’m expecting to hear loud, digitized, raucous music. After all, NeonGods is playing tonight, and their fanbase is usually off the rails. But what I don’t expect is this...

This feeling, deep in my bones and in my lungs, syncing my heartbeat to the rhythm and lulling my nerves to peace. Asher Quinn, the gorgeous lead singer, is standing alone on the stage with his guitar. His voice rises and falls as he sings. It’s raw, jagged, and imperfect, but it moves me. The air vibrates, glasses and bottles trembling on tables. One of the Corporation’s surveillance drones, hovering too close to the entrance of the club, crashes to the wet street. The crowd erupts, not from panic, but from exhilaration.

When the band joins in and the beat drops, the whole vibe of the room changes. People scream, dance, and laugh. Not because they choose to, but because NeonGod’s music threads through them, stitching their emotions into harmony. I clutch the bar railing, breathless. I understand it now. The truth.

This isn’t just music. It’s control. It’s U21 magic. The rumors about the lead singer are all true.

Asher’s eyes snap open mid-chorus, flickering neon blue just for a second, like someone plugged him into a hard drive.

Oh, do I feel them. Not one but two sets of eyes cutting through the crowd: One from the stage, bright and electric, and one from the shadowed booth in the corner, dark and unreadable. He’s sending out some serious tension; a man carved from stillness and storm.

Just my type. I always like to console myself after a hard day’s work with a brooding bad boy.

The music stutters, and the song falters. It feels as if both men are searching, not for a fan, but for me. It’s as if they both sense the glitch in their world. Am I that obvious?

The bassline surges again, covering the pause in the song’s verse. No one else even notices. But I do. I can feel these two men staring at me, the one on stage and the one in the corner. They’re both dangerous and different.

Just like me.

“Hey, Sis!” Eli’s hand wraps around my shoulder. He gives me a quick peck on the cheek, grimacing at the wet strand of pink hair falling over my eye. He shoves some glowing stem-cocktail into my hand and turns me toward a group of academics, to begin introductions. They’re all his friends from VikkUniversity, but their faces and names barely register. I nod and smile blankly, my eyes remaining locked on the lead singer and his band.

I can’t take my eyes off him. Asher has built a sonic bridge between us, and it’s calling me closer. I hesitate, fingers nervously playing with the edge of the DreamNet band I wear loosely on my wrist. But he’s impossible to ignore.

My DataLINK sparks to life as digital code floats like fireflies around the screen.

Oops. Emotion again.

The music stops as the crowd comes down from their sonic-high with a collective groan. Asher steps down, while lifting his guitar above his head, and hands it to an equally attractive man in the shadows. He looks right through me, like an arrow being shot through my soul.

“Careful there.” His voice is smooth and teasing. “You’re about to crash the whole show.”

Stars above, this city is a neon-soaked cesspool, but damn if it doesn’t know how to spit out beautiful men.

He’s lean, tall, cut from lifting stage gear, and his body moves like it was designed to be watched. His hair is blond and messy with a shocking streak of neon blue. It drips with sweat under the stage lights.

I recall reading an interview that was recently published in an underground DigiZine, where he joked that the neon streak came from a childhood VR hack gone wrong.

I call bullshit.

Anyone who lived through StarFell knows better. That streak is a scar from the sky, burned into him the night everything changed.

His eyes hit me, glowing like a cat’s in the dark, glinting with mischief and danger just beneath the surface. I’m trapped in his gaze, electric blue, luminous, scanning the crowd like he can see every person, every sin.

He grins at me. It’s cocky but magnetic. The pause is unnerving, as those eyes look me over, devilishly. “Looks like you blew in on the storm.”

I glance at him sideways, my best attempt at playing it flirty-cool “Maybe I am the storm.” I wink.

What the fuck, Lyra? What is wrong with you? Winking? I scold myself internally. No wonder I never have a date anymore.

I quickly move the conversation on. “I’m...Lyra,” I stutter like a young schoolgirl but smile seductively.

He continues scanning me. The chaotic, beautiful mix of sound and light that he is. “So you’re Little Taiyō,” he whispers, so softly I’m not even sure it’s meant for me. I instantly freeze. Strange. He must think he knows me from somewhere.

He glances over his shoulder toward the man in the shadows. The one in the corner booth whose stare has been drilling holes through me since I walked in. Dark and watching.

I look over nervously; he still hasn’t taken his eyes off me. His stillness feels predatory rather than calm.