I push through the crowd, breathless and reckless, until fingers catch my arm.
My pulse is a roar in my ears, every instinct screaming don't, while my body does it anyway—muscle memory pulling me forward like it already knows where this ends.
I turn so fast Will almost collides with me, and suddenly I'm staring into the same piercing blue eyes that have chased me through nightmares for weeks. The lights strobe across his face, cutting him into fragments—shadow, bone, scar of a smile—and stitching him back together again.
For half a second, I swear I see something else layered over him—armor instead of cotton, firelight instead of neon—then it's gone, swallowed by bass and sweat and motion.
My pulse trips. The bass rattles my ribs.
I tilt my head, shouting over the music. "What did you just say?"
Will only smiles—that infuriating, knowing curl of his mouth—taps his ear, and shrugs.
Convenient.
I don't believe him for a second.
The music is loud, sure, but I heard him. Not with my ears. Somewhere deeper. A word lodged under my ribs, echoing like a promise carved into stone.
You are mine. Forever and always.
The phrase reverberates, not as sound but as weight–setling into my chest like it's always belonged there, like it's been waiting for permission to surface.
I hold his gaze. I want—need—to believe I misheard. That I'm just tired, overloaded, slipping deeper into my own head. That he didn't lean in and drop something ancient and possessive into my ear like we were starting where some other life left off.
So I pretend.
I act like I imagined it. Like my heart isn't a drumline. Like my palms aren't slick. Like the look in his eyes doesn't say I meant exactly what you think I did.
The thing about fear is it's not always the monster you're running from.
Sometimes it's the door you're afraid to open.
Right now, he terrifies me—the kind of terror you feel when you're standing at the edge of something enormous and you know one step will change everything. It feels less like meeting a person and more like standing in front of a constellation that somehow knows your name.
Like being seen by something vast and patient that has already decided where you fit.
"Forget it," I shout, half-daring him, half-begging the universe to rewind. "It's loud. I probably heard wrong."
His eyes flicker. "You didn't."
The words are too low for the music to carry, but somehow I catch them anyway. They slide past my ears and straight into that small, bright place inside me that's been humming ever since the scroll—ever since the door—like a buried star remembering how to burn.
My stomach drops, not from surprise, but from inevitability.
Before I can process it, he takes my wrist.
Not roughly.
Not sweetly.
With the exact pressure of someone who knows I'll allow it.
The knowledge is the most frightening part.
Every instinct I own flares in protest.
My chest tightens. A warning sparks—the way my mother's voice used to say some doors charge a price. For a split second, I think of chains and circles and choosing wrong.
Then his thumb shifts, grounding, familiar in a way that makes no sense at all.
And my resistance collapses.
Not breaks—collapses. Like it was waiting for permission to fail.
He pulls me in, hand finding the small of my back, drawing my body against his.
Warm. Solid. Known.
Like we've done this a hundred times before.
We fit.
Way too easily.
My traitorous body responds before thought can interfere, adjusting instinctively–hips aligning, breath syncing–as if muscle memory is reclaiming territory my mind doesn't remember surrendering.
The world narrows to sweat, light, breath. Bodies move around us, shoulder to shoulder, but there's this tiny pocket of space we occupy, just the two of us. The music thrums through my bones, but his heartbeat under my palm is the only rhythm that matters.
"Dance with me," he murmurs, lips close enough that the words brush my skin more than the air.
It isn't really a question.
It feels like a vow.
One I didn't agree to. One my body answers anyway.
My hands lift—hesitant, clumsy—and settle on his shoulders. His shirt is soft under my fingers. The muscles beneath are not. I feel the tension there, the restraint, like he's holding himself together on purpose.
And that's all it takes.
We disappear.
Not from the room—but from time.
His body moves with mine like he already knows my rhythms—where I hesitate, where I lean in, where I pull back on the off-beat. Every shift, every turn, every inhale matches. It isn't the music syncing us; it's something older, heavier. Like two points on the same orbit finally snapping back into alignment after years of drift.
I tell myself it's just a dance.
But the way he holds me says otherwise.
He doesn't cling. He doesn't grope. There's nothing sloppy or careless about it.
He moves like he's memorizing me.
Like he has before.
Like he's afraid this version won't last.
A flash of light slices over us and for a heartbeat I catch our reflection in the mirrored wall: my arms looped around his neck, his hand firm at my back, his body curved around mine as if we're standing in the middle of a battlefield instead of a bar.
My stomach flips.
Shelby suddenly barrels past, chaos in stilettos and glitter, smacking my butt as she goes.
I yelp. "Shelby!"
She cackles, grabs Evan's hand, and spins herself into his arms. He catches her like he's been doing it his whole life. They melt together instantly, oblivious to whoever's watching.
I turn back to Will, breathless, trying to find my footing again.
"So," I shout over the music, "let's clear something up. Did your parents send you here because you ran away, or is it… something else? Because that's a lot of therapy to unpack."
He rolls his eyes, still moving with me, like trauma dumping in a nightclub is perfectly normal.
Then he takes my hands again.
Loops them around his neck.
Not tentative.
Not asking.
Certain.
Possessive without force. As if he's reminding me where they belong. Or this is his way of telling me to shut up and keep dancing.
My fingers brush the back of his neck, grazing a faint ridge of scar hidden under his hair. Heat jolts up my arm. He inhales sharply.
"If I answered that," he says near my temple, "you'd think I was lying."
"Try me."
The song shifts—slower, darker. The crowd tightens, bodies pulling closer. We move with it, too close and too safe and too dangerous.
And I let it happen.
Worse—I want it.
Want it with a hunger that feels older than preference. Older than choice.
Something in me unwinds in his arms, like a muscle clenched since birth finally finding the right shape to rest in. Like a dormant spark under my sternum just got oxygen and decided to remember it was once a flame.
"My father didn't punish me by sending me overseas," Will says at last. "I was already enrolled."
"Enrolled where?" I shout. "Emotional Damage U?"
He huffs a humorless laugh. "His punishment was… additional supervision."
"Supervision?"
"Guards," he says simply. "Men in suits. Watching. Always."
I blink. "That's not supervision. That's a leash."
His gaze locks onto mine. "Exactly."
Before I can answer, the song spikes and Shelby and Evan stumble back, laughing, glowing. The moment fractures into noise and motion.
The spell breaks.
But the echo stays.
We dance through song after song. I almost convince myself this is normal.
And then—
The world stutters.
Lights freeze mid-flash. Neon smears like wet paint in the air. The bass fractures into static, then cuts out completely.
Everybody on the dance floor halts mid-step—mouths open, feet lifted, drinks suspended halfway to lips. Frozen. Held. Wrong.
The silence is absolute—unnatural, suffocating.
My breath stutters.
I reach out on instinct, fingers brushing Shelby's arm.
Warm. Solid. Unmoving.
I wave my hand in front of her face.
Nothing.
Panic claws up my throat.
Except—
I can move.
And so can Will.
I turn slowly.
He's already looking at me.
Completely aware.
He steps toward me, soundless. Calm. Like this isn't new.
"What is this?" I whisper. "What did you do?"
"Nothing," he says quietly. "Not me."
Ice threads down my spine.
"Then what—"
"Something is waking up," he says. "Inside you."
The pendant at my throat pulses—cold, sharp.
"How…?"
The world snaps back.
Music slams in. Bodies move. Laughter erupts. Someone bumps me with an apology.
No one else noticed.
Except me.
And him.
I sway, dizzy, lungs burning.
"Breathe," Will says softly.
I do. Barely.
"What was that?"
He studies me, then steps back—just enough space to breathe.
"Proof," he says. His voice trembles. "That you're not crazy."
That doesn't comfort me.
It terrifies me.
The crowd swallows him again, but my world has already cracked open.
I don't chase him this time.
I stand there, heart hammering, skin buzzing, pendant burning cold against my chest, and I know two things with brutal certainty:
I won't ask tonight.
But I will.
And when he finally tells me what's been buried in my bones and left to wake—
I'm not sure I'll survive the answer.