Daughter of None

6

Lex:

The club unfolded around us like a cathedral to chaos—three towering levels stacked in a ring around a pulsing chasm below. We entered on the second floor. High-top tables hosted small covens of partiers shouting into each other’s faces, laughing like hyenas and sipping drinks that looked radioactive.

I drifted toward the railing and placed my hands on the cold metal. The moment my skin touched it, I flinched—it felt like ice, or maybe I was already burning.

I looked down.

And immediately regretted it.

The floor writhed. At first, I thought it was alive. A single, heaving organism. But no—it was people. A tidal wave of limbs and skin and sweat, moving in time with the music that throbbed like a heartbeat having an existential crisis.

Blue strobe lights painted everything in shifting pulses of light, and as my eyes adjusted, the chaos took form. Some danced. Some fought. Fists connected with jaws. One man headbutted another so hard the blood sprayed like ink against a glowing canvas.

Others… weren’t fighting.

The booths along the perimeter had become public bedrooms—or coliseums, depending on your view of audience participation. Clothes were optional. Shame was extinct. A few groups had formed human knots, tangled in a sweaty testament to the word uninhibited.

I looked to Cas for a reaction. Any reaction. But he just stared ahead, awestruck.

“Still glad we changed it up?” I asked, deadpan.

He said nothing—just grabbed my hand and started moving toward the bar, cutting a path through the pulsing sea of flesh.

Getting there was an ordeal. Bodies pressed against mine, slick with sweat, blind to our presence. Eyes closed, hips swaying, mouths parted in reverence to the beat. It was like they were dancing for something. Or someone.

I clung to Cas’s wrist and let him pull me through it all like some impeccably dressed ferryboat captain guiding us through the River Styx.

Eventually, we reached the bar—a raised platform in the center of the chaos, glowing like a summoned artifact. We climbed the few steps, and I finally exhaled. The bar pulsed in sync with the music, lit from within by that same impossible blue. It was alive. Or pretending to be.

The bartenders?

Even more of a spectacle.

Women in tight bands of black fabric. Men with bare chests inked in symbols I didn’t recognize—swirls, glyphs, shapes that seemed to shimmer if you stared too long. Each had thick black hair braided down their backs, and from their skulls, horns. Elegant, spiraled, otherworldly. Between them, a flickering blue flame hovered midair.

No wires. No strings. No logical explanation.

I stared. “Wow. Whoever’s doing props here deserves a raise and probably a background check.”

Cas flagged one down and said something I couldn’t hear over the beat that was now deeply embedded in my ribcage. The bartender shook his head, then poured two glasses of thick golden liquid. No chit-chat. No up-sell. Just mystery in a cup.

Cas handed me one. “What is it?” I yelled.

He shrugged, already tossing his back like a man with full faith in bad decisions.

I examined mine. The liquid shimmered like molten gold and smelled faintly of roses—like romance and danger and someone else's expensive sheets. I took a sip. It was sweet at first… then punched me directly in the throat.

I coughed. “Delicate,” I muttered, and promptly finished it off.

Warmth bloomed in my veins, spreading outward like a firework under my skin. I felt floaty. Euphoric. Slightly taller.

The music didn’t just surround me now—it summoned me. Every beat was a command. I grabbed Cas’s hand and dragged him into the crowd.

We danced.

No—we surrendered.

Time unraveled. My body glistened with sweat. My limbs obeyed rhythms I’d never learned. The crowd moved as one—a heaving, sweating, snarling creature with too many hearts.

Cas disappeared somewhere behind me, his hand now trailing down the waist of a girl who looked like she’d been dipped in starlight and saran wrap. He looked… happy. Focused.

Fine.

That’s when they appeared.

I didn’t remember how I met them. I didn’t remember meeting them at all.

One man pressed against me from the front, his hand cradling the back of my neck, thumb grazing my pulse. Another man behind me, fingers trailing along my stomach like he was memorizing a map. A third appeared, holding a bottle of that forbidden liquid like an offering.

I leaned back, mouth open.

He poured it down my throat. Some missed. It slid down my chin, down my neck, straight into the valley of my dress. I gasped.

The man in front of me leaned forward and licked it off. Slow. Deliberate.

I didn’t stop him.

Behind me, warm lips met mine. His kiss was patient but demanding, like he had all the time in the world to devour me. My hands found his hair. Teeth clashed. Tongues tangled.

When I opened my eyes, I was still dancing—like none of it had happened.

Like all of it had.

I stood upright, chest heaving, vision swimming in color and heat and memory.

And then—

I saw him.

Still, silent, and staring only at me.