Queen Of Ashes

Chapter 5- The Ones Who Stayed

Faith didn’t trust anyone, but she watched everyone.

The women of The Velvet Rope weren’t all broken - not in the way people liked to imagine. They laughed. They smoked. They sang along to bad pop songs between sets. Some still dreamed. Some didn’t But they all had rules.

Don’t talk about the past.

Don’t bring emotions to the floor.

Don’t fall for the lie that anyone’s coming to save you.

They were survivors, every one of them. And survival made strange sisters.

*****

Fatima became Faith’s tether - not a friend, not yet, but something steady in a world that spun too fast.

Fatima had been at the club longer than anyone. She didn’t dance anymore. She worked the bar, the books, and the secrets. She knew every whisper that mattered. She never raised her voice, but when she spoke, people shut up.

Faith gravitated toward her like gravity didn’t give her a choice.

“Why do you stay?” Faith asked one night.

Fatima didn’t answer right away. Just poured two shots and slid one toward her

“I stay,” she said fsinally, “because power comes in layers. And some of us are done being peeled.”

Faith didn’t press. That was the rule.

But in the silence, something passed between them. A thread. A warning. A vow.

Then there was Jules - twenty-two and already world-weary. She danced like her body owed her nothing and laughed like every joke was her last.

Jules was loud, messy , covered in tattoos she couldn’t remember getting. She wore her trauma like armor - bright, unapologetic and sharp. But at night, when the lights dimmed and the makeup came off, Faith would hear her crying into her pillow across the room.

They didn’t talk about it. That was the other rule. Jules taught Faith how to walk like she owned the room - hips loose, eyes forward, no apology.

“You can be scared,” Jules said. “Just don’t let ‘em smell it.”

And then there was Isabella.

New. Seventeen, maybe. She said she was nineteen. Eyes like a deer and hands that trembled when she lit cigarettes. Faith saw too much of herself in the girl. The way she flinched when someone called her name too loudly. The way she held her breath around Silas.

She tried to help. Gave her tips. Small ones at first - how to pad her shoes, how to tuck money in her bra without getting it stolen, how to fake confidence.

One night, Faith found her in the bathroom, sitting on the floor with her knees to her chest, mascara smeared. “I can;t do this,” Isabella whispered. “I thought I could. But I can’t.” Faith knelt beside her, hands resting on her thighs. She didn’t say it gets better. She said:

“You’ll do it because no one else will do it for you. And when you’re strong enough…..you burn this whole f*****g place to the ground.” Isabella looked up, her eyes wide.

And Faith realized she meant it.

She wasn’t just surviving anymore.

She was building a network. Watching. Listening. Learning what made the other girls tick - and what made them snap. And underneath the routine, the music, the dollars and desperation - she felt something shifting.

It was quiet. Slow. But it was coming.

Something was about to break.