Bloom&Blood
944 Words
The music throbbed like a second heartbeat, thick and slow. Neon lights flickered across velvet walls, throwing shadows like ghosts. Zariah leaned against the bar, her fingers curled around a glass she hadn’t sipped from in twenty minutes. Her shift was over, but her body refused to leave the edge of the dancefloor.
She felt it again that pressure at the back of her neck. Like eyes. Watching. Waiting.
She reached for her throat instinctively, fingers brushing her pulse. Too fast. Too loud.
It wasn’t the music. It was her body, acting like it didn’t belong to her anymore.
Three nights in a row, something had been off.
Blackouts. Strange dreams. Waking up to scratches on her arms she didn’t remember getting. Sometimes, her dreams bled into waking flashes of hands wrapped in flame, lips whispering ancient words, a crown made of ash.
She thought maybe it was stress.
Or the cold.
Or the whispers that seemed to follow her now, curling around her thoughts like smoke.
“Zee,” a voice cut through the bass. “You good?”
She blinked. Mateo her friend and part-time bartender raised a brow at her. Zariah managed a nod.
“Just tired.”
He gave her that look the one that said he didn’t believe her but wouldn’t push. She was thankful for it. The truth was, she didn’t know what to say. Not when her skin buzzed like a storm about to break.
And then… it happened.
The doors opened.
She didn’t hear it she felt it. A pulse that rolled through the room like a shift in gravity.
Heads turned. Conversations paused. Even the DJ hesitated before switching tracks.
Zariah turned too.
There, standing under the red light at the entrance, was her.
Tall. Pale. Unbothered.
Hair like silver in the dark. Red lipstick. Black gloves. White suit.
And those eyes like knives dipped in ice.
Zariah couldn’t breathe. She didn’t want to breathe.
Their eyes met. Just for a second. Maybe not even that long.
But something cracked inside her chest.
She looked away first.
“She’s here,” Mateo muttered, his voice low. “Constantin’s girl.”
“Who?”
“Raye. Raye Constantin. Queen of Smoke. You don’t know?”
Zariah had heard whispers. Stories.
About the woman who owned half the city’s underworld. The one who ran the club from the shadows but never showed her face. The one who burned a rival gang alive and smiled while doing it.
What was she doing here?
And why was she staring at Zariah like she knew her?
Raye moved like she had time on her side. Smooth. Silent. Dangerous.
And when she reached the bar she didn’t speak. She simply tilted her head and looked at Zariah again.
Zariah felt her heart stutter. She didn’t know what this woman was made of, but it wasn’t air and water like the rest of them.
“I know you,” Raye said.
Her voice was calm. Low. Too calm.
Zariah blinked. “No. You don’t.”
A small smile curved Raye’s lips. “Not yet.”
Something buzzed under Zariah’s skin. Her fingertips itched. Her breath hitched. She took a step back.
“Excuse me,” she whispered, pushing past the bar, past Mateo, past everything.
She didn’t stop until she was outside, in the cold night, her breath misting in front of her like smoke.
The air smelled like rain and metal. Her hands trembled.
She leaned against the wall, hand on her chest.
What the hell was that?
Why did her presence feel… familiar?
Why did Raye’s voice ring in her ears like a song she used to hum as a child?
And why, when Zariah touched the wall behind her did it crack under her fingers like glass?
She snatched her hand away, breath shallow. A faint shimmer traced the crack, like gold lightning.
“No,” she whispered. “Not again.”
A sound made her spin.
Raye was there, already.
Standing a few feet away, calm and terrifying, like she hadn’t followed Zariah at all like she’d just appeared.
“You’re not ready,” she said softly.
Zariah took a step back. “What are you talking about?”
But Raye didn’t answer. She was staring at Zariah’s hand the one that had just cracked the concrete.
It was glowing faintly.
Golden veins. Flickering light. Like something trying to escape her skin.
Zariah’s breath caught in her throat.
“I don’t what’s happening to me?”
Raye stepped closer. Just one step. But it felt like a hundred.
“You’re waking up,” she said. “And when you do… everything you thought was real will burn.”
Zariah’s legs gave out. She slid down the wall, gasping, the light in her veins fading just as quickly as it came.
She looked up at Raye, eyes wide and desperate.
“You said you knew me.”
“I do,” Raye murmured. “And I was sent to kill you.”
Silence.
Then a soft sigh.
“But I changed my mind.”
Zariah stared at her, heart pounding. She should’ve run. She should’ve screamed.
Instead, she whispered, “Why?”
Raye’s gaze softened barely.
“Because the moment I saw you... I knew I couldn’t be the one to end you.”
And just like that, she turned and walked away heels clicking softly against the pavement, vanishing into the dark like smoke.
Zariah sat there, shivering, trembling, and suddenly more awake than she’d ever been in her life.
She had no idea what was coming.
But she knew one thing:
Nothing would ever be normal again.
- Writer
