Page 95 of A Witchy Spell Ride

Like I was a burning building, and he planned to walk straight through the flames.

He didn’t speak. Just reached out and pulled me in. His hand splayed low on my back, mouth brushing my ear.

“You’re trouble, Red.”

“And you’re late.”

He hummed in a way that saidI’m exactly on time, then let me feel the shape of safety pressed to my spine.

We danced.

Old-school rock slid into dirty brass, and somewhere in there my feet forgot to be careful. We moved the way we’d practiced breathing—square and steady until the edges softened. He didn’t crowd. He surrounded. An orbit. I let myself be a planet because it felt like power, not surrender.

We drank.

Briar fed me something dark and sweet; Daisy handed me a shot that set my tongue on fire and then apologized to my ancestors. Vex tried to spin a record, failed, and then spun himself until Firefly yanked the cord. Bones got glittered and refused to acknowledge it. Cross popped in just long enough to adjust a camera and scowl in a satisfied way. Reaper, statue-still, kept counting exits with his eyes.

I laughed more in an hour than I had in months. My cheeks hurt. My shoulders dropped. Every time I glanced at the glass behind the bar and caught my reflection, I looked like a woman I recognized again.

For a while, it felt like the curse was broken. Like the night was ours.

Until it wasn’t.

I don’t remember what pulled me away.

A drink. A bathroom break. A club girl asking for help finding a lost earring. Maybe all three. Parties do that—nudge you sideways until you’re not where you were a minute ago.

I slipped away from the main room for five minutes.

Five minutes.

That’s all it took.

The hallway was too quiet. Not the cozy quiet of a home catching its breath. The tense quiet right before a door slams or a gunshot cracks.

The lights flickered, nothing new, the generator got shy on party nights but something else shifted. Theair, like a room exhaling to make space for a stranger. Instinct crawled up my spine and tugged my hair. Ghost’s voice threaded my head:Breathe. Square. In for four—

I slowed. Adjusted my grip on the slit of my skirt so I could move fast if I had to. Warded rings sat heavy on my fingers. The coin pendant lay warm against my sternum. The tiny bell on a trip line we’d strung earlier, silent.

I reached the bend that led to the bathroom and paused.

A shadow moved at the edge of sight. Small. Too small to be Bones, too smooth to be Vex. Footfall soft, trained. The scent hit next: drugstore cologne trying too hard, the bitter bite of something chemical underneath.

I turned to go back—

A hand.

Over my mouth.

From behind. A cloth with a sweet, rotten smell. Chloroform. Fucking chloroform.

A forearm locked across my ribs, pinning arms I’d kept loose on purpose. I bit the palm hard enough to taste iron. He grunted but didn’t loosen. My heel shot back, found shin, connected. He stumbled, recovered. I went for the blade in my boot, my leg was already trapped between his, thigh pinned to thigh, angle punished.

Square breath, Selene.

I took the breath I could and did what Ghost taught me when the plan breaks: go ugly.

I raked my ring across whatever skin I found. Felt flesh give. I twisted with hips the way he’d shown me, not arms. The grip at my ribs slid a fraction; I made a slit of space and shoved a sound out around the cloth, ugly, animal, hoping someone would hear anything over the music.