Page 46 of Overdose

And Dagger?

He thinks he’s won tonight.

Thinks just because she pushed me off that he’s won.

Let him think that.

Let him wear it like a fucking crown.

Because when I make him feel it—really fucking feel it—he won’t be smirking.

I slip through the crowd, cut across the warehouse, out into the night.

They can keep their music. Their chaos. Their goddamn delusions.

I’ve got work to do.

Nine

Dagger

The music throbslike a second heartbeat through the warehouse—louder than thought, louder than blood. The air is hot and wet with smoke, sweat, and synthetic high. Bodies crash like waves in the dark, grinding under ultraviolet strobes, drowning in bass.

And then I see her.

Blair.

Dead center of the chaos, backlit by strobe flashes and fog like some fucking hallucination pulled from neon and sin. Her split-color braids—pink on one side, purple on the other—swing over bare shoulders like they’ve got their own rhythm, ends brushing the shimmer of her back as she moves.

She’s not just dancing—she’sflaunting. Arms raised high, tits pushed up in that iridescent bikini top, glitter catching the light with every twist of her body. That tiny, scallop-edged skirt barely hides anything, the hem fluttering up with each spin to show flashes of chain and skin beneath. Those ridiculous fairy boots—holographic and laced to her knees, wings flared at the ankles—stomp out a beat like she’s here to crush hearts beneath them.

And all of her?

She’s glowing. Glazed with heat and movement and whatever she took to keep herself floating this high.

But she’s not alone.

There’s a guy behind her, some rave rat in a mesh tank and dollar store sunglasses. His hands are on her hips like he owns them. His mouth moves at her ear like he’s saying something thatfucking matters. She laughs. Tilts her head. Her braid brushes his chest.

My jaw ticks.

I don’t think, I just fucking move.

The crowd swallows me in strobes and smoke, the scent of cheap cologne and burnt coils thick in my nose. Bodies press against mine, limbs tangling, but I don’t stop. My eyes don’t fucking leave her. Not until I’m behind her. Not until my hand is on her hip and I’m yanking her back against me like Iownthis.

Because I do.

The guy startles, takes one look at me—at the way I’m staring like I’ll cave his fucking skull in—and backs off fast. Good choice. I don’t even need to shove him.

Blair turns, breathless, lips parted and wet with gloss, cheeks flushed from heat and the high. Her lashes flutter when she sees me.

“Well, hey there,” she says, like she didn’t vanish on me hours ago, like she didn’t show back up floating on something Ididn’tgive her.

Like she didn’t take my no and chase the high anyway.

I grip her hip tighter. “So I say no, and you go get your fix from someone else, huh?”

She smirks, head tilted like a challenge. “Don’t act so shocked. You knew I’d find a way.”