Page 84 of Overdose

I plug it in with shaking hands, pacing as it comes to life. First thing I do—go to contacts.

No Dagger.

I check messages.

Nothing.

No calls. No texts. No anything.

Just… blank. Like he never fucking existed.

My heart stutters.

I rip through the room. Clothes fly. Sheets hit the floor. My suitcase gets dumped upside down.

No hoodie.

No T-shirt.

No.

No, this can’t be—thisisn’t—I’m not fucking crazy.

Right?

I blink. Rub my hands down my face, trying to ground myself. Trying to breathe. It doesn’t help. The air tastes like iron and ash, like the last breath before something breaks.

Maybe the overdose scrambled you worse than you thought. Maybe you imagined it all. Noir. Dagger. The raves. Brynn's photo. The fights. The fucking. All of it.

No. No,fuck no.

I’m not insane. I’m not.

Ifeltthem.

Irememberthe way Dagger’s voice dropped when he was close. The way Noir’s eyes burned when he looked at me like he already knew how I’d fall apart for him. The bass in the warehouse. The glitter. The pills. The fucking hoodie that smelled like nicotine and regret.

It was real. It had to be.

I suck in a breath and spin, pulling out my phone to call a ride. Uber shows up in five. I don’t wait—I pace.

I don’t blink the whole drive. Every stoplight feels like a scream in my skull. When the car finally pulls up to the alley behind the warehouse, I’m out before it fully stops, feet hitting the pavement like I can outrun the panic rising in my chest.

Only it’s... wrong.

Everything is wrong.

The alley smells like fresh paint and rain. The graffiti is gone. The metal doors are new. No burn marks, no broken locks. No grime caked into the seams where kids with glow sticks once disappeared into shadows.

I stumble up to a guy leaning against the loading dock, clipboard in hand.

“Hey. Do you—do you know where Noir is? Or Cass? Dagger?”

He frowns. “You okay, miss?”

“I just need to find them, they were always here. The parties, the lights, the rave?—”

He cuts me off with a shake of his head. “This place hasn’t been open for events in years. Was abandoned when the city bought it out last fall. Construction started two months ago.”