Page 53

FIFTY-THREE

MOIRA

Bar-crawling on 6th Street on a Friday night is practically a fucking tradition in Austin. They close the whole street to traffic, turning it into a river of sweaty bodies and pulsing music spilling from bar to club to rooftop to gutter.

When I used to regularly come down to 6 th Street for a good time, I’d just turned eighteen and had no patience to wait three more years for access to all the fun. Thank god my fake ID guy was still in business since bad guys took my wallet yesterday. Fuck, was that yesterday? The day before?

I shake my head.

It’s officially time to get fucked up and let all this shit go.

The hours pass, the drinks flow, and I give into the electricity of the city on a Friday night. I finally find the perfect club—electric with bodies that move like a single, chaotic organism. It’s not just alive; I can feel it breathing. It pulses through me like a second heartbeat.

The mayhem is me, and I am the mayhem.

The fabulous insanity only escalates as the night deepens. The music thumps louder. Drinks get sloppier. Bodies press closer.

By last call, the whole street will be a writhing mess of drunk, horny, half-dressed heathens stumbling toward whatever bad choices will carry them into the morning.

I throw my arms up and spin.

Someone hands me a shot, and I toss it back, laughing. Liquid fire coats my throat, and heat spreads through my limbs. I move back into the center of the full, writhing dance floor. The crowd roars. A great undulating beast—pressing, pulling, moving as one.

I am everything and nothing, just sensation and sound and motion.

The bass from the club shakes the floor beneath my feet, vibrating up through my spine. Toxic Love comes on, SZA’s voice dripping like honey, Kendrick’s words slicing through me like a whip. The DJ mixes it with a dark, thrumming techno beat that turns my veins electric.

The pain in the lyrics doesn’t just seep into my skin—it fucking burns.

It’s in the way I move, in the roll of my hips, in the arch of my spine. My fingers dig into the air like I can pull something from it. Like I can rip myself open and let the music swallow me whole.

I feel Bane’s fingerprints ghosting over me. The bruises he left on my hips, my waist, my thighs. I hear the heat in his voice as his voice breaks, demanding the truth from me.

Say it. Tell me you love me.

My body remembers. The way he pinned me against the door. Then the countertop. Oh god, the way he filled me. He held me together even as I shattered in his hands.

And I remember the way his eyes burned when I lied to him and broke us apart with my own two hands.

Tears stream down my cheeks as I fling my arms up to the music, to the ceiling, to whatever god wants to take me.

I am a dark, broken angel, cracked down the center, wings outstretched as I plummet.

Fly, fly away, dark angel.

The lights strobe too fast. The floor tilts under my feet.

I blink, and the neon signs smear across the walls like wet paint. The air is crackling and alive, making my skin prickle.

I press my hands to my temples. Oh shit. I know this feeling. I’m not right in the head. This happens sometimes. When I get pushed too far. Too far. Too far. Too far. I don’t tell anyone. Shhh. Don’t tell don’t tell. They already think I’m crazy.

The crowd moves around me, liquid and distorted, shifting in ways that don’t make sense. A man brushes my arm, but when I turn to look, his face isn’t right. His eyes are too dark, his mouth stretched wide in a grin that doesn’t end.

The music warps and deepens, twisting into something hungry.

A woman in a red dress is dancing near the bar, except her feet aren’t touching the ground. She’s hovering. Her feet dangle inches off the floor, her arms limp at her sides. Her hair floats around her like she’s underwater. Her head tilts too far, and her black, endless eyes find mine.

My breath stutters.

Her lips part, and even though the club is still pulsing with music, I hear her whisper like she’s inside my head.

You can’t run forever, Moira.

A maniacal giggle sounds right in my ear. Inside my ear. Inside my head .

The walls stretch. Breathing in. Breathing out.

Hands snag at my dress, fingers tangle in my hair. The air is heavy, pressing down, pushing me into the floor. The bass is inside me, rattling my ribs like they’re going to crack apart.

I can’t breathe.

I need out.

I push my way through the bodies, gasping, shoving, tripping over feet and knocking into strangers. I burst through the exit into the cool Texas night, hands on my knees, sucking in air like I just crawled out of a grave.

The city is still wild—still alive, still burning. But I am not.

I am unraveling. I am breaking.

I press my palms to my face, to my temples, squeezing.

brEATHE .

But the music is still inside me.

Bane is still inside me.

And I don’t know how to get him out.