On the night my life ended, the city glittered like it was throwing me a party.
Neon bled across the wet pavement, smeared by passing headlights. Music pounded from the club behind us, bass thudding in my ribs like it wanted to rearrange them. People laughed and shouted and stumbled past with plastic crowns and glow sticks, and somewhere down the block someone set off an illegal firework that cracked the sky into blue sparks.
“Eighteen, Lena!” Tasha yelled over the noise, flinging her arms wide and almost taking out a guy with a tray of shots. “You survived childhood. You’re officially allowed to make terrible decisions.”
“I’m pretty sure I started early on that,” I said, but my voice came out thin, like it had been dragged over gravel. My throat burned. Everything burned.
The cold November air should have bitten through my dress. Instead it felt distant, like it was happening to someone else’s skin. Heat slicked down my spine under my leather jacket. My palms were damp, nails biting crescents into my own fingers as I hugged myself.
I told myself it was just the crowded club, the tequila shot Tasha had bullied me into, the fact that my mom hadn’t called once today.
But the world was too loud. Every horn, every shout, every glass clink scraped along something raw in me. I could hear a dog barking six blocks away. I could smell rain before it fell, the sour reek of trash in the alley, the metallic tang of blood from someone’s scraped knee as they laughed it off.
I swallowed, and the motion felt wrong—like my tongue had forgotten where to sit in my own mouth.
“Bathroom,” I muttered. “I need—fresh air. More fresh air.”
Tasha’s grin dimmed. She stepped closer, her glittery hand landing on my arm. “Hey, you okay? You look… pale. Well, paler.”
“I’m fine,” I lied. The word tasted like lightning.
I wasn’t fine. My skin itched from the inside, like there was something under it clawing to get out.
Another firework sizzled up somewhere above the skyline. It popped in a burst of silver that washed over the glass towers, reflecting a thousand tiny explosions. The crowd on the sidewalk whooped.
And then my world narrowed to a single point of pressure behind my sternum.
My heart slammed once, hard enough to make me stagger. The next beat came late, wrong, a glitch in the system. My knees wobbled. My vision sharpened so fast it hurt—edges etching themselves into focus with inhuman clarity. I could count the pores on the bouncer’s nose. I could read the tiny text on a flier spinning under someone’s shoe.
The bass from the club became a dull, distant thing. Underneath it, something else rose. A rhythm. A call.
My bones vibrated.
“Lena?” Tasha’s voice was high now, frayed with real fear.
“I—” The word snagged as my teeth collided wrong. My jaw ached, a deep pressure traveling into my ears. My fingers twisted, joints complaining, skin stretching too tight. I dug my nails into the brick wall and heard it crumble under my grip.
I stared at my hand.
My fingernails were longer. Sharper. The crescent moons at their base had darkened, a faint amber glow pulsing there like trapped embers.
No.
This was not happening.
