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Bodies slam into each other trying to shove toward exits while foam still blasts overhead, making the entire warehouse floor slick and impossible beneath stomping boots.

More gunshots crack through the air.

The lights keep flashing.

Which somehow makes everything worse.

It feels unreal watching people panic beneath pink and blue strobes while blood smears across concrete floors and somebody near the DJ booth starts sobbing hysterically.

“Mina!”

I grab for her through the crowd just as another shot explodes somewhere behind us.

Too close, way too fucking close.

Mina slams into me hard enough to nearly knock me over, eyes wide and blown with panic now instead of drugs.

“We need to go.”

“No shit!”

People crush around us from every direction while the bass still pounds violently through the warehouse like the building itself hasn’t realized people are dying yet.

Another body drops somewhere near the bar.

Screaming erupts louder.

Then somebody grabs Mina.

Hard.

A man in black lunges through the crowd and catches her arm violently enough she cries out while he tries dragging her backward toward the side hallway.

“What the fuck—”

“Mina!”

Everything slows weirdly for a second.

Lights flash violently across his face.

Screaming rips through the warehouse from every direction.

Panic crushes in around us, bodies shoving, music still pounding, Mina’s arm trapped in his grip while he drags her backward hard enough her boots skid across the slick concrete.

For one horrifying second, all I can focus on is her face.

Mina, who laughs at everything. Who calls emotional instability a lifestyle choice and yet in this moment looks so fucking scared.

Nope.

Absolutely the fuck not.

“GET OFF MY BABYSITTER, YOU TEMU HITMAN!”

Survival instinct kicks in so hard it burns the drugs straight out of my bloodstream.

I rip one of my platform boots off without thinking, stumble half a step on one bare foot, and swing with everything I have.