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Fang is more alive than Pulse used to be, but the bones remain the same. Black walls, low ceilings, aggressive lights, bodies packed tight under lasers. Everyone wears black with neon accents. The music hits hard and steady, a mechanical pulse shaking through the floor and up my legs. My heart starts beating faster. I used to come here a lot. I partied a lot, drank a lot, did plenty of drugs. I took anything that could help me forget: oxy, cocaine, ketamine, tusi, anything. Hardly any of it helped, maybe because I wasn’t human. Until I discovered stardust.

Piro brings me to his table, but tonight I didn’t come to work. I came to get lost.

Stardust pours from the plastic bag onto a table, and I inhale the whole thing. Better to start properly. Piro crushes nightrush beside me, snorts it, and howls like an idiot. I laugh before I can stop myself.

Piro grins at me. “I didn’t know you could laugh.”

I show him my middle finger.

“Want some?” he asks, nodding toward the nightrush. I consider it for a second. What else do I have left? Sooner or later, I’ll run out of either the will to live or money anyway.

“Sure. I have nothing else to lose.”

That surprises him, but he still pours me a line. Mixing stardust and nightrush usually ends with bad decisions and a moral hangover. But I don’t have anyone to disappoint. No family. No money. No real relationships. I’m just a walking pain in a nice dress and too much debt. I inhale the nightrush, and it hits like getting thrown through a glass wall.

“Fuck me,” I hiss.

If wolves take this regularly, it explains a lot. It’s trash for the dopamine system, pure reckless fire dumped into the blood. The room tilts. Piro catches me by the waist before I can tip sideways.

“Easy,” he says. “I can see you don’t take it often. Relax. Give it time.”

I sink into the couch and stare at the dance floor. Lasers cut through smoke. Sweaty bodies grind together. Neon teeth flash in open mouths. For once, the noise inside my head starts blending into the noise around me. Piro drops beside me, and for a few minutes, we just exist in the glow.

Then one of his guards leans in. “Boss, your brother is looking for you. You’re not answering your phone.”

Piro pulls out his phone, and missed calls light up the screen.

“Shit,” he grimaces. “Tell him I’ll get to him later. He’ll probably beat the living shit out of me.”

“Speak of the devil,” I say. “Can you talk to your brother about leaving me alone? There is something seriously wrong with him.”

“Nero.” Piro exhales slowly. “Yeah. I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.”

“What does that mean? Am I stuck with him?”

“The thing is, when he fixates on something, it’s hard for him to let it go. Imagine an ultramarathoner who also likes killing things.”

“Piro. Everything you say makes this worse. What is wrong with your brother?”

“I don’t know how to help you. He doesn’t listen to me. He doesn’t listen to anyone.” Piro pauses, then adds too casually, “He almost killed our father.”

I stare at him.

“I’d suggest changing cities,” he says. “Maybe continents.”

“Great.”

“Want one more line?”

“Sure. Nothing can get worse.”

We do two more lines, and after that, I stop feeling like myself. I float inside a sphere made of bass, light, heat, and blood. I’m so high I can feel people’s pulses around me. It’s weird. Almost like I can taste them. Metal and salt and life moving under my skin.

Piro stands. “I have to go find my asshole brother. Just chill here. You took a lot of rush, so don’t go crazy.”

I barely hear him. The lasers have my attention now. I drift to the center of the dance floor and start moving with the rhythm. Sweat gathers at the back of my neck, so I pull my hair into a ponytail and keep dancing. Supernatural bodies move around me, wolves, witches and humans high enough to forget they should be afraid. The DJ is naked except for tattoos covering nearly every inch of his skin, his body moving in some trance behind the booth while smoke rolls around him like a storm clouds.

I let myself disappear in it.