For half a second after Cherry said the name, no one moved.
Then the room shifted like a school of fish sensing a predator—smooth, silent, all at once.
Mari felt it in her skin before she saw it: bodies angling, space tightening, the air thickening with decision. The red light made everyone look sharper, meaner. Glitter became grit. Lashes became knives.
A dancer stepped sideways, cutting off the aisle toward Ethan.
Another drifted behind Mari, not touching her—just taking away her options.
Someone near the stage wrapped their fingers around a chrome pole and lifted it off the base with a soft squeal of metal.
At the bar, a bottle tipped and clinked, then rolled slowly until a hand caught it. The hand didn't let go.
Mari's back hit the corner where the bar met a wall of mirrored glass. The mirror threw her reflection back at her—eyes too wide, jaw set too tight, shoulders squared like she could intimidate her way out of being outnumbered.
Her heart didn't pound like panic.
It burned like anger.
Not at them.
At the universe.
At how fast "safe" turned into "hunt."
Cherry's finger was still aimed at her, trembling. Tears clung to Cherry's lashes, but her voice had gotten that thin, desperate edge Mari recognized—someone trying to be believed before the crowd decided she was lying.
"That's her," Cherry said again, louder, as if volume could make the room pick a side. "That's the one. Darius— Darius is dead because of her."
A low, ugly murmur rolled through the club.
"Darius was one of ours," someone said, and the words weren't grief so much as accusation.
Mari didn't raise her hands.
Didn't beg.
Begging never helped.
She watched the nearest dancer's stance the way she watched zombies—weight on the balls of her feet, shoulders forward, ready to lunge.
Her fingers slid to the knife at her hip.
Not dramatic.
Not threatening.
Just… ready.
Maya, still near Ethan, looked up sharply and started to stand—but one of the bartenders put an arm out like a quiet warning: stay out of this.
Vince's eyes darted, trying to count people who might snap. "Hey," he started, "everybody—"
No one listened.
A girl in a silver bikini took a slow step toward Mari, chin lifted. "You come in here," she said, voice low, "bleeding on our couches, dragging trouble behind you—"
"I dragged life," Mari cut in, and her voice came out harder than she meant. "He's alive because I dragged him."
That only fed the fire.
"Or you dragged death," someone hissed.
Cherry's chest heaved. "She didn't even look scared," she blurted, like that was the worst part. "She just… did it."
Mari felt the crowd lean into that sentence.
Like fear was forgivable.
But calm was suspicious.
Mari's knuckles whitened on the knife handle.
She could see how this ended.
They jumped her. She defended herself. Somebody bled. The room spiraled. The windows shook. The dead heard. The whole club became a screaming buffet.
Not again.
Not another place turning into a feeding ground because people couldn't control their fear.
A dancer raised the pole higher.
Mari shifted her weight, ready to move—
And then a voice exploded from the left side of the room, loud enough to slice through all of it.
"So fucking what!"
Everyone jerked.
The voice belonged to a woman older than the rest—thirties, maybe older, body strong and tired, face set in a permanent line of "don't try me." She had a robe half-tied over her lingerie, hair scraped into a messy knot like she'd been running for days. She shoved through two girls like they were curtains and planted herself between Mari and the rising weapons.
"So fucking what," she repeated, turning on the crowd like they were the problem. "Darius was a fucking asshole. He probably tried to rape her."
Mari blinked.
The word hit like ice water.
Not because she'd never thought it—
Because nobody ever said it out loud.
The room stuttered.
A few girls exchanged looks. Some faces twisted—not in disagreement, but in recognition.
Someone near the bar muttered, "She ain't wrong."
The older dancer—Mari didn't know her name yet—jabbed a finger at Cherry, but her tone wasn't cruel. It was blunt. "You crying like he was a saint. He wasn't."
Cherry's mouth opened, closed. Her eyes flicked around like she was searching for someone to defend him.
No one did.
A dancer in fishnets scoffed. "He was a bully."
Another voice—sharp, bitter—called out, "He stole four hundred dollars from me last week."
Heads snapped toward the speaker. A girl with a purple wig and mascara smudged down her cheeks stood with her arms crossed tight over her chest, trembling—not with fear, with rage.
Vince's eyebrows lifted. "He did what?"
"He stole my damn money," the girl snapped. "And when I asked for it back he laughed and said I should 'earn it' on my knees."
The crowd reacted like a hive struck.
"Ew."
"Typical."
"God, he was disgusting."
A bartender leaned forward, voice low and venomous. "He ran up a bar tab the other night. Drinks for him and his buddies. Promised to pay. Still hasn't."
Another dancer chimed in, "He tried to put his hands on me in the parking lot last month. I kneed him and he said he'd 'beat my ass' for embarrassing him."
"Yeah," someone else said. "He always thought he could beat everybody's ass."
"And he always picked the smallest girls," a voice added from the stage area. "Because he was a coward."
The momentum flipped.
Not gentle.
Not slow.
Like a chair kicked out from under the story Cherry had tried to tell.
Mari's breath came out in a quiet, shaky exhale.
She still didn't let go of the knife.
But the room stopped closing.
The older dancer looked back at Mari over her shoulder. "Did he attack you?" she asked, like the answer was already obvious.
Mari swallowed. The words scraped out of her throat. "Yes."
Cherry's eyes filled again. She whispered, "He did."
Every head turned toward Cherry.
Cherry flinched under the attention, then lifted her chin like she was tired of being small. "He… he saw them outside," she admitted. "He got loud on purpose. He wanted them scared. He—" her voice cracked, "—he told me to grab her."
A wave of disgust rippled through the club.
Maya's face tightened, jaw clenching so hard it looked painful.
Somebody muttered, "That tracks."
Another girl said, "I knew he was gonna get himself killed being stupid."
The dancer with the pole lowered it, slowly, like the anger had drained out of her arms.
The older dancer threw her hands up. "So what are we doing? Jumping a girl because she didn't let some perv carve her up? Because she protected her man? Please."
A few bitter laughs.
Not happy.
Just… relieved to have a target that wasn't Mari anymore.
One of the girls who'd been hovering near Cherry asked, softer now, "Cherry… why were you even out there with him?"
Cherry huffed a wet little laugh and wiped her face. "Because," she said, and it sounded like she hated herself for it, "he said he had drugs in his truck."
The room paused.
Then—like a spark hit gasoline—someone at the bar blurted, "Of course he did."
Cherry shrugged, almost embarrassed. "Weed. Mushrooms. Stuff like that."
A dancer leaned forward, eyes suddenly bright. "Did you get it?"
Cherry's mouth twitched—half grief, half something that looked like spiteful victory. She reached down behind the booth where she'd been sitting, grabbed a black backpack, and lifted it into the air like a trophy.
The room erupted.
Not screaming.
But a burst of wild, exhausted noise—cheers, laughter, whoops that sounded almost obscene in the middle of the apocalypse.
"YES!"
"Hell yeah!"
"Darius finally paid up!"
"Open it!"
Cherry unzipped it and started pulling things out—bagged weed, a couple bundles of mushrooms, a few small baggies of cocaine tucked in a side pocket like he'd been proud of himself.
"Dealer," someone said, shaking their head.
"No shit," Vince muttered, but even he couldn't hide the edge of relief in his expression.
It was ugly.
It was ridiculous.
But it was human.
The kind of dark humor people used to keep from collapsing.
Outside, something slammed into the tinted window again, making the glass vibrate and the red light tremble.
A few girls startled and went quiet.
The laughter died down like a candle snuffed.
Reality stepped back in.
One of the bartenders, still holding a bottle like a weapon, glanced at Mari with new eyes—less fear, more curiosity. "So why were you out there?" he asked. "Not with him. You and your guy. Why were you out in the street like that?"
Mari's throat tightened so fast it hurt.
Dot.
The name sat like a stone behind her ribs.
She could see Dot in her mind—too still, too quiet, the room mistaking it for peace until Mari touched her shoulder and felt the wrongness.
Mari's voice came out low. "We weren't looking for trouble."
Cherry's attention fixed on her now, guilty and wary.
Mari swallowed, forcing herself to speak through the ache. "Our friend… Dot. She's diabetic. We found out too late."
Maya's posture changed instantly. "Diabetic?"
Mari nodded. "She went into a coma."
The club went still.
Not violent-still.
Listening-still.
Like even the bassline from the broken speakers didn't want to interrupt.
"She had a medical bracelet," Mari continued, words heavy and exact because she couldn't afford to fall apart in front of strangers. "Insulin dependent. She didn't have her kit on her. No sugar tabs. No pen. Nothing. Ethan checked."
Maya's face tightened, understanding snapping into place.
Mari's hands trembled, and she curled them into fists to hide it. "Someone said there was a CVS near here. A block away. It was the only chance."
Cherry's expression softened in spite of herself.
"So you went," the older dancer said, quieter now.
Mari nodded once. "Ethan said he would. I went with him."
A girl near the stage whispered, "That's insane."
"It was that," Mari said, voice cracking just a fraction before she forced it steady again, "or watch her die."
Silence held.
Then, from somewhere near the couches, a dancer spoke softly, almost to herself: "I would've gone too."
Another girl nodded.
Vince exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for ten minutes. "Alright," he said, voice rough. "No one's touching her. You hear me? Nobody. Not in my building."
Nobody argued.
Not now.
The older dancer turned and looked Mari up and down—took in the bruises, the dried blood, the way Mari's shoulders never fully relaxed. "What's your name?" she asked.
"Mari," Mari said.
The woman nodded once, like that settled something. "Mari. You did what you had to do."
Mari didn't answer.
Because "had to" didn't erase the sound of screaming.
Didn't erase the feel of blood slick on her hands.
Didn't erase Dot's stillness.
Cherry hugged the backpack closer to her chest like it was armor. "I didn't mean—" she started.
Mari cut her off gently, exhausted. "I know."
The room began to loosen.
Not safe.
Not comfortable.
But no longer poised to tear Mari apart.
Somebody shoved the drugs back into the bag like they were ration packs now.
A bartender wiped down the counter out of habit, then stopped, staring at his own hands like he didn't know what normal was anymore.
Maya moved back toward Ethan, checking his bandage, her focus returning to the one thing she could control.
Mari stayed where she was for a moment longer, letting the adrenaline drain in slow, sick waves.
Outside, the dead pressed their faces to glass they couldn't see through.
Inside, velvet and glitter and fear held together by the thinnest thread of truth.
And Mari realized something cold, something permanent:
Out there, monsters wanted her body.
In here, people wanted a story.
Either way, she had to survive.