Chapter 1: A Deal in the Dark
The heat of the city clung to Cat’s skin like a second, cheaper dress. It was the kind of humid Friday night that made every neon sign bleed into the pavement and every smell—exhaust, garbage, frying garlic—swirl into a single, thick perfume. She pushed through the crowd spilling out of a karaoke bar, her heeled boots clicking a determined rhythm on the cracked concrete. She wasn’t going home alone. Not again. Not tonight.
The thought of Matt, specifically, flashed behind her eyes. Matt from her senior seminar, who’d smiled at her presentation on gendered economics and then, when she’d asked him out for coffee, had politely mentioned a girlfriend. That was three years ago. She’d seen him last week at a tech mixer, single now, his laugh still the same low rumble that did something inconvenient to her knees. He’d been friendly, casual, utterly unmoved. It stuck in her craw.
“He’s just another guy,” she muttered to herself, dodging a group of laughing students. But the mantra felt thin. He wasn’t. He was the one who hadn’t bitten. The one who’d made her feel, for a fleeting second, like maybe her usual arsenal of a sharp smile and a sharper wit wasn’t enough. The idea was intolerable.
She turned into an alleyway, a shortcut she knew. The main street’s cacophony faded, replaced by the drip of a leaky air conditioner and the distant sizzle of a wok. Halfway down, tucked between a shuttered tailor and a fortune teller’s dark storefront, a stall glowed.
Red paper lanterns, faded to a ghostly pink, swung gently in the humid breeze. Beneath them, Bà Lan presided over a table crowded with dried herbs in plastic bins, knobby roots Cat couldn’t name, and tiny bottles filled with liquids in shades of brown and gold. The air here was different—layers of lemongrass, chili oil, star anise, and something else, something earthy and old, cut through the alley’s greasy smell. A cracked neon sign above flickered, Bánh Mì, the h permanently dark.
Cat slowed. She’d passed this stall a hundred times, always dismissing it as tourist junk or old-lady superstition. Tonight, she stopped.
Bà Lan looked up from a mortar where she was grinding something into a fine powder. Her áo dài was silk, but moth-eaten at the sleeves, the pattern of peonies worn soft. Her eyes, dark as dried plums, landed on Cat with an unsettling precision, as if she’d been expecting her.
“You look like you’re chasing a ghost,” the old woman said, her voice a dry rustle of leaves.
“I’m not chasing anything,” Cat said, too quickly. She leaned against a cool brick wall, feigning nonchalance. “Just cutting through.”
“Through to where?” Bà Lan didn’t stop her grinding. “A noisy bar? A bad apartment? A lonely bed?” A faint, mischievous smile played on her lips. “The night has a texture. Yours is… jagged.”
Cat scoffed, but it lacked conviction. She nodded toward the bottles. “What’s all this, anyway? Like, wellness tea?”
“Some. Some are for joint pain. Some for luck. Some for forgetting.” Bà Lan’s gaze was unwavering. “Some for making someone remember.”
A beat of silence hung between them, filled only by the rhythmic scrape of pestle against stone. Cat’s heart did a quick, traitorous thump. She pushed off the wall, drawn closer to the table. Her fingers brushed the edge of a worn velvet cloth.
“And what would that one be?” Cat asked, pointing vaguely.
“For the heart that won’t obey,” Bà Lan said simply. She set the mortar down and wiped her hands on a cloth. From beneath the table, she produced a small vial, no bigger than Cat’s thumb. It was glass, stoppered with wax, and filled with a liquid the color of dark amber honey. It seemed to swallow the lantern light. “It is not for whims. It is for a specific hunger. A stubborn one.”
Cat reached for it, a joke on her lips about the price, but her fingers closed around the vial before she could speak. It was warm. Not from the old woman’s hand, but as if from within. A scent escaped the wax seal—heady jasmine, undercut by something darker, like petrichor and clove. It was unnerving and compelling all at once.
“How does it work?” Cat’s voice was lower now.
“Three drops in his drink. Any drink. The craving finds him. The thoughts turn to you. Only you.” Bà Lan leaned forward, the mischief in her eyes replaced by a sudden, granite seriousness. “But listen, child. The heart is not a dog to be called. It is a wild thing. You call it with this, you must be ready for its teeth. It will bind him to you, but the how of that binding… that is for the heart to decide. It is a path, not a light switch. You cannot turn it off.”
Cat’s palm was sweating around the glass. This was insane. It was folklore, it was placebo, it was a scam. Matt was a software architect who drank cold brew and listened to podcasts. He didn’t believe in magic. She didn’t either.
But what if it worked?
The memory of his polite, distant smile at the mixer burned. The exhaustion of another night of empty flirting, of being the fun, easy girl who never got the one she actually wanted, settled on her shoulders like a weight.
“How much?” Cat asked, her tone all false bravado.
“For you?” Bà Lan sat back, the serious mask slipping back into that knowing, wrinkled smile. “Twenty dollars. And a piece of your hair.”
“My hair?”
“A strand. A token. For the magic to know its target.” The old woman produced a small, sharp pair of silver scissors from her sleeve.
This was the point where a sane person laughed and walked away. Cat watched the neon’s faulty buzz. She thought of Matt’s hands, the way he’d pushed his glasses up his nose when he was thinking. She thought of the hollow feeling that followed her home after every other conquest. This was different. This was for keeps.
“Fine,” she said, the word tasting of recklessness.
She leaned forward. Bà Lan’s fingers, surprisingly gentle, took a single strand from near her temple. The snick of the scissors was absurdly loud. The old woman wrapped the dark hair around the vial, murmuring something in Vietnamese that Cat didn’t catch. The words seemed to hang in the humid air.
Cat shoved a twenty across the table, the bill disappearing into Bà Lan’s sleeve. She pocketed the vial. Its warmth seeped through the denim of her jeans, a persistent pulse against her thigh.
“Remember,” Bà Lan said, already turning back to her mortar. “The path, not the switch. There is no deleting the sent message.”
Cat didn’t answer. She walked out of the alley, back into the roar and light of the main drag. The vial felt like a coal, a secret, a promise. The jagged texture of her night was gone, replaced by a single, focused hum of intention.
She pulled out her phone, her thumbs flying over the screen. No more waiting. No more games. She found Matt’s name—a contact saved three years ago and never used.
Hey Matt, it’s Cat from the Andersen seminar. Random, but some friends are grabbing drinks at The Alibi in an hour. You should come.
She hit send before she could overthink it. Her grip tightened on the phone. The Alibi was dark, noisy, perfect. She knew the bartender. She could make it happen.
A response bubble appeared almost immediately. Her breath hitched.
Then his reply: Sure, sounds good. See you then.
A slow smile spread across Cat’s face. It was set. The game was already in motion. She touched the vial in her pocket through the denim, its warmth now feeling less like a promise and more like a ticking clock. She didn’t think about teeth, or wild things, or paths with no return. She thought only of his eyes, finally, irrevocably, seeing only her.
The Alibi was all dim Edison bulbs and reclaimed wood, the air thick with the smell of hops and fried pickles. Cat spotted him immediately, because of course he was early, sitting at the bar with a pint of something dark. He was studying his phone, a faint line of concentration between his brows. Her stomach did a tight, familiar flip—part want, part nerves.
She smoothed her dress, took a breath that did nothing to settle her, and walked over.
“Hey, software architect.”
Matt looked up. His face went through a rapid transition: recognition, polite surprise, then a warm, genuine smile that hit her like a sunbeam. “Cat. Wow. You look great.”
“You clean up pretty okay yourself,” she said, sliding onto the stool next to him. Her thigh brushed his, a casual accident. He didn’t move away. “Thanks for coming out on short notice.”
“My exciting alternative was comparing nested arrays,” he said, tapping his phone screen dark. “So, thank you.”
They fell into easy talk. The seminar, mutual acquaintances, the brutal traffic on the 101. It was good. It was normal. He was funny in a dry, understated way, and he listened, really listened, when she told a story about her nightmare client at the marketing firm. The vial in her small clutch purse felt like it was emitting a silent, high-pitched scream.
Now. Do it now.
Her opportunity came when the bartender, a guy named Leo with sleeve tattoos she vaguely knew, delivered Matt’s second pint. Matt turned slightly to thank him, his attention diverted for three crucial seconds.
Cat’s heart hammered against her ribs. Her movements were fluid, practiced—a woman digging for a lip gloss. The tiny vial was cool in her sweaty palm. The wax seal gave way with a soft pop that was lost in the swell of laughter from a nearby booth. She leaned forward as if to hear Matt better over the music, her body a shield between the bar and his drink.
Three drops. They fell from the slender glass mouth, swirling into the dark ale like golden threads before vanishing completely.
She recapped the vial, shoved it back into her purse, and sat back, her pulse roaring in her ears.
“Sorry, what were you saying?” she asked, her voice miraculously steady.
He hadn’t seen a thing. He took a long pull from his pint. “Just complaining about the new office layout. It’s a soul-crushing open floor plan.”
She nodded, watching him. Waiting. Nothing happened. He didn’t convulse. His eyes didn’t glaze over. He just took another drink.
The let-down was physical, a cold wash of foolishness. Of course nothing happened. She’d spent twenty dollars and a piece of her DNA on grocery-store honey and the theatrical flair of a clever old woman. She felt like an idiot. The entire fantasy—the binding, the teeth, the path—crumbled into ash. This was just Matt, nice, smart, mildly interested Matt, and she was just Cat, trying too hard.
She was about to excuse herself to the bathroom to scream into a towel when he set his pint down with a soft clink.
He turned fully on his stool to face her. The movement was deliberate, cutting off her view of the rest of the bar. The ambient noise seemed to recede.
“You know,” he said, his voice lower. “I thought about you. After that seminar.”
“You did?” She tried for a light tone. “Was my analysis of post-industrial gender paradigms that memorable?”
“It was,” he said, not smiling. His gaze was locked on hers, intense and unblinking. It was a different kind of look. Before, it had been friendly, appreciative. Now it was acquisitive. “But that’s not what I thought about. I thought about the way you argued your point. Your voice got this… conviction. This heat. I thought about that.”
Cat’s breath caught. This wasn’t his dry, podcast style. This was direct. A line of heat trailed down her spine.
“You never said anything,” she managed.
“I had a girlfriend then.” He said it flatly, as if that chapter was not just closed but incinerated. “I don’t now.”
He picked up his glass, took another sip, his eyes never leaving her face. He was watching her with a focused curiosity, as if she were a complex code he’d just decrypted.
“Why did you really text me tonight, Cat?”
The question hung there, simple and devastating. The hum in the air between them wasn’t just attraction anymore; it was a current, live and snapping. The warmth from the vial in her purse seemed to seep through the leather, a reminder.
The path, not the switch.
She met his gaze, the foolish feeling vaporizing under the sheer weight of his attention. It was working. It was real. A wild, exhilarated fear took root in her chest.
“I told you,” she said, her own voice dropping to match his. “It was random.”
A slow, new smile touched his lips. It wasn’t polite. It was knowing. It was a smile that saw every one of her careful layers and decided to peel them back.
“No,” he said, finishing his drink. “It wasn’t.”
The air between them crackled, thick with the scent of spilled beer and the electricity of his loaded statement. The noise of the bar faded into a dull, distant rumble. All Cat could hear was the rush of blood in her ears and the slow, deliberate way he set his empty glass on the bar.
“It wasn’t random,” Matt repeated, his voice barely above the music but carving through it effortlessly. He leaned closer. The clean, soap-and-skin smell of him mixed with the dark ale, overwhelming the jasmine memory of the potion. “I’ve been thinking about texting you for weeks. But I kept stopping. It felt like… like if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop. Does that make sense?”
Cat’s mouth was dry. This was the script, but the delivery was all wrong. It was too fast, too intense. There was none of the playful buildup she was an expert at navigating. This was a landslide. “Matt, we’ve had one drink.”
“I know,” he said, and a laugh escaped him, short and humorless. He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it disheveled. “I know how this sounds. I’m a logical person. This is illogical. You’re all I can think about. Since I saw you last week, it’s like every other thought is just static. Just filler. You’re the only clear signal.”
He took her hand. His grip was warm, firm, almost desperate. “I think I’m in love with you.”
The words didn’t float. They hit like stones, one after the other, sinking into the pit of her stomach. A violent thrill shot through her, followed immediately by a cold, trickling fear. This wasn’t a flirtation. This was a confession. This was the “binding” Bà Lan had mentioned, and it was happening in the space of half a pint.
“You don’t even know me,” she whispered, but her fingers curled around his, betraying her.
“I want to know every single part,” he said, and the certainty in his eyes was terrifying. It was a hollowed-out, hungry certainty. “I want to know what you’re like in the morning. I want to know why you bite your lip when you’re thinking. I want to know everything. Cat, please.”
The please did it. It was raw, stripped of pride. It was the sound of the heart’s teeth she’d been warned about. She saw it now—this wasn’t just desire. It was need, vast and sudden, and she had summoned it. A heady power surged through her, burning away the fear. She had done this. He was hers.
She didn’t answer with words. She slid off her stool, stood between his knees, and pulled his face to hers.
The kiss wasn’t sweet. It was a collision. His hands came up to cradle her jaw, his touch reverent and frantic at the same time. He tasted of hops and a strange, metallic urgency. She kissed him back with all the pent-up want of three years, nipping at his lip, swallowing his soft, broken groan. The bar, the people, the world dissolved into a haze of touch and heat. He was pulling her closer, his fingers digging into the fabric of her dress like anchors.
When they broke apart, they were both breathing heavily. His forehead rested against hers, his eyes closed. “Come home with me,” he breathed. It wasn’t a question.
“No,” she said, and felt him stiffen. She opened her eyes, meeting his startled, wounded gaze. A smile touched her lips. She took his hand, lacing her fingers tightly with his. “You’re coming home with me.”
Her apartment was ten minutes away in a rideshare charged to his phone. They barely made it through the door. The second it clicked shut, he had her pinned against it, his mouth on her neck, his hands mapping the shape of her through her clothes with a clumsy, worshipful hunger.
“Wait,” she gasped, pushing him back just enough to lead him down the short hall. Her bedroom was a mess—clothes on a chair, makeup on the dresser, the bed unmade. He didn’t seem to see any of it. He only saw her.
In the dim light from the streetlamp outside her window, they undressed each other without ceremony. There was no playful teasing, no practiced seduction. His movements were jagged, his focus absolute. When his skin met hers, it was like touching a live wire. He was murmuring against her shoulder, her collarbone, her mouth. “You’re so beautiful. I can’t believe you’re real. I need you. I need you.”
They fell onto the bed. His weight was familiar and alien all at once. This was Matt, but it was Matt unmade, Matt rewritten by her own hand. The thought sent a dark, exhilarating shiver through her.
He fucked her with a single-minded intensity that felt less like passion and more like a sacrament. It was slow, then frantic, then slow again, as if he were trying to memorize the feel of her with his whole body. His eyes were open, locked on hers, the depth of feeling in them so vast it was like staring into a starless sky. It should have been creepy. It should have been too much. But the potion’s magic worked both ways, twisting her own perceptions, making his obsession feel like the most deserved devotion she’d ever known.
She wrapped her legs around him, arching to meet him, chasing her own climax through the haze of his whispered words. “I love you,” he chanted, a ragged prayer against her sweat-slicked skin. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
When it was over, he didn’t roll away. He collapsed beside her, immediately gathering her against his chest, his arms wrapping around her so tightly she could barely breathe. His heart hammered against her back, a frantic, unsteady rhythm.
He nuzzled into her hair. “Don’t ever leave,” he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep and something like despair.
Cat lay awake in the dark, listening to his breathing even out. The warmth of the vial was gone from her purse in the other room. It was inside him now. Inside this. She traced the powerful line of his forearm where it lay across her ribs. She had won. She had everything she’d wanted.
Outside, a siren wailed, fading into the city’s hum. A cold drip of condensation from her window AC unit hit the sill with a regular, ticking sound. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Like teeth on stone.