Chapter 2: Birthday Girl's Big Hit
The bass was so loud I could feel it in my teeth. My friends had dragged me to this place for my birthday, all three of them squealing about how I had to experience real nightlife, about how I couldn't spend my eighteenth locked in my room with my sketchbook and a stack of fantasy novels. They meant well. They always meant well. But they'd been swallowed by the crowd within five minutes, a trio of shimmering dresses and laughing mouths disappearing into the strobe-lit dark, leaving me alone with a coconut mocktail and a growing urge to find the nearest exit.
I perched on the barstool like a sparrow on a wire, my pink and black striped sweater feeling weirdly modest amidst the sea of bare shoulders and plunging necklines. My skirt rode up my thigh as I crossed my legs, and I tugged at the hem, feeling the familiar flush of embarrassment creep up my neck. The music hammered on. Purple lights swept across the bar, catching the condensation on my glass.
The drink was sweet and cold. I wrapped both hands around it and focused on the feeling, trying to anchor myself against the noise. The air smelled like perfume and sweat and something acrid I couldn't name. Bodies pressed past me, brushing my shoulders with careless intimacy. I shrank into myself, trying to take up less space.
A pair of girls stumbled past, one of them catching my eye and winking. I looked away so fast my neck cracked. This was a mistake. I'd known it the moment we'd left the apartment. But Mia had said it would be good for me, that I needed to loosen up, that I was eighteen now and I couldn't spend my whole life hiding behind my books.
I lifted the glass to my lips and drank.
That was when I felt it. A tickle at the back of my neck, like someone had run a feather down my spine. I turned, expecting to see one of my friends, and my breath caught in my throat.
She was walking toward me like she owned the world. Tall, impossibly curvy, with a body that seemed sculpted from some divine fantasy. The crimson dress clung to every swell and hollow, hugging hips that swung with a hypnotic rhythm. Her hair spilled in wine-dark waves over her shoulders, and her eyes, god, her eyes were the color of aged merlot, dark and deep and hungry.
She was looking right at me.
My heart lurched. I turned back to my drink, staring at the pink surface like a lifeline. The woman's heels clicked closer, each step a little hammer against my composure. I could feel her approach in the way the air changed, in the subtle shift of pressure around me.
The stool beside me groaned as she sat down.
"Now who might you be, little treasure?"
Her voice was low and honeyed, slinking into my ears and curling up warm in my chest. I looked up, and there she was, all five feet ten of impossible beauty, smiling at me with a curve of her lips that felt like a private joke I wasn't in on.
"I, um." My voice cracked. I cleared my throat. "Ashley. I'm Ashley."
The woman's smile widened. She crossed her legs, and the crimson silk slid against her thighs with a whisper that I could hear even over the music. Up close, her skin was flawless, like poured cream. A gold choker hugged her throat, set with a deep red garnet that caught the light like a drop of dried blood.
"Ashley. What a lovely name." She tilted her head, studying me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. "I'm Lilith. Do you come here often?"
"No, I, my friends dragged me out. It's my birthday." I clamped my mouth shut, horrified at how easily the information had tumbled out. "I mean, not that you asked. Sorry."
Lilith laughed, low and warm. The sound vibrated through me, settling somewhere in my chest. "Your birthday? How wonderful. And you're spending it alone with just a drink?" She gestured at the crowd, a graceful gesture that somehow dismissed all the throbbing, sweating bodies around us. "That seems like a shame."
"My friends are around here somewhere." I craned my neck, scanning the crowd desperately for a familiar face. All I found was a blur of bodies and lights. "They were supposed to be back ages ago."
"Perhaps they've found other entertainments." Lilith's hand landed on the bar beside mine, so close I could feel the warmth radiating from her skin. "But that leaves you all alone, doesn't it? On your special day."
I swallowed. The way she said special sent a shiver down my spine, something between a caress and a warning. "It's really not that special. Just another year."
"Just another year." Lilith repeated the words, turning them over on her tongue. "You speak as if you have so many years to spend. As if they're all the same." Her gaze dropped to my lips, lingered there for a heartbeat. "As if you don't see your own value."
My face burned. I made a sound that might have been a laugh, if I'd had the breath for it. "I'm really not all that valuable. I'm just. I'm nobody."
Lilith leaned in, and the scent of her washed over me. Something floral and dark, like night-blooming jasmine layered over warm skin. She was close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in her wine-colored eyes.
"Nobody?" Her voice dropped lower, wrapping around me. "You're a young woman on the cusp of everything. Your whole life spread out before you like an endless ocean. And you sit here, shrinking into yourself, convinced you're worthless." She shook her head slowly. "I find that heartbreaking."
The word hit me harder than it should have. I blinked, a sudden sting in my eyes. The music thrummed on, the crowd swayed, and I was suddenly, achingly aware of how alone I felt, how much I'd wanted tonight to be different.
"It's just." I stopped, bit my lip. "I've never really felt like I fit in anywhere. You know? Like everyone else got a script and I got. Nothing."
The corner of Lilith's mouth tilted, a curious expression. Not pity, exactly. Something more intimate, like she understood exactly what I meant.
"I know precisely what that's like." She reached out, and her fingers brushed my wrist, light as a wing. The touch sent electricity up my arm, frying my thoughts. "I spent many years believing I was something wrong, something to be hidden. It takes time to learn that what makes us different is often our greatest strength."
I stared at her, mouth slightly open. Maybe it was the way she looked at me, like I was something worth looking at. Maybe it was the gentle pressure of her fingers on my skin. Maybe it was just that I was eighteen and lonely and she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, and she was giving me her full, undivided attention.
"Well, well." A voice cut through the haze. "Ashley! There you are!"
I jumped guiltily, pulling my wrist free as Mia appeared at my elbow, flushed and laughing. Her dress was askew, her makeup slightly smeared. She looked from me to Lilith, and her eyebrows climbed.
"Who's your friend?"
"She's nobody," I said, the words too fast, too eager. Then I winced. "I mean. She's Lilith. She's just. Talking to me."
Mia's grin widened, sharp and amused. "Talking. Sure." She looked Lilith up and down, appreciation evident. "Well, I hate to interrupt whatever this is, but Rina's a mess in the bathroom and Gemma's trying to get her out without security noticing. We might need a distraction."
I blinked. "What kind of distraction?"
Mia winked. "The loud kind. Come on, birthday girl." She grabbed my arm, tugging me off the stool. "Your drink's probably gone flat anyway."
I stumbled, looking back over my shoulder at Lilith. She hadn't moved, sitting still as a statue, watching me with those deep wine eyes. She raised her glass in a small salute, a smile playing on her lips.
"I'll be here," she said, and the words burrowed under my skin.
Mia pulled me into the crowd, and I lost her in the press of bodies. The next twenty minutes were a blur, of a chaotic rescue from a bathroom stall, of Gemma and Rina giggling hysterically, of security guards and a hasty retreat to a quieter corner. My friends dissolved into a state of drunken celebration, toasting my birthday with whatever they could find, and the noise washed over me without sticking.
My eyes kept drifting to the bar.
She was still there. Sitting exactly where I'd left her, one leg crossed over the other, her crimson dress glowing like a flame amidst the darkness. She nursed a glass of something amber, and every few minutes, she'd look up and catch my gaze across the room.
Each time, my heart skipped. Each time, my skin flushed. Each time, something deep and foreign stirred in my gut, a warmth I couldn't name.
"She's staring at you," Gemma observed, accidentally loud. I shushed her, horrified. "What? She is! Like a hawk. What'd you do to her?"
"Nothing! I didn't do anything." My voice came out high and weak. "She just. Sat down and started talking to me."
"Uh huh." Gemma's grin was unbearable. "And you just sat there and let her."
"What was I supposed to do? Run?" I crossed my arms, acutely aware of the weight in my own chest, the strange tightness in my boxers. This was not the time. This was absolutely not the time to be thinking about that.
"Maybe you should talk to her." Mia appeared at my side, sliding an arm around my shoulders. "She's clearly not leaving, and you clearly can't stop looking."
"I'm not looking!"
"You're very obviously looking."
I clamped my mouth shut. The heat in my face could have fried an egg. My friends burst into laughter, and I wanted the floor to open and swallow me whole.
"Go on," Mia urged, giving me a gentle push. "Go talk to her. Or dance with her. Or whatever you two were doing." She waggled her eyebrows. "It's your birthday. Live a little."
I stumbled forward, catching myself before I faceplanted onto the sticky floor. Behind me, my friends dissolved into giggles. Ahead of me, the bar glowed in purple and crimson, Lilith a still point at its center.
I walked before I could talk myself out of it.
The crowd absorbed me, but I kept my eyes on her, watching her watch me approach. She smiled as I drew near, slow and satisfied, like a cat who'd spotted a particularly interesting mouse.
"Back already?" She tilted her head. "Your friends seem to have managed their emergency."
I stopped, suddenly unsure of what to do with my hands. I shoved them into my sweater pockets. "Yeah. It was. Rina. She, um. She's fine now."
"Good." Lilith patted the stool beside her. "Sit. Finish your drink. Tell me more about yourself."
I sat. The stool was still warm from before, molded to my shape. My mocktail sat untouched where I'd left it, the ice long melted into a pink puddle. I reached for it, desperate for something to do with my hands.
"What do you want to know?" I asked, hearing the hope in my own voice.
"Everything." Lilith's gaze was a physical pressure on my skin, warm and deliberate. "What do you do, Ashley? When you're not being dragged to clubs by well-meaning friends?"
This time, the words didn't feel like pulling teeth. Maybe it was the quiet, the way she listened with her whole body, or maybe it was the smoothness of the alcohol I'd already drunk, but I found myself talking. I told her about my sketchbook, filled with dragon doodles and monsters I couldn't stop drawing. I told her about the library where I worked, shelving books and dreaming of other worlds. I told her about the gnawing sense that I was meant for something bigger, something I couldn't name, something that hovered just out of reach.
She listened to all of it with an expression of deep, unnerving interest. Her eyes never left mine. Her fingers tapped a slow rhythm on the bar, matching the beat of my heart.
"And what about love?" she asked, and the question caught me off guard. "Have you ever found someone who sees you the way I do?"
The way I do. The words hung in the air, heavy and suggestive. My skin prickled.
"I haven't really. I mean." I looked down at my drink, swirling the pink liquid. "I've never even been kissed."
Lilith's smile widened, a slow unfolding that made my stomach drop. "Never kissed? A treasure like you?"
The word treasure wrapped around me, coaxing, insistent. My mouth went dry.
"I'm not, I mean, I don't know, I'm not really anyone's type." The words tumbled out, clumsy and defensive. "I'm kind of. Not what people are looking for."
"Ashley." Lilith's hand found mine, warm and firm, her fingers intertwining with my own. "You have no idea what people are looking for. But I can promise you this." She leaned in, and her breath was warm against my ear. "I've been looking for a very long time. And I have never, never found anything like you."
My heart stopped. Then it hammered back to life, so hard I felt dizzy.
"I, um, I don't know what to say to that."
"Then say nothing." Lilith drew back, still holding my hand. "Let me show you instead."
Her thumb traced a slow circle on my palm, and shivers raced up my arm. The club, the crowd, my friends, all of it faded to a dull blur. There was only her, her eyes, her smile, the impossible warmth of her touch.
"There's a place," she said, voice low and intimate. "A quiet place. Away from all this noise. We could go there, you and I." Her thumb pressed into my palm, a gentle promise. "I could show you what it feels like to be wanted."
My throat tight, I looked at her, this beautiful, impossible woman who had appeared from the shadows and decided I was worth her time. I should say no. I should stay with my friends. I should stick to the plan, keep myself safe, go home to my quiet room and my sketchbook and my solitude.
But the warmth in my chest was singing, and the beat in my belly was aching, and some deep, primal part of me, something I'd never known existed, was stretching awake for the first time.
"Okay," I said, and the word felt like a key turning in a lock.