Page 4 of Overdose
Someone brushes past me, glitter all over her like a goddamn Lisa Frank sticker melted in the sun. She grabs my hand like we’re friends.
We’re not.
“Oh my god, you’re stunning!” she yells, which is how I know she’s rolling. “Where’s the Cyanide? Anyone seen Dagger? He had the pink ones!”
Dagger?
I blink. “You… name drop your dealers now?”
She grins, eyes glassy and way too wide. “You’re new. That’s cute.”
Before I can respond with something appropriately snarky, she digs into the front of her holographic bra—yes, her literal bra, and pulls out a tiny zip baggie. Inside are hot-pink skull-shaped pills that sparkle like the bastard offspring of glitter and Fentanyl.
“What the hell is this?” I ask, eyeing the skulls. “Barbie’s last rites?”
She giggles and hands me one. “Cyanide. It doesn’t kill you, but it makes you wish it did—in the best way.”
“Sounds fake.”
“Tell that to your brain stem after it hits.” She nods her chin toward the other side of the dance floor. “That’s him.”
I follow her gaze, and land on him.
Leaning against a pillar like it personally offended him. Leather jacket, chain around his neck, hair a little too long and too perfect in that “I don’t give a fuck, but secretly I do” kind of way. His eyes meet mine across the crowd.
Boom. Static. The kind that prickles your skin and makes you forget how breathing works.
Oh. Okay. So that’s Dagger.
Of course it is.
I raise the pill between two fingers like a challenge. His gaze doesn’t flicker. Just watches. I pop it.
It tastes like bubblegum and ash.
The girl who gave it to me—name still unknown—drags me into the mess of moving bodies, and I let her. What the hell else am I gonna do, say no?
The music swallows us. Lights fracture and smear. People blur into colors, heat, limbs. She’s soft against me—tallish, blonde, a holographic bra and thong glowing under UV lights,matching fishnets ripped at the thigh. Her lip ring gleams every time she smiles at me like she knows something I don’t.
I lean into her. She smells like coconut oil and cherry lip balm. Our bodies press and pulse and tangle. Her hands find my waist. Mine curl into her hair.
I forget my name for a second.
My outfit is some unhinged cocktail of glitter, kinks, and questionable coping mechanisms—an iridescent micro-bikini top with straps that do absolutely nothing to help, a holographic pleated skirt that barely pretends to be clothing, and matching panties that are more suggestion than fabric. Thigh garters cling to my legs like a threat, all pink straps and lace, and my platforms add at least four inches of “please break my ankles.”
I sparkle like a disco ball with daddy issues—and yeah, I know exactly how it looks.
The pill hits hard.
Like a truck made of honey and claws.
Everything bends. Everything breathes, and the beat turns liquid under my feet.
Eventually, I stumble off the floor in search of hydration or death.Either will do.
I find the bar—if you can call it that. It’s a plywood slab on cinderblocks, covered in glowstick bracelets, napkins, and what might be a human tooth. Behind it is a girl with space buns and piercings for days, pouring drinks like she’s mad at them.
“What’ll it be?” the bartender barks, barely glancing up from whatever war she’s waging against the blender.
