I work harder than anyone else in the club, not because I want to impress someone, but because work makes me invisible. Harmless. Left alone.
Behind the bar, if you move fast enough, if you don't lift your eyes more than necessary and you smile just the right amount, you become part of the noise, of the tired lights, of the mechanism that keeps running no matter who falls out of it.
It's safer here than onstage. Much safer than the basement. That means my debt shrinks more slowly, but slow is better than not at all. Slow means time. Slow means one more day in which Elena doesn't have to pay for other people's mistakes.
I fill my shift with repetitive motions—bottles, glasses, cash, cards—and with the constant effort of not standing out. Of not being noticed. Of not catching the attention of Asan or anyone else who might decide I'm suited for more than the background. More than I can carry.
When it finally ends, I don't feel relief. Just that heavy, sticky exhaustion that settles into the bones and stays there. I go out the back door and the night hits me full on—cold, sharp, unforgiving. The cold has become my ritual. Proof that I survived another night. I breathe in deep until the air burns my lungs and, for one brief moment, just long enough to matter, I feel real.
I pull my phone from my pocket before I reach the corner. A reflex. A stupid hope. The screen stays empty. No message. Elena is sleeping, probably. Or pretending to. I understand her. If I could, I'd do the same.
I take a deep breath and start walking home. "Home" is a foreign concept to me. I don't feel tied to that place, only to Elena.
I learned early how to steal food. To lie. To observe. To anticipate. Elena was small, and I was all she had. I became an adult before I ever got to be a child, and I never found the way back.
When my father practically sold me to Asan, I wasn't surprised. Just tired. Asan came with his calm smile and his neatly packaged solutions: a salary, food, the promise of safety. Privileges that cost more than they seemed. Our relationship was always a transaction, one in which I was the negotiable part.
I hate that sometimes I'm grateful to him. For minimal things. For normalities presented as favors.
The streets are almost empty, but that doesn't make them safer. My footsteps sound too loud on the asphalt, as if the city itself has decided to betray me, to announce me in advance. Comments come out of the darkness, thrown by faceless voices—dirty fragments of sentences that cling to me even when I don't stop to listen. I ignore them. I always ignore them. Ignoring has become a second skin.
At the bus stop, I feel them before I see them. I don't know how—maybe the way the air tightens, maybe the instinct that has never left me. My back stiffens. I shift my stance, move my bag on my shoulder, ready to leave if I have to.
"Hey… aren't you one of Asan's girls?"
One voice comes from the left. Another from the right. They bracket me without touching me yet. One stands too close, close enough that I can feel his warm breath on my neck. He smells so sharply of alcohol that the air around him turns sour. The other grins broadly, familiarly, as if we're old acquaintances who've run into each other by chance.
"You've got the wrong person," I say, already knowing it doesn't matter.
"Come on. Everyone knows you."
One of them grabs my arm, sudden, without warning. Squeezes. Not hard—not yet. Just enough to tell me he can. Time contracts. Sounds sharpen. The lights seem too bright. My heart is pounding so hard I'm sure they can hear it.
"Let go of me."
They laugh. Both of them. Their laughter crashes against the walls of the station and comes back at me. They shove me. My back slams into the cold wall. The air is knocked out of my chest, a split second where everything goes black.
And then there is no more fear.
There is clarity.
I can't scream. I can't negotiate. I can't wait.
I refuse.
I draw my knees up and strike upward, wild, unaimed, driven only by the hope of causing enough pain. One of them makes a short, startled sound. I seize the moment and slam my elbow into the other's chest, feeling the impact all the way up my arm. Their hands loosen for a second. One single second is all I have.
I wrench myself free. I slip. Almost fall. A hand catches the back of my jacket—the fabric stretches, tears. I turn and strike again, with my palm, my fist, any part of me that will move. It isn't elegant. It isn't fair. It's desperate.
"Bitch—"
I don't hear the rest. I run.
I don't stop. I don't look back. My lungs burn, my legs move on pure inertia, no longer waiting for commands. My shoes slap the asphalt in a broken rhythm. The cold slices at my face, but I don't feel it. I feel only the need to put distance between me and them. Any distance.
I see shapes. Lights. Shadows in motion.
Then I crash into someone.
The impact knocks the breath from me. Someone's hands grab my shoulders before I can fall, gripping firmly, surely, stopping my flight. My body reacts before my mind does. I struggle. I try to tear free. I strike again.
"Stop."
The voice is low. A command, not a plea.
I'm restrained again, caught in a different kind of force—more controlled, but just as absolute. My breathing comes in ragged bursts. My heart is lodged in my throat.
I lift my eyes.
He's beautiful.
And that should calm me.
It doesn't.