The Stranger.

“Are you okay” he asked again, Lucy’s breath was still ragged but she managed to answer him this time

“Yes” her voice still shaken

The music slowly swallowed the chaos again. The Velvet Room had resumed its rhythm, though hushed whispers rippled through the crowd like aftershocks. Her friends were still shaken, clinging to her arms, but Lucy couldn’t take her eyes off the hooded man standing before her.

“Who are you?” she demanded, her voice lower than a whisper but sharper than glass. Her chest was still heaving from the adrenaline, her pulse unsteady, but something about him drew her in like a flame she couldn’t step away from.

He held her gaze for a long moment before answering. “No one important.”

“That’s not enough.” Her voice wavered, though she tried to steady it. “Those men… they looked at you like you were death itself. And then they ran. People don’t just run from nobodies.”

A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He tilted his head, as though amused by her persistence. Finally, he sighed. “I came here to forget. I had a fight with my old man. Needed noise, drinks, a place where silence doesn’t catch up to me.”

It wasn’t the answer she wanted, and she could feel he was holding back more than he gave. Still, she pressed. “That’s all?”

“That’s all you need to know,” he said evenly, then turned toward the bar. “You should sit. You’re shaking.”

She wanted to protest, to demand more, but her legs betrayed her, carrying her after him as her friends helped. They slid onto stools at the bar, the neon glow painting shadows across the strangers face. For the first time, Lucy noticed his hands resting on the counter. The bruises stood out starkly, his knuckles scraped raw, skin swollen from the blows he had dealt minutes ago.

Without thinking, Lucy leaned toward the bartender. “Ice,” she ordered softly.

When the bartender slid a napkin-wrapped cube across, she picked it up and carefully pressed it to his fist. He stiffened at her touch, his eyes widening briefly as though no one had ever done such a thing for him before.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said quietly, his voice lower now, almost rough.

Lucy shrugged, her focus on his bruises. “I always did this for my brothers when they came home from fights. Adrian was the worst” she said “his fists would bleed, but he’d smile like nothing happened. I hated it. But tending to him… it made me feel like I was protecting him, even if just a little.”

Her voice trailed off, the weight of her own words sinking in. She had just compared this stranger to her brothers, the very ones she had stormed away from.

But the man didn’t ask more. He didn’t pry into her family or her life. Instead, he just looked at her, really looked, as if her simple act of kindness had carved through walls no one else had touched.

The girls feeling the tension around them and knowing Lucy was safe now excuses themselves

For a long while, neither spoke. The silence wasn’t heavy, though. It was… magnetic.

“I never thanked you for what you did for me” Lucy manages to speak out.

He gave out a quick smile “you actually did, you brought me ice”

Lucy’s nerves slowly melted under the heat of his gaze and the haze of drinks that kept coming. One glass, then another, laughter slipping easier with each sip. The earlier fear, the attack, her brothers’ warnings, it all blurred into the background, softened by neon lights and the stranger’s quiet presence.

At some point, she realized her hand was still over his, ice long since melted, but he hadn’t pulled away. He only watched her, his eyes darker, softer, unreadable.

And for the first time in her life, Lucy felt something she had never felt before, not rebellion, not rage, but a pull so strong it drowned out everything else.

The night unraveled in fragments, dancing again, laughter that wasn’t hers alone, another drink, the warmth of his hand brushing against hers, his lips close to her ear as he murmured something she barely remembered. Then a blur of passion, his arms, his breath, the world spinning and collapsing into nothing but the two of them.