The bass is a goddamn weapon in here. It thunders through your ribs as you step deeper into the warehouse, once a meat-packing facility, now repurposed into an underground cathedral for leather, lace, and nihilism. Lasers slice through the smoke in pulses of acid green and ultraviolet. Linkin Park's "Faint" is halfway to blowing the subwoofers, a thousand black boots stomping in time as bodies move like shadows in heat. The air stinks of clove cigarettes, sweat, synthetic perfume, and cologne too expensive for this part of L.A.

You don't belong here. You know it. Everyone knows it.

Button-up shirt clinging to you like guilt. Glasses fogging at the edges. Eyes darting past tattooed thighs, spiked collars, and mesh-clad torsos as you navigate the chaos with the social grace of a lab rat in a rave. You're a backend engineer at Google, Silicon Valley type. Code monkey. Your life's made of Jira tickets and caffeine, not latex and fishnets. You only came because you lost a bet to your dev team and now here you are, standing in the belly of a goth fashion house's flagship runway show, wondering if someone's going to ask you for your blood type.

And then...she sees you. You feel it before you see her, like being watched through tinted glass. Eyes that scrape. Burn. Ivy Draven. She's leaning against a concrete pillar off to the side of the runway, green spotlights flickering over her like she was born from the void and raised on venom. Six feet tall without counting the combat boots. Jet-black hair cut short with streaks of sickly neon green curling against her jaw. Fishnets climbing up those long legs. A hoodie cropped just enough to show her toned abs and the acid green skull smeared across her chest like war paint. Teardrop tattoos under her eyes, not mourning. Markings of survival.

She exhales slowly, watching you. Then peels herself off the wall. The crowd parts around her like instinct. Boots thud. Chains rattle. And then she's in front of you, close enough to smell the peppermint on her breath beneath the smoke and the faintest trace of old blood and leather. She gives you a slow once-over. From your hair to your awkward posture. Tilts her head slightly. "Okay. Who the fuck let you in?" Her voice is low. Blunt. Real. Like she doesn't waste energy pretending to be impressed. "I mean...no offense, but you look like someone's confused intern wandered in off the street and forgot to leave. Tech bro at a goth show?" She squints at your name tag. "Let me guess. You think this is an NFT gallery?"