Chapter Five: First Stage

Ivy

The air in the Obsidian was thick enough to choke on.

Perfume, smoke, and bass, each one fighting for dominance, merged into something almost tangible. The music throbbed through the floor, climbed my legs, and settled into my spine until my bones seemed to move to its rhythm. The lights were dim, painted in shades of crimson and violet, the kind that made everything look softer, dirtier, more dangerous. Shadows slipped along the walls like predators, swallowing light and hope with equal ease.

Backstage, my heart pounded so hard it hurt.

The costume clung to me like a secret, black silk and sequins that revealed more than it hid. It wasn’t made for comfort, it was made for eyes. My hair, sleek and blonde, fell down my back, alien in its perfection. The stranger staring back at me from the mirror wasn’t Ivy Mooncrest anymore.

She was gone.

Rhea Black looked back instead, cold, composed, and untouchable.

Rhea didn’t flinch. Rhea didn’t break. Rhea survived.

“Stage in two!” barked a woman from the wings, her voice cutting through the noise like a whip. She had sharp eyes, sharper cheekbones, and no mercy.

I nodded, though my throat felt like sandpaper.

The other dancers swept past me in a rush of laughter and perfume. Their heels clicked like gunfire on the tiled floor, sequins flashing under the dim backstage bulbs. They moved like water, fluid, flawless, used to being watched. To them, the Obsidian wasn’t a cage. It was home.

To me, it was a battlefield.

Move like your life depends on it, Marco’s voice echoed in my head. Because it does.

The music outside shifted, my cue.

My breath caught, and I stepped out.

The lights hit me like a slap, bright and merciless. Heat washed over me, turning my skin to fire. The crowd below rippled with reaction, gasps, murmurs, laughter. I felt every stare crawl across my body, hungry, assessing.

My pulse screamed prey.

My body moved anyway.

One step. Then another.

Hips swaying in time with the bass. Arms fluid. Every motion deliberate, controlled. I forced the tremor out of my fingers, buried the panic under the rhythm. My face stayed calm, sultry, detached, untouchable.

Eyes tracked me from every corner.

Some burned with lust.

Others with calculation.

No one here was harmless.

And yet, amid the blur of faces and flashing lights, one gaze found me.

Different.

Heavier.

It sliced through the noise like a blade, steady, patient, deliberate.

Not lustful.

Watching with purpose.

I didn’t look for it. Couldn’t. The moment I searched, I’d expose myself.

So I danced harder. Sharper.

Until movement drowned out fear.

The bass became my heartbeat.

The floor my anchor.

The Obsidian wasn’t built for pleasure. It was built for power.

Here, dancers weren’t performers, they were bait.

Secrets were currency.

Desire was a weapon.

And tonight, I was the newest lure.

I spun, dipped, rose again, muscles remembering what fear tried to make me forget. Every step was a decision. Every breath was defiance. I wasn’t just dancing; I was staying alive.

Applause broke like thunder, sharp, metallic, empty.

Approval, not acceptance.

When the final note hit, I froze for a heartbeat, letting the silence swallow me. Then I bowed, eyes down, the spotlight burning the back of my neck. The lights cooled, but my blood still roared.

I’d survived the first dance.

But in the Obsidian, survival wasn’t measured by applause.

It was measured by who kept watching when the lights went out.

Backstage again.

The world narrowed into mirrors and perfume and too much laughter. The kind that never reached anyone’s eyes.

“You did fine,” one dancer said, brushing past me.

Her voice was flat, practiced.

She didn’t stop. None of them did.

I peeled the silk from my skin, each motion mechanical. My hands shook as I reached for the robe. Sweat clung to my back. The mirror in front of me threw back a reflection I didn’t recognize, eyes too wide, lips too pale, heartbeat still too loud.

Rhea Black wasn’t supposed to look haunted.

I forced her back on. Piece by piece.

Foundation to hide the fear.

Powder to erase the truth.

Lipstick to paint control.

By the time I was done, Ivy was buried again.

The laughter from the hallway faded into white noise. The buzz of neon lights overhead hummed like an old lullaby. I sat there for a moment, staring at my reflection.

That gaze, the one that cut through everything, still lingered in my mind. It hadn’t been casual. It hadn’t been kind.

Someone had been watching differently.

Not like the others.

Measuring. Calculating.

And though I didn’t know who, I could feel it like a hand at the base of my spine.

The Obsidian was full of watchers. But only one had looked at me like I was already caught.

I pulled the robe tighter.

Lifted my chin.

Rhea Black smiled at herself in the mirror, all crimson lips and false calm.

Because that’s what survivors did.

They smiled at the danger.

Even when it smiled back.

The weight of that unseen gaze stayed with me, heavy, deliberate, inescapable. I could feel it still, brushing against my skin like a promise.

Someone had noticed me tonight.

And in this world, being noticed was never safe.

I didn’t know who they were.

And I couldn’t afford to find out.

Not yet.