The music thundered like it was trying to out-sing the night. Bass heavy, polished, and pulsing through the velvet draped ballroom like a heartbeat trying to forget it ever had to break.
Beneath a cascade of silver balloons and chandeliers too grand for a teenager, Evelyn Evans stood with a crown that pinched too tightly against her scalp, a sky blue gown that glimmered like a lie, and a smile... barely stitched together from the wreckage of disappointment.
It was her eighteenth birthday.
Her parents weren't there.
She was supposed to feel beautiful, grown, desired, but all she felt was... late, not fashionably so... just abandoned.
The ballroom was a parade of influencers, businessmen's daughters, and socialites who called her "Evie" like they'd known her forever... when in truth, most had only accepted the invitation because of her last name, Evans, as in Goldstein & Evans, the architectural firm that touched skylines and cities alike.
The real Evelyn? She only knew one person in the room. And that person was currently twirling in a lilac satin dress, stealing dessert off trays and glaring at anyone who looked like they wanted to talk to her big sister.
Ashley.
"Come on, sis..." Ashley pouted dramatically, tugging at Evelyn's cold hand with her warm one. "You look ugly when you frown. Mama and Dada promised they'd be here before the day ends, they never break a promise, do they?"
Evelyn's lips parted into something almost gentle, almost real.
"Nah." she whispered. "They haven't."
"Exactly." Ashley grinned. "So smile, for all these fake friends who only came because their parents want a contract."
Evelyn snorted, the laugh slipping past her like a secret, it wasn't untrue. In fact, it was painfully accurate, every overly made up smile, every backhanded compliment... they all reeked of networking. The real party guests tonight were connections, not people.
Ashley was her only real one.
And when Evelyn looked down at her sister... wide eyed, full of sugar and belief and hope... the world still made sense.
Until it didn't.
The third phone ring was the one she heard. Not the first, not the second, but the third. It rang out like a warning bell through the thinning haze of champagne and confetti. It slithered into her bones, loud enough to silence the room without a word. She didn't know why she went looking for it, maybe she already knew.
The music dulled as if the universe itself hushed to listen.
She found the phone buried under glittering gift bags and tissue paper. A name was on the screen, her heart twisted into something primal.
St. Laurens Hospital.
The air thinned, her lungs tightened involuntarily, is she going to be diagnosed of cancer? She clicked the green button.
"Hell… yh?" she joked weakly, trying to bat away the dread pressing against her ribcage.
The voice that replied was clinical, calm, and cruel in its precision.
"Am I speaking with the daughter of Mr. Goldstein Evans and Mrs. Cataley Evans?"
Her blood ran cold.
"What's with Mom and Dad?" Her voice came out too sharp, too fast.
Ashley looked up instantly, her eyes widen, she suddenly became at alert.
The ballroom fell into stillness like an ocean before a tsunami. The DJ had lowered the music without a cue, every conversation evaporated as if the air itself had turned to smoke.
"I'm sorry… there's been a plane crash..."
That was the last thing she heard clearly.
Everything else came through as echoes.
Plane crash, so of course, critical... unstable... comas... if not dead.
Then, silence, not around her... inside her.
Evelyn dropped.
She didn't faint, nah, she fell. The kind of collapse that happens when reality strikes too hard and too fast. Her knees buckled, the crown rolled off her head, her body hit the floor like a broken promise, and the room finally realized something had shattered.
People screamed her name.
But she didn't hear them.
She was drowning in words.
Ashley was on the floor too, somewhere beside her, crying, shaking... maybe unconscious. Evelyn couldn't tell, her eyes weren't working right, nothing was.
She had begged her parents to come back early. She had sulked, cried, like a baby, claiming it would ruin her life if they missed her birthday. They had boarded a private jet just for her.
Now they were somewhere between life and death.
And all she could think was;
It's my bloody fault.
---
Three Years Later.
They said grief gets quieter. That it dulls over time, like old scars beneath silk.
They lied.
Evelyn Evans no longer existed.
She'd buried that girl with the crown and the birthday cake that was never cut. Now, she was Rose.
Rose didn't believe in birthdays, or balloons, or blue dresses, at least when she's not in the same environ with her younger sister.
She lives in the dark.
Not metaphorically, literally. Under crimson lights and velvet shadows, far from hospitals and high schools. Her sanctuary? A club without a sign.
No neon name out front, no online presence, just whispers and rumors, passed between the lips of men too rich and too wicked to say it out loud.
Club Dusk.
It wasn't a place, it was a sanctuary, a bloody confession, a sin wrapped in silk.
And Rose was the altar they worshipped at.
Her gown tonight was blood red, slit up to the hipbone, the fabric catching light like spilled wine. Her mask glittered... ruby encrusted, sharp around the eyes, hiding everything but the mouth.
She never spoke, she didn't need to.
Her silence is the show, her body is the temple, the prayer.
Men came to beg, and they paid to watch a ghost dance.
She has rules, lines she wouldn't cross.
Rose danced, she seduced, she dominated, but she never sold herself. The fantasy ended where flesh began.
Touch her? You're done, ask her name? You're banned, think you can take her home? You don't get to come back.
Doesn't matter if you have trillions in your account, that's the rules.
Because Rose wasn't anyone's.
She wasn't even herself.
And Ashley has no idea. She still believes Evelyn works nights at a sleepy diner that never showed up on Yelp. She didn't even ask questions when the money arrived on time... enough to cover private school, hospital fees, and anything else life could throw.
Ashley didn't know her sister was a ghost.
A mask.
A myth dancing for monsters.
And tonight… one of those monsters wanted more than a show.