Zara returned to The Abyss the following night with a camera.
It was part of the cover, part of Zee's identity—the photographer looking for raw material, for darkness to capture and transform into art. But it was also strategic. The camera gave her a reason to observe, to study faces and spaces and interactions without appearing suspicious. People expected photographers to lurk in corners, to watch instead of participate.
What she hadn't expected was how different the club felt on a Friday night.
Thursday had been intense. Friday was transcendent chaos.
The line stretched two blocks, the crowd thicker and more desperate. The bouncer was more selective, turning away nearly half the people who approached. Zara waited forty minutes before reaching the door, watching the rejections pile up—too mainstream, too eager, too obviously tourists slumming in Brooklyn for the night.
When she reached the front, the bouncer looked at her stamp from the night before and something shifted in his expression. "Back already?"
"The music," Zara said simply, because Zee wouldn't explain herself, wouldn't justify her presence.
He studied her for a long moment, then nodded toward the door. "No cover for repeats."
Inside, the bass was heavier, the crowd denser, the air thicker with smoke and sweat and something electric that made Zara's skin prickle. She raised her camera and started shooting—the strobing lights, the anonymous bodies moving in the dark, the architectural bones of the space. Building her portfolio, building her cover, building reasons to be here that had nothing to do with missing women or mysterious DJs.
Ravyn wasn't in the booth yet. Some other DJ was warming up the crowd, competent but unremarkable. The energy was building toward something, waiting for something, and Zara could feel the anticipation like pressure in the air.
She worked her way through the crowd, camera raised, capturing moments. A woman with tears streaming down her face, eyes closed, lost in the music. Two men pressed together against a pillar, their kiss more desperate than romantic. A group in matching leather jackets moving as one organism, their synchronization both beautiful and unsettling.
Through the viewfinder, The Abyss became something else—a collection of isolated moments, individual stories of people seeking something they couldn't name. Zara had done enough undercover work to recognize the pattern. Everyone here was running from something or toward something or both at once.
The question was: what was Ravyn Cross offering them?
"Nice camera."
The voice came from behind her, close enough that Zara could feel breath on her neck. She turned and found herself face to face with the woman she'd identified as Nadia the night before. Up close, she was striking—sharp cheekbones, dark eyes that missed nothing, a sleeve of tattoos that disappeared under her black tank top.
"Thanks," Zara said, keeping her voice casual, disinterested.
"You shoot for anyone specific, or just for yourself?" Nadia was studying her with the kind of attention that suggested she made a living reading people.
"Myself. Portfolio building." Zara adjusted her grip on the camera, using the movement to create subtle distance. "The underground scene is richer material than gallery openings."
"True." Nadia smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "First time I saw you was last night. Now you're back. The music get under your skin?"
There was something in the question—a test, maybe, or a challenge. Zara met her gaze and told a truth that fit Zee's story. "I don't know yet. Still deciding."
"Honest." Nadia's smile became more genuine. "Most people bullshit, try to seem cooler than they are. I appreciate honesty." She gestured toward the bar. "Drink? On the house for someone who might actually tell me the truth about my photography."
Zara hesitated, but only for a second. This was an opportunity, a chance to make contact with someone in Ravyn's orbit. "Sure."
The bar was chaos—bodies pressed three-deep, everyone shouting orders over the music. But Nadia moved through it like water, and suddenly they were at the far end where it was marginally quieter and a bartender was already pouring without being asked.
"Whiskey, neat," Nadia said, sliding the glass toward Zara. "You look like someone who doesn't fuck around with fruity shit."
Zara accepted the glass, took a sip. Good whiskey, expensive whiskey, not what she'd expected in a place like this. "You work here?"
"I run the VIP section." Nadia leaned against the bar, her posture casual but her attention sharp. "Which means I decide who gets past the velvet rope and who stays down here with the masses. It's arbitrary and probably cruel, but—" She shrugged. "Someone has to do it."
"What's the criteria?" Zara asked, playing curious, playing interested.
"That's the question, isn't it?" Nadia took a drink from her own glass—vodka, from the smell. "Officially? There is no criteria. Unofficially? You have to be interesting. Broken in the right way. Beautiful damage, you know?"
Zara knew. She'd built a career on finding people who were broken in the right way, on exploiting their damage to get the story. The irony of now being assessed by the same standard wasn't lost on her.
"And who decides what counts as interesting?" She kept her tone light, but she already knew the answer.
"Ravyn." Nadia said the name like it was both prayer and curse. "She has a gift for seeing people. Really seeing them. All the shit they try to hide, all the cracks they cover up. She looks at you and knows exactly where you're bleeding."
The words sent something cold down Zara's spine, but she kept her expression neutral. "Sounds intense."
"Intense doesn't begin to cover it." Nadia was watching her carefully now, reading her reaction. "But you'll see for yourself soon enough. She noticed you last night."
Zara's pulse quickened, but she took another slow sip of whiskey before responding. "Did she?"
"Don't play coy. I saw the way she looked at you during the set. The way you looked back." Nadia leaned closer, and there was something almost protective in her expression now. "Word of advice? Ravyn's attention is a gift and a curse. Once she decides you're interesting, she doesn't let go easily. So if you're just here for the music, for the photography, you might want to stay on this side of the rope."
It was a warning, genuine and unsubtle. Zara filed it away, added it to the growing collection of data points that suggested Ravyn Cross was exactly as dangerous as Marcus suspected.
"What if I want to go upstairs?" she asked, because Zee would be curious, would be drawn to the forbidden thing.
Nadia studied her for a long moment, then smiled—sad, knowing, resigned. "Then you'll go upstairs. And whatever happens after that is on you."
The lights changed. The warm-up DJ's set ended, and the crowd's anticipation became almost violent in its intensity. Zara turned toward the booth and watched as Ravyn Cross climbed the steps, moving with the kind of confidence that came from knowing every eye in the room was on her.
She was wearing all black—ripped jeans, a tank top that showed her tattooed arms, boots that added inches she didn't need. Her hair was pulled back, the platinum streak visible even in the chaotic lighting. And when she reached the equipment, when she put on her headphones and raised one hand to the crowd, the roar that went up was primal.
The first beat dropped like a bomb.
Zara had experienced a lot of music in her life—concerts, clubs, festivals, the whole range of human expression through sound. But what Ravyn was doing wasn't just music. It was architecture built from bass and melody, a structure that held the crowd together and tore them apart in the same moment.
She watched through her viewfinder, capturing Ravyn's hands on the equipment, the intense focus on her face, the way she seemed to feel the music in her entire body. And then, as Zara was shooting, Ravyn looked up.
Their eyes met through the camera lens.
This time, Ravyn didn't look away.
She held Zara's gaze while her hands continued to work, while the music built and shifted around them, while the crowd surged and screamed and lost themselves. It felt like being seen through skin and bone, like being read in a language Zara didn't know she spoke.
Then Ravyn smiled—small, knowing, dangerous—and returned her attention to the music.
Zara lowered the camera, her hands shaking enough that she had to grip it tighter to compensate. Nadia was watching her with an expression that looked almost sympathetic.
"Too late," Nadia said quietly, barely audible over the music. "You're already interesting to her."
The set continued for two hours. Zara stayed, shooting, watching, trying to maintain the professional distance that was supposed to protect her from exactly this kind of thing. She documented the crowd's response, the way people moved like they were possessed, the tears and ecstasy and abandon that Ravyn's music pulled from them.
And she tried very hard not to think about the fact that she was responding to it too. That her pulse was matching the beat, that her body wanted to move, that some part of her she'd locked away years ago was responding to the invitation in that music—to let go, to surrender, to stop controlling everything for just one fucking moment.
She didn't, of course. Control was survival. Control was safety. Control was the only thing standing between Zara Quinn and the abyss of her own damage.
But god, the temptation.
When the set finally ended, when Ravyn took off her headphones and the lights came up slightly and the crowd reluctantly began to disperse, Zara was exhausted. Not physically, though her feet ached from standing. Emotionally. Like she'd been fighting a battle no one else could see.
She was packing up her camera, preparing to leave, when Nadia appeared beside her again.
"Ravyn wants to meet you," she said simply.
Zara's heart rate spiked. Too soon, the professional part of her brain said. You're not ready. You need more time to establish the cover, to build the story, to prepare.
But Zee would be curious. Zee would be drawn to this.
"Now?" Zara asked.
"Now." Nadia gestured toward the stairs that led to the VIP section. "Come on. Don't make her wait."
Zara followed, camera bag over her shoulder, whiskey still warm in her blood, every instinct screaming that she was walking into something she wasn't prepared for. But this was the job. This was why she was here. To get close to Ravyn Cross, to find out what she knew about the missing women, to expose whatever truth was hiding in this place.
She could handle it. She'd handled worse.
The VIP section was exactly as she'd glimpsed from below—velvet furniture, low lighting, a bar staffed by someone who looked like they'd stepped out of a fashion magazine. The people lounging on the couches had that particular quality of studied dishevelment that required significant money to achieve. They looked up as Nadia led Zara through, their expressions ranging from curious to dismissive.
And in the back corner, on a leather couch that probably cost more than Zara's monthly rent, was Ravyn Cross.
Up close, she was both more and less than Zara had expected. More beautiful—angular features, full lips, eyes so dark they were almost black. More present—the kind of physical charisma that made the air around her feel charged. But also more human. There was a beer on the table in front of her, condensation running down the bottle. Her hair was slightly messed from the headphones. She looked tired in a way that suggested the performance took something from her too.
"This is Zee," Nadia said. "The photographer I mentioned."
Ravyn's eyes traveled over Zara slowly, assessing, cataloging, reading. It felt invasive and intimate and completely deliberate. When she finally spoke, her voice was lower than Zara had expected, rough around the edges like she'd spent years screaming into microphones.
"Zee," Ravyn said, testing the name. "Just Zee?"
"Just Zee," Zara confirmed, keeping her voice steady.
"Sit." It wasn't a request. Ravyn gestured to the couch across from her. "Nadia, give us a minute."
Nadia hesitated—barely perceptible, but Zara caught it—then nodded and disappeared back into the crowd. Leaving Zara alone with the woman she was supposed to be investigating.
Zara sat, setting her camera bag beside her, and met Ravyn's gaze with what she hoped was the right mixture of interest and indifference.
"You came back," Ravyn said.
"I did."
"Why?"
The question was direct, uncompromising. Zara had prepared for this, had built Zee's backstory to answer exactly this kind of interrogation. "The music. And the people. I'm building a portfolio of the underground scene, and this—" She gestured vaguely at the space around them. "This is real. Not polished. Not fake."
"What makes you think anything here is real?" Ravyn leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and the movement brought her closer. "Everyone down there is pretending to be someone they're not. Playing at damage because actual damage is too hard to live with."
"Maybe," Zara said carefully. "But the pretending is still honest. They're showing who they want to be, which is a kind of truth."
Ravyn smiled, and it was nothing like the smile she'd given from the DJ booth. This one was sharp, assessing, dangerous. "Interesting answer. Most people would bullshit me, try to seem deeper than they are. You're actually thinking about it."
"I'm actually interested in truth," Zara said, and meant it, even though the truth she was interested in wasn't the one Ravyn thought.
"Truth." Ravyn picked up her beer, took a long drink, her eyes never leaving Zara's face. "Everyone says they want truth. But what they really want is a story they can live with. Truth is usually too ugly for that."
"Maybe I like ugly."
"Do you?" Ravyn set down the beer and leaned back, one arm stretched along the back of the couch, her posture open but her attention focused like a laser. "Tell me something true about yourself, Zee. Something ugly."
It was a test. Zara knew it was a test. And she had to pass it without revealing anything real, without giving away who she actually was.
She thought about Zee's story, about the divorce that had driven her to New York, and let some actual truth bleed through. "I don't know how to let people in. I've spent my whole life building walls, and now even when I want to tear them down, I don't remember how. So I end up alone. Always alone. Even when I'm with someone."
The words hung in the air between them, more honest than Zara had intended. She'd meant to give Zee's truth, but somewhere in the telling, it had become her own.
Ravyn's expression shifted—something like recognition, like seeing a reflection. "Now that," she said quietly, "is truth. Ugly truth. The kind that costs something to speak out loud."
"What about you?" Zara asked, pushing back, refusing to be the only one exposed. "Give me something ugly."
Ravyn laughed, low and dark. "I collect broken people. I see the cracks in them and instead of being repelled, I'm drawn to it. I want to get inside those cracks, to understand the damage, to—" She paused, considering her words. "To possess it, maybe. To make it mine. It's not healthy. It's probably fucked up. But it's true."
The honesty was startling, and Zara wasn't sure how to respond. This wasn't what she'd expected—this level of self-awareness, this willingness to expose her own damage. It complicated things. Made Ravyn more human, less monster.
More dangerous, in a different way.
"Why are you telling me this?" Zara asked.
"Because you're interesting." Ravyn stood, and the movement was fluid, controlled. She walked around the coffee table and sat next to Zara—close enough that their knees almost touched. "Because I saw you last night, standing at the bar, watching everything with those careful eyes. And I saw you tonight, hiding behind your camera, pretending you're just documenting when really you're trying to understand. Trying to figure us out."
Zara's pulse was racing, but she kept her voice steady. "Maybe I'm just taking pictures."
"Maybe." Ravyn reached out and touched Zara's camera bag, her fingers tracing the strap. "Or maybe you're looking for something you don't want to name yet. Maybe you're one of us—the broken ones—and you just hide it better."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Liar." But Ravyn said it gently, almost fondly. "You hide it beautifully. Very controlled, very contained. But I see it. That thing inside you that brought you here, that made you come back. You're looking for something in the dark, Zee. The question is: what happens when you find it?"
She stood again, creating distance, and Zara could breathe properly for the first time since Ravyn had sat down beside her.
"Come back tomorrow," Ravyn said. "Saturday sets are the best. And next time—" She smiled, and it was an invitation and a threat. "Bring your camera, but don't hide behind it. I want to see what you look like when you stop pretending you're just an observer."
Then she was gone, disappearing into the VIP crowd, leaving Zara alone on the couch with her racing heart and her compromised cover and the terrible knowledge that Ravyn Cross had seen through her in ways that should have been impossible.
Nadia reappeared, handed Zara a bottle of water. "You okay? You look pale."
"I'm fine," Zara said automatically.
"Right." Nadia sat down where Ravyn had been. "Word of advice? Whatever you're really doing here, whatever you're really looking for—be careful. Ravyn has a gift for seeing people. But she also has a gift for making them see themselves. And sometimes what you find when you really look—" She didn't finish the sentence.
Zara stood, gathering her camera bag, needing to leave before she gave away something else she couldn't afford to lose. "Thanks for the drink."
"Anytime." Nadia walked her back toward the stairs. "See you tomorrow?"
"Yeah," Zara heard herself say. "Tomorrow."
The subway ride back to her apartment was a blur. Zara sat in the fluorescent lighting, surrounded by drunk bridge-and-tunnel kids and exhausted service workers, and tried to process what had just happened.
Ravyn had seen through her. Not all the way—she didn't know Zara was a journalist, didn't know about the investigation. But she'd seen through the surface, through the careful construction of Zee, straight into the damage Zara had spent years learning to hide.
It should have been terrifying. It should have made her want to pull out of the assignment, to call Marcus and say it was too risky, too complicated.
Instead, she was already thinking about tomorrow. Already wondering what Ravyn would say next, what test she'd set, what truths they'd trade.
Already wanting to go back.
By the time Zara reached her apartment, stripped off Zee's clothes, and stood under a too-hot shower trying to wash away the smell of smoke and sweat, she knew she was in trouble.
Because Ravyn was right. She was looking for something in the dark.
She just hadn't realized until tonight that the dark might be looking back.