The journey from the sunken lounge to the VIP section was a blur of strobe lights and muffled bass. Ananya moved on autopilot, her skin still feeling phantom traces of wetness despite her frantic scrubbing in the sleek, black-marble restroom adjacent to the VIP lounge. The tissues had been rough, the cold water a shock. In the mirror, a stranger stared back—eyes hollow and smudged with running kohl, lips swollen, a faint red mark on her neck from Rohan’s rough grip. She looked used. Broken. But also, terrifyingly, alive in a feral, wounded way.

Navya was waiting outside the restroom door, leaning against the wall with a cigarette. She assessed Ananya with a critical, almost artistic eye. **“That dress is a casualty of war,”** she declared, her voice cutting through the thrumming music. She took Ananya’s hand and led her not back to the main area, but through a discreet door marked ‘STAFF ONLY’ into a small, plushly carpeted corridor lined with lockers.