Vixen (Siren Sisters # 5)

VIXEN

The music was loud enough to rattle the glasses behind the bar. The bass thumped through the floor beneath my boots, lights flashed across the dance floor, and the air smelled like perfume, alcohol, sweat and the faint trace of smoke from the machine we used near the stage. It was just another Friday night at the club, the kind of night we’d worked through countless times before, and nothing about it felt any different from the usual chaos. At least, that was what I thought at the time.

I leaned against the bar, watching Aubrey move between the tables with a tray balanced on one hand. “You’ve got three drinks going to table six,” I called over the music.

“I know,” she shouted back without even looking at me.

“And table nine is waiting.”

“I know.”

“And—”

Aubrey stopped and turned to look at me, her expression warning enough to make me grin. “If you tell me one more thing, Vixen, I swear I’ll pour this entire tray over your head.”

I laughed. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

She turned away before I could answer, and I grabbed another bottle from behind the bar. That was Aubrey. She’d been working with us long enough to know exactly when to threaten me and exactly how serious she was about following through. Most nights at the club followed the same routine. Music, drinks, dancers, men pretending they weren’t staring and women pretending they didn’t care that the men were staring. Nothing complicated. Nothing unusual. Just another night where we did what we did and made sure everyone walked out the door at the end of it.

Junko was somewhere near the front, keeping an eye on everything even though she didn’t technically need to anymore. Blu was probably hiding in the office with her laptop open, doing something involving enough screens and passwords to make my head hurt just thinking about it. Widow had disappeared towards the back earlier, and Mace was helping behind the bar whenever she wasn’t dealing with something else. We were all there. The Siren Sisters. Different women with different histories, but somehow we’d become family.

I glanced towards the stage as one of the girls finished her set. The room erupted into cheers, and she gave a quick bow before disappearing behind the curtain. Aubrey eventually returned to the bar and leaned against it beside me, finally getting a chance to breathe.

“Busy tonight,” she said.

“It’s Friday.”

“Still.”

I shrugged. “People have money to waste.”

“You mean men have money to waste.”

“Same thing.”

She snorted, and I laughed.

My red hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, although several strands had already escaped and were sticking to the side of my face. I’d dyed it the same shade of red for so long that I couldn’t imagine myself any other way. Bright, almost the colour of a Coca-Cola can. It suited me. I’d never been particularly good at blending into the background.

I reached up and pulled one of the loose strands away from my cheek before looking towards the hallway. “I’m going to the back for a minute.”

“Need anything?” Aubrey asked.

“Nope.”

I slipped through the side door and headed down the narrow hallway. The further I got from the main room, the quieter the music became. The back area was nothing exciting. There were storage cupboards, dressing rooms, lockers, a small staff bathroom and a room where the girls could get changed between sets.

I pushed open the dressing-room door and found it empty. Good. I grabbed a bottle of water from one of the crates stacked against the wall and twisted the lid off, taking a long drink. Then I stopped.

Something smelled wrong.

Burning.

At first, I thought someone had left something too close to a heater. I frowned and looked around the room, trying to work out where the smell was coming from. Then I noticed the smoke. It was thin at first, almost invisible, curling towards the ceiling from the corner of the room.

I stepped closer.

A towel had fallen onto the floor beside one of the dressing tables. Underneath it, something glowed orange. A hair straightener.

Still switched on.

The edge of the towel was burning.

“Oh, shit.”

I dropped the bottle and immediately kicked the towel away from the dressing table, but the flames had already caught hold. They crawled higher, licking across the fabric as smoke began rolling towards the ceiling.

“Fuck!”

I backed towards the door and yelled as loudly as I could.

“FIRE!”

For half a second, nothing happened.

Then everything happened at once.

“FIRE!” I screamed again as I ran into the hallway. “There’s a fire in the back room!”

Aubrey’s face changed instantly when she heard me. “Where?”

“Dressing room!”

She was already moving before I’d finished speaking. “Everyone out!”

The music stopped, and the sudden silence was almost more frightening than the noise had been. Then the panic started. People began shouting, chairs scraped across the floor, and somewhere behind me, a glass hit the ground and shattered.

Junko appeared from the front of the club, her eyes wide. “What happened?”

“Back room!” I shouted. “Something caught fire.”

Widow came charging down the hallway behind her. “Everyone outside. Now.”

Nobody argued with Widow. She had that voice—the one that made people move before they’d even had time to think about it.

Blu came rushing out of the office with her laptop clutched against her chest. “Do I take this?”

I stared at her.

“Seriously?”

She looked down at the laptop, then back at me. “Right.”

She tossed it onto the desk.

“Everyone out!” Widow shouted.

We started pushing people towards the exits. The smoke was getting thicker, and my eyes began to sting as I coughed and pulled the bottom of my shirt over my nose.

“Come on! Move!” I yelled.

Aubrey grabbed one of the girls who had frozen near the hallway. “Outside!”

“I can’t find my shoes!”

“Forget your shoes!”

Mace appeared beside us, already coughing. “Everyone’s out the front!”

“Then go!”

She shook her head. “Not leaving without you.”

“I’m right behind you.”

She gave me a look that told me she didn’t believe me. “You’d better be.”

Then she disappeared through the door.

I turned back towards the hallway. The smoke was much thicker now, too thick, and for one stupid second I thought about going back for something. My bag. My phone. Anything I’d left behind. Then a sharp popping sound came from the dressing room, followed by a burst of orange light.

I didn’t need another reason.

“Fuck that.”

I ran.

We spilled out into the night with everyone else, coughing and trying to catch our breath. The cool air hit my face, and I sucked in a deep breath as people gathered outside. Some were barefoot. Others were still clutching their handbags. A few stood in shock, staring at the building like they couldn’t quite believe what had happened.

Junko immediately started counting heads. “Blu.”

“Here.”

“Widow.”

“Here.”

“Mace.”

“Here.”

“Aubrey.”

“Here.”

Her eyes landed on me.

“Vixen?”

“Here.”

She exhaled, finally relaxing her shoulders.

I bent forward with my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. “I think my lungs are trying to leave my body.”

Aubrey coughed beside me. “Drama queen.”

“You were the one yelling at everyone.”

“Because you started a fire.”

“I didn’t start it.”

“You were in there.”

“I was investigating.”

“You were standing there.”

I straightened and glared at her. “I was aggressively investigating.”

Mace laughed, and even Junko cracked a smile. For a few seconds, the tension eased, and I almost managed to convince myself that everything was going to be okay.

Then we heard the sirens.

Loud.

Getting closer.

Everyone turned towards the road.

Red lights flashed across the buildings as the first fire truck came around the corner, followed closely by another. The trucks pulled up outside the club, and firefighters jumped down almost before they had completely stopped.

I’d seen fire trucks plenty of times before. It wasn’t as though they were something I’d never encountered. But watching them pull up outside our club made the whole thing feel real. This had actually happened. There was a fire inside our club, and there were firefighters rushing towards the building because of it.

They moved quickly, calmly and with the kind of efficiency that told me they’d done this more times than I could imagine. Some headed straight towards the entrance while others began preparing equipment. I watched them without really thinking about it, my attention following the movement of the crew as they worked.

Then one of them turned.

He was taller than I remembered.

Or maybe I was just looking at him differently.

He lifted a gloved hand to his helmet and pulled it off. Dark hair was flattened beneath it, and he ran one hand through it before looking towards the group of us standing across the street.

Our eyes met.

Everything inside me stopped.

No.

Absolutely not.

I stared at him.

He stared back.

There was something familiar in his face. Something I hadn’t seen in years, but somehow recognised immediately. Not the firefighter. Not the man standing in front of me in protective gear.

The boy.

The skinny kid who sat near the front of the classroom. The one who wore glasses every day. The one who always had his homework finished before the teacher had even asked for it. The one the teachers loved and I spent half of high school calling a nerd.

Oliver Harris.

I hadn’t seen him since we graduated.

We hadn’t been friends back then. We hadn’t hung out after school or spent weekends together. We hadn’t been part of the same social circle. We’d simply been classmates who knew each other well enough to recognise one another in a crowded hallway. He was the quiet, organised boy near the front of the classroom, and I was the troublemaker at the back who was forever arriving late, talking back to teachers and collecting detention slips like they were achievements.

Yet I’d always remembered him.

Maybe because he had been so different from me.

Maybe because I’d noticed him more than I’d ever admitted.

Or maybe some people simply stayed tucked away in your memory, waiting for something to drag them back into your life.

Oliver took a few steps closer, and I watched his eyes move over me. My red hair. My clothes. My tattoos. My boots. The woman I’d become.

For a second, neither of us said anything.

Then his mouth curved into the smallest smile.

Not a stranger’s smile.

Not a polite smile.

A recognition smile.

“It’s good to see you again, Tahlia.”

My heart stopped.

Nobody called me that anymore.

Nobody.

Everyone knew me as Vixen. Vixen was the name I’d chosen, the name I’d built myself around, the name that belonged to the woman I’d become. But Oliver Harris wasn’t looking at Vixen.

He was looking at Tahlia.

The girl he’d known from school.

The girl who used to sit at the back of the classroom, get detention, talk back to teachers and deliberately annoy the quiet nerd sitting near the front.

He remembered her.

He remembered me.

And somehow, after all these years, hearing my real name in his voice made me feel like that girl again.

I swallowed, suddenly aware that four of my closest friends were standing right beside me, probably watching this entire exchange. I could practically feel their eyes on me, waiting for me to say something.

“Oliver?”

His smile widened slightly.

“Still remember me, then?”

I stared at him.

Of course I remembered him.

My old high-school nerd was standing in front of me wearing a firefighter’s uniform, and for the first time I was seeing the difference between the boy I remembered and the man standing in front of me.

He was still Oliver.

I could see that in his eyes.

But he wasn’t the boy I’d left behind when we graduated.

And that was the part I wasn’t quite sure what to do with.