Chapter 1: The First Pulse
She felt the bass thrum through her chest, the lights above her dancing in an almost orgasmic rhythm. The haze blurred everything—everything except him. In that moment, she was utterly captivated. Each pulse of light caught his face just right, carving his features in fleeting flashes. The impassioned focus in his expression made her knees weaken. He stood behind the DJ decks on a podium above her, and she knew instantly she needed to know him.
Scarlett had been hitting the raves on this circuit for over a year and had never seen him before. Terry or Rob were usually the lads running the decks here—reliable only in their talent for shutting down and vanishing at the first sign of trouble. Suddenly, he looked up and locked eyes with her, snapping her out of her trance. Heat rushed to her cheeks as she realised she’d been staring—frozen and intent—for the last five minutes, the sole rigid figure in a sea of writhing bodies. He smiled at her—shy, almost hesitant—and she returned it with an awkward wave. Wanting to be literally anywhere else, she turned toward the makeshift bar.
It was basically two oil drums and a warped plank of wood, crates of random bottles stacked behind it. Three middle-aged men were manning the setup. As she approached, she noticed some of the bottles still had their security locks attached. Well, it wouldn’t be an illegal rave without stolen booze, she thought.
The bar area was swarming with ravers shouting their requests over the thumping music. Scarlett squeezed herself into the mass until her waist hit the plank. She was shocked it didn’t collapse under the force that slammed her forward, pushed by the bodies behind her. She scanned the crates until she spotted Jack Daniel’s and raised her hand as though flagging down a taxi. Middle-aged man number three noticed her first, his eyes sliding over her with a sly grin. Ew, she thought. “Yes, me darlin’?” he drawled, accent thick with London cockney. “One JD, please!” she shouted back. “Bottle or glass?” Sod it, she decided. “How much for the bottle?” His grin twisted, turning predatory. “My kind of girl,” he said, reaching into a crate and pulling out a large bottle—conveniently one without a security lock. “For you, gorgeous? Call it a tenner.” She dug out the cash and handed it over. He slid the bottle across the plank and winked. Scarlett grabbed it and pushed her way back through the crowd, determined to find somewhere to sit in this cavernous old warehouse. She hated being here alone and wanted a corner where she was least likely to be bothered.
She eventually found an old wiring spool and two wooden crates arranged like makeshift tables and chairs, abandoned plastic cups and someone’s discarded jacket littering the setup. Plonking herself onto the least disgusting crate, her eyes drifted straight back to the DJ. God, he’s gorgeous, she thought, taking a swig from the bottle and shuddering at the bitter burn. From what she could see, he had dark hair—short at the sides and longer on top—flattened beneath a giant pair of headphones. His light-coloured T-shirt (white, maybe?) clung to his muscular chest and shoulders exactly the way you’d want it to. His face was all sharp lines and perfect cheekbones, softened by a faint shadow of stubble. He twisted the knobs on the deck in time with the music, his hips moving in a rhythmic thrust with the beat.
God, I wish Jade was here, she thought. The words pulsed in her skull almost as loudly as the bass leaking through the warehouse walls. Jade had bailed on her at the absolute last second—texting soz babe x just as Scarlett was already weaving through the industrial estate. Normally she wouldn’t dream of going into a rave alone, but it was always the same crowd every week, all summoned by a cryptic Facebook post only loyal regulars knew how to decode. She’d figured she could just latch onto a few familiar faces—the kind she knew by sight but not by name. So far? Nothing. Everything felt… different tonight. Wrong in a way she couldn’t explain. They’d been using this warehouse for nearly two months—every Friday, doors opening at midnight sharp—but the atmosphere was off. The lighting seemed harsher. The air thicker. The shadows deeper.
The whole decoding system had been passed down like folklore: one person teaches you the cipher, you pass it on to someone else. Scarlett and Jade had learned theirs from Jade’s weird uncle Gary—sixty-five, perpetually wired, and somehow still going harder than people half his age. Jade swore she’d never seen him work a day in her life, yet he always had cash, always had a nice car, despite living in a council flat in the rough end of the city. When Scarlett joked he was probably a drug dealer, Jade just shrugged and said, “Well, the Molly for my 18th birthday makes sense now.” That night had been legendary. The two of them smashed, dancing through every club in the city.
Now it felt like another lifetime. They were thirty now—proper jobs, actual responsibilities. After Scarlett got dumped two years ago (by text, of course—the worst), the two of them had fallen back into partying, then into raves, then into illegal raves because they were cheaper and way more thrilling. They’d bolted from police at least three times—once through a loading bay, twice across a field when the rave was hosted on a farm. No one wore heels to these things. Scarlett stuck religiously to her battered black Converse.
She lifted the Jack Daniel’s to her lips again, grimacing as it burned down her throat. The music shifted mid-swig. The smooth, pulsing rhythm she’d been soaking in cut abruptly into a choppy, basic beat. She looked up. The DJ she’d been admiring earlier was gone—vanished like they all eventually did. In his place stood a lad who looked about twelve, awkwardly bobbing his head while playing what she affectionately called TikTok classics. Brilliant. Even the eye candy had clocked off. God, I’m getting old, she thought, and took another drink to drown the feeling.
A tap landed on her shoulder. Light. Quick. She turned—and froze. He was standing right in front of her. Him. The DJ. The one who’d smiled at her from the decks. Up close, he looked even better: warm brown eyes, shy grin, hair a little messy from his headphones. He held a bottle of Budweiser in one hand and tugged at the hem of his T-shirt with the other like he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with himself. For a second, Scarlett forgot how to breathe.
