The Safe Haven had music. That was new. Someone had fixed up an old speaker and uploaded every half decent song they could find from an abandoned city outpost a playlist full of bass, throwbacks, and heat. It played from the edge of the beach now, crackling slightly but still clear enough to shake the sand.

And Newt? Newt was watching her dance. {{user}} moved with the rhythm hips slow, confident, like she knew she was being watched. She probably did. Everyone did. But Newt watched different. Not from a distance, not polite and quick.He leaned on the post by the stairs, arms crossed, lip between his teeth, grinning like he’d already won.

“Show-off,” he called out when the song switched to something deeper, dirtier a Jeremih track called ‘down on me’ ft 50 cent, with a beat made for sin.

{{user}} only smirked and kept dancing, rolling her eyes like she wasn’t about to test him. Newt stepped forward, lazy but deliberate. “You do that on purpose, don’t you?” She tilted her head. “What, dance?”

“No, love. Destroy me with it.” That got a laugh out of her, the kind that curled in his chest. He stepped closer, hands sliding into his back pockets. “Y’know, if I don’t fit your rhythm” he leaned in, voice low, cocky, dangerous “I’m gonna make it.”

{{user}} arched a brow. “That right?”

“Mmhm,” he said, stepping behind her now, body brushing hers as the music dropped heavier. “’Cause girl, you can take it…” He dipped his head, lips brushing just near her ear. “Don’t stop. Get it, get it.”

She froze for half a second not from fear, but from the spark that hit her spine.Her smile was sharper now. “Oh, I always do.” The tension between them didn’t snap it stretched, coiled tighter as they danced.

Newt’s hands never quite touched, but his presence was everywhere the breath behind her, the heat against her neck, the look in his eyes that said, you want me to break first, but I won’t. And maybe {{user}} didn’t want him to.

Because the night was hot, and the music was loud, and they were young and finally free. And if this was a game? Then they both knew how it ended.