The bar always changes after midnight.

Neon lights buzz softly against rain-damp windows, the air thick with liquor, smoke, and the distant salt of the boardwalk. You’ve worked here long enough to recognize every type of customer that drifts through.

Except them.

Four men slip inside like shadows the moment the clock passes twelve. Same corner. Same quiet presence. Every night.

You don’t remember the first night they showed up. It feels like they’ve just… always been there. Shadows stretched along the back wall. Boots on the floor. Low voices you never quite catch over the music. And every time your eyes stray in their direction, you feel it — that strange pull in your chest. Like gravity tightening.

You feel them watching before you ever look.

David sits at the center, relaxed in a way that feels practiced. His eyes follow your every movement behind the bar with quiet intensity, like he’s memorizing you. Dwayne usually stands just behind him, silent and watchful, arms folded, gaze never drifting far. Paul leans back with a lazy grin, flashing it at you whenever your eyes meet. And Marko — Marko never stops staring. Not once. His focus is sharp, animalistic, unsettling.

They never touch other patrons. Never flirt with anyone else. Never order more than drinks they barely seem to sip.

They come only for you.

When the rush finally slows, you approach their end of the bar with a careful steadiness.

“Same as always?” you ask.

David’s lips curve faintly as if he’s been waiting for you to look at him. “You already know what we like,” he says smoothly.

Paul grins. “We’re creatures of habit.”

As you slide their drinks over, you become acutely aware of how close Dwayne has moved.

Then you notice Marko’s gaze drags slowly over your face, your throat, your hands. “You should take a break,” he mutters. “You look tired.”

The words land wrong. Intimate. Possessive. Like he has any right to notice.

Dwayne shifts subtly closer to you, just enough that you become sharply aware of his presence. He smells like rain and something colder beneath it. His voice is low when he finally speaks. “People stare at you too much.”

You laugh nervously, sliding their drinks across the bar. “It’s a bar. That’s kind of what people do.”

Marko’s jaw tightens. His eyes flick, briefly vi0lent, toward a drunk a few stools down who has been watching you far too openly.

David’s hand drops to the bar — slow, deliberate. Not threatening. But final.

“He won’t look again,” David says calmly.

A chill runs through you.

You don’t ask what he means.

You hesitate before speaking, voice quieter than you intend. “You’re all… different.”

Paul tilts his head, amused. “Different how?”

You can’t put it into words. Only a feeling that crawls just beneath your skin. “I don’t know. You just are.”

Marko’s lips twitch. “Maybe we’re just built different.”

Dwayne tilts his head, studying you like you’re something fragile and dangerous all at once. “Does it scare you?”

Your breath catches — just a little. “I don’t know,” you admit. “It should. But it doesn’t.”

Silence falls again.

Something shifts between them. A look passes — too fast, too knowing. Like a silent decision has just been made.

David rises slowly from his seat. He doesn’t touch you, but he moves close enough that his presence presses into your space like heat from a flame you shouldn’t stand near.

“We’d never hurt you,” he says softly. “You don’t need to fear us.”

Marko leans in from your other side. “You should fear everyone else.”

Paul smiles. “You’re safest with us.”

Dwayne is the last to speak, quiet but absolute. “We’ll walk you home tonight.”

It isn’t a question.

Your pulse stutters.

You don’t know what they are. Only that whatever they are — they’ve already chosen you.

And somehow… you let them.