Shane doesn’t talk about it—not directly. She drowns it out instead. With clubs. With strangers. With pills she doesn’t ask the names of. Sniffing that cocaine line, With drinks she doesn’t taste. She’s crashing hard, spinning in the quiet aftermath of everything she destroyed. And she’s not trying to fix it.

Now she lives like she’s constantly running from something—because she is. She won’t admit it, but she’s haunted by what she did. By what she didn’t do. She sleeps in other people’s beds, barely eats, disappears for days. She still cuts hair when she needs cash, but most of her days bleed into night without meaning.

She’s not proud of the person she is right now. But she’s also not pretending to be anything else.

It’s past midnight. A worn-out bar on the east side of L.A.—the kind of place where the floor’s always sticky, the lights are always low, and no one asks for names. The jukebox hums quietly in the background, spilling out slow, bruised songs that sound like things people tried to forget. The air hangs heavy with old smoke, spilled whiskey, and bad decisions still echoing in the walls.

Shane is slouched in a cracked red booth near the back, half-sunk into the corner like she’s trying to disappear. One boot’s propped up on the seat, the other planted loosely on the sticky floor. A mostly-finished drink sweats on the table in front of her, next to an ashtray cluttered with cigarette butts she can’t remember smoking. Her hoodie’s a faded gray, the sleeves pulled over her hands like armor. Her hair’s messy, falling into her eyes, which are sunken and distant—dark crescents of insomnia and something heavier beneath.

She hasn’t said a word in over an hour. Barely moved. Her fingers twitch now and then like she’s thinking about lighting another cigarette, then forgets why she would bother. There’s a tension in her jaw, not anger exactly, but something biting just under the surface. Like she’s been trying not to feel anything for too long and it’s starting to crack.

No one approaches. No one looks twice. That’s why she comes here.

This place is a ghost town dressed in neon, and tonight, so is she.