The journey to the party was filled with awkward silence. Each time Olivia made an effort to talk to Luna about anything, Luna quickly shot down the attempt and brought them back to silence. Olivia came dressed to party with a crop top and reflective miniskirt. The brightness of her outfit was reflected in the makeup that she spent hours working on. Luna, however, simply tossed on a pair of jeans and hooded black jacket.

  “You’re going to love this place.” Olivia finally spoke up as they waited for the elevator to bring them to their destination. “We started partying here all the time in the last year or so. Every party here is so sick.”

  Luna looked at Olivia, raising her eyebrow. “I used to party a lot?”

  “Well, yeah! I mean, you used to drag me out to parties almost every weekend.” Olivia smiled at her. “Maybe this can… jog some of those memories, right?”

  “Worth a shot.” Luna sighed as she turned to face the door again. Just as she did, the doors opened up into a penthouse even larger than the one Luna apparently lived in. It looked far more modern than the Vance’s, with everything made from slick porcelain and marble.

  The music was loud and the lights were even louder. The room was filled with young adults all drinking and dancing and yelling at each other in hopes of being heard over the music. It wasn’t working.

  As the two stepped inside, Luna immediately squinted and lowered her head, lifting a hand up to shield her eyes from the bright lights. She looked down at the ground. The floor was perfect marble. For the briefest moment, the lights that flashed around her started to shift into a redder hue. The walls felt like they were closing in around her. The beat of the music started to feel like footsteps. Then, just as quickly as things had shifted, Luna was ripped back to reality by Olivia tugging on her arm.

  “Hey, come on! Let’s get a drink!” Olivia smiled brightly at Luna as she started to pull her into the room.

  Luna tried to calm herself, but even as the lights returned to their original hue, they were still blinding to her. Her head felt like it was pounding to the beat of the song. She gritted her teeth and clenched her fist until they reached the counter that was being used as a bar.

  As soon as the two arrived, two men walked over to them with grins on their faces. “Liv! You made it!” The shorter one walked over to Olivia with a big smile as he ran his fingers through his already perfect hair. He wrapped an arm around her waist and gave her a quick but hungry kiss. He then turned to look at Luna. “Who's your friend?”

  Olivia turned to look at Luna and smiled with the man’s arm still wrapped around her waist. “This is Luna! She’s the friend that I told you about that was missing, remember? They finally found her! Luna, this is my boyfriend, Theo.”

  “Oh shit! Back from the dead, huh?” He grinned at Luna and raised his cup. Something about his grin made Luna’s skin crawl. “I’ll drink to that.” He turned to his friend. “Grab these girls some drinks, would you?”

  Luna rolled her eyes, still gritting her teeth to keep herself from screaming. “I’m… fucking good, thanks.” She turned to look around the room, but she still couldn’t get a grasp on it. Everything was too loud, and everyone was too close. As she started to turn back around, a man behind her tripped and bumped into her. The sudden uninvited intrusion caused Luna to whip around and push him away. “Get off me!” She jerked her head around again, her brows furrowing in anger. “Fuck! I can’t fucking think!” She lowered her head into her hands and started to shake it back and forth.

  “Shit, I’m sorry!” The man that had fallen on her turned to face her. “Are you okay? I d-”

  “Fuck off!” Luna took a step back and flailed her arms out to keep him away. “Jesus! Fuck this!” She then turned and started pushing her way through the crowd, not bothering to turn around to look at Olivia. Various party-goers gave her annoyed looks as she pushed them out of the way. Finally, Luna reached a glass door to the balcony: her escape. She slid it open and stepped outside, slamming it behind her.

  “Your friend seems pissed,” Theo noted to Olivia.

  “Yeah.” She sighed, frowning as she stared at the direction Luna was going like she was still there.

  “Well, no point in letting her ruin the party.” Theo turned to his friend and took a cup from him. “Here.” He handed her the drink and pulled her chin toward him. “Don’t worry about her. Maybe she’ll join us later.”

  Olivia nodded slowly before taking a sip from the drink.

  Outside, Luna quickly made her way to the edge of the balcony. She squinted and shook her head. Now that the music was muffled and the lights were gone, she felt like she could actually breathe. She stared out at the rest of the city. The balcony was high up on one of the biggest residential buildings in the commercial district. The district was filled with skyscrapers just like it, all housing the people with enough money to practically touch the stars. Luna looked up at the sky. Everywhere else in the city, it was hard to see the stars due to all the pollution and smog. Here, they were crystal clear, and they were beautiful. For a moment, everything seemed to fade away for Luna. She couldn’t figure out why, but the stars soothed her. They felt familiar. It was like an old friend had come to comfort her.

  “Luna? Luna Vance?”

  Once again, Luna was ripped back to reality too suddenly. She quickly turned to see another man standing just a few feet away from her. To Luna, he looked just like the rest of the party-goers.

  “It's me, Andrew?”

  Luna continued to stare at him skeptically.

  “Come on, you don’t remember me? That hurts.” He chuckled as he closed the distance between them.

  “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I don’t remember anyone.” Luna sighed and rolled her eyes.

  “Not even your boyfriend?” He stepped a bit closer than Luna would have preferred, starting to reach a hand out to touch her.

  Luna quickly slapped the hand away. “I just told you, I don’t remember! Why does everyone think that they are entitled to being the one thing that I remember. Everyone thinks that they’re different for some reason.”

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  “Hey! Woah!” Andrew took a step back, raising his hands up. “Chill out, Luna.”

  Luna scoffed at him and rolled her eyes. “Fuck off.”

  He paused for a moment, reassessing his approach. “Listen…” He stepped forward again. “How about I give you a little reminder?”

  Luna looked him over for a moment before turning around toward the glass door again. “I don’t think there is much worth remembering there.” She looked out into the penthouse filled with people dancing and scanned the room to look for another place to hide. Instead, she saw Olivia and the two men from earlier walking up the stairs. Olivia was completely out of it and the two basically had to drag her up since she was struggling to use her feet on her own. “What’s going on with Olivia?” She nodded toward the stairs.

  Andrew sighed and looked into the room to see what Luna was talking about. “Ah, Liv? She always gets way too drunk at these parties. Light-weight, I guess?”

  Luna looked at Andrew briefly. “Yeah. Right.” She started walking toward the door.

  “Hey, maybe you can call me sometime and we can catch up,” Andrew called out to her as she opened the door.

  “Don’t hold your breath.” Luna dived back into the tumultuous sea of drunk rich people, immediately making her way to the stairs.

  She ran up them as quickly as she could, and found herself in a long hallway filled with doors. The music started to fade into the background again as the surrounding walls protected her. Luna looked around the hall to try and find the door she was looking for, instead finding a young man sitting with his back against the wall smoking something. Luna looked around to see if anyone else was there before stepping up to him. “Two guys came up dragging a girl. You know which room they went in?”

  The man simply pointed forward at the room across from him.

  “Thanks.” Luna walked up to the door, but she paused before opening it. She leaned against the door to listen in, but all she could hear was rustling and muffled voices. She took a deep breath and leaned back again. She reached up and pulled her hood up before hitting the button to open the door.

  As the door opened in front of her, Luna saw Olivia lying on the bed with Theo standing over her. Theo’s friend stood a few feet away holding a camera. Luna didn’t waste anymore time trying to figure out what was going on. She stepped inside and slammed her hand on the button to close the door. “Hey, assholes.”

  The two whipped their heads around to look at Luna. “The hell are you doing here?” Theo jumped away from Olivia, quickly straightening himself. “This is private!”

  Luna rolled her eyes as she walked into the room without saying another word. She looked at Theo’s friend and grabbed the camera, tossing it to the side.

  “What the hell?” He stepped toward Luna. “Mind your own business, bitch!”

  Luna could see the punch flying toward her head. Reflexively, she jolted her body to the right. As she felt like she had successfully dodged the punch, she darted her eyes toward where the fist should have been, but it wasn’t there. It was like he hadn’t thrown the punch at all. Then, a few moments later, the fist finally arrived. Everything around Luna felt like it had stopped and Luna stared at the fist with wide eyes. Then, she furrowed her brow and reached up to grab his arm. As she took action, everything sped up once again. She grabbed his arm with one hand to pull his momentum forward and used the other to push him against the wall with all her might.

  Theo’s friend grunted as he collided with the wall. As he started to recover, Theo ran up behind Luna. As Luna heard the footsteps, she quickly ducked down and pushed her elbow backward to collide with his stomach. She pulled him down and kicked his head to knock him to the ground. Another fist came flying at her behind, colliding with her head and causing her to stumble forward.

  Her head was throbbing with pain, but she didn’t have time to focus on it. Theo’s friend came at her again, and she immediately hopped to the side and punched him in the stomach. As he doubled over, she grabbed the back of his shirt and spun him around, tossing him into the nearby bookshelf. She rushed forward and grabbed him again, slamming him against the shelf twice before Theo came behind her and pushed her against the wall.

  Luna let out a pained grunt as her hips collided with the edge of the shelf. Before she could recover, Theo punched her in the ribs and sent her stumbling to the side. She twisted around, holding onto her ribs with one hand as the other jumped back into the action. Theo went for another punch, but Luna caught it, locking his arm in. She twisted around and slammed his head into the edge of the bookshelf. As he fell to the ground, she pulled his arm up and slammed into it with her side. She could feel the bone snap under her weight before she let him fall to the ground screaming in pain.

  Theo’s friend had recovered, and he quickly stepped over his friend to get another shot at Luna, but Luna was faster. As soon as she had let go of Theo, she stepped forward and threw a hook at him. As her fist collided with his jaw, she felt a bone in her hand snap. Theo’s friend fell to the side while Luna grabbed her hand in an attempt to numb the pain. As he started to recover, Luna knew she didn’t have time to worry about it.

  Luna rushed forward while she still had the upper hand. She grabbed him with her fractured hand using the two fingers that she could still use and used the other hand to start punching him in the ribs and stomach. She pushed him back, but he managed to push through the pain enough to grab her and slam her into the wall. Luna’s head bounced off, causing her to lose focus for a moment as the room started to spin.

  Luna leaned back against the wall and panted while Theo’s friend tried to steady himself from the beating. There was a brief pause in the fight while the two found what strength they had left to continue. Luna reached to the side and grabbed a lamp from the table next to her and slammed it against Theo’s friend's head, knocking him to the ground fully. She then stepped forward and stomped her foot down on his head. This time, he wasn’t getting back up for a while.

  Luna turned to look at Theo, who was still trying to pull himself to his feet unsuccessfully. Luna slowly walked up to him, trying in vain to catch her breath. She reached down and grabbed his head, slamming it into the shelf one last time to knock him to the ground. Then she grabbed the shelf and pulled it down on top of him.

  Luna twisted around and collapsed against the wall, reaching up to hold her bruised ribs with her fractured hand. She tilted her head back and rested it against the wall as she wheezed. “Fuck!” She collected her strength and pushed herself off the wall. She hobbled over to where Olivia lay on the bed and knelt down next to her. She reached out, feeling under Olivia’s jaw for a pulse. Her heart was beating, but slower than Luna had hoped. She then reached up, grabbing Olivia’s jaw and jerking it around. “Olivia! Hey! Can you hear me?”

  Olivia didn’t respond. She just laid there with her eyes glazed over and her mouth hanging open. Luna slapped Olivia lightly on the cheek a few times, but still nothing. She sighed as she stood back up. She turned to walk back out of the room, taking a moment to spit on Theo first. As she reached the door again, she opened it to find the same guy she had talked to before. “Hey. Call the HLE. And the… hospital… people?”

  “Why? I’m not breaking up this party.” He peered past her into the room.

  Luna narrowed her eyes as she stared at him. She then took a step to the side, giving him a view of Theo’s knocked out friend. “I’m not asking.”

  The guy looked at him with wide eyes before nodding. “Right, yeah… uh, sure.” He pulled out his phone and started calling.

  Luna looked down at her fist for a moment. She reached up and pulled her hood down a bit further. “You never saw me directly, got it? Don’t tell the HLE shit.”

  The guy just nodded at her as he spoke into his phone.

  Luna turned around and limped back into the room. She started for the window, but she paused before she got there, looking over at Olivia one last time. She stepped over to her and took a moment to fix her top. Then, she walked over to the window, opened it, and hopped through to a balcony further below.