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The drunk swung wide, telegraphing his punch three seconds before his fist cut through the stale bar air. Scarlet Lewis sidestepped, caught his wrist, and twisted just enough to make him stumble into the wall. It was not enough to break anything. It was never enough to break anything.

“Out,” she said, her voice as flat as concrete.

He spat something about bitches and bouncers, but his friends were already dragging him toward the exit. She watched them go, her expression unchanged, her pulse steady. Four years of this work had taught her to feel nothing during the job. The feeling came later, in the empty hours when sleep would not come, when the silence was louder than any bar fight.

The bar smelled of spilled beer and desperation. Scarlet knew that smell intimately. It had soaked into her clothes, her hair, the very walls of her studio apartment. Sometimes she wondered if it had managed to soak into her bones.

“Nice work, Lewis.” Marco, the bartender, nodded at her as he wiped down the counter with a stained rag. “The guy had it coming.”

She said nothing because there was nothing to say. This was Tuesday. Tomorrow would be Wednesday, and she would work her day shift at the warehouse, lifting boxes until her arms ached. Thursday meant the diner, with its endless cycle of coffee and complaints. Friday brought her back here, to the noise and the violence. The cycle continued, grinding her down week after week, and still the debt grew.

Forty-three thousand, six hundred and twelve dollars. The number lived in her head like a second heartbeat, a constant, dull rhythm beneath her own. It was a monument to her parents’ long illnesses, their funeral costs, and the predatory loans they had taken out in a final, hopeless attempt to survive. All of it had fallen on her shoulders when they died. All of it was hers to carry now.

She moved through the thinning crowd, checking identifications, breaking up arguments before they could become fights. Her body knew the patterns, the subtle choreography of violence. Watch the hands. Listen for the shift in voices from loud to dangerous. Stay between the threat and the innocent. Always stay between.

The memory surfaced without warning, as it always did in these quiet moments. Sarah’s face, frozen in that last instant of trust before the world went wrong. She had been fifteen years old, and Scarlet had promised to keep her safe. She had promised, and she had failed. The guilt was a physical weight, a stone in her gut that had been there for years. This life, this constant penance of bruises and exhaustion, felt like the only thing she deserved.

She shoved the memory down. She buried it under the weight of now, of survival, of the next shift and the next payment. Grief was a luxury she could not afford.

The clock behind the bar read 2:47 AM. Fifteen minutes until closing. Scarlet’s shoulders ached with a familiar burn, and her knuckles were bruised from an earlier altercation she had already forgotten. Exhaustion sat heavy in her chest, a thick, suffocating blanket. Another night almost done. Another small payment made against an impossible mountain of debt.

Marco called last call. The remaining patrons drained their glasses and shuffled toward the exits. Scarlet held the door open, her eyes scanning each face, making sure no one was too drunk to stand on their own. The cold November air bit at her skin when she finally stepped outside, a welcome, sharp sensation.

Three men waited across the street.

She recognized the drunk from earlier, now flanked by two others. They were bigger than he was. Meaner. They saw her and smiled, a shared expression of ugly promise.

Scarlet’s heart rate kicked up, a sudden, hard drum against her ribs, but her face stayed blank. She could run. She should run. Three against one was not a fight, it was a beating.

But running meant they would wait for another night. It meant this would happen again, and again, until they finally got what they wanted. Whatever that was. Revenge. Satisfaction. Blood.

She started walking toward the bus stop, keeping her pace steady and even. They crossed the street, spreading out to cut off her escape routes. Their movements were professional. They had done this before.

“Hey.” The drunk’s voice carried across the empty street, thin and sharp. “We are not done talking.”

Scarlet stopped. She turned to face him, meeting his eyes with the same flat expression she wore when bouncing drunks. “I am done working for tonight. Go home.”

“You embarrassed me in there.” He moved closer, his friends flanking him, blocking the street on both sides. “In front of everyone.”

“You embarrassed yourself,” she said. “I just removed you.”

It was the wrong thing to say. She saw it in the way his jaw clenched, the way his friends shifted their weight from one foot to the other. But she was tired of swallowing pride, tired of de-escalating, tired of being careful.

“Last chance,” she said, her voice quiet. “Walk away.”

They did not walk away.