“Dick. In. Her. Throat,” Tamara says, flinging open the door to my dorm room like she has a personal beef with it. “You caught him with his whole dick down that bitch’s esophagus and you’re in here crying like it’s your fault?”

I blink up at her from my bed, mascara smudged, my eyes burning. Novo Amor is playing on low volume from my speaker.

Tamara narrows her eyes at me, kicks the door shut with the back of her Mary-Jane boots. Her hair is platinum and clipped up in a messy claw. She’s wearing a cropped tee that says “Men Are Parasites” in blood-drip font and a pleated mini so short I'm sure I can see her thong if she turns around just enough for me to take a peek.

Tamara Leigh is my best friend—practically the only girl I've opened up to since middle school. There was so much difference between us that people usually wonder how we worked as friends. While I was the quiet one who could never dare enough to do anything, Tamara could take a dare to slap the devil and actually go to hell to do it.

Two hours ago, I'd called her because I'd walked into my boyfriend—now ex's—room and found him with his tongue down a girl's esophagus for the fourth time in our relationship. Now, she’s here, and she looks like she's about to send Noah to hell.

There’s glitter on her collarbones, bruises on her knees, and she looks like she’s about to murder me for crying over a man. It’s a look I’ve known since freshman year of high school back in Seattle—the one right before she does something monumentally stupid and exciting.

Tamara’s never met a line she wouldn't cross; I’ve never met one I didn't immediately shrink back from.

She scoffs. “You’re actually playing this song? Jesus Christ, Riv. You’re mourning a boy with halitosis?”

I sniff, dragging the sleeves of my hoodie over my hands. “It wasn’t like that... It was just one time. He said he was—”

“—drunk. Heartbroken. Misunderstood. Allergic to condoms. I’ve heard it all.” She cuts me off and yanks open my curtain. It's pitch black outside. I hadn’t even realized it was night. “The man’s breath could strip paint off a fender and you let him put his tongue down your throat for six months? I should beat your ass.”

I laugh, a pathetic, breathy thing. “You’re so dramatic.”

“No. I’m so serious.” She stalks over, grabs my phone, and shuts the music off. “Riv, I love you, but this is pathetic. He cheated. You cried. That’s step one. Step two is revenge.”

I sit up, rubbing my eyes. “What kind of revenge?”

Tamara grins like a Cheshire cat. “I’m thinking… keys and permanent markers? Come on. We’re going downtown. There’s a race happening. Half the campus is gonna be there. And your ex’s car is parked right outside. I saw it when I was coming up.”

I sit up so fast I feel dizzy. “Wait. What?”

She doesn’t even blink.

“He came to see me?” My chest tightens, and for a second I forget he’s a piece of shit. “But he hasn’t even called. I thought—”

“Oh my god, Riv.” Tamara throws her head back and groans like she’s losing her mind. “HE DID NOT COME TO SEE YOU. He probably came to fuck some other freshman in Annenberg.”

I flinch.

She leans in. “You are not excited right now. You should be humiliated. Humiliated. You walked in on him getting head and he didn’t even flinch. Hadn’t felt sorry, didn’t fucking call. Like you were just... a glitch in his day.”

“I told you, that was one time—”

Tamara laughs like it’s not even funny, just pathetic. “Really, babe?”

My throat burns. “You’re being mean.”

“He was mean first,” she snaps. “And stupid. He didn’t even lock the door, Riv. That’s how comfortable he was.”

The next second, we’re in her car. It smells like weed and perfume. I’ve changed into a white tank top with no bra and black jeans that ride low on my hips. Tamara’s playing Doja loud enough to make the windows shake, and I’m gripping a Sharpie and a set of keys tight in my hands.

We pull up to a dimly lit street, where Noah’s black BMW arrogantly occupies the sidewalk in front of a shabby 7-Eleven. There’s no one in sight, not even Noah.

Tamara tosses her hair. “Front passenger door. That’s all yours.”

My fingers shake. But I do it. And then she does hers.

Big, angry words. All caps. Not even spelled right. We’re laughing too hard for it to matter when we are done: **CHEETER, LOWLIFE, DIE SLOW**.

And on the windshield in huge crooked letters: **"TELL HER U GOT HERPES"**.

She grins at me over the hood. “Race night, bitch.”

-----

A few minutes later, Tamara’s already hanging halfway out the window, yelling at some guy trying to take the same parking spot.

“Back the hell up, dumbass! You see me turning, don’t play stupid!”

The tires screech as she jerks the wheel and slides into the space, barely missing the guy’s bumper. He slams his door open, but Tamara’s faster, sticking her middle finger up.

“I will ram you, I don’t give a shit!”

I sink into my seat. We’re miles from campus, in Downtown L.A., in a very chaotic lot. The street’s half-lit and packed with cars that look like they cost more than rent.

Tamara kills the engine and whips her head toward me. “Welcome to the jungle.”

Tamara’s out of the car before I can blink. “Let’s go, let’s go,” she barks, yanking my door open.

I scramble out after her, yanked straight into a wall of noise. Engines revving, people yelling, the bass from some speaker system thumping so hard I feel it in my teeth. Tamara grabs my wrist and pulls me into the crowd.

“Don’t slow down. If the cops show up, we run!”

My stomach drops. “What?! You didn’t tell me it was illegal!”

“It’s not illegal illegal,” she yells back.

“What does that even mean—?”

“Cops show up? You run. You don’t think, you don’t freeze, you fucking run. Got it?”

“I thought we were just watching!”

Tamara laughs like I told a joke. “We are watching. From the front row.”

A voice blasts over the speakers: “Alright, move it! We got Zero in the lotttttttt!”

The crowd goes feral. “Zero! Zero! Zero! Zero!”

Phones lift into the air. Flashlights strobe against faces. Tamara tightens her grip on my wrist and pulls hard, pushing us deeper into the mob. I stumble over someone’s foot.

“Don’t stop,” she shouts. “Move with me. Elbows out if you have to.”

My breathing is all over the place. Engines are growling—the kind of sound that makes your stomach flip.

“Tamara!” I yell. “What the hell is happening?”

She looks back at me once, eyes wild. “Just don’t fall!”

I trip again. My shoe slips on something slick. Her hand jerks. I grip harder. More bodies slam into us from the sides.

“Riv, don’t let go!”

I try. I swear I do. But someone crashes hard into my shoulder, and her fingers slide right out of mine.

I know I’m screwed the second the voice blasts through the speakers again, even louder than before.

“ZERO! Straight outta Tokyo! Back-to-back wins in Shuto, Fuji, Ibiza!”

The music pounds fucking louder.

Each beat sinks into my chest.

People push in from every direction, shoving toward the front like it’s the second coming. My chest slams into someone’s back and I almost lose my footing.

“Tamara!” I yell, but I can barely hear myself.

I twist, trying to find her, trying to see over heads. “Tam—”

“Move, bitch!” someone snaps, elbowing past me. “Ain’t no one savin’ your spot!”

“Get the hell off me!” another voice shouts.

“Tamara!” I call again, louder, voice breaking.

I hear her. Barely.

“Left! Stay to the left, Riv!”

I spin in that direction, trying to follow it, but people are everywhere. Someone’s shoulder clips my jaw, almost sending my teeth sinking into my tongue. Someone else sloshes a cold drink down my leg.

I fight my way forward, heart pounding, crowd too loud, and I get to the front, somehow, and latch onto the metal barricade. My hands are moist with sweat, and my face feels on fire.

I can’t see her.

I can’t see Tamara.

But I see the car.

Low, black, shining under the lights. The crowd goes absolutely feral. Some dude beside me is straight-up barking. Two girls beside him are on their toes, screaming so loud their voices are cracking. One actually tosses a pink bra onto the asphalt.

Two guys behind me are losing it.

“Zero, baby!”

“Run me the fuck over!”

I’m dripping sweat. Hair sticking to my face. Eyes darting side to side. Still no Tamara. No one’s listening. Everyone’s chanting, screaming, elbows in the air.

The car spins once, slow and cocky, tires whining against the concrete. It’s like a fucking performance. The way he turns the wheel. The way the engine growls. Whoever’s behind the wheel is eating it up.

The engine revs louder.

It’s so; It’s so hard; to get to heaven.

It’s so; It’s so hard; don’t make me bleed.

The lyrics pound against my ribs.

I can barely hear my own thoughts.

And, still, no Tamara. I search the sea of heads behind me, heart racing, still gripping the barricade like it’s the only real thing left.

And then the car slows.

Right in front of me.

It idles. Steam hisses from the vents.

Through the black windshield, I see a helmeted head turn. The car is still. The music warps for a second as my ears ring.

It’s so; It’s so hard.

It’s so; It’s so hard.

The helmet tilts.

Just a little.

And I swear he’s looking at me.

I haven’t thought much of it, when the music shuts off abruptly.

“Riv!”

Tamara’s voice reaches me like it’s fighting through water, she sounds scared. I turn fast, heart in my throat, still holding on to the barricade, still trying to breathe.

Then I hear it.

A siren in the distant. .

Someone in the crowd yells, “Shit! Five-O!”

And then all hell breaks loose.

The crowd reacts immediately. People start pushing forward, and then more join in. Elbows fly. Bodies press. Feet stomp. The entire space is chaos. I see someone trip and disappear amidst the crowd and yet, nobody stops to help.

My eyes lock with the racer again, but he is already taking off before I can even blink, tires squealing across the ground, leaving smoke in the air.

Tamara sounds frustrated now. “Riv! Run! Get to the fucking car!”

Heart in my throat, I pull back from the railing. I think to myself how fucked up this is. How I should have never given in to coming here with Tamara, how my mother would have felt if she found out, two weeks into the new semester resumption, I wasn’t stuffed in my books, working my ass out for my A’s but instead at an illegal street race. My heart is a wreck, pummelting so hard it hurts, and my chest keeps rising and falling as I whip around to find Tamara in the crowd of heads. Blonde, brunettes, redheads, everywhere… everywhere…. Chaos… me with my feet sweaty in my sneakers, the siren sounding closer than they’d been before. Blue-red strobes are alreadystrobes are already hitting the garage as a police car swerves into the corner from my peripheral, by cuttingby cutting a long train of cars making their escape.

I take the first leap into the crowd, trying to move past a group of screaming girls blocking my way. But just as soon as I’m surging forward, an elbow collides with my chest, sending me stumbling backwards.

I didn't even have the chance to scream before my back hit the divider and I'm toppling over it. One second I'm on my feet, the next, I'm crashing facefirst into rough tarmac floor.

My ribs take the blow, grinding against concrete.

My breath snatches from my lungs. My elbow scrapes. The back of my head bounces and everything instantly feels fucked and fussy.

But I hear her.

Tamara screaming my name in the distance, like she’s standing above the shoreline and I’m submerged and drowning. Tears gushed out of my eyes, and my nose burned.

Heaving, breathless, I push up on shaking hands, and take a look around the garage. In the crowd that’s beginning to thin, the familiar bronze skin of my friend is still missing, and right in my line of vision, a lanky boy is being tackled to the ground by a cop easily the size of a bear.

Copper tang hits my tongue. Thick and metallic. I scramble backward, heels scraping the grit, but there’s nowhere to go. The cop is a wall of navy blue and bad intentions. He leaves the lanky boy cuffed and facedown, turning that bear-like bulk toward me. Even from the distance between us, because he’s across the road, I can still catch the strong whiff of sweat with a mix of glazed butter donut that makes my stomach churn.

“Hands!” he barks, voice gruff and vibrating in his chest.

“Let me see your hands!”

I can’t breathe. My lungs are small, shriveled things. I lift my shaking hands, palms open, blood from my nose dripping onto my white tank top.

This is it, I think, a cold numbness spreading through my veins. Expulsion. Jail. Mom is going to kill me. I’m going to die in a cell and—.

Blinding light hits me from down the road.

Tires shriek against the asphalt, a sound that tears right through my eardrums. The air smells like burnt rubber and gasoline, overpowering the donuts. The cop curses, shouting something unintelligible as he throws himself backward to avoid being clipped. He teeters, boots slipping, arms windmilling as a low, sleek shadow swerves between us.

The car halts with a violent shudder.

Everything slows down.

The strobe lights bleed into long, red-and-blue ribbons. The noise of the scattering crowd fades into a dull roar. It’s just me, the asphalt, and the machine that just cut me off from the law.

Click.

The passenger door swings wide open.

I stand there, frozen. A deer caught in the headlights. A statue of pure terror. My eyes are wide, burning, locked on the figure slouched in the driver’s seat.

It’s dark inside, illuminated only by the glow of the dashboard gauges. But I see him. Gloved hands gripping the leather wheel. Shoulders tense. And that helmet. That midnight-black, void-of-a-helmet reflecting the chaos outside—the flashing sirens, the smoke, my own blood-smeared, horrified face.

The cop is scrambling to his feet behind the car, reaching for his belt.

The driver turns his head toward me.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t shout. He just tilts his helmet to the side. A sharp, impatient jerk of the chin toward the empty bucket seat.

Get in.

My heart stops. Literally stops.

At me?

I blink, blood dripping off my chin.

He’s looking at me?

“Move!” The voice is muffled by the helmet, deep and distorted, but the command snaps the world back into speed.

At me.

I make a choice.

I jump in.

The door slams shut behind me as blue and red lights break through the haze.

And then we’re running.

We swerve around a corner so hard my head slams into the car seat. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even glance at me. Just one hand on the wheel, the other shifting gears like he has done this too many times.

I’m gasping by the time I get the seatbelt to click. My fingers are slick with blood, there’s a rip in my palm from when I ate shit on the road. My left shoulder’s screaming, my knees are scraped, and there’s blood on my tank.

I can smell it.

But most importantly, I’m focusing on this man.

I can’t see his face, and his helmet reflects nothing but flashing lights.

Sirens howl behind us.

Getting closer.

“What the hell is this?” I ask, breath ragged. “Why are they chasing you?”

“They’re not chasing me,” he says, flatly, as if I’m stupid for even asking. “They’re chasing everyone.”

“They wouldn’t be if you weren’t racing. Illegally,” I add, like the word tastes sour in my mouth.

He tilts his head slightly, like he finds that funny, but doesn’t laugh. Then he swerves hard around a minivan. My body jerks forward, slamming into the seatbelt, and I gasp, the belt is digging hard into my skin.

“Careful!” I wheeze, my chest is heaving, and my fingers are quivering.

He sounds gruff. “You're welcome for the ride.”

“A ride? You dragged me into a high-speed felony!”

He finally looks at me. “Dragged you? You ran into the car.”

“Because they were about to tear gas the crowd!”

He jerks the wheel hard to the left, slipping between two slow cars, and I get tossed toward the center console.

“And who took you out of there?”

“That doesn’t make it less illegal!”

He exhales harshly. “You’re bleeding all over my seat and arguing moral high ground in the middle of a fucking chase?”

“Because if you weren’t racing, you wouldn’t be getting chased!” I shout as he cuts off a van and slides into an exit lane, barely missing a divider.

“If you weren’t at an illegal street race,” he retorts, “you wouldn’t be in my car.”

I shut up for a second. Just enough for him to make his point, but I can't help myself.

“I wasn’t even supposed to be there! I didn’t race, I didn’t do anything… why the fuck am I running from the police right now?”

“Oh, well in that case,” he says dryly, one hand gripping the wheel as we take a tight curve, tires screaming, “should I ask the cops to only arrest the ones who came for the vibes?”

The G-force throws me into the door a second time. I grunt, swallowing back bile.

“You don’t get to be smug just because you’re used to getting away with shit.”

“I’m not smug, I’m rethinking my decision” he mutters, flicking a switch on the dash. Lights cut instantly, plunging us into partial darkness. “I’m annoyed.”

“That makes two of us. I’d rather have been arrested than stuck in a car with some cocky little shit—”

“Cocky?” he barks out a loud laugh, shifting gears so hard the car jerks forward, the sirens fades into the distance.

“You think that’s bad? If I hadn’t dragged your panicked ass out of there, your teeth would have been getting kicked in right now or you’d be in a holding cell, crying for your Daddy.”

“You don’t know shit about me,” I shout, but he just scoffs.

“I know the type,” he says. “You are spoiled.”

“Then DROP ME OFF!” I scream, beating my hand against the dash. “Drop me the fuck off right now! You hear me? DROP ME OFF!”

“I am not your uber!”

“NOW!” I shout, throat raw, eyes burning. “DROP. ME. THE. FUCK. OFF!”

He slams the brakes so hard I jerk forward, almost launching straight through the windshield. The tires screech like strangled banshees, the whole car twisting before halting half on the road, half on gravel.

He rips the helmet off and flings it into the back seat.

And fuck me.

My breath catches hard in my throat.

He's… God, he’s beautiful. Model-hot but real. Plump lips in a scowl, hair damp from the ride, messy brown curls toppling over his forehead.

And his fucking eyes are glowing red.

I blink hard, thinking it’s the low light or maybe I’m imagining things. But no, the red is still there.

“Get out,” he growls.

Literally growls.

I don’t move.

I can’t, not with the way he’s looking at me.

He throws his door open and steps out in long, fast strides, and I flinch as mine is yanked open a second later.

“I said get out!”

I barely suck in a breath before his hand clamps around my arm, hard enough to make me gasp. The other slams the door shut behind me with a thud that rattles my bones.

And then I’m being shoved back.

My spine hits the cool metal of the hood. I brace instinctively, wide-eyed, but he’s already there, towering over me.

Jesus, he’s tall.

So tall, I have to crane my neck just to meet his stare.

“You wanna act like a brat? Then you better know what the fuck that earns you.”

I gulp. “Go fuck yourself.”

He smirks and leans in.

I barely reach his chest, and he uses that, shoulders squared, arms on either side of me, caging me in like he owns the space, and me as well. His hands are planted on the hood now, close enough that the heat from his skin has my thighs trembling.

He doesn’t look twenty, or even twenty-five. He looks older. He’s definitely not some college kid.

Not like me.

“Where do you go to school?” he asks suddenly, and I flinch at how rough his tone is.

“W-what?”

“I said—” his head dips, lips almost brushing my ear, “where do you go to fucking school, sweetheart?”

My breath hitches again.

“U—USC,” I whisper. “Third year.”

His head tilts. “Figures. You look like a little sorority princess with a smart mouth and no idea what the real world’s like.”

My fists clench at my sides.

“Still think you’d rather be in a cop car?” he asks, voice just as low, just as dangerous.

I hate the way my thighs clench at that.

Hate the way my breath stutters in my chest when he leans in a little more, until I can’t breathe anything that isn’t him. And I hate that my heart is banging so loud I swear he can hear it.

I don’t even know where we are.

It’s dark, and wooded. The air smells like smoke and moss and wet leaves. And I’m out here in the middle of nowhere, cornered by a man who looks too fucking good to be real, and twice my age.

And the worst part?

I don’t want to move.

It feels... almost sacred to be this close to a face like his. Like touching him might burn me alive but I still wouldn’t stop.

He watches me for a long, loaded second, then finally pulls back, just slightly, just enough to leave me panting.

“Get in the car.”