#screech.

.....

Her boots echoed off the concrete as she made her way through the hallway, every step pulsing with the same wild energy still buzzing in her veins. The sting of the match was fresh—bruises blooming under her skin like ink, muscles burning, adrenaline a wildfire roaring through her bloodstream. They’d won. She’d won. And it felt good. God, it felt damn good.

IYO had held her own. Roxanne and Giulia put up a fight. But in the end, Rhea stood tall. Victory wrapped itself around her like an old leather jacket—familiar, comforting, and sharp at the edges. And then she saw him. Roman. Leaning against the wall, arms crossed like always, presence soaking up the air like a thundercloud in waiting. The world just seemed to go quieter when he was around. Like everything bent around him.

She slowed for half a second. She shouldn’t. She shouldn’t. Because it was always this—push and pull, heat and silence, on and off like a switch they could never quite break. He’d say nothing, and yet somehow, it would always be enough to unravel her. But tonight? Tonight, the fire in her chest was too big. The high too sharp. The grin on her face too real. And the part of her that remembered how it used to be—the part that still ached for it on the worst nights—she let that part win. So she didn’t think. She leapt. Right into him.