Run Wild, Crash Hard
1076 Words
“Promise me you won’t post anything,” Amira said, smudging her lipstick in the cracked bathroom mirror.
Tara, perched on the counter and halfway through a can of hard seltzer, grinned. “Girl, please. This is St. Regis, not rehab. Everyone’s off campus tonight.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I swear,” Tara said, raising two fingers like she was taking an oath. “No pics. No tags. Not even a story. Just vibes and blackout memories.”
Amira adjusted her top—tight, black, cropped a little too high. Her leather pants hugged her like a second skin. She looked reckless. Dangerous. Free.
The way she wanted to feel.
Jace Monroe had been breathing down her neck for two straight days. Silent. Brooding. Judgy. Always lurking like a storm cloud she couldn’t shake off.
So tonight? She’d breathe without him.
She smirked at her reflection. “Let’s go raise hell.”
***
The party was already in full swing when they arrived.
An abandoned mansion-turned-frat-den a few miles from campus. Strobing lights. Sweaty bodies. Booze spilling on the hardwood floor. A DJ in the kitchen. A hot tub bubbling in the middle of the living room like it belonged there.
Amira felt adrenaline spark in her chest.
No guards.
No suits.
No cameras.
No Jace.
Just noise and heat and chaos.
She grabbed Tara’s hand and dove into the crowd.
Someone passed her a drink—she didn’t ask what it was. Music thudded in her chest, loud enough to drown out thought. Someone else pulled her into a dance, and she let herself get lost in the bass, the bodies, the feeling of not being watched.
This was what she wanted.
To be ordinary.
To be a mess.
To be someone who didn’t have a shadow for a babysitter.
***
Jace noticed within eight minutes.
She hadn’t come out of her room for hours. Her GPS pinged once in the quad, then vanished.
Disconnected.
He hacked her roommate’s phone in thirty seconds flat.
Tara’s i********: story was black-screened, but the audio told him everything: music, party, off-campus basslines.
He slammed his laptop shut and grabbed his keys.
***
The house was packed.
Cars filled the street. Students poured off the porch like smoke.
Jace parked crookedly, didn’t care. Stormed straight through the door, ignoring the confused stares. His eyes scanned the room with trained precision—flashes of red cups, strobe lights, grinding bodies.
Where the hell was she?
He shoved past two guys smoking on the stairs, then spotted the edge of a leather jacket and that unmistakable cascade of dark hair.
There.
Amira was laughing.
Dancing with someone.
She didn’t see him.
But he saw her.
And the boy behind her, hands too low on her hips, lips too close to her neck—
Jace’s jaw tightened.
He didn’t think.
Didn’t hesitate.
He crossed the room in six long strides, grabbed her wrist, and yanked her backward so fast her drink splashed across her chest.
“Hey—what the f—” she started, spinning around.
And froze.
Jace’s eyes were blazing. Not furious—furious didn’t cover it.
She saw it in his clenched jaw. In the way his chest heaved beneath that black shirt. In the way the boy behind her backed up like a dog sensing a bigger predator.
“What are you doing here?” Jace growled.
People were watching now.
Amira pulled her wrist back, face flushing with shock—and rage. “You followed me?”
“No,” he said coldly. “I hunted you.”
Before she could react, he grabbed her by the waist—not rough, but not gently either—and threw her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing.
She shrieked. “Put me down!”
“Not a chance.”
“Jace, I swear to God—”
“Start praying then.”
The walk to the car was a blur.
Amira’s fists pounded his back. Her voice rose in volume and fury.
“You’re insane! You’re going to lose your job! You can’t just grab me like I’m some bag of—JACE!”
He opened the back door, tossed her inside, and slammed it shut before she could scramble out.
Then he slid into the driver’s seat, grip tight on the wheel, jaw locked.
She lunged forward. “I’m not a child! You don’t get to drag me around like some—some kidnapped debutante!”
“Buckle up,” he said through clenched teeth.
“f**k you.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“By what? Embarrassing me in front of the entire school?!”
“You embarrassed yourself,” he snapped. “Showing up half-dressed, dancing with strangers, drinking God knows what—”
“You don’t get to judge me, Jace! You’re a bodyguard, not my damn warden!”
“I’m the only reason your father lets you breathe without a security detail crawling down your throat!”
“Oh, so you’re his pet now? His little soldier boy?” she sneered.
His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “You have no idea what I’ve sacrificed to be here.”
“I didn’t ask you to sacrifice anything!”
“No. You just expect the world to revolve around your tantrums while people like me bleed quietly in the background!”
She went still.
Then softly, mockingly: “What is that supposed to mean?”
The car hit 60.
Wind screamed against the windows.
Jace didn’t answer.
But Amira saw it.
The flicker in his eyes. The fracture in his armor.
And it scared her.
Not because he looked like he’d hurt her.
But because for one raw, silent second, he looked hurt himself.
She hated how that made her feel.
So she did the stupidest thing she could.
She lunged forward and shoved him hard—right in the shoulder.
The car swerved.
“AMIRA!” he barked, trying to right it.
But her hands were still on him, nails digging through his sleeve. “You don’t own me!”
“Sit the hell back!”
“MAKE ME!”
And then—
Screech.
Crash.
The world flipped.
Metal screamed.
Glass exploded
like stars around them.
The car spun. Airbags deployed with a vicious roar. Smoke. Silence. Sirens from somewhere far away.
And then… nothing.
Just the quiet, eerie stillness after the storm.
- Writer
