The AfterShock
1311 Words
POV: Adrian/ “Rogue”
Luna Vega.
The girl with a busted Mustang and broke my armour.
I should’ve been angry. The Syndicate hated weakness, and losing to an unregistered driver was an open wound. Cameras had caught every second of it—my defeat, her rise, the way she looked at me when the fireworks exploded.
But I wasn’t angry.
I was alive.
For the first time in years, the world didn’t sound like static. It had a pulse. Her name was in it.
I parked in the lower deck of the Cross Tower.
“Archive tonight’s feed,” I muttered.
The way she gripped the wheel like she was trying to hold her world together.
The way she smiled when the crowd screamed her name, like she didn’t believe it was real.
And the way she looked at me—through rain and lightning—as if she’d seen something I didn’t want anyone to find.
I shut the feed off. My hands were shaking.
I hadn’t lost in five years.
But tonight, a girl from nowhere rewrote my rules.
By dawn, Cross Industries was waking up—stock tickers blinking, drones buzzing, my board waiting for updates. But I wasn’t in the tower.
I
Her garage sat between a pawnshop and a tattoo parlor, sign flickering: VEGA AUTOWORKS.
She had no idea who I was—or what I’d done to make sure she’d stay on the grid.
Zee’s voice played faintly from an open phone near the hood of her Mustang.
> “Girl, I swear, that stunt was suicide. But it was the hottest suicide I’ve ever seen.”
“I didn’t die, did I?” Luna shot back. Her laugh—hoarse, bright—echoed through the rain. “Guess the devil’s still got rent to collect.”
I leaned against a lamppost across the street, cap pulled low. For someone who’d just beaten a ghost, she looked… small. Grease on her fingers, bruises on her knuckles, hair tied up in a messy knot. Nothing like the adrenaline goddess from last night.
And yet, I couldn’t look away.
I told myself I was only checking if she’d talk to the wrong people. The Syndicate wouldn’t like a racer they couldn’t control. That was the excuse. The truth was simpler—and worse.
I wanted to see if she’d look for me.
But she didn’t. She worked. She laughed. She played a song from some indie playlist and started fixing her own car like she’d never even heard the name Rogue.
It shouldn’t have hurt. But it did.
By noon, I was back in a suit, standing in front of a boardroom window, watching the storm clouds crawl across Manhattan.
The directors were droning about quarterly numbers, mergers, acquisitions. Words like profit and leverage. I heard none of it.
My phone buzzed.
Encrypted message. No name—just the Syndicate emblem: a crimson gear.
> “You exposed yourself. That race was unsanctioned. Clean it up, Cross.”
My pulse jumped.
So they knew. Of course they knew.
They built Rogue. They could dismantle him just as fast.
> “Leave the girl?” I typed.
“Eliminate the variable.”
I stared at the words until they blurred.
Eliminate.
No.
Something in me snapped so quietly I almost didn’t hear it.
They wanted control. But last night, Luna had taken it. And now, the Syndicate wanted to erase the proof.
I typed back one word:
> “Denied.”
Then I shut the phone off.
That night, I found myself back near the garage. The rain had stopped, but the city still steamed. Neon lights reflected off puddles like broken glass.
She was locking up, jacket half-zipped, hair damp. A duffel bag slung over her shoulder. I stayed in the shadows as she walked toward the diner across the street.
Every part of me screamed to leave. But my feet didn’t move.
She pushed open the diner door, the bell ringing softly. I followed a minute later, pretending to scroll through my phone.
The place was half-empty—just truckers, a waitress, and her. She sat by the window, stirring coffee she clearly couldn’t afford.
When the waitress passed by, I caught her arm. “Another one of whatever she’s having,” I said, slipping a bill onto the counter.
The waitress smiled, nodded. “She your girl?”
“Not yet,” I said before I could stop myself.
Luna looked up when the cup landed in front of her. The waitress pointed at me.
Her eyes met mine—curious, cautious, sharp.
I gave her the smallest nod. Nothing more.
She hesitated, then smiled—just enough to ruin every plan I’d made about staying invisible.
“Thanks,” she said, voice rough but soft. “You look like you could use one too.”
I sat across from her. Up close, she didn’t look like a street legend. She looked tired.
“Rough night?” I asked.
She snorted. “You could say that. Some guy in a black car almost killed me.”
I bit back a smile. “Sounds like a jerk.”
“Yeah, well,” she said, sipping, “he also made me feel alive. So, complicated.”
For a second, I forgot how to breathe.
“What about you?” she asked. “You race?”
“Not anymore,” I lied. “Used to.”
Her eyes lit up. “Then you get it. That rush—when it’s just you, the engine, and gravity trying to take you out?”
“I get it,” I said quietly. “Too well.”
The waitress refilled her cup. Luna’s fingers brushed the mug, trembling slightly. “You ever feel like the world only notices you when you’re breaking something?”
I looked at her for a long time.
“All the time.”
She smiled at that—real, small, dangerous. The kind of smile that could start wars.
Outside, thunder rolled again.
Her phone buzzed on the table. A message flashed before she grabbed it, but I caught the name: Unknown Sender.
Her face changed—worry, then fear. She pocketed it fast.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
She nodded too quickly. “Yeah. Just… car trouble.”
I knew that tone. That was Syndicate trouble. They’d already found her.
I reached for my wallet, slid a card across the table. “If you ever need repairs—or protection—call this number.”
She frowned at the embossed logo.
Cross Industries.
“Wait,” she said slowly. “You’re that Adrian Cross?”
“Sometimes.”
Her laughter cracked through the air. “No way. Billionaires don’t hang out in diners at midnight.”
“Then maybe I’m not a good one.”
She looked at me differently now—not as a stranger, but as someone who didn’t fit the box she’d built.
“I’ll keep the card,” she said finally. “But I don’t take handouts.”
“Then think of it as insurance,” I said.
She tucked it into her jacket, then stood. “You’re weird, Mr. Cross.”
“I get that a lot.”
She left, the bell chiming behind her.
I watched her walk into the dark, rain starting to fall again.
Only when she disappeared did I exhale.
Back in the car, I peeled off my gloves. Her coffee cup still sat across from me in the rearview mirror.
The Syndicate would move soon. She was a liability. But I wasn’t going to let them touch her.
Luna Vega didn’t just beat me on the track.
She woke something I thought I’d buried.
Obsession. Guilt. Need.
Call it whatever you want.
All I knew was that the race wasn’t over.
Not even close.
- Writer
