FIREPROOF
1560 Words
The underground scene had shifted — subtly, eerily.
Luna noticed it the moment she stepped back into the pit that night.
Whispers that used to hiss behind her back now stopped mid-sentence when she passed. The men who once cornered her after races — drunk on testosterone and borrowed fame — suddenly found excuses to walk away. Even Zee noticed.
> “Yo, since when did the wolves learn manners?” Zee smirked, tossing Luna her helmet. “You been taming monsters off-track, or do they just know you’ve got a guardian devil now?”
Luna laughed, but the sound didn’t reach her eyes. “Guardian devil? Cute.”
Zee raised a brow. “You think I’m kidding? Word is, someone’s cleaning your path. Quietly. The kind of quiet that comes with power. Syndicate-level power.”
Luna fastened her gloves tighter, jaw clenching. “Let them whisper. I race. That’s all.”
But even she couldn’t ignore the shift. Every turn, every setup, every driver — too neat. Too smooth. Like unseen hands were rearranging chaos just for her.
And only one name fit that brand of control.
Adrian Cross.
The following morning, Luna stormed into Cross Dynamics HQ — a temple of glass and steel that gleamed like it didn’t know what dirt or risk felt like.
Her boots echoed through the sterile hallway as she ignored the assistant’s protests and shoved open the door to the executive floor.
Adrian stood by the window, sleeves rolled up, tie undone — a man too polished to belong to the world she came from, but too dangerous to belong to this one either.
> “You don’t make appointments, do you?” His tone was calm. Like he’d expected her.
> “You don’t give me reasons to,” Luna shot back. “You think I wouldn’t notice? Racers dropping out. Sponsors suddenly backing me. People scared to even look my way. You’re pulling strings I didn’t ask you to touch.”
Adrian turned, eyes dark and unreadable. “It’s called protection, Luna. The underground is volatile. You should be thanking me.”
Her laugh came sharp. “Protection? You mean control. You want to own what you can’t beat.”
That flicker in his gaze — half amusement, half warning — sent a chill down her spine.
> “You think this is about power?” he said slowly. “You think I care about owning a name on a roster? You have no idea what kind of world you’ve walked into.”
> “Then enlighten me,” she snapped. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re terrified of me winning on my own.”
He walked toward her then, deliberate, the sound of his shoes echoing in the room like a heartbeat. Luna forced herself not to step back.
> “I’m not terrified,” Adrian said softly, stopping inches away. “I’m fascinated. There’s a difference.”
Their eyes met — hers defiant, his burning with something she couldn’t name.
The air between them thickened. She could smell his cologne, expensive and subtle, the kind that lingers too long in memory.
Luna clenched her jaw. “You don’t get to play god with my life, Cross. I drive my own story.”
> “You can’t control chaos by pretending it’s free,” he murmured.
Her chest tightened. The way he said chaos — like it was her name.
> “Maybe chaos doesn’t want to be controlled.”
For a heartbeat, silence.
Then Adrian’s lips curved — not in a smile, but in something darker. “Then chaos better learn how to survive the fire.”
Zee’s words haunted her later that night as she stood in the garage, staring at her car.
Guardian devil.
Was that what Adrian was? Or the reason she couldn’t sleep without seeing his shadow in every reflection?
Because no matter how much she hated it — his presence felt like gravity. Unseen, constant, and impossible to escape.
And maybe… part of her didn’t want to.
Luna should have walked away after that.
She wanted to.
But Adrian’s words looped through her head like the echo of screeching tires on a track. You can’t control chaos by pretending it’s free.
By the time she returned that night, the garage felt too quiet — like the air itself was listening. The low thrum of the engine she’d been tuning all week was supposed to calm her, but her pulse beat faster, heavier.
She wasn’t just angry. She was unsettled.
And somewhere deep down, a dangerous thought whispered: What if he’s right?
“You’re pacing,” Zee’s voice crackled through the call on speaker.
“I’m thinking,” Luna muttered.
“That’s what I said.” Zee sighed dramatically. “I’ve seen this look before, babe. It’s the look of someone about to do something chaotic.”
“Good,” Luna said, grabbing her jacket. “Because I’m done letting someone else drive my life.”
She didn’t call for a meeting. She didn’t even ask to be let in. She simply walked into Cross Dynamics HQ again like a storm slipping past security.
This time, Adrian was alone in his private tuning bay — a hidden underground chamber far below the polished offices, where sleek black vehicles gleamed like predators at rest. It smelled like high-octane fuel, smoke, and expensive danger.
He looked up from the open hood of a car, sleeves rolled up, hair slightly disheveled. He wasn’t the composed CEO now. He was himself — raw, precise, dangerous.
> “You’re back,” Adrian said, wiping his hands with a cloth, voice low. “Either you missed me… or you came to set fire to something.”
“Maybe both,” Luna shot back.
He tilted his head — that slow, calculating movement that always made her feel like he was studying her, not just looking.
“You’ve been meddling with the races,” she said, stepping closer. “And don’t give me that ‘protection’ speech again. I’m not your toy, Cross.”
Adrian set the cloth down. “You’re not a toy,” he said quietly. “You’re the one thing that doesn’t bend the way I expect. And that—” he took a step forward, “—is exactly why I can’t stop.”
The air thickened again. Too hot. Too close.
Luna folded her arms across her chest, trying to keep her voice steady. “Then stop.”
Adrian gave a low, humorless laugh. “If I could, I would’ve the night I saw you take that turn like gravity was yours to command.”
Her pulse jumped. “That’s not romantic. That’s obsession.”
His gaze flickered — a flash of something unguarded beneath the iron control. “Maybe it is.”
She hated how those words didn’t scare her as much as they should.
They burned through her, slow and relentless.
“You think you can just move things around me like I’m part of your system?” she said. “That if you pull enough strings, I’ll… what? Fall in line?”
“No,” Adrian murmured. “I think you’ll set the system on fire. And I want to be close enough to feel the heat.”
Luna stepped back, heart pounding. “You don’t even know me.”
Adrian’s jaw flexed. “I know how you drive. How your hands tighten on the wheel right before you push past the edge. How you bite the inside of your cheek when you’re about to prove someone wrong. How your pulse races at the exact moment you stop fearing and start flying. I know you.”
The way he said it — low, unshakable, like a confession carved in steel — cracked something in her chest.
She hated how he saw her. Not the mask. Not the performance. Her.
“That’s not knowing me,” she whispered. “That’s building a cage.”
“No,” he said, stepping forward again, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off him. “That’s learning the fire so it doesn’t burn me alive.”
For a moment, neither of them moved.
The world narrowed down to the sound of their breathing — uneven, tangled.
Luna’s hand hovered at her side, itching to shove him away… or pull him closer. She couldn’t tell which.
“You scare me,” she admitted under her breath.
Adrian’s eyes softened, just a little. “Good. That means you still know where the line is.”
“And what happens when I cross it?”
“Then we burn.”
His words landed like gasoline on an open flame.
Luna’s chest rose and fell, fast. “I’m not yours, Cross.”
“I know.” He leaned in, close enough for the edge of his breath to graze her ear. “But tell me you don’t feel it too.”
The silence was louder than any engine.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. Her heartbeat already did.
When she finally walked out of the bay, the night air bit at her skin — but it couldn’t cool the fire Adrian had left behind.
Zee was right.
She had a guardian devil.
And worse… she wasn’t sure she wanted to be saved from him.
- Writer
