DRIFT LINE
1208 Words
The message hit her inbox like a coded whisper from the shadows.
> INVITE: Drift Line | Location disclosed on site | Stakes: 500K | Entry: by reputation only.
Rule: No spectators. No second chances.
Luna stared at the flickering neon text on her cracked phone screen, her pulse syncing with the low hum of engines echoing across the underground lot. The others were celebrating a small win — music blaring, headlights flashing, tire smoke curling like ghosts around them — but she barely noticed. Her heart was elsewhere. Racing always came with risk. But this one smelled like setup.
And still — her fingers itched.
“Yo, you’re zoning out again.”
Zee’s voice cut through the music, playful but sharp. “You reading death threats or invites now?”
Luna tilted her screen toward him. Zee’s eyes lit up, the way they always did when danger was involved. “Ohhh, that’s the Drift Line. Girl, that’s myth-level territory. You know who runs that?”
“No one does,” she said, trying to sound bored. “And that’s exactly what makes it stupid.”
“Correction — that’s what makes it legendary.” Zee smirked, tapping her phone. “You get that invite once in a lifetime. You back off now, they’ll never call you again. The best racers go dark for years waiting for this.”
Luna’s jaw tensed. The best racers also don’t end up in morgues.
Before she could answer, her phone buzzed again — this time, with a different tone. Her private line. The one only he used.
> Adrian: Don’t.
That was it. One word. A warning. She didn’t have to ask how he knew. Somehow, he always did.
She typed back fast, thumbs trembling.
> Luna: So now you’re monitoring me?
No reply. Just a heartbeat of silence, long enough for the air around her to feel heavier. Then another ping.
> Adrian: You think they invite rookies for fun? That race has body counts, Luna. Stay away.
Her chest tightened, irritation spiking.
> Luna: You don’t own me.
> Adrian: Then stop acting like you have something to prove.
The screen dimmed before she could even reply. She hated how his words stuck like smoke, filling her lungs with heat she couldn’t exhale. He wasn’t wrong — she was trying to prove something. Maybe not to him. Maybe to the ghosts of everyone who’d ever told her she couldn’t make it.
She looked at Zee, who was already grinning like he’d won the argument.
“Let me guess,” he said. “Boss Man said no. Which means we’re saying hell yes.”
Luna smirked, half out of defiance, half out of adrenaline. “Legends don’t play safe, right?”
“Now you’re talking my language.”
---
That night, she stood in front of her car — matte black, low-slung, restless — the same way a knight might stand before battle. The air outside was thick, charged with rain and streetlight glare. Every bolt, every dent, every patch of the machine was hers.
She slipped into the driver’s seat, fingers grazing the steering wheel like it was a pulse she could feel through her skin.
“Alright, baby,” she whispered. “Let’s make history or crash trying.”
The coordinates came through like coordinates to sin.
She followed.
---
The race site was a ghost town turned battlefield — an abandoned shipping port carved into lanes by steel containers and flickering light rigs. The air buzzed with bass and engine growls. Men in leather jackets and masks traded bets in digital currencies. No names, no rules. Only speed.
Zee was somewhere in the crowd, waving a signal flare to mark her entry. She walked past the others — male racers sizing her up with smirks that turned into unease as soon as they caught her gaze. Word of her past wins traveled fast.
Still, something felt off. Too quiet beneath the chaos. Her instincts whispered trap.
“Look alive, pretty racer,” someone muttered near the pit line, voice muffled under a helmet. “You’re about to make Syndicate history.”
Her blood ran cold. Syndicate? She thought Adrian had cut ties with them.
Before she could react, the start lights blinked — red, red, yellow— green.
Engines roared like beasts. She launched forward, the car screaming down the slick concrete with surgical precision. Her reflexes were pure muscle memory, every turn cut to millimeters. Wind whipped her hair, lights fractured across her windshield — she was fire and asphalt, fear and freedom.
Halfway through the third lap, something glitched. Her dashboard flashed an error warning she’d never seen before:
> FUEL PRESSURE – CRITICAL.
“What the—”
The wheel jerked in her hands. The car sputtered mid-turn. For a split second, she lost control — the rear fishtailed violently, almost slamming into a shipping container. She corrected it at the last millisecond, heart hammering.
Someone tampered with her car.
Zee’s voice crackled through her earpiece, panicked: “Luna! Your line’s leaking! Get out of there before you blow the tank!”
“I can still finish—”
“Luna, don’t be stupid!”
The words barely registered as flames licked up her rearview mirror — a spark from another racer’s exhaust igniting the trail she’d left. She slammed the brakes, cut the engine, and jumped out just as her car hissed and exploded in a burst of metal and fire.
The crowd erupted, some cheering, others running. She hit the ground, the shockwave ringing in her ears, pain searing her shoulder.
Zee found her seconds later, coughing through the smoke. “Holy hell, Luna— you almost—”
“I know,” she croaked, eyes locked on what was left of her car. “Someone planned this.”
Her phone buzzed again, lighting up through the smoke. One new message.
> Adrian: Where are you?
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Not yet. Because deep down, a truth was clawing its way up her chest — the kind that hurt to even think.
Whoever did this… knew her car’s system.
Knew her patterns.
Knew her.
And that list was painfully short.
It was hours later when the rain came — washing away tire marks, cooling the burnt concrete, and masking the sound of a familiar engine pulling into the alley near her garage.
Luna was there, soaked, trembling, trying to fix what little was left of her wreck.
She didn’t need to look to know who it was. His footsteps were distinct — slow, heavy, deliberate.
“Rough night,” Adrian said quietly, stepping into the dim light.
Her throat tightened, fury colliding with relief. “You followed me.”
He didn’t deny it. His eyes swept over her, then over the scorched fragments of her car. “Someone’s hunting you,” he said, voice low, dangerous. “And they’re not me.”
The rain intensified. Somewhere deep in the night, an engine roared again — distant, watching, waiting.
Luna met his gaze, her pulse racing for reasons that had nothing to do with fear.
Because when Adrian said someone’s hunting you,
she couldn’t shake the feeling…
that maybe they both were.
- Writer
