Chapter 3 – Collision
534 Words
Rob followed her without meaning to.
She moved like a rumor, impossible to pin down—one moment gliding past the champagne tower, the next leaning against the marble balcony like she owned the night. There were people all around her, but none of them mattered.
His heartbeat was louder than the soft music playing overhead.
Sera turned before he reached her. “You’re braver than you look,” she said, her voice smooth but guarded.
“I’ve been told I’m not brave at all,” Rob replied, stopping just short of her shadow. “But I am curious.”
Her eyebrow arched slightly. “Curiosity gets people killed in my world.”
“I’ve heard. I’m still here.”
That made her smile—barely. She leaned against the balcony, one hand resting on the cold stone. “You have a name, or should I keep calling you Golden Boy in my head?”
“Rob. Rob Kingston.”
She blinked. “Kingston? As in—?”
He nodded. “That one.”
A flicker of recognition passed through her eyes, followed quickly by something else—disgust? No, disappointment. “So, you’re the empire’s heir.”
“And you’re the girl I’m not supposed to talk to.”
She let out a dry laugh. “Yet here we are.”
Silence stretched between them, thick with everything unspoken. The city lights flickered far below like tiny stars scattered across the street. Sera looked out over them, her voice quieter now.
“Your kind doesn’t come to places like mine. You build towers to stay above it.”
Rob tilted his head. “Maybe I’m tired of towers.”
“Then you’re in the wrong room,” she said flatly. “Go back to the people who pretend to care while sipping ten-thousand-dollar wine.”
“I’m here because I actually care.”
“Prove it.”
He hesitated, then pulled something from his coat pocket—a folded piece of paper. “I was going to read this at the end of the night. But I think it’s better if you hear it.”
He handed it to her.
Sera unfolded it slowly. Her eyes scanned the short poem, and the smirk on her lips faded line by line.
> “They name us wild so they don't hear us scream,
Call us broken so they don’t fix the dream.
But even smoke carries shape in the air,
Even fire can burn soft when it cares.”
She looked up at him. This time, the sharpness in her stare softened into something like surprise. Maybe even respect.
“You wrote this?”
He nodded.
Sera folded the paper carefully, like it mattered. “You don’t sound like the others.”
“I’m not.”
She stepped closer. Not threatening, just... closer. “Careful, Rob Kingston. You keep talking like that, I might forget to hate you.”
And with that, she turned and disappeared into the crowd once more.
This time, Rob didn’t follow.
He just stood there—heart pounding, blood singing—knowing that nothing in his life had ever started like this.
And everything was about to change.
- Writer
