COLLISION
1664 Words
The rain wasn’t just falling—it was hungry. It bit into the pavement, gnawed at skin, gnawed at the city’s mood like it wanted to prove something. Neon signs spilled color down brick walls. Tires hissed past. Not far off, bass-heavy music thudded through concrete, wild and unapologetic.
She waited under a flickering streetlight that looked like it was losing a fight with gravity. Camera hanging low, coat collar up, boots already soaked through. The lens cap? Hadn’t bothered with that in years. The city didn’t pause for anyone to get set.
She lifted the camera.
Didn’t even need to think—the shot was already there. Steam curling from an alley, a man stepping out of darkness like he owned it.
He didn’t belong here.
Too sharp, too clean, too still. Black coat, crisp lines, posture that refused to bend for rain, crowds, or common sense. The kind of guy the city either spat out or crowned. Nobody landed in the middle.
She clicked the shutter.
The sound felt louder than it should’ve. Weirdly final.
His head turned.
Not surprised. Not curious.
Just—aware.
They locked eyes across twenty feet of wet pavement and bad choices. Her chest tightened, sharp and dizzying, like vertigo with no warning. She lowered the camera, chin up.
He started walking toward her.
People moved aside without even realizing. A couple arguing suddenly went quiet. A drunk’s laugh died in his throat. The air got heavier, like before a storm when you know something’s about to snap.
She held her ground.
He stopped so close she caught his scent—clean, cold, with a metallic edge. Like rain hitting metal.
“That’s private property,” he said.
He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t have to.
She glanced past him, then back, camera dangling. “This?” She waved the camera. “It’s a sidewalk. You don’t own the sidewalk.”
His eyes flicked to the camera strap, the way she gripped it—like she knew exactly what she was doing. Something unreadable crossed his face.
“You shouldn’t point that at people like me.”
She gave him a smile, sharp as glass. “Then maybe don’t walk around looking like a crime scene.”
He paused.
Then he let out a laugh. Cold. Not friendly. More like a sound he hadn’t used in ages.
“You think you’re clever.”
“I know I am,” she shot back. “So, you blocking my shot, or planning to arrest me?”
“I don’t arrest people.”
The way he said it made her stomach twist. She ignored that.
“Then we’re done here.” She tried to edge past him.
He matched her move. Just enough to stay in her way.
Annoyance flared, hot and instant. “Do you make a habit out of hassling strangers, or am I just lucky?”
His gaze dropped—not to her face.
Lower.
She tensed. “Eyes up, creep.”
His jaw tightened. Whatever he’d noticed slipped behind something colder.
“You took a picture,” he said.
“So?”
“I want it deleted.”
She barked out a real laugh. “You don’t get to tell me what to erase.”
“Delete it,” he said again, and the streetlight above buzzed so hard it nearly died.
The hairs on her arms stood up.
No breeze. No reason.
She c****d her head. “You always short out the city when you get pissy?”
For a second, she thought he might reach for her—not to hurt, but something worse. Like he could erase the space between them if he wanted.
Instead, he stepped back.
“You don’t know where you are.”
She raised the camera, steady. “I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
The lens found his face—gold-flecked eyes, a scar on his jaw, something old and exhausted buried deep. She hovered over the shutter.
The world tilted.
Her camera sputtered. The screen went dead.
“What the hell?” she muttered, shaking it.
When she looked up, he was closer.
Way too close.
Her breath snagged anyway.
“Leave,” he said, soft.
“No.”
It was out before she could stop it. Reflex. Instinct. Years of refusing to be pushed around.
Something in him snapped—quiet, invisible, like a wire pulled too tight.
“You’re playing with things you don’t understand.”
She stared him down, heart racing. “Story of my life.”
For a second, neither moved. Even the city seemed to hold its breath. Suddenly she noticed everything—the heat coming off him, the strange pressure in her ears, the way the rain curved away from his shoulders.
A car backfired down the block.
The spell broke.
She stepped around him, quick, pulse hammering, camera clenched tight in her hand.
She didn’t look back.
Didn’t see him watching her go, eyes narrowed, something restless and dark shifting under his skin.
Didn’t see the faint, almost hidden glow pulsing under her coat as she vanished into the crowd.
But she felt it.
That pull.
That wrongness.
Like she’d brushed a live wire and somehow survived.
And somewhere behind her, Lucian Vale stood in the rain, jaw tight, wings aching beneath skin that remembered fire.
For the first time in centuries, he’d lost control.
And it scared the hell out of him.
She should’ve just gone home. That made sense—dry clothes, a coffee strong enough to make her eyelids twitch. Forget the man with the killer’s stillness and eyes that seemed to list out her secrets, one by one.
But nope. She rounded the corner and almost barreled right into him again.
“Are you stalking me?” she snapped, heart hammering. “Or is the city just this tiny?”
He was under an awning this time, rain ticking down the edge like it was counting. One hand stuffed in his coat, the other hanging easy. Looked unarmed, but she wasn’t betting on it.
“You changed direction,” he said.
She glared. “So did you.”
“I didn’t.”
She rolled her eyes. “Congrats. You cracked the code of coincidence.”
They stared each other down. The street felt like it was stretching thin around them, people slipping past too fast, faces all a blur, footsteps echoing weird and distant.
Her camera buzzed at her hip.
She frowned, glanced down. The screen flickered on by itself.
“No,” she muttered. “No, no—”
The image filled the display.
Not the alley she’d aimed for. Not the street.
Him.
Closer than she remembered framing it. His face frozen, eyes lit with this faint gold spark, something huge and dark curling behind him, like a shadow that shouldn’t exist.
She exhaled hard.
“That’s not possible,” she said.
Lucian’s eyes dropped to the screen. His face didn’t move, but the air thickened, heavy and tight.
“You didn’t delete it,” he said.
“I tried.” She swallowed. “I swear I did.”
The camera gave a low, unhappy whine.
“Give it to me.”
“No.” She hugged it to her chest, instincts on fire. “You don’t get to erase my work just because you’re… whatever you are.”
His gaze snapped up, sharp as a knife. “You have no idea what you’ve caught.”
“Then tell me,” she fired back. “Because men don’t usually come with built-in lightning.”
His jaw ticked.
“Walk away,” he said, voice rough.
She laughed—nervous, stubborn. “Seriously, you need new material.”
Something electric snapped between them then. Not quite fear, not desire. Just raw static. The streetlight above them popped, glass raining down, and suddenly they stood in a pool of half-dark.
She gasped.
Lucian moved fast, catching her wrist before she could stumble. His grip was strong, steady, heat searing right through her skin.
They both froze.
For a second, nothing else existed—just his thumb pressed to her pulse, her breath stuck in her throat, his eyes gone wide and wild.
“Let go,” she said, her voice shaking but fierce.
He didn’t.
Instead, his fingers loosened a little—and something inside him snapped. Pain flared up his spine, hot and blinding, twisting through him like wildfire.
She felt it, too.
A rush of heat under her ribs, light bursting behind her eyes. The ground tilted, the city bending around them.
Lucian cursed, let her go like she’d shocked him.
She staggered, clutching her chest. “What did you do to me?”
“I didn’t touch you,” he said—and that rattled her more than anything, because he sounded so damn sure.
The camera slipped from her hand, smacked the pavement.
The screen cracked.
Light seeped out anyway.
Not white. Not gold.
Something ancient.
Lucian’s wings clawed beneath his skin, furious and desperate. The curse woke up, sharp and hungry, recognizing her the way a lock knows its key.
“No,” he whispered.
She stared at the light oozing from the broken camera, then at him. For once, she couldn’t find a single thing to say.
“What… what is happening?”
Sirens wailed, footsteps thundered closer. The city was waking up. His men, coming for him.
Lucian looked at her, really looked, and the truth hit like a knife in the gut.
If they found her like this, she was done for.
He grabbed her wrist again, this time rough.
“Don’t fight me,” he said.
“Like hell—”
He yanked her into the shadows just as headlights cut across the street, the light snapping off behind them like a slammed door.
The world folded in.
And somewhere, beneath heaven, hell, and this city that pretended to be neither, fate caught up at last.
- Writer
