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> Come behind the old gym. Now.
Or I'll come get you.
—E.C.
Maya stared at the screen for too long. She should have ignored it.
Should have blocked his number.
Should have deleted the texts like she did the others.
But her fingers were already trembling.
Already reaching for her hoodie.
Already slipping out the back door of the art studio, heart pounding like a guilty drum.
It was raining when she reached the edge of the gym — the kind of rain that soaked through skin and memory. The kind that made her remember the night everything changed.
The night Mira died.
The night Elias stopped looking at her like she was human.
Now, he looked at her like she was a sin he couldn't stop committing in his head.
She didn't even hear him arrive.
One moment, she was staring at the cracked concrete.
The next — a shadow moved behind her.
"I didn't think you'd come."
His voice was behind her. Low. Dangerous.
Maya turned slowly.
Elias was standing a few feet away, rainwater running down his cheekbones, jaw locked, tie undone, shirt clinging to every inch of his lean frame. He looked like a fallen god — angry, soaked, and beautiful in the cruelest way.
"I didn't think I had a choice," she said, barely louder than the rain.
His lips twisted into something sharp. "You don't."
Her breath hitched.
He closed the distance between them with a lazy kind of menace, stopping just before his chest touched hers. His hand braced the wall above her head, boxing her in.
Maya's pulse fluttered.
"Why did you text me?" she asked, voice shaking.
"Because I wanted to see you."
His eyes dragged over her face.
"Because I can't stop thinking about how your mouth trembles when you lie."
She stiffened. "I never lied to you."
"Oh?"
He leaned closer.
"Then what was it when you told me you didn't want me to touch you?"
His voice dropped a notch lower. "Your body said something else."
She swallowed hard. "This is about the dare, isn't it?"
Elias stared at her, jaw ticking. Rain dripped from the tip of his nose.
"That's what they think it is."
"Isn't it?" she whispered.
He didn't answer. Not with words.
Instead, his hand slid from the wall to her cheek — slow, deliberate — and tilted her face toward his. His thumb brushed her bottom lip, eyes flicking down.
"I don't kiss girls for games, Maya."
Her heart tried to escape her chest.
"I kiss them when I want to ruin them."
She didn't move. Couldn't.
Her lips parted just slightly — enough to give him permission.
Or enough to show him how close she was to breaking.
Then his mouth was on hers.
And it wasn't soft.
It was consuming.
Elias kissed her like he was trying to swallow every piece of her breath, every second of her hesitation, every damn ghost she carried.
His lips moved over hers with reckless control — demanding, teasing, punishing.
He kissed her like he owned her.
Maya gasped against him, and he took the sound like it belonged to him — deepening the kiss, tilting her head, devouring the moment like he'd waited too long.
His hands weren't still.
One moved to her waist — firm and possessive — sliding under the hem of her soaked hoodie just enough to feel the curve of her back. The other tangled in her hair, gripping gently at the roots to keep her where he wanted her.
She moaned softly into his mouth — shocked at the sound, at herself.
But she didn't pull away.
She kissed him back.
And God, it felt like falling.
Like losing everything she hated about herself and everything he hated about her — in one violent, beautiful crash.
When he pulled back, they were both breathing hard.
His lips were red.
Her cheeks were flushed.
The air between them was electric.
"This is what you wanted, right?" he murmured, voice rough and wrecked.
"I don't know," she breathed.
He leaned in again, brushed his mouth along her jawline, soft and maddening.
"That's what makes it fun."
Then — without another word — he stepped away, back into the rain, leaving her pressed against the wall, aching in places she didn't know could ache.
And just like that…
She knew.
This wasn't just a dare anymore.
This was a war.
And she had just let the enemy kiss her like she belonged to him.
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