He groans into my mouth, and I use that moment to push back, trying to take control again. But Han is stronger than he looks, and for once, he's not letting me win.
"Frustrated?" he murmurs between kisses, smirking against my lips.
I bite at his jaw...
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The bass reverberates through the ground, a relentless, pounding rhythm that matches the chaos inside my head. Bodies sway and collide around me, a mass of sweat, heat, and energy. Neon lights slice through the darkness, illuminating fleeting glimpses of wild eyes and reckless grins. The air reeks of gasoline and sweat, and the roar of engines in the distance sends adrenaline coursing through the crowd like an electric current.
And yet, I feel nothing.
I stand in the middle of it all, unmoving, detached, the noise and movement blurring into a cacophony of white noise. My mind is a battlefield, fractured memories of Hwang flashing like bursts of light, each one blinding, each one leaving me more disoriented than the last.
His hands on me. The intensity in his eyes. The infuriating smirk that made me want to hit him and kiss him in the same breath.
My stomach twists, a sickening blend of anger, confusion, and something far too dangerous to name. I should be furious. I am furious—or at least, I should be—but the anger feels diluted, lost in the murky depths of something darker.
I don't know what to feel.
The crowd surges around me, and someone bumps into my shoulder, jolting me slightly. I mutter a half-hearted curse, but my voice is swallowed by the music. Normally, I'd bark back, shove them off me, but now I barely have the energy to care.
I'm numb.
I can't even feel the heat of the bodies pressing too close, the sticky humidity of the summer night, or the throbbing ache in my chest that refuses to fade. Hwang has done something to me—something I can't undo, can't shake, no matter how desperately I try.
Why did I let it happen? Why did I let him happen?
My hand clenches into a fist at my side, nails biting into my palm, but even that pain feels distant. A hollow echo. I think about leaving, about pushing my way through the sea of sweaty, writhing strangers and walking out into the cool night air. But I can't make myself move.
Instead, I stand there, letting the chaos of the race venue wash over me, a storm I can't seem to step out of. My mind keeps looping back to his face—his goddamn face—and the way it was so close to mine, the way his breath mingled with mine like it was meant to.
I hate him. I hate what he did to me, what he makes me feel.
But worse, I hate that even now, even as I stand here drowning in the noise and the heat and the suffocating press of bodies, all I can think about is him.
Hwang.
I close my eyes, exhaling shakily, and for a moment, the world tilts. I imagine his smirk, the glint of mischief in his eyes, the way he makes me feel raw, exposed, like he sees through every layer of armor I've spent years perfecting.
And then the numbness cracks, just slightly, and I feel the sharp edge of something overwhelming and unbearable.
I'm spiraling, caught between fury and something I can't even name. And no matter how much I want to, I can't claw my way out.
