Nyra's sneakers squeaked lightly against the polished floors of ValeTech, a stark contrast to the cracked asphalt she owned at night. The air smelled like recycled ambition, clean and sterile, the kind that could never hide secrets like smoke or blood. She kept her hoodie tucked into her backpack, her locs falling just enough to shield her expression. Nobody could know who she really was.
Her laptop hummed quietly on the desk. A line of code, a simple algorithm, but she made it sing like a symphony. Patterns that other students missed, security holes they'd never even imagined, glitches she could exploit before anyone even knew they existed.
"Nyra, you're here early," said Professor Calloway, distracted by his tablet. "And already ahead of the curriculum. Are you sure you're not cheating?"
Nyra smirked, not looking up. "I don't cheat. I just… see what others don't."
Calloway shook his head. Some genius students bragged. Some tried to impress. Nyra didn't need to. Her work spoke louder than words, sharper than anyone's ego in this room.
After class, she slipped on her headphones. Lana Del Rey's haunting voice filled her ears, drowning out the sterile buzz of the office-like university. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, debugging, designing, testing a world away from the streets.
A notification pinged: a small crypto wallet transfer. Profit from last night's sales. Another reminder that two lives ran in parallel, dangerously close, yet never allowed to collide. One mistake could ruin her, could ruin Shark, could ruin everything.
Then he appeared. Adrian Vale.
She barely noticed him at first, focused on her screen, but the sudden chill of his presence was impossible to ignore. He didn't look like anyone from class. Expensive suit, tailored perfectly, dark eyes that scanned like cameras. He paused behind her chair, his gaze lingering on the code she wrote like he could read the logic straight from her mind.
"Impressive," he said finally, low and deliberate.
Nyra froze, then tilted her head. "Thank you. Do you… work here?"
"I run things here," Adrian said, not offering a smile. "I've never seen code written like this by a student. You might be… the best one I've ever had in my entire program."
Nyra's heart skipped, but she masked it with calm. Compliments like that were dangerous, they carried weight, expectation, and scrutiny. And Adrian Vale… he was all of it.
"I just… like patterns," she said carefully, "and figuring out how they break."
He leaned closer, his eyes sharp, calculating. "Patterns are easy to break. People are harder. But you… you see them both."
Her lips pressed into a thin line. That was too much. He didn't know her life outside these walls. He didn't know what survival really meant. And yet, something in his tone made her pulse quicken. Not fear. Not yet. Something else.
As he walked away, she removed her headphones, letting the silence press against her. Two worlds. The streets and this one. Shark and ValeTech. And somehow, Adrian Vale had just become a new variable she couldn't ignore.
She took a deep breath, lit a cigarette behind the building, the smoke curling around her like a warning. She'd survived the streets. She'd survived Shark. But Adrian Vale… maybe he was the first challenge she hadn't already won.