Brindleton. A small town.
It was early September. Rain from the day before left the air damp and heavy. As autumn drew near, the nights seemed to shimmer, and the moonlight, having chased the clouds away, painted the entire sky in a riot of color.
Down an alley, a long street stretched out, lined with flashing, multicolored lights. The shadows of the trees danced. On a street corner, a few punks were squatting, cigarettes dangling from their fingers. Ash littered the ground as their eyes darted about shiftily.
At the end of the alley stood a bar. It had plenty of customers, and the noise was deafening.
Though night had just fallen, the bar was already verging on deafening. On the central dance floor, men and women locked eyes in suggestive gazes as they danced passionately.
On a sofa in the far-right corner, Erin Lowell leaned back, a hint of fierceness knitted into her brow. With her lashes lowered, she looked anything but approachable, radiating a cool detachment.
A waiter brought her a glass of champagne in a tall flute.
After waiting for about half an hour, Erin Lowell drained her glass and headed for the restroom. When she returned at nine-thirty, the crowd in the bar had doubled.
The couple in the booth opposite hers had been replaced by two men.
The two men were conversing in Chinese.
"This place is full of gorgeous women. Aren't you going to have some fun?" The one who spoke was a man with a buzz cut, wearing a white baseball jacket.
"You go if you want to. No one's stopping you."
Erin Lowell had had a little to drink. Her mind was fuzzy and restless, and she couldn't hear them clearly, but she was drawn to the sound of the second man's voice.
It was a smoky, slightly deep voice that, when he spoke, felt like a hook plucking at the very air around them.
Crisp and cool, yet with an untamable, defiant edge.
She glanced over. There were two men. Her gaze slid past the one in white and settled on the other.
The man was dressed in black casual wear, his posture relaxed and careless. The lighting only allowed her a glimpse of half his profile, but she could see the impatience, annoyance, and hint of ferocity in his brow.
He possessed a divinely handsome face, yet the wildness he wore so openly was a clear warning sign: he was not someone to be approached.
The night was pitch-black. Erin Lowell retracted her gaze, pulled her phone from her pocket, tapped the screen a couple of times, and sent a message: [Where are you?]
The conversation from the opposite booth was faint and casual. Between the deafening music and the haze of alcohol, she couldn't hear clearly.
"Zane Jennings, when are you coming back? The whole team is waiting for you."
The young racing prodigy, Zane Jennings. Six years ago, he was a driver renowned throughout the nation. He'd won the championship in his very first national tournament, a victory that sent shockwaves through the racing world.
It was once predicted that no one in the racing world would surpass him for the next ten years.
In just two years, he shattered numerous records and made frequent appearances on the winner's podium at major Grand Prix events. He was the hottest rising star of his time, dreaming of leading his team onto the international circuit.
His meteoric rise ended four years ago. He was reported by a teammate for a pre-race violation and received a four-year ban.
The man in black was the one addressed as Zane Jennings.
The bar's lights flickered. He drained his glass, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. His reply was perfunctory, yet his tone was serious. "I don't plan on going back."
"Cut the crap. If you didn't plan on coming back, you wouldn't be here for the race!"
"Nash Quinn." Zane Jennings picked up a cigarette from the table and lit it. The flickering flame did little to illuminate the shadows in his eyes. "I'm not here for the race."
His tone wasn't serious; it was almost playful.
The man in white was Nash Quinn, Zane Jennings's opponent in that last race. He retorted, "Then what are you here for?"
"To find someone."
"Who are you looking for?"
The slender cigarette was pinched between his fingers. He had beautifully shaped hands, the calluses on his palms now much thinner. Wisps of smoke blurred the contours of his face. He took a drag, then crushed the cigarette out.
He didn't answer the question. "Nash Quinn, race well. We won't be seeing each other on the track again."
Once Nash Quinn got on a racetrack, he drove as if he had a death wish. His obsession was profound; he dreamed of racing Zane Jennings. He'd finally gotten his chance, only to have it snatched away. At the time, he had been so angry he'd wanted to slam his fist on the table.
Nash Quinn tried to rile him up. "Don't tell me you're afraid of losing to me. The crown of the 'Young God of Racing' might just fall off your head."
Zane Jennings shot him a look, refusing to take the bait. "Provoking me is useless." He leaned back, slumping into his chair with a casual, unrestrained air. "Think whatever you want."
Nash Quinn exclaimed, "Why are you so damn difficult!" He dropped the playful tone and grew serious. "Honestly, it was your backup driver who framed you back then, wasn't it?"
'Each team has two main drivers and one reserve,' Nash thought. 'I disliked that guy's face the moment I saw him. He's the one who should have taken the fall; he certainly looked the part.'
Zane Jennings's eyelashes twitched. He reached for another cigarette and lit it, a wicked smile playing on his lips. "The surveillance footage caught me, didn't it?"
The footage showed him, plain as day, from the front.
"..." Nash Quinn wasn't so easily fooled. "You think I'm stupid?"
'He clearly knew it was a trap,' Nash thought, 'but he jumped in anyway.'
Back then, the day before the race, the surveillance footage had been leaked. It was Zane Jennings on the screen. Overnight, all the evidence pointed to him. His legions of fans all thought he would offer a defense.
He didn't. Not a single word of explanation. He just handed over his racing suit and confessed in public.
The second cigarette burned out. Zane Jennings stubbed it out and ground his back teeth, the weariness in his brow deepening. "What if I'm not as clean as you think?"
'That tone of his was just asking for a punch.'
Nash Quinn was speechless. He began to wonder if he was an idiot, a victim trying to exonerate the culprit.
Zane Jennings leaned back and lit a third cigarette. Smoke rose in tendrils, but it couldn't hide the darkness in his eyes.
He wasn't handsome in a one-in-a-million kind of way. A scar cut through the tail of his left eyebrow, lending him a feral, unapproachable air. If you were to put it in a pie chart, he'd be seventy percent wild and thirty percent handsome. He was used to being casual and too lazy to put on airs, always doing whatever was most comfortable for him.
He hated starting trouble, but if trouble came looking for him, he never held back.
This was what Nash Quinn found most baffling. He could tell from Zane's eyes that he knew who had framed him, yet he was deliberately covering for them.
Protecting the very person who had pushed him from his pedestal—Nash Quinn could think about it until his head exploded and he still wouldn't understand.
Nash Quinn poured Zane Jennings a drink and pushed the glass toward him. "Our race. You can't duck it forever."
Zane Jennings didn't take the glass. He pinched the bridge of his nose, changing the subject. "You should take it easy. Don't you have a race coming up?"
As the night wore on, the dance floor grew more raucous. The flashing colored lights were dizzying. Thick smoke drifted up, mingling with the lights and adding to the foggy haze.
Erin Lowell couldn't stand the smell of smoke and coughed twice. A new message popped up on her phone.
From Jocelyn Lawrence: [Babe, that bastard Aidan Lawrence piled more work on me again. I think I'm gonna have to flake on you.]
It was followed by a sticker with a pitiful-looking character.
Erin Lowell put her phone back in her pocket. The September evening wind in Brindleton was chilly, sharp enough to cut through the fleece of her jacket.
She grabbed her jacket and headed for the exit. As she passed one of the booths...
CRASH—
The sound of a glass shattering on the floor.
Erin Lowell turned. Her jacket had snagged on the edge of the table, knocking over someone's drink. Her gaze traveled up and landed on the owner's face.
It was the owner of the voice from earlier. Now she could see his full face. He was wearing a black jacket over a black shirt, his build tall and lean. And while he had a handsome face, his features were too cold, too detached.
"My apologies." She averted her gaze and crouched down, reaching for the shards of glass on the floor.
Just as she was about to touch them, a hand seized her wrist.
A hand was wrapped around her wrist, its touch bone-chillingly cold.
She struggled to free her wrist, her eyes guarded. "I'm sorry, I didn't do it on purpose."
Zane Jennings's breath hitched, and he forgot to release her. His own features seemed to blur under the flashing, multicolored lights as he froze, completely stunned.
Erin Lowell frowned and looked up, meeting his gaze.
'How strange,' she thought. 'We've never met.'
He wasn't looking at her like a stranger. His gaze was more like that of someone clinging to a long-awaited hope, a hope that, on the very brink of despair, had suddenly been resurrected. It was a look of yearning, finally finding its home.
It was as if a lamp that had been dark for an eternity had suddenly flared to life.