14. LATE
ariella
Today marks the third day of being his unofficial student assistant, the third day of officially spending hours in his faculty office.
But unfortunately I’m late. Was buried too deep into checking the assignments of at least thirty students.
I should’ve been following Alistair fifteen minutes ago, but here I am, still in his faculty room, organizing his folders like a paid secretary.
My fingers move on autopilot—papers squared, tabs aligned, digital files renamed with clinical precision—but my mind is somewhere else.
The realization irritates me more than it should.
I like being here. But more than that, I like being here only when he is here. And currently, he’s not.
I can’t fuck this up. If he decides he doesn’t need my help anymore, then there will be no official justification, no paper trail, nothing I can argue against.
It’s not formal. It’s not sanctioned. It exists in the negative space between policy and attention.
A dirty little secret. And that’s what unsettles me. Why me?
There are dozens of students more qualified, more compliant, more appropriate for this role if he wanted it official.
But he didn’t choose official. He chose this. He chose me.
By the time I step outside, dusk has swallowed the campus whole, leaving the buildings glowing in sterile bands of fluorescent light.
Most of the students are gone by now, a few lingering in the cafeteria. Only the cleaners remain, gliding through hallways, running squeaking carts with the faint chemical tang of disinfectant hanging in the air.
I adjust my backpack higher on my shoulders and walk alone toward the exit. I haven’t really made any friends here. Plus, at this hour, none of my group mates should be around to say hi.
The further I descend the stairwell toward the main exit, the more my body slackens. The earlier tension drained out of me, leaving behind a dull fatigue pressing against my ribs.
For a brief moment, I don’t even feel like riding my bike and consider renting a car back to my apartment.
A bike suddenly whooshes past me the moment I step outside the gigantic gates. The rush of wind whips my legs and pulls me out of the sluggish haze.
The sharp growl of its engine cuts through the quiet evening, and just like that, something inside me clicks back into place.
My feet pivot almost automatically, turning me around toward the parking lot.
The leather biker suit is still folded in the closet along with the boots, the gloves, the balaclava, and whatnot. That’s the version of myself that belongs to the road after dark—anonymous, deliberate, untraceable.
Instead, I’m still dressed as I was on campus—mini skirt, cropped top, chunky sneakers, hair loose and soft around my shoulders. It’s too ordinary to be noticeable, but I couldn’t care less about it.
I shrug it off, angling across the asphalt toward my bike. My hands move on instinct, pulling on my helmet and putting the bike into gear as my eyes track the empty street.
By now, it’s too late to follow him.
He’s already gone home. Or to whatever devil’s cave he retreats to when he doesn’t want to be seen.
I take the vacant road he takes anyway, just for a rush of thrill. That should have been my first warning.
It’s not safe for a biker girl to roam unknown, vacant streets, is what they say. But I’m not just any girl. At least, that’s what I like to tell myself.
There are no taillights ahead. No oncoming glare. Just highway unspooling into darkness, streetlights blinking past.
Then too suddenly, light fractures the distance—a single headlamp flares in the side-view mirror.
My brows draw together. It wasn’t there a moment ago.
The headlight blooms suddenly in my side-view mirror, too close, too abrupt—like the car materialized out of the dark.
I try to side-glance, angling my head just enough to catch the outline, but the glare eats everything. I can’t see the body of the vehicle, just the harsh white circle burning into my vision.
It takes me a second too long to realize one thing with certainty. It isn’t Alistair’s. Because it’s another bike.
The absence of streetlamps only worsens it. The road is swallowed in darkness, and whatever’s behind me is pitch black, blending seamlessly into the night. No chrome glint. No reflected edges. Just that single, invasive light hovering where it shouldn’t be.
Something settles uneasily in my chest.
I scan the road ahead. Empty. I check behind again, then the periphery—nothing.
No other vehicles. No movement beyond the steady hum of my engine and the whisper of wind sliding past my legs.
I can’t even hear the sound of the bike behind me.
No engine note. No tire hiss. Just silence and that headlight pacing me.
My first instinct is to ignore it, to tell myself it’s nothing and take a different route. Just bad timing and a wrong coincidence.
But the thought doesn’t sit right.
If it wanted to pass by me discreetly, it could have. It wouldn’t have announced itself like this.
I’m not dressed for this. I’m exposed in ways I don’t like to be, legs bare, movements readable, nothing between me and the road but thin fabric and bad judgment.
I hesitate for exactly one breath.
Then I change lanes and take a different route—there’s not much of an option for me except the narrower road that curves away from the main stretch. The very wrong one. At least, I never saw Alistair take it.
Unfortunately, it’s quieter. One-way. No shoulder. No easy turnarounds. Just a ribbon of asphalt hemmed in by overgrowth and shadow.
Once I’m on it, I realize there’s no way back without confronting the other rider.
My pulse spikes, sharp and unwelcome. I tighten my grip on the handlebars, lean forward, and gear up, pushing past one-fifty. The engine growls beneath me, sending vibration rattling up my body.
Outrun it. That’s the plan.
Get distance. Find somewhere to disappear. Hide long enough for the situation to sober—if it ever does.
But the bike follows.
Not aggressively. Not erratically. Just there. Maintaining the same measured distance, as if it’s studying me.
Then suddenly another headline blinks from the other side. What the… fuck?? Only for a brief second, hinting that there’s not just one but two bikes after me.
It’s clear now. I’m the target for some unknown reasons.
The road narrows fast. Trees close in, branches knitting shadows tighter over the asphalt, the night pressing closer with every meter.
The bikes don’t gain on me. They don’t fall back either, just match my pace with unsettling precision.
I’m spiraling internally, mind scrambling for options, when both the headlights blink once and then go dark.
The bikes vanish into nothing.
My heart slams against my ribs, not adrenaline anymore but raw, unfiltered terror.
Acting on instinct, reckless and desperate, I flick off my own headlights too and immediately realize I’ve made a mistake.
There’s a sudden rush of mass beside me, the violent displacement of air. Something enormous passes too close by both sides of me simultaneously.
The next moment, I’m defying gravity—floating, suspended, the bike no longer beneath me.
Then the crash.
The bike wrenches sideways, ripped out from under me. I’m lifted—weightless for a fractured second, suspended in mid-air—before pain detonates through my whole body as I slam into the merciless ground.
There’s no warning. No screech of tires. Just a sudden bloom of white light in my peripheral vision. The impact hits me from the side, hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs, hard enough that I feel like the world tilts and splits apart.
My thoughts scatter.
Sound collapses into a dull, underwater roar. The sky spins, darkness smearing into darker. I taste blood. Something in my shoulder cracks—not sharp pain yet, just a sickening pressure that tells me it’s wrong. Very wrong.
I try to move.
I try to make a sound.
I can’t tell if I succeeded.
Disjointed images flicker through the black in my head—Dad’s reluctance when I first asked about Oxford. Asher, letting me crash his cars without complaint, but never letting me ride a bike. Then Alistair, each time he accidentally smiled with dimples.
The memories feel absurdly uninvited. Then the light swallows everything. I let go.