The Party
Chapter Eight
S O P H I A
Before I can say anything, I feel James stepping sideways, gently pulling me with him out of the path of the surging crowd.
One hand rests on my shoulder brief and instinctive, gone as quickly as it came,before I can even name the strange feeling creeping up my spine.
I let him, mostly because I am too distracted to argue.
The energy in the space has changed. It is subtle at first kind of like the way a current shifts before a storm.
The music drops slightly in volume, as if even the DJ has decided to pay attention, and the crowd redistributes itself without being told to, pulling back from the center of the concrete lot in a wide, living circle.
The smoke from earlier has thickened. It drifts low across the ground in soft white clouds, catching the red light from above, turning the whole space into something between a rave and a fever dream.
Laser beams cut through the haze in sharp green and orange lines
I lean toward James . "Is this a race?"
He glances at me sideways. Something in his expression not quite a smile, not quite a warning.
"Not exactly," he says.
Before I can ask further questions, a voice tears through the noise.
"HELLO, HELLO, HELLOOOOO...." And a guy has appeared near the center of the space, elevated slightly on what looks like an overturned crate microphone in one hand, red cup tilted at an angle that suggests it has already been refilled more than once.
He has the specific energy of someone who was born for this exact moment and has been waiting for it all week.
The crowd responds immediately, a wave of screaming and laughter rolling outward from where he stands.
He lets it build.
Then he lifts the mic.
"Are you READYYYYY..."
The answer comes back from hundreds of people at once, a wall of sound so solid I feel it in my chest.I search for James eyes as if hoping they could calm me down he is leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, watching the guy with the microphone.Like he knows exactly what is coming next.
The guy switches languages mid sentence, easy as breathing, dropping into something that makes the crowd around us laugh and push forward. I catch fragments and then the mic comes up again and his voice hits the top of its register.
"I'd say let's GOOOOO!!!"
The horns come first.
Two motorcycles roll out from somewhere at the back of the crowd into the cleared circle with the slow deliberateness of something that knows everyone is watching. The engines are low and even, a sound that sits somewhere between a purr and a threat.
Then the music goes up.
And they move.
I hold my breath.
The first rider breaks into a drift before I fully register it has happened one fluid motion, the back wheel swinging wide, the bike carving a tight arc across the concrete that sends smoke spiraling upward in a thick white column.
The second rider follows half a second later, cutting in the opposite direction, the two of them tracing circles around each other with a precision that shouldn't be possible at that speed in that space.
Around me, the crowd erupts.
Names, I think they are shouting names but the music and the engines and the screaming all fold together into something I can't parse. Just noise. Just heat.
I am (objectively) aware that this is dangerous.
I am also embarrassingly aware that I have not looked away once.
The smoke thickens. The exhaust from both bikes rolls outward across the ground and climbs, slow and inevitable, until the edges of the circle are half-obscured, people's silhouettes visible only in outline, the whole scene dissolving at its edges into something cinematic and slightly unreal.
"Isn't this insane?!" Maria appears at my elbow, grabbing my arm with both hands, bouncing on the balls of her feet with a joy that is entirely unironic. Her drink sloshes but she doesn't notice.
James puts one hand on her shoulder before she loses her balance entirely.
I grin in spite of myself. Nod.
And then one of the riders swings wide, too wide cutting a path so close to a cluster of guys at the edge of the circle that for a single, fractured second it looks like contact is inevitable.
The kind of moment that compresses time.
Where your body reacts before your mind has finished the calculation.
The crowd screams.
Half in fear.
Half because that is exactly the point.
The bike misses by inches. Maybe less. The guys at the edge stumble back, laughing and swearing simultaneously, shoving each other the way people do when something almost happened and adrenaline needs somewhere to go.
I exhale slowly.
And look around. The smoke, the lights, the crowd pressed in on all sides, phones raised like a thousand small flames. The bass still moving through the concrete under my feet.
Yeah. Real.
Beside me, Maria makes a sound that is less enthusiastic than everything preceding it has been.
I turn.
She has one hand pressed flat against her stomach, the other gripping my arm, her face doing something complicated. Her colour moves from a sudden red to a ghost white and then to green.
"I'm not..." she starts holding her stomach.
"Okay, let's go." James is already there, and he steps smoothly to Maria's other side, one hand at her elbow, steering with the calm efficiency of someone who has done this before and has long since stopped being surprised by it.
"I'll come," I say, moving to follow.
But he just glances back at me over his shoulder.
"It's okay." Something in his expression is easy and unbothered. "I've got her. You stay."He nods once toward the circle, then smiles again. "Enjoy the show."
And then the two of them are gone, swallowed by the crowd, Maria's voice floating back for exactly one second before the music takes it.
I stand there.
Alone or as alone as you can be in a crowd of several hundred people in an abandoned lot which is to say: surrounded but untethered. I pull in a slow breath. Smoke and exhaust and something faintly sweet, maybe from the drinks, maybe from the night itself. The red light pulses overhead.
I turn back to the circle.Only now do I notice that the riders have slowed.
And the crowd's attention shifting before mine does, the cheering softening into something more deliberate, more anticipatory.
Both motorcycles are decelerating now, wide lazy loops narrowing, engines dropping from a roar to a low, satisfied idle.
The smoke has thinned enough that I can see them clearly: two figures, helmets still on, moving perfectly aware that the audience is still watching and comfortable with that.
The crowd begins to clap. Rhythmic. Building. The kind of collective sound that happens when a group of people all decide the same thing simultaneously.
"Okay, okay, OOOKAAYYY"
The MC is back, mic raised, red cup apparently still alive and well.
"Those were some absolutely insane moves, yeah?"
The crowd agrees. Loudly and completely.
He lets it wash over him for exactly the right amount of time ,the timing of someone who understands crowds, who knows when to speak and when to simply hold the silence and let anticipation do the work.
"So ... who was better?"
One second of silence.
And then the crowd detonates.
One name reaches my ears loud, overlapping, unanimous, rising from what feels like every direction at once
I go still.
The name lands differently when it comes from three hundred people.
I turn.
The rider on the right has been the last to slow, the last to stop, still sitting on his bike with that particular quality of ease — loose-shouldered, unhurried — that some people simply carry with them and cannot be taught. Now he stands. Both arms raised. And the crowd responds like a reflex.
He reaches up and pulls off his helmet.
Dark hair. The jaw I recognise. The expression I recognise even more the specific quality of not smiling and being perfectly aware of how that reads.
Of course.
Of course it is Lorenzo.
He hangs the helmet on the handlebar with one hand casual, one motion and before he has fully straightened, a girl has materialised at his side.
She presses into him with a wide smile, arms around his neck, and he lets her one arm dropping loosely around her waist, eyes already moving elsewhere scanning the screaming crowd.
"You cut me on the last turn" The other rider has taken off his helmet too , red and yellow, the colors stark under the light. He is pointing, jaw set, the anger fresh and visible.
"You came into my lane on the final drift"he barks angry at Lorenzo.A smaller group, closer to the left side, calls back something in agreement. The rest are less sympathetic.
I find my eyes moving back to Lorenzo.
He hasn't reacted. Not visibly. He is watching the other rider with an expression as if he has already decided he isn't wirth his time .
"Stop crying, Santos" he simple shouts out making him just more angry .But the MC steps forward, stopping the argument with the ease of a professional.
"Alright, alright ... let's just admit ... the crowd has spoken." He spreads his arms wide, magnanimous, the gesture of a man delivering a verdict he has seen coming.
"Lorenzo. Santos make way for the next ones."
Another wave of cheering.
I can see how Santo's jaw tightens. He looks like he has more to say and also like he has done enough calculations to know that saying it here, now, in front of this crowd, is not the version of events that will serve him. He pulls on his helmet again. Turns. Walks.
Lorenzo watches him go.
Without realizing it, I watch him. The way his arm is still wrapped around the girl. The way his posture simply screams confidence. His dark grin reveals that he enjoyed seeing his opponent lose.
My eyes fix on him against my will.
I watch the girl pull his head down, begging for attention as she presses her lips aggressively against his, thrilled to be the one by his side. Beside me, other girls mutter angrily, turning away to avoid the sight.
Yet here I am, still watching like a stupid child. My feet feel glued to the floor.
Snap out of it, Sophia.
Then, as if he knew the exact moment to look , his eyes find mine.
Shit.
Across the crowd. Through the smoke and the red light and the three hundred people between us, as though none of that is a meaningful obstacle.
He is still kissing no, practically devouring the black haired girl. But he doesn't look at her.
His focus is entirely on me.
A chill creeps up my spine, and I turn away first, hoping he hasn't actually noticed me. I force myself through the crowd, desperate to find James and Maria. I tell myself, very firmly, that the sudden heat burning at the back of my neck is just from the smoke.
Just the smoke. I tell myself