Atlas's POV
Her stomach growled.
Loud, raw, empty.
She flinched. Like her body had betrayed her. Like hunger was weakness and weakness was the last thing Blair Maddox would ever allow herself to feel.
I turned to look at her, the sun hitting her face. Her jaw clenched. Her arms wrapped around her ribs like she could hold herself together if she just squeezed hard enough.
She looked like she was about to punch the ocean.
"I'm starving," she muttered, like admitting it was a sin. "God. I could eat a small country."
I stood there, not knowing what to say. I'd never seen her like this. Not at a party with her lipstick like blood and her heels like weapons. Not on campus, throwing her hoodie in my face like she didn't care if the whole damn university burned down.
This Blair—barefaced, hungry, barefoot on the edge of the world—felt more real than anything.
"No money," I said quietly. "No phones. No backup plan."
She looked at me like I was the most pitiful creature on the planet. "Do you think I've never done this before?"
I blinked. "You've—"
"Run away? Yeah, professor. A couple dozen times. I know how to survive." She kicked at the sand. "Come on. There's always a way."
---
We ended up at a mall twenty minutes inland—if you could call it that. It was a rundown complex with flickering signs and an old woman outside selling mango slices in plastic bags.
I followed her through the doors like I didn't have a choice.
Inside, the air-conditioning hit me like a blessing. My stomach twisted from the smell of food courts and fried sugar. And then I saw Blair—already making a beeline for a pretzel stand giving out free samples.
"Oh no," I whispered.
She popped one in her mouth without hesitation. Looked at the worker dead in the eye. "My brother's allergic to gluten. I'm just checking."
Then she turned to me, grinning. "Come on. Try it. It's a whole adventure."
I hesitated. Every part of me screamed this was wrong. Embarrassing. Juvenile. But I was hungry. And she looked so damn free.
I grabbed a toothpick, popped a pretzel bite into my mouth, and died a little inside.
"You're blushing," she smirked.
"I'm not."
"You are. Professor Atlas Reed, top of the class, caught mooching off free samples like a broke college kid."
I didn't say anything
We hit three more stands after that—cheese, smoothie shots, and something suspiciously vegan. Blair treated each one like a game show. Like she'd done it a million times.
She probably had.
And the worst part?
She looked more alive now than I'd ever seen her.
Me? I felt like I was falling—fast, hard, and face-first.
Into her.
And there was no pretzel sample big enough to distract me from that.
---
Atlas's POV
"You've really never smoked?" she asks, licking the last of the chocolate sample off her finger as we walk out of the mall.
I shake my head. "Nope."
"Ever drank?"
"Not really."
She pauses, smirks. "Ever fucked?"
I glance at her, caught off guard. Her voice is casual, but her eyes are searching. I don't answer.
She laughs. "That's what I thought."
We walk in silence for a beat, her boots clacking against the pavement, my sneakers scuffing beside her. She's already pulling out a cigarette, flicking her lighter—though the wind makes her struggle. Her black nail polish is chipped. Her lipstick, smudged. Her entire presence: intoxicatingly disheveled.
"You need to get corrupted, Reed," she says, sticking the unlit cigarette behind her ear. "You're too… clean."
"I'm not interested in—"
"Shut up," she grins. "We're going to a club."
I blink. "What?"
"There's one down the street. Been there before. They won't ID if we look confident enough."
"We don't have money."
"We don't need money. We sneak in. Watch and learn, golden boy."
She grabs my hand. It's warm, calloused, and entirely confident. She walks like she owns every inch of cracked sidewalk and every drunk corner of the night. I follow her down alleys I would've never walked alone. Past neon signs and sirens and city noise. My heart is pounding—not from fear, but from something I can't name.
We reach a club, lights pulsing behind velvet ropes, the line winding around the corner. Blair ducks behind a group of girls in sequins and stilettos, motioning for me to stay close. We slip past the bouncer in a blink, like ghosts in the chaos.
Inside: bass. Smoke. Bodies pressed too close. Lights that flicker like a seizure. I can barely breathe.
She's already laughing, her head thrown back, grabbing a random drink from a table and downing it like water.
"Blair," I whisper sharply. "You're going to get us kicked out."
She doesn't hear me. Or maybe she does. She spins around, eyes wild, pulling me into the crowd. Her hair—god, that hair—hits my face as she turns. It smells like smoke and trouble and expensive conditioner.
"You're scared," she yells over the music.
"I'm not."
"You are. You've never been this alive and it terrifies you."
And maybe she's right.
Because here I am, in a stolen moment with a girl I barely know, but somehow already understand. She dances like she doesn't care. Drinks like it's oxygen. Laughs like pain is funny. And me? I'm still standing here, heart thudding, wondering what the hell I'm doing.
And why I never want it to stop.