New York didn't wake up gently. It roared.
Sirens screamed down cracked streets. Chants bounced off concrete walls. Posters flapped like wounded birds against lamp posts. The city smelled like sweat, anger, and cheap coffee — the scent of people who hadn't slept because they were too busy being furious.
Aria Collins lived for days like this.
She stood on the steps of City Hall, megaphone raised, heart hammering so loud she could hear it in her ears. The crowd surged around her — bodies pressed together, voices overlapping, signs shaking in the air like weapons.
"No justice!" someone shouted.
"No silence!" Aria screamed back.
The response was electric. She felt it — that rush. That uncontrollable, addictive high of being heard. Of shaking something bigger than herself. Of standing in chaos and realizing she wasn't afraid of it.
She never had been.
"MOVE BACK!" a cop yelled from the barricade.
Aria grinned and climbed onto the concrete ledge instead.
"THIS IS WHAT YOU'RE AFRAID OF?" she shouted into the megaphone. "PEOPLE WHO WON'T SHUT UP ANYMORE?"
The crowd exploded. Zara Bennett was somewhere behind her, yelling Aria's name with equal parts pride and panic.
"ARIA! GET DOWN BEFORE THEY—"
Too late.
A bottle flew from somewhere in the mass of bodies. It shattered near the barricade. That was all it took. The police line surged. Everything broke.
People screamed. Someone fell. Riot shields slammed forward. Smoke burst into the air, stinging eyes and throats.
"MOVE!" Zara grabbed Aria's arm.
Aria stumbled back, coughing, adrenaline flooding her veins. The megaphone slipped from her hand and hit the ground with a hollow crack.
For the first time that afternoon, fear flickered. Not panic — just awareness. This isn't fun anymore.
They pushed into an alley to escape the crush. Aria's lungs burned. Her ears rang. Her hands shook with leftover electricity.
Zara pressed her against the brick wall, eyes sharp, curls wild. "You're insane."
Aria laughed breathlessly. "Worth it."
Zara swore. "One day, your mouth is going to get you killed."
Aria wiped sweat from her brow, smile still crooked. "Not today."
She didn't see the man watching from across the street.
Didn't notice the way his gaze followed her movement — calm, assessing, dangerously still in a city losing its mind.
Two blocks away, Lucas Hayes stood inside a boxing gym that smelled like iron and discipline.
The music was low. No shouting. No chaos. Just the rhythmic thud of gloves against heavy bags.
"Again," Lucas said.
His voice was quiet but carried authority like a blade. The trainee swung. Missed his stance. Lucas stepped in, corrected him with two fingers to the shoulder. "Control first. Power second."
The man nodded, panting.
Lucas turned away, wiping sweat from his hands, scars catching the fluorescent light. He hated days like this — when the city outside got loud, unpredictable.
Noise made mistakes easier. His phone buzzed in his locker.
A news alert.
PROTEST ESCALATES NEAR CITY HALL.
Lucas stared at the screen longer than necessary. He didn't know why. He shoved the phone away and focused back on the ring. Armor, fights and chaos are not strangers to him. He chose them and when he had to watch the same chaos took his best friend from him, he abandoned it. Stayed as far as he could. He didn't do distractions. He didn't do chaos. He definitely didn't do people who ran toward it.
"Wrap up," he said. "Class is over."
The gym emptied slowly. Darius leaned against the wall, arms crossed, calm as ever. Theo was taping his knuckles, humming.
"City's going to hell again," Theo said casually.
Lucas shrugged. "It always is."
Darius studied him. "You're tense."
Lucas shot him a look. "I'm always tense." Darius didn't argue. Lucas locked up the gym and stepped outside. The air hit him like a slap. Sirens. Shouting. Smoke drifting from somewhere down the street.
His eyes scanned automatically — exits, threats, patterns.
And then he saw her.
She burst out of an alley laughing, cheeks flushed, eyes bright with something reckless and alive. Zara was dragging her by the arm, scolding her loudly.
Aria Collins looked like trouble wrapped in a smile.
Lucas didn't know her name. But something in his chest tightened anyway.
She paused on the sidewalk, breathless, wiping soot from her face. For half a second, her gaze lifted.
Their eyes met. The noise around them seemed to dull.
Lucas saw too much in that glance — fire, defiance, a complete disregard for danger. The kind of person who didn't know when to stop.
The kind of person who got hurt. Or worse.
Aria frowned slightly, like she couldn't place why a stranger's stare felt heavy. Then Zara yanked her forward again. They disappeared into the crowd. Lucas stood there longer than he should have.
Theo stepped beside him. "You okay?"
Lucas exhaled slowly. "Yeah."
But his eyes were still on the street.
Somewhere between the shouting and the smoke, something had shifted.
And Lucas had the sudden, unsettling feeling that the chaos he spent his life avoiding had just learned his name.