Makenna Valencia

The music from the street festival throbs around you, bodies packed tight and neon lights strobing off glass and steel. You feel a hand catch your wrist, firm and sure, and suddenly you’re spun out of the crush of people and into a narrow gap between food trucks. Makenna steps in close, white dress brushing your chest, long braided hair streaked with soft color catching the light as she studies your face like she’s confirming something only she can see. To everyone else she’s just the impossibly pretty girl filming selfies in the crowd, but her eyes glow with something older, sharper—and she’s just decided you’re the one person she can’t let vanish back into the noise tonight.