Friends with Benefits
Khalia.
She was running toward my building gates like an absolute lunatic. Her glasses were completely gone, her face pale and flushed, her chest heaving with short, ragged gasps as she sprinted through the blinding downpour. She didn't have her leather folio. She didn't have her corporate armor. She looked wild, untamed, and completely unprotected—a woman who had entirely demolished her safety cage to sprint through a tropical depression.
"Atasha!" she screamed into the roar of the gale, her voice losing every ounce of its controlled architect cadence, turning into a raw, gravelly desperation that cut straight through the thunder.