He crossed the distance in three steps, knelt beside the bed, and reached to adjust the chin strap. His fingers were precise but gentle, the heat of his skin surprisingly intimate for such a mechanical gesture. I tried not to flinch as his knuckle brushed my jawline, but the contact sent a tiny current through my neck, down my shoulder.
His face was inches from mine, and I could see the burn scar’s texture in the cold light from the window—a crescent of ruined skin, shiny and pale against the darker stubble of his beard. Hedidn’t blink. Just cinched the strap, then tapped the side of the helmet with two fingers.
“That’ll do,” he said.
He stood, turned, and left the door open behind him. I heard him moving through the outer room—the scrape of a drawer, the zip of a jacket, the rattle of keys. I took the helmet off, tried to untangle my hair, then gave up and pulled my hoodie from the floor. I buried my face in it for one second longer than necessary, taking in the scent of my savior.
I stood, muscles objecting, and dressed in silence. There was an ache at the base of my skull, the old migraine circuit, but the rest of me felt…not exactly alive, but not dead either.
I walked into the hallway, the walls plastered with old gig posters and club photographs, all shot in the same high-ISO grain and washed-out flash. At the end, the exit door gaped open, letting in the hiss of wind and the sodium wash of the parking lot security lights.
He was waiting by the Harley, boot propped on the peg, smoking a cigarette. The bike was black on black, with no chrome except for the front forks, which caught the light and fractured it into cruel little fragments. The Bloody Scythes insignia was subtle—a sticker, not a patch, as if the bike itself had to stay undercover.
He looked up as I stepped into the cold. “You ready?”
“Define ready,” I said, but my hands went to the helmet, fitting it over my head with a practiced clumsiness. He stubbed the cigarette on his boot sole, then mounted the bike, every motion preprogrammed and economic.
He patted the rear seat, the universal sign for “get on.” I did, one hand on his shoulder for balance, then both arms around his waist, loose at first, then tighter as I realized how far my feet were from the ground.
He gunned the engine—no warning, no rev, just ignition and instant life. The Harley vibrated under me, a deep, sexual rumble that settled somewhere between my tailbone and the base of my throat. He turned his head, speaking loud over the engine.
“Hang on. First mile’s the roughest.”
I believed him, but also, I didn’t. He let out the clutch, and the bike jerked forward, tires skipping on the sand at the edge of the lot before catching. We arrowed into the darkness, the world contracting to the beam of the headlight and the warmth of his back against my chest.
I held on. For the first time in days, I wasn’t sure who I was more afraid of—him, or myself.
The first mile was a blur of green and raw adrenaline, my pulse skipping in time with the streetlights as we shot out of the drive and into the open throat of Trinity Drive. The world shrank to the oval of a headlamp, the ink of a new moon above, the twin phantoms of our shadows stretching and collapsing as the bike banked from line to line. I gripped Nitro’s waist in a death clamp, fingers numb, thighs tight against the seat. He didn’t say anything—he just let the throttle out, let the machine settle into its orbit, and took us up into the dark hills above town.
The cold was worse than I expected. I’d dressed for paranoia, not weather, and the wind cut straight through every layer, turned my cheeks to mask and my ears to brittle glass. At seventy, then eighty, the Harley’s vibration worked its way into my teeth, my jaw, the base of my spine. I tried to recite hexadecimal tables, something to keep my brain from vapor locking, but every time I caught a glimpse of the speedometer, I lost the thread.
He handled the machine with the same confidence I’d seen in the bar, in the fight, in bed—every motion exact, predestined. He leaned into the curves early, trusted the geometry. I didn’t, not atfirst. Every time he banked the Harley into a switchback, my gut twisted, and I held him harder, as if the force of my grip could anchor us to the planet.
After a while, though, the fear bled off. There was no margin for thought at this speed, only the raw animal sense of motion, of survival, of being welded to another human being by nothing but friction and intent. My arms loosened; I let my chin settle against the hard edge of his shoulder. The helmet dulled the wind, but not the smell—sap, new blacktop, the trace of gasoline, and the faintest afterburn of his cologne or sweat. I let my eyes unfocus, took in the blur of the trees, the flash of road markers, the rush of night air dense with pine.
He glanced back once, just for a second, his eyes catching mine in the rearview. I gave a small nod. I didn’t trust my voice to carry, but he seemed to get the message.
We rode in silence, climbing switchbacks out of the valley, the city dropping away behind us like a string of dying Christmas lights. Once or twice, I thought I heard coyotes, the high-pitched yip echoing off the canyon walls, but it could have been the engine or the way the helmet distorted sound. The cold had crept into my bones, but it was a clean ache, the kind you could measure, not the internal ice that came with anxiety and sleeplessness.
Somewhere around mile seven, I felt my own body give up its resistance and mold to his. It wasn’t intentional. It was just easier, more efficient. The bike's movement was a language, and after a while, I started to understand the syntax, the way he tensed just before a sharp turn, the way his weight shifted to tell me when to brace, the subtle deceleration as we approached a blind hill. I found myself anticipating his motions, leaning in sync, muscles learning the logic of the machine.
I wondered if this was what he wanted. To show me what trust felt like, to make me let go in a way I’d never let go foranyone—not for my parents, not for lovers, certainly not for the government.
We passed the old fire tower, the one spot where cell reception still lingered, and for a moment I thought about checking my phone. But the need faded as soon as it arrived. The ride was pure signal, no noise, and I wasn’t ready to let it go.
He took a left onto a service road, the pavement buckling under years of neglect. The Harley didn’t mind. We tore up the incline, engine note climbing, the wind now a living thing that clawed at my jacket and tried to pry me off. I tightened my grip—not out of fear, but necessity. His ribs flexed under my hands, and I realized I could feel his heartbeat through the fabric.
We topped a ridge, and the entire basin opened up below us—Los Alamos, bathed in the sodium glow of streetlamps and the occasional floodlight from the National Laboratory. It looked peaceful, from up here. All the violence and paranoia and history compressed into a silent grid of possibility.
He killed the engine and coasted us to a stop at the overlook, the Harley shuddering one last time before going still. The sudden silence was total, oppressive, as if the world had paused to catch its breath. My ears rang with it.
He didn’t move at first, just let the bike settle and let me decide whether to let go. I didn’t, not for a second. We sat like that, me pressed to his back, his hands resting on the grips, our breath condensing together in the frozen air. Everything I knew about people like Nitro screamed at me to run, run away from the men, the lifestyle, the thought of being called an old lady. But I didn’t run.
Finally, I slid off, boots finding uncertain purchase on the gravel. He turned, got off, and stood next to me, helmet cradled under one arm. His hair was a mess, wild in the moonlight, but his eyes were sharp and clear.
“How’s your pulse?” he asked.
I laughed, the sound raw. “Normalizing.”
