“I’m not,” I said. “I just hide it better.”
He nodded, as if this was the outcome he’d always predicted. “Take care of yourself, Doc.”
He didn’t look back as he walked to the bike. The engine cough-shouted to life, a violent, mechanical heart, and the sound echoed off the canyon walls until it was all I could hear.
I sat by the dead fire, blanket over my shoulders, and watched the sun climb above the mountains, exposing everything for what it was. I let the cold in, let it gnaw at the raw places he’d left behind.
Somewhere, a crow screamed. The world kept spinning.
I told myself this was what I wanted.
I told myself it was the right call.
But even as the embers died, I felt the slow burn inside me, and I knew the damage was permanent.
He revved once —a warning —then took off down the drive, spinning loose a spray of gravel and ice. The engine’s howl faded into the canyon, leaving only the wind and the tick of my own stupid, loyal heart.
I sat there, blanket strangling my arms, and watched the trail he’d left—mud and stone, a wound in the earth that would heal long before I did.
The sun was higher now, exposing everything: the empty bottles, the scorched grass, the heap of clothes I’d left in the yard. The scene looked like evidence. Like a place where something bad had happened, and no one had the courage to call it a crime.
I drew my knees to my chest and stared at the nothing he’d left behind, wondering how many times a person could survive their own choices before the choices started eating back.
The wind scraped through the pines, and the world moved on.
I sat in the cold, every nerve ending raw, watching the place where he’d vanished and waiting for the sun to finish what we’d started.
15
Nitro
Ispent the next two days welding myself to club business, hands full of steel and solvent, and the dumb inertia of the grind. I parked myself in the war room, walled in by maps and burner phones, pretending not to scan every surface for an email, a text, any sign that Seraphina might still want to talk, or live, or anything at all.
The TV was always on. Nobody watched except for the rare hockey game or a glimpse of the headlines. I let it drone, background noise behind the real business: the new heroin supply chain, the problem with the Zuni job, the question of whether to ride out to Santa Fe or let the heat die down. Augustine ran the numbers, I ran the crew, and we both pretended the world outside our walls wasn’t gunning for our skulls.
It was late—closer to morning than night. Augustine hunched over the territory map, eating a gas station burrito with theritual care of a man who thought poison only happened to other people. I’d tuned him out and tuned the TV up, the sound low enough to be a hum, just below the threshold where you start to hallucinate voices. I flexed my hands, trying to work the scar tissue on my right, and told myself that if I could just keep moving, nothing else would matter.
A flash of red crawled up the side of the TV, urgent and violent. I didn’t care until I caught the word “Los Alamos” in the crawl. I reached for the remote, but Augustine was faster—he stabbed the volume with one knuckle, and the sound hit like a punch.
“…breaking now, security personnel are searching for Dr. Seraphina Dalton, a leading researcher at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, who disappeared from her White Rock residence early yesterday morning…”
The news anchor was a perfect animal—big teeth, hair so inhuman it had to be synthetic, eyes that flicked to the left as if trying to dodge the truth. Augustine swore under his breath, then pointed at the screen with his burrito.
“That your girl?” he said.
I didn’t answer. The TV cut to surveillance stills—Seraphina’s house, porch light snapped on, a flash of movement at the edge of the frame. Next: a shot of her Honda Civic, parked crooked in the driveway, one rear window shattered, safety glass glittering like snow in the headline banner. The anchor’s voice grew slicker as the facts got thinner:
“…authorities say Dalton was last seen leaving her laboratory late Monday evening. Friends and coworkers describe her as ‘brilliant, private, and extremely focused on her research.’ Security footage obtained by Channel 4 News shows what appears to be an intruder entering the premises just after midnight. Sources close to the investigation believe this may be connected to a recent increase in cyber-intrusions targeting the Lab, though officials declined to comment at this time…”
I felt my hands clench, nails digging crescent moons into my palms. Augustine watched me, then flicked his gaze back to the TV.
“You know they’re gonna pin this on you, right?” he said.
I stared at the TV. Another still—this one a blurry, time-stamped shot of Seraphina, hair in a tight braid, face so drawn you could have used it to teach anatomy. I remembered the last time I’d seen her, the night on the blanket, the morning after, the way she had pulled away like I was radioactive. I remembered the things she’d told me, and the things she’d kept back, and I felt the world shift a degree in the wrong direction.
Augustine crumpled his wrapper, tossed it at the wastebasket, and missed by a mile. He didn’t care. “So what’s the play?” he asked.
I didn’t have one. Not yet. The TV kept talking, but the noise in my head was louder. I replayed every second of our last conversation, every phrase, every warning she’d dropped as a joke but meant as gospel. I imagined the way she’d look if she were scared. I’d never seen her scared.
