The cursor blinked at me, indifferent. Outside, the wind battered the metal roof, threatening to peel it back and let the sky in. I wondered if Seraphina was somewhere safe, or if she was already prepping for round two.
I didn’t know what my next move was, but I knew I wasn’t finished.
I shut the laptop, killed the light, and listened to the blood slow in my veins.
The night had a taste—like gunpowder and old secrets, like the smell of someone else’s fire burning just out of sight.
I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t even try.
6
Nitro
The club garage at night was a tomb for old gods, every bike under a tarp or up on blocks. I liked working after hours. My Softail sat before me, its belly open and bleeding on a patch of cardboard. I’d torn down the carb a dozen times, but tonight it was more about the rhythm than the result. Scar tissue along my knuckles ached in the cold, but I found a sick pleasure in it, the same way you press a bruise to remind yourself what’s still alive.
I was deep in the tedium—needle jets, floats, that fuck-you spring the size of a dry vein—when the echo of boots cut through the hum. Damron St. James never bothered with stealth. He stopped just inside the threshold, silhouetted against the hall’s sodium backlight, arms folded, the ghost of a smile under that busted knuckle beard.
“Thought you’d be asleep,” he said.
I didn’t look up. “Lost cause tonight.”
Damron crossed the floor slow, each step a measured claim. He watched me in the way only a lifer could—assessing my focus, the state of the machine, the state of me. He kept his hands visible, never pocketed, which meant he was relaxed but not off guard. A rare thing.
“Got news,” he said. He picked up a cracked valve cover, flipped it in his palm, and set it down. “We had a call for you. Out of the blue.”
I tightened the choke screw with the stubby wrench, felt the thread catch. “About my car’s warranty?”
He smirked, the kind that never reached his eyes. “Neither. A woman from the lab. Said her name was Seraphina.”
The wrench paused in my hand, the moment freezing between torque and memory. I’d spent most of last night clicking through her digital remains, watching her move through photons and probability, never expecting to hear her name spoken aloud by anyone with a pulse.
I kept my eyes on the carb, but the world had shifted. “What did she want?”
“Said she needed to talk to you. Direct.” Damron’s voice didn’t change, but something in the air sharpened. “I told her you were out on club business. She said she’d call back.” He leaned in, the edge of his cut brushing the engine block. “That gonna be a problem?”
I shrugged, but it was a lie. “I’ll take care of it.”
He tilted his head, letting the silence grow mold. “You know what’s riding on this, Chemist. Feds are hunting with dogs. Getting cozy with a government mind is how we end up on someone’s poster.” He pronounced ‘government’ like a threat, like the word itself had put men in the ground.
I met his stare, kept my voice flat. “Not my type.”
He laughed—one syllable, no joy in it. “Nobody’s your type, Seager. That’s what makes you reliable.” He straightened, thecrack in his spine audible, and let his hand rest on the bench between us. “But if this comes back to us—if she’s bait or shield—you bring it to church. Don’t make me clean up after you.”
I nodded, the old loyalty tick settling into my jaw. “Copy.”
He watched me for another second, then drifted off, leaving the chemical fingerprint of whiskey and aftershave in his wake. The door thudded, and I was alone with the Softail, the darkness, the taste of her name.
I set down the wrench, flexed my burned hand, and wondered what kind of game this was. I didn’t trust science, and I didn’t trust women who called men like me. The world only moved in one direction: toward collapse. The trick was to ride the edge until it dropped you, or you dropped first.
I thought about Seraphina Dalton, the way she’d looked at me after the shooting, the way she’d squared her shoulders and refused to fold. I remembered the last words she’d spoken, in the language of the desperate, “If the cops see you—”
I imagined the phone ringing again, her voice at the other end, asking for a thing I didn’t have or couldn’t give. I imagined saying yes. I imagined saying no. Women like her didn’t want a man like me. They didn’t want the military baggage. They didn’t want the baggage of club old ladies. They didn’t want the fucked up life we rode in.
The hum of the garage got louder. I picked up the wrench again, found my place in the disassembly, and pretended that the world was nothing but metal, torque, and the slow bleeding of machines.
***
After midnight, the canyon’s veins ran cold and black, the only movement the flick of predator eyes in the underbrush and the grinding echo of my Softail up the switchbacks. I kept theengine just under a growl, not from fear but from the old habit of moving unseen. The road to Los Alamos National Laboratory was a scar across the desert, pitch and pothole stitched with borrowed moonlight. Every fifty yards, a yellow diamond warned of falling rocks, as if that was the real threat out here.
