“Finished.” Nathaniel caps the tube and tucks it away.
“Finally.” My voice is barely a breath. “Now someone carry me before I faceplant.”
“On it,” Cassian murmurs.
He rises in one smooth motion, hauling me with him as if I weigh nothing. My wet hair sticks to his chest, droplets sliding down his skin, but he doesn’t so much as blink.
“Dead princess mode,” Talon declares, sweeping his arm like he’s presenting me to an audience. “Straight to bed with her.”
Nathaniel just shakes his head, but his eyes flick to mine, softened, as though he’s checking one last time that I’m really alright.
I try to smirk, but it comes out as more of a drowsy twitch. “Don’t get used to this. Next time, I’m walking.”
Cassian adjusts his grip, steady and unbothered. “We’ll see.”
And with that, he carries me out of the steam, through the bathroom door, leaving the hiss of water behind.
To the ICU we go.
My hands won’t stop shaking.
I sit in this blood-soaked Camaro long after Lark’s chest stops rising, long after the engine dies from running too hot. Just me and her and the salt stink of the docks. My jaw’s locked so tight it feels like it’ll snap.
What the hell do I do now?
For a long time, I don’t know. Eventually, though, I’m forced to jump back into life. It’s either that, or just lie down and die. And as simple as that would be, I’m not a quitter.
So the Camaro never makes it back to her garage. I hide it in a dead lot under the overpass, a tarp stretched over its black skin like a body bag. Can’t bring myself to dump it, but can’t drive it either. There’s too much of her in the wheel, the pedals, the smell of smoke and leather still caught in the upholstery.
Weeks blur. Then months. I work my usual jobs, keep my head down, and I must be lucky in my mystery, because Rey never finds out who killed his boys. Neither does Fisher. Lark’s contact runs before anyone could question him, and so I’m free to exist.
But every girl who looks at me…
All I see is the green glass of Lark’s eyes.
And just like that, time goes by.
Four years of risky jobs, fake smiles, and girls whose names I can’t be bothered to remember. They vanish like Lark did, and they’re just as forgotten by the rest of the world as she was.
The Camaro stays hidden. It’s my secret reliquary. I change its oil, swap its tires, polish it under that tarp in the dark, like I’m keeping her ghost close. But I don’t drive it. Not once.
Nobody in our crew likes winter. Wrong season for everything we do. It’s too cold to sling at the docks, too slick on the streets for decent races, too dead in the clubs for high rollers to waste their money. Everyone gets meaner in the cold. Jobs get sloppy, tempers snap quicker. Girls show less skin.
Overall? What a fucking waste of time.
But the show has to go on, doesn’t it? Rent won’t pay itself, and Fisher’s been riding us hard to bring in cash. We’re running shittier hustles just to scrape by.
My job today? Hit a bar bordering Rey’s territory and “make friends.”
Which is Fisher’s code for leaning on a dealer who’s been ducking payments.
Yup. Gotta rough up some kid today like it’s the highlight of my goddamn week.
I’ve stooped this low.
But I still gotta eat, so too fucking bad.
The bar’s half-dead when I walk in. Sticky floors. Busted neon. A jukebox coughing out some country song. Shabby place, like all of them.
