“I’m running down to the basement real fast.”
Come on, little bird. Just hurry.
“I’m almost there. Man, I gotta start doing some cardio.”
She was taking too long.
I could hear her in the stairwell, steps pounding.
“Thank goodness. I don’t see her. I need to just check the back room. I’m hurrying I promise.”
Her breath was coming in pants. I could feel the fear coming off of her in waves. Every mile was a razor blade. My whole body shook. Bronc was white-knuckled beside me, face set in stone. The rest of the pack was a blur in the rearview. Time stuttered, then sped up, then stopped altogether.
Parker’s voice again: “Eli?”
“Get out, Parker. Get out right now.” I could hear her on the stairs.
Her voice went soft, almost gentle. “Hey, Eli?”
“Yeah?” My heart was a grenade.
“If I don’t make it out—”
“Don’t say that.”
“—justknow that I love you, okay? I always did. Tell Rocket he’s a good boy. And take care of him, okay? Tell Bronc I said sorry for what happened with Axel. Tell Juliet she makes everything better.”
My throat closed. The bike veered, gravel biting into my tires. “Parker, don’t. Stop talking and run. Hear me?”
She laughed again, softer this time. “I’m almost to the top of the stairs. And hey, it’s okay, Eli. I found you again. That’s all I ever needed.”
“Little bird, I love you. Please—”
The world blew apart.
A roar. White noise. Then nothing.
The line went dead.
I don’t remember dropping the bike. Just the taste of blood in my mouth, the crunch of gravel in my palms as I crawled back to the road.
Forty miles out, and I knew she was gone.
I screamed her name into the wind, and the sky swallowed it whole.
The bike skidded out from under me at sixty. I went down in a roar of gravel and glass, helmet slamming the guardrail, sparks everywhere. Didn’t feel it. My body had gone numb the moment Parker’s voice cut out.
I tore the helmet off and staggered to my knees. I couldn’t fill my lungs with air. The world spun, and I let it, the cold slicing through my jacket, dust caking the blood in my nose. My hands shook so bad I couldn’t make a fist.
Bronc was there in a heartbeat, boots gouging the dirt, voice low and mean. “Eli! Look at me.” He grabbed my shoulders, fingers like steel. “You don’t know she’s dead.”
I wanted to kill him, tear him apart for lying, but I had nothing left. Just the hollow rattle in my chest, the sound of my own name echoing back to me.
“She’s gone,” I said, and my voice was a stranger’s.
Bronc shook me hard enough to pop something in my neck. “We don’t quit until we see a body. She’s a fighter. You said so yourself.”
I blinked through the tears, tasted iron. “If she was in the house, it’s over.”
