I jumped.
Regretted it as a wrecking ball of pain barrelled through me. Did I come off my bike? I gritted my teeth and tried to remember.
…
I rumbled out of Kara’s street, careful despite Nash’s sneaky tune-up, not to gun it too hard until I was out of earshot. Bikes meant nothing to Kara, but she wasn’t a fan of her neighbours enduring a mini earthquake every time I stopped by.
Once I hit the main road, though, I didn’t give a shit. I had somewhere I wanted to be, and it wasn’t cruising the A39 on my jack jones.
Fuck it.
I took a sharp exit and powered onto the back roads, hitting the same fast straights and sharp turns where I’d learned to ride my first hog, all those broken bones and Logan’s anxiety totally worth it for the speed-laced vibrations between my thighs and the thrill of the open road. Life in the fire service had finally taught me caution, but at this moment, I shook it off, flexing my fingers on the throttle.
Trees zipped by. Farmland gates and ditches. I hurtled round a bend, dodging a pothole with expert ease, rev-happy and laughing.
My cross-country route cut two miles off my journey. Up ahead, the lights of the main road twinkled in the distance. I stitched a line around another cluster of potholes, caught in the buzz like a regular speed demon.
More lights flashed.
Closer.
Too close.
A bike swerved in front of me, another coming up fast on my flank.
Sportsters.
Fuck.
Recognition fought disbelief.
Logic fought fear.
There was no fuckin’ way?—
Goddamn, I had no time to argue with myself. More hogs swarmed me, fuel smog flooding my senses. Some fucker got close enough to reach out, a blade flashing in the moonlight. I jerked left, dodging, but it put me in the path of some other cunt, and my tyres lost grip on the dirt road.
I leaned forward, squeezing the brakes. My back wheel rose off the ground, fighting physics, swinging right. It got me out of trouble, but it didn’t matter how many fucked-up manoeuvres I pulled, I was surrounded, an enemy hog at every fuckin’ turn.
Get to the main road.
My back wheel hit the ground, rattling my joints. I surged forward, but another bike blocked my path and I skidded again.
Motherfucker.
Up ahead, a van blocked the road, parked sideways, narrowing the gaps either side of it. I set my jaw and squeezed my thighs around my faithful hog, hammering down, accelerating towards the limited space at the van’s back end.
I’d have made it too if the dicksplash with the blade hadn’t rushed me again.
The metal flashed inches from my side. I banked right, but I couldn’t lean far enough without wiping out.
I twisted my body, battling gravity, jerking the handlebars to veer round another hole in the road. The knife came for me again, and this time, I had nowhere to fuckin’ go.
The blade found my flesh, sending a wealth of pain from my shoulder and into my spine and my neck. A shock of agony that gifted me a lethal test of balance as I grappled with the knife still protruding from my flesh.
Leave it.
Should’ve. But fury heated my muscles, hardening my gut into a raging knot of madness, and I wrenched it free, launching it at the nearest rider.
