The room around me blurs for half a second.
Ghost watches my face. “Well?”
I don’t answer him. I type back.
Me: Good.
I stare at the screen, then add the only thing that matters.
Me: Call if you need me.
Mason’s eyes don’t leave me. “That her?”
“Yeah.”
Mason studies me for a long moment. Then he straightens. “You in or you out?” he asks quietly.
“With what?”
“With whatever this turns into.”
I don’t hesitate. “I’m in.”
I nod and push off the stool, the scrape of it against the concrete floor echoing lightly in the back office. “I’ll talk to Tank and get a couple of brothers headed that way. Nothing obvious. Just a sweep.”
Mason studies me for a second, like he knows I’m already halfway out the door.
“Where the hell are you going?” Ghost asks, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
“For a ride.”
His eyes narrow slightly. He knows that tone. He knows I don’t take rides to sightsee.
He gives a slow nod anyway. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
I almost smile. “When have I ever.”
Blade snorts from somewhere behind me.
“Hit me up if you learn anything new,” Mason says.
“You got it, Pres.”
I head out the back of Perdition, through the side exit that leads into the compound lot instead of the main bar entrance. The music is still pounding inside. The place is packed. Nobody in there has any idea how thin the line is between normal and chaos.
My bike is parked under the security light, chrome catching the glow in sharp lines. I run a hand over the tank before I swing my leg over, and the familiar weight of it settles under me like muscle memory.
The engine roars to life, low and steady, vibrating up through my boots and into my spine. I let it idle for a second before I ease out of the lot and onto the road.
I don’t take the main strip through town.
I cut toward the backroads that run along the edge of Jackson where the streetlights thin out and the traffic disappears.
The night air is cool against my face once I pick up speed, and I lean into it, letting the engine climb just enough to feel it in my chest. The road stretches out ahead of me in long dark ribbons,and for a few minutes it’s just asphalt, wind, and the steady thrum beneath me.
I roll the throttle a little harder because I need the wind in my face and the steady pull of the bike under me, and I need something in this night that behaves exactly the way it was built to behave. The engine responds the way it always does, clean and predictable, and for a minute that rhythm is enough to quiet everything else in my head.
A pair of headlights appears in my mirror, far enough back that I don’t think twice about it at first. It’s just another vehicle on a county road, another set of beams cutting through the dark. I take the next curve smooth and controlled, leaning into it without rushing, and when I straighten out on the other side the headlights are still there. Not gaining. Not falling back. Just there.
