I lived for that.
Tonight, that hum had teeth.
The blacked-out bike wasn’t just fast. It didn’t just grip the road. It felt alive under me, like something coiled and patient had sunk into the frame. Every time I rolled the throttle, it answered with a growl that wasn’t stock. Not even close. The engine note had a second voice behind it. Low. Metallic. Like a box of bones rattling under the gas tank.
Headlights far back in the distance behind me flared and vanished as I cut off and down another utility road and back toward the old industrial strip we used for our shadowy backbone. The unknown bikers had chased hard after getting cut offby our truck that Turnpike had been standing beside. But even after finding a longer way around and spotting me, they couldn’t close the gap on this thing. Not with the way it moved. It felt like cheating. Felt like starring in my own stolen episode ofMiami Vice, except it was night instead of neon sunset and I was on a bike that probably belonged to hell instead of on a TV screen.
I laughed. Couldn’t help it. Adrenaline tasted good. Sharp and clean. Better than the coke Jabs snorted. Better than the rum Voodoo kissed. Fear lived underneath it, sure, but fear and excitement sat in the same seat in my head. Half the time I couldn’t tell them apart.
Road signs blurred. The hum rose. The city fell away.
Redline waited on the edge of no one’s map.
We didn’t put addresses on paper. Didn’t write locations in text. Redline was just what we called it when we were face to face and sober enough to care. An old brick warehouse with half the windows busted out and the other half painted black. Used to be some kind of machine shop before the economy died and the city forgot it existed. We bought it for cash that never touched a bank and wired it quietly. Cameras, reinforced bay doors, false panels in the floor. Roadkill had built an entire secondary garage inside the shell. Tucked behind a sliding wall that looked like stacked pallets from the outside.
The Giorlandos didn’t even know about Redline. That was the point.
I took the last corner hard, tires singing. Gravel spatunder my wheels and then the bike settled as if it knew exactly where it was going. I eased up off the throttle and rolled through the open chain-link gate. It rattled behind me like old bones shaking their heads. The yard lamps were off. Just a sliver of moon on rust and weeds.
Fine. Darkness and I had an understanding.
I killed the engine and the sudden silence hit like a slap. My ears rang. The hum inside my bones kept going for a second, then faded. Sweat slicked the inside of my gloves.
“Yeah,” I said to the bike. “You’re something else.”
Keys jingled against my thigh as I swung off. My hands shook a little. Not fear. If there’s a word for the feeling when you’re one wrong move away from getting killed and you still feel lucky, that’s what it was.
I walked the bike over to the side door beside me. It was Heavy. Heavier than it should be. The back end had too much weight, but it balanced like it wanted to help me lie about it.
The keypad flickered when I woke it. Four digits. Two seconds. The lock thunked open. I rolled us into the dark belly of Redline and nudged the door shut with my boot.
Motion sensors near the ceiling blinked awake and dim strips of light hummed on. Longconcrete floor, oil stains old enough to vote, metal shelving along one wall stacked with parts and tools. In the back, the fake pallet wall. Closed. Tight. On the other side of that was the real garage. The one full of our toys. Cages without plates. Bikes without numbers. Engines half-built and waiting for Roadkill to get parts for.
I parked the black bike near the pallets for now. Didn’t feel right wheeling it into the heart of the collection before anyone else saw it. Superstition maybe. Or instinct.
I then fished my phone out of my cut. Screen at three percent, bright enough to make my eyes ache. One unread text from Jersey.
I watched the little bar crawl. For a second I thought it might die mid-send, but the message went through and the read receipt hit almost instantly.
A typing bubble popped up.
Blackjack’s words, but written by Jersey’s fingers. Could hear the Prez’s voice under every letter. Don’t move. Sit tight. Be smart for once. Jersey thought just likehim sometimes. Acted like him too. Sometimes I even made fun of him for it.
I smirked and typed back.
Hit send. The phone screen blinked, glitched, and the battery icon dropped to one percent like it had lost the will to live.
“Come on,” I muttered. Walked over to the workbench and rummaged in the top drawer for a charger. Found three. Plugged one in. Nothing. Outlet dead. Swapped to another socket. Sparks jumped, but the phone wouldn’t take charge. The cable heads were bent, stripped, chewed up by years of abuse.
Text status showed the last message as delivered. Good enough. The screen blinked one more time and then went black.
“Well,” I said. “Guess it’s just you and me then, sweetheart.”
The bike said nothing back. It just sat there, black-as-the-abyss paint eating the light.
I stripped my gloves and tossed them on the bench. Pulled my helmet off, shook out sweat. My blonde hair stuck to my forehead. I wiped my face with the inside of my shirt and tried not to think about those bikers too hard.
They weren’t locals. Didn’t wear colors I knew. Gray and black cuts. The way they moved said military more than MC. Tight. No drifting. No swagger. They’dridden in formation like they were on a salary.
