11
Melissa
The world was just black rain, headlamp glow, and the clutch of Augustine’s ribs under my frozen hands. My skull still rang from the gunshot back at the gas station—the sound of it folding up the night, the echo reverberating through the stitched-together patchwork of my memories. I pressed my face into the sweat-slick leather of Augustine’s jacket, gasping his smoke-and-cologne stink like oxygen, trying not to puke or pass out or start screaming.
The rain had gotten heavier as we clawed our way into the foothills, carving up through the dark on roads that were little more than mossy threads wound around the ribcage of the mountain. With every bend, I saw usskidding off into a ravine, blood and chrome and the reek of gasoline. But Augustine rode like the devil was on his ass, one-handed at times, the other clutching his ribs where Rex had gotten him, where Saint had gotten him. I wondered how much blood he was losing, if he was high on pain or just used to it. A man had never fought for me for all the right reasons, until now.
Every few miles, the engine would shudder and miss, making my heart kick like a dying fish. I knew the Leatherbacks maintained their bikes like altar boys, but this one was two gears from a scrapyard and leaking oil onto my jeans. The only thing holding it together was whatever death wish Augustine had left.
I should’ve felt safe, pressed up against the guy who’d just slaughtered my would-be kidnapper and then wiped the gun clean on his own shirt. Instead, all I saw in the darkness was Rex’s dumb, shocked face, the spray of blood on the Lucky Strikes, and the way Augustine didn’t even flinch as he pulled the trigger. It was surgical, like he was taking out the trash.
A sharp pain in my chest yanked me back. I realized I’d started hyperventilating, fingers digging into Augustine’s torso. He winced and looked over his shoulder, eyes half-mad from the road and whatever he was using to keep from screaming.
“Easy,” he yelled above the wind. “You wanna get us killed, keep squeezing like that.”
I tried to loosen up, but my arms wouldn’t listen. The world got tight and small, my whole life shrinking down to the feel of my own breath in my throat. Somewhere back in the years, I remembered the way Dad used to lock me in his study when the club was over. Four hours of dark, the stink of cigarettes in the carpet, and the sound of wet meat from the other side of the wall. I was back in that room now, except instead of Dad’s voice, it was Augustine’s, snapping me out of the spiral.
“You good?” He said, softer this time. The bike slowed on a long, blind curve. He was feeling my panic through the back of his shirt.
I tried to answer. The words got tangled up with a sob, and I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood. He must’ve felt it, because he downshifted and coasted, wheels hissing over wet gravel.
“Melissa. Hey.”
That was when the sound of the world—wind, rain, engine, blood—collapsed into a single, pure note. I screamed. Not a horror-movie shriek, but a raw, animal thing that clawed up my spine and out through my mouth. The bike wobbled, and Augustine slammed on the brakes, fishtailing us sideways until we ground to a stop on the shoulder.The front tire kissed a mile marker, and the whole chassis shuddered.
“Fuck’s sake!” Augustine spat, voice knifing through the rain. He killed the engine and turned. His face was a mess: sweat, rain, streaks of blood still drying on his lip. “You trying to get us both dead?”
But I was already off the bike, boots sliding on the loose dirt, lungs burning. I bolted. There was no plan, just an animal drive to be away from him, away from the memory of the shot, away from the future it had just made for us. Bad girls don’t deserve to be rescued; they deserve to suffer in their own doing, and this was all my doing.
The forest wasn’t really a forest—more like a half-dead tangle of pine and scrub and trash trees, the kind of shit that grew up around abandoned meth labs. I was through the first two rows of trunks before the dark swallowed me whole, branches clawing at my hair, needles filling my mouth with bitter wet. Behind me, I heard Augustine cursing and fumbling for something, probably a weapon.
I ran until my chest went electric, stitches forming along my ribs, rainwater soaking me through. My jeans snagged on something sharp and ripped. The ground went from gravel to mud to a swamp of fallen needles and old beer cans, each step more desperate than the last. It was so dark I could barely tell if my eyes were open or closed. Lightningforked overhead, revealing the world for half a second at a time: black sky, slick tree trunks, the shimmer of a puddle.
Thunder made my teeth rattle.
I tripped, face-planting into the mud, and tasted old earth and copper. My palms came away gritty and raw. For a second, I just lay there, sucking in the taste of rot, the memory of it weirdly comforting—like the dirt back behind the Leatherback MC clubhouse, where the bodies sometimes disappeared. Maybe I’d always been running through this same patch of mud, year after year, just waiting for someone to finish the job.
A boot crunched somewhere behind me. I scrambled to my feet, but Augustine was already in sight, a grim shadow with murder in its shoulders. He was holding his side and moving like it hurt, which gave me a little hope.
I tried to run, but he caught me by the wrist, yanking me around so hard my arm almost popped out of socket. He spun me into a tree and pinned me with his forearm, his breath ragged.
“What the fuck is your problem?” he snarled, eyes wild. “I just saved your goddamn life.”
I spit a wad of mud at his face. He didn’t even blink, just pressed harder, his blood mixing with the rain that dripped from his chin.
“You think this is better?” I said, voice strangled. “You think I want to go with you? You’re just like them, you know that?”
He flinched at that. Not much, but enough.
“Don’t,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t know shit about me.”
He was close enough now that I could see the twitch at his temple, the little lines around his eyes from old pain and older betrayals. I wanted to hate him, to scream until my throat shredded, but all that came out was a whimper. I sagged against the tree, letting the bark dig into my spine.
The rain doubled down, coming in sideways. I shivered, my entire body convulsing with it. He must’ve felt it through his arm because he finally let go, backing off just a hair. I could’ve run again, but there was nowhere to go. I slumped to the ground, hugging my knees, blubbering like an angry child.
“You ever think maybe I want to die?” I said, voice so low I wasn’t sure he’d heard.
He knelt beside me, grimacing as he moved. “You want to die, fine. Just don’t take me with you.”
