“You want to talk now?” he said.
I sat down, picked up a fork, and stabbed a bite of pancake. It tasted like nothing, but I chewed and swallowed anyway.
“Not yet,” I said, but I smiled, and he smiled back.
He tried again. “You sure you’re okay?”
I chewed, swallowed, and looked him dead in the eye. “I’m sure. Just haven’t had food in a while that wasn’t Twinkies or Slim Jims.”
He snorted, but didn’t drop it. “You were gone a long time.”
I forced a smile, sweet as antifreeze. “Wasn’t timing me, were you?”
He grinned, but the sharpness was gone. “I might’ve counted.”
“Don’t get all soft on me, Williams,” I said. “We barely survived last night. A little nausea is nothing.”
His expression went flat again, but a muscle in his jaw twitched. “Next stop, we’re buying you something with vitamins in it. My treat.”
“Sure, boss,” I said, and for a second it felt like we could actually do this—just two dirtbags on the run, living off diner food and bad decisions. But I could feel the secret in my stomach, pulsing like a second heartbeat, and the world was already shifting around it.
We finished the meal, left cash on the table, and walked out into the parking lot. The sky was bright and pitiless, every flaw on my skin spotlighted by the sun. Augustine went over the bike, checking the tires and making sure nobody had slit the brake lines while we were inside. I watched him work, taking in the way his muscles flexed under the cheap t-shirt, the way his hands never shook even when he was probably running on pure adrenaline. I used to think calm like that was a sign of not giving a fuck. Now I knew it was the opposite. He cared enough to always expect the worst.
He swung his leg over the saddle, then patted the seat behind him. I climbed on, arms automatically looping around his waist. It was different now. Not just the usual cling for balance, but a hunger, a need to anchor myself to him. I pressed my cheek to his back and closed my eyes as he started the engine, the world vibrating into a singularity of noise and movement and the faint, sour taste of fear.
The highway out of town was lined with motels, pawn shops, and low-slung adobe houses, every block a new flavor of ruin. We blew past a family of tourists arguing next to their minivan, a homeless guy dragging a busted suitcase, three kids skateboarding on a sidewalk already melting in the sun. Every scene was another reason to keep moving.
About ten miles down, the road opened up into the kind of nothing you only get in the high desert—flat scrub, distant blue mountains, sky big enough to swallow you whole. I loosened my grip a little, letting the wind slap my hair back, and tried to imagine a world where I wasn’t a target, or a bargaining chip, or whatever else the next wave of violence would make of me. Maybe there was no such world. Maybe the only thing that made sense was this: Augustine’s shoulders, the hum of the engine, and the feeling of being part of something instead of always apart.
His phone rang.
Not the one he’d tossed at the gas station—this was a burner, probably. He let it go for three rings, then swerved onto the shoulder and killed the engine. The silence was brutal.
He slid off the bike, fished the phone out of his pocket, and stepped away, all while keeping his eyes on the horizon.
“Yeah,” he said, voice clipped.
I could hear it, just faintly, through the wind—Damron’s voice, as harsh and unmistakable as gravel under boot.
“Mobilize.Leatherbacks on the move. Rex is dead. They’re blaming us. You’ve got half a day, tops. Get her safe. Then call in.”
Augustine listened, didn’t interrupt, just let Damron’s words fill the space between us. I didn’t dare move, didn’t dare make a sound.
“Copy,” he said, and hung up. He stared at the phone for a second, then dropped it to the gravel and crushed it under his boot.
He turned back to me. The change was instant. The man who’d held me through the night, who’d watched me eat pancakes like a normal person, was gone. In his place was Augustine the enforcer—eyes hard, mouth a straight line, every move a calculation.
“Problem?” I said, pretending not to have heard every word.
He shook his head. “Just a change in plan. Hold on tight.”
I did.
The next leg of the ride was faster, reckless. Every time we slowed for a curve or a patch of bad road, he reached back with one hand and squeezed my knee—firm, almost punishing, like he was checking to make sure I was still there. I squeezed back once, and he gunned the throttle, the bike surging forward.
We flew past an overturned semi, past two patrol cars guarding a broken guardrail, past a battered sign that said WELCOME TO LOS ALAMOS COUNTY. I felt the world shrink down to just the bike and the road and the freight train of fate coming for us.
At a red light on the edge of a strip mall, Augustine finally stopped. He killed the engine and let the moment breathe.
