I shook my head.
“Just two streets.”
“Can you drive?”
I nodded.
“Good. I’ll follow you. Just go slow. Take your time. I’m right here.”
Right here.
My hands tightened on the wheel as I pulled forward, aware, too aware, of the bike staying with me. Just behind. Every turn I took, he took. Every slow, careful press of the brake, he matched. By the time my street came into view, my pulse hadn’t settled, it had changed. Less panic. More anticipation. I pulled to the kerb without signalling this time. He followed anyway, the bike rumbling behind me. When he shut it off, everything muted. It was as if all noise had been sucked out, trapping us in a vacuum.
“This is me,” I mumbled as I got out of the car, pulling my little backpack with me.
Ryan tilted his head slowly upwards.
“All yours?”
“No. Just an apartment.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Still expensive, though.”
“Looks it,” he mumbled.
“That car back there…”
“Followed you.”
“How? Where from?”
“From the clubhouse,” he answered.
“Why?”
“That I don’t know.”
“But you knew it followed me?”
“Aye. Saw it pull out behind you when you left. Unusual. None of the other clubs had left yet. So it wasn’t one of them. Besides, they were all on their bikes, anyway.”
I glanced up at the row of terraces. Pale brick and rising three storeys high. Each property had a tree, or a bush, or a neatly trimmed garden at the front of it, carefully tended like someone cared. Cars lined the kerb. The same as mine. Expensive, polished, privileged. Barely a weed peeked through a pavement crack here. Even the council looked after it. We picked up litter when we saw it and stuffed it into bins placed every few metres. It was serene, quiet, and the sound of Ry’s motorbike would not have gone unnoticed.
“Am I safe?”
“Now you are.”
“And what about later?”
“They didn’t follow you back here. They don’t know where you live.”
“But you do.”
Those words tumbled out before I’d had the chance to really check them. And I saw how they hit him right in the chest.
Chapter Twelve
