Hallow’s face shifts. The exhaustion vanishes, replaced by a cold, clinical focus that makes my blood sing. She slides the leather jacket over her shoulders, the heavy hide covering the bruises and the salt-stings. She climbs onto the second bike, her thighs—still slick with the ghost of our friction—gripping the tank with a strength that tells me she’s ready to kill.
“How long?” she asks, snapping the visor of her helmet down.
“Ten minutes until they hit the bridge,” I say, pinning the throttle. “We’re going to intercept. No machines this time, Hallow. No tricks. Just us and the man who made us.”
I don’t wait for her to answer. I roar out of the grass,the back tire throwing a spray of black mud as I hit the access road.
The wind is a blade, cutting through my damp clothes, but I’ve never felt hotter. I can feel her right behind me, the scream of her engine echoing mine, two black streaks of vengeance tearing through the midnight fog.
We hit the highway at a hundred and forty. The world becomes a blur of white lines and passing headlights. I’m weaving through traffic like a ghost, my mind already ten miles ahead, visualising the moment the ambulance tires blow.
Up ahead, the flashing lights of the escort vehicles appear—a line of red and blue cutting through the dark.
“Ready, sweetheart?” I yell into the comms.
“I’ve been ready since the first needle, Jex,” her voice crackles back, hard and sharp as a diamond. “Make him bleed. Make him scream. Make him wish he’d died in the funhouse.”
I reach for the magnetic pulse-charge strapped to the side of my tank.
“Let’s go to work.”
The highway is a ribbon of black glass beneath us, the wind howling against our helmets like the ghosts of every kid Aris ever broke. I’m leaning so far into theturn my knee puck almost brushes the asphalt, the engine of the Ducati screaming a mechanical war cry at 12,000 RPM.
Behind me, Hallow is a shadow stitched into the night. She’s riding like she’s trying to outrun her own skin, weaving through the midnight traffic with a suicidal grace that makes my heart hammer against my ribs. She isn’t a victim anymore; she’s a kinetic weapon.
The red and blue strobes of the transport detail are closer now, maybe half a mile out, cutting a jagged path through the mundane commuters.
“Jex,” her voice crackles in my ear, thick with the static of the comms and the lingering rasp of her screams from the funhouse. “The rear escort. Two black SUVs. They aren’t standard PD. They’re ‘The Shepherd’s’ private security. Heavy armour, tinted glass. They’ll have submachine guns.”
“I see ‘em,” I growl, shifting up, the bike surging forward with a violent jerk of torque. “They think they’re protecting a saint. They don’t know they’re just guarding a carcass.”
I reach down, my gloved fingers finding the magnetic pulse-disc magnetised to my fuel tank. It’s a nasty little piece of Choir tech—a directional EMP that’ll fry the ECU of anything within ten feet.
“I’m going to peel the tail,” I tell her. “You stay on the ambulance. Don’t let that white box out of your sight. If they try to exit, you cut ‘em off. Use the bike as a ram if you have to.”
“Copy that,” she says. I can hear the smirk in her voice, a dark, jagged thing. “I’ve always wanted to see how a Ducati handles a broadside.”
I twist the throttle, the front wheel lifting an inch off the ground as I slingshot past a semi-truck. I’m gaining on the rear SUV. The tinted window rolls down, and the matte-black barrel of an MP5 pokes out, spitting a rhythmic line of muzzle flashes into the night.
Bullets “snap” past my helmet, invisible angry hornets. I don’t flinch. I’ve lived in the dark too long to be afraid of a little lead.
I tuck in tighter, becoming one with the machine, the heat from the engine block burning through my damp jeans—a reminder of the fire we just crawled out of. I pull alongside the rear wheel of the SUV, the roar of the wind deafening, and I slap the pulse-disc onto the rear quarter-panel.
THUMP.
The SUV’s lights flicker and die instantly. The engine chokes, the power steering failing as the heavy vehicle begins to fishtail at eighty miles per hour. It swerves, tires shrieking as it clips the guardrail, sending a spectacular spray of sparks into the air before it spins out into the median, a dead hunk of metal.
“One down,” I growl.
But the second SUV isn’t playing defensive. It swerves hard into my lane, trying to grind me into the concrete barrier. I feel the heat of the metal, the smell of burning rubber filling my lungs.
“Jex!” Hallow’s voice is a sharp spike of alarm.
I brake hard, the back tire skipping, letting the SUV overcommit to the ram. As it lurches past, I kick the door, the steel-toed boot leaving a dent in the reinforced plating.
“Hallow, go!” I roar. “The bridge is coming up. The traffic is thinning. This is the kill zone.”
I see her bike tilt, a beautiful, lethal angle as she guns it, passing the second SUV on the shoulder, her silhouette framed by the rising moon. She’s closing in on the ambulance, her hand reaching for the small, heavy-duty glass breaker strapped to her thigh.
