Even through the helmet, I could hear the forced ease in his voice. That was Nate. If the road opened up and swallowed us whole, he’d probably make a joke about poor city planning on the way down.
Ahead, the lead truck slowed.
My hand tightened.
The signal came wrong.
One brake tap too many.
Then headlights flared on the ridge to our left.
Not ours.
“Down!” I shouted.
The first bullet hit the truck’s windshield before the word finished leaving my mouth.
The night exploded.
Gunfire split the dark open, loud and vicious, ricocheting off metal and rock. Men scattered. Bikes slid. Someone cursed over the roar of engines. A windshield shattered. A brother went down hard near the rear vehicle, his body hitting the dirt with a sound I felt more than heard.
After that, thinking stopped being a thing with words.
Move.
Cover.
Return fire.
Find Nate.
I dumped the bike behind the nearest truck and came up with my weapon already in hand. Dust stung my eyes. The air tasted like powder and burned rubber. Shapes moved between headlights, too fast and not fast enough. I fired toward the muzzle flashes on the ridge, controlled bursts, not because I was calm but because panic wasted bullets.
Nate was fifteen feet away, crouched behind the open door of the second truck, firing high and left. He glanced at me once, and even in that chaos, I knew him well enough to read the look.
Bad.
Real bad.
I saw movement behind him.
“Nate!”
He turned half a second too late.
The shot caught him high.
His body jerked backward, shoulder slamming into the truck door before he dropped to one knee. He didn’t fall all the way. Stubborn bastard. He tried to lift his gun again.
I was already moving.
Bullets chewed dirt near my boots as I crossed the open space. Someone shouted my name. I ignored it. Nate’s face had gone pale under blood and dust, one hand pressed uselessly near his shoulder while dark spread too fast across his shirt.
“Don’t you dare,” I snapped, grabbing the back of his cut and hauling him lower.
He coughed, then grimaced. “That your bedside manner?”
“You’re not in bed.”
