We broke from formation and cut right onto a rough access trail half-swallowed by scrub. My headlight jumped over dirt, rock, cactus, and dry brush. The fire glowed brighter with every second, throwing shadows over the land like something alive was moving out there.
The trail wasn’t meant for bikes like ours.
It barely counted as a trail at all.
We pushed anyway.
Dust kicked up under my tires. Mesquite scratched at my jeans. A branch snapped against my boot. I leaned hard around a patch of loose sand and kept my eyes moving.
Desert at night was a liar.
It looked empty until it wasn’t.
Looked still until something struck.
Looked dead until it swallowed you whole.
The first kid came out of nowhere.
He stumbled into the beam of my headlight, hands up, eyes blown wide as moons. Polo shirt torn. One shoe gone. Blood on his cheek from a cut too clean to be anything but glass.
I braked hard.
Nate swung wide beside me.
The kid screamed.
Actually screamed.
Like I was the monster in the dark.
“Relax,” I snapped, cutting the engine low enough to hear him. “What happened?”
He stared at my cut.
Then at Nate’s.
Then back toward the fire.
“She’s crazy,” he gasped. “She’s crazy. She lit it up. She lit everything up.”
“Who?”
He shook his head too fast. “I don’t know. I don’t know, man. She was like—like a ghost or something. Like that dead lady. They said she was cursed. They said?—”
Nate muttered, “Rich kids and drugs. My favorite.”
The kid gagged, doubled over, then bolted past us into the dark.
I watched him go.
“Dead lady?” Nate asked.
I didn’t answer.
Something had shifted under my skin.
We moved closer.
