Page 41 of Freedom’s Inferno

I tried to close the distance, but they were too fast.

The trees became streaks of color, the world narrowing to a single, endless strip of asphalt. Every bend in the road became my enemy, as I pushed the vehicle through the turns, panic clawing its way up my throat.

Then I saw it. The bike. It lay half in the ditch, riderless. The truck was a blur on the horizon, its taillights winking out like it had never been there at all. I cursed, slamming on the brakes as I pulled my car off to the side of the road.

“Charlie…” The door opened before the car stopped moving. I sprinted in the direction of the bike, “No, no, no, no…”

My chest burned, and my lungs ached. The world tunneled down to the wreckage in front of me. Up close, the bike looked surprisingly okay, despite where I imagined there would be some unsightly scratches on the side that leaned against the road. For a terrible, gut-wrenching second I didn’t see him. My heart was about to burst in my chest, my stomach turning over as the acidic burn of bile sloshed up my throat. I couldn’t process the absence of him. The back of my eyes stung, and my vision blurred.

“Charlie!” The scream tore from me. I whipped around, a fresh shriek catching in my throat when my eyes caught movement.

I ran.

A few feet off the road, half-hidden in the tall grass, he was there. His body sprawled awkwardly, one arm outstretched, the other clutching at his ribs. His helmet was cracked, his jacket torn, but he was breathing.

“Charlie!” I dropped to my knees beside him, my hands shaking as I reached for his face. “Hey—hey, look at me!” I pushed up his visor and his eyelids fluttered, his pupils unfocused.

“Ugh,” he groaned, eyes squeezing shut. “Shit, I’m in Hell. You’re too hideous to be an angel…”

The tears came hot and furious. Relief, anger, fear, all of it tangled together until I couldn’t separate one from the other.

“You’re a goddamn idiot,” I hissed, voice breaking. “What were you thinking?”

He coughed, a laugh caught somewhere in it. “That I didn’t want them near you.”

Heat flared low in my chest, followed by a tremor I couldn’t suppress. He hadn’t stepped in to claim or contain me. He’d stepped in because it hadn’t occurred to him not to. The simplicity of that choice left me unsteady.

Neither of us spoke. The only sounds were our heavy breathing and the passing cars, none of them so much as stopping to lend a hand.

Figures.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to hold him.

Instead, I went into crisis intervention mode, scrambling to check him over. “Can you move everything? Did you hurt your neck?”

He brushed me off like I was an inconvenience, swatting my hands away as he pushed himself upright. “I’m fine.”

“Fine?” I echoed, incredulous. “You were hit‒”

“Not hit,” he corrected, voice low and even as he tested his wrist, rotating it with a wince. “Just forced off.”

I wanted to strangle him. “That’s supposed to be better?”

He didn’t answer, just rolled his shoulders and grimaced. One shoulder was cut where his jacket was torn, streaked with dirt and blood, and his jeans were torn over a knee where the skin beneath looked raw. He was scraped, bruised and filthy, but alive.

“Don’t move so much,” I said, reaching toward him again. “You could’ve‒”

“Broken my neck? Yeah, well, I didn’t.” He shoved to his feet, swaying before steadying himself. “Relax.”

Relax.

The word sparked something sharp and ugly in me. He’d been run off the road by two men who had likely killed for less, and he was telling me to relax.

He grabbed his worn backpack from where it lay on the ground, and staggered toward the bike, muttering under his breath.

I followed, still shaking.

The side of the machine was badly scratched, the mirror snapped clean off.