Aveline
The roar of the engines from the previous night still echoed in my skull, a phantom vibration that wouldn't let me rest. We hadn't crossed the border yet. Matteo had pulled the bikes into a hidden outpost—a reinforced concrete bunker buried beneath an old sawmill—to wait for the scout reports. He said we needed "strategic patience."
I called it cowardice. Or worse, protection.
I found him in the bunker’s makeshift war room, staring at a topographic map of the Ironhide Mines. The flickering fluorescent lights above made the scars on his arms look like deep canyons. He didn't even look up when I walked in, but his nostrils flared. He knew my scent better than he knew his own pulse.
"I need to train," I said, my voice flat and final.
Matteo finally looked up. His eyes were bloods
