Chapter Thirteen
1058 Words
The rain didn’t fall; it drove.
At sixty miles an hour, the heavy summer drops hit the exposed sliver of skin between Nadia’s collar and her helmet like rock salt. Within ten minutes, the water had defeated the heavy leather of her jacket, soaking through her cotton shirt and chilling her skin.
Riding a six-hundred-pound cruiser in a torrential downpour wasn't just miserable; it was a constant, exhausting math equation. The asphalt lost thirty percent of its grip. The painted lines became ice. Every curve required a wider line, every brake application had to be feathered, and the visibility dropped to a gray, suffocating blur illuminated only by the faint red halo of Slate’s taillight ahead of her.
River didn't pull over. He didn't slow down. He held a merciless sixty-five miles an hour through the storm, demanding that the formation either match his skill or end up in a ditch.
Nadia locked her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. She kept her eyes glued to Slate’s tire track, using the momentary displacement of water his bike created to find a fraction of traction.
They rode the storm for another brutal hour before the red lights ahead finally flared.
River banked hard off the county road, his tires cutting through thick mud as he aimed the formation toward a hollowed-out, cinderblock structure that might have been a commercial garage decades ago. The rusted roll-up doors were long gone, leaving wide, gaping mouths that offered a dark, dry interior.
They rolled in out of the deluge. The sudden elimination of the pounding rain made the space feel jarringly quiet, leaving only the deafening hiss of water instantly vaporizing against five superheated exhaust pipes.
Nadia hit the kill switch.
She didn't immediately dismount. Her hands were locked around the grips, the joints frozen into rigid claws by the cold and the death-grip she had maintained for the last sixty miles. She forced her fingers to uncurl one by one. The pain of the blood rushing back into her numb knuckles was sharp and nauseating.
Priest kicked his stand down and immediately walked toward the back of the structure, pulling a heavy Maglite from his cut to sweep the dark corners. Kayne stayed on his bike, positioned nearest the open bay doors, watching the road through the sheet of falling rain.
Ghost killed his engine last, the silence finally settling completely.
Nadia swung her leg off the seat. Her right boot hit the concrete, and her knee immediately buckled.
She caught herself against the wet gas tank, her breath hitching in her throat as a violent shiver racked her spine. The adrenaline crash Priest had warned her about wasn't a slow descent; it was a sheer drop. Her core temperature was dangerously low, her stomach was empty, and the psychological weight of the day was suddenly crushing the air out of her lungs.
She didn't look at the men. She couldn't afford to let them see the structural failure.
She walked stiffly to the rear of her bike, unbuckled the heavy leather saddlebag, and shoved her numb hands inside. She bypassed the dry clothes River had ordered her to pack. She bypassed the first-aid kit. Her fingers found the cold, heavy steel of a 5/8 wrench.
She pulled it out and knelt beside the rear wheel, aggressively fitting the wrench over the axle nut.
The chain didn't need adjusting. She had checked the tension herself that morning. It was a completely irrational, phantom task, but it was a mechanical problem she could solve, a piece of geometry that made sense in a world that had suddenly mutated into chaos.
She leaned her weight into the wrench to break the torque.
Her wet boots slipped on the smooth concrete. The wrench slipped off the nut. Because her hands were completely numb, she couldn't catch it. The heavy steel tool clattered loudly onto the floor, echoing off the cinderblock walls.
Nadia froze, still kneeling in the dirt and oil, staring at the wrench.
A sharp, humiliating burn pricked the back of her eyes. It wasn't about the tool. It was the total, absolute loss of control over every single variable in her life.
A heavy boot stepped into her field of vision.
Slate knelt down on the opposite side of the rear tire. He didn't say a word. He reached down with his grease-stained, calloused hand and picked up the 5/8 wrench.
Nadia braced herself for the pity. She waited for him to tell her to stop, to tell her to go sit down while he checked the bike, to treat her like the fragile civilian liability they all knew she was.
Slate didn't do any of that.
He looked at the rear axle. He looked at the flawless tension of the drive chain. He knew exactly what she was doing, and he knew why.
He held the wrench out to her.
"Nut's seized from the grit on the ridge," Slate said, his voice a low, steady rumble that didn't carry past the rear fender. "You need to pull it toward you, not push down. Use your shoulder, not your wrist."
Nadia stared at the tool in his hand.
He wasn't taking the work from her. He wasn't telling her it was okay. He was offering her the exact mechanical crutch she was desperately reaching for, reinforcing the lie just enough to let her keep her pride intact.
The asymmetrical grace of it hit her harder than an insult would have.
She reached out with a trembling hand and took the wrench. Their wet gloves brushed for a fraction of a second.
"Pull," she repeated, her voice barely a whisper.
"Straight back," Slate confirmed, standing up.
He didn't hover. He turned his back on her, walking toward the center of the garage where Priest had found an old metal burn barrel and was breaking apart a rotting wooden pallet to start a fire.
Nadia locked the wrench back onto the nut. She braced her boot against the swingarm, engaged her shoulder, and pulled. The tension held firm, the metal solid and unyielding beneath her grip.
She stayed kneeling in the dark for a long time, holding onto the wrench, letting the violent shivering slowly work its way out of her system while the rain continued to wash away the road behind them.
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