Chapter 22 Chapter twenty two
The white helmet drifted like a piece of bleached bone against the charcoal swells, appearing and disappearing with the rhythmic pulse of the tide. I gripped the nylon webbing of the rescue net, my knuckles white, my eyes tracking that solitary dot until the helicopter banked and the mist swallowed it whole. Dax’s hand remained heavy on my shoulder, a silent anchor, but the heat of his touch couldn't reach the ice that had settled in my chest.
"She’s gone," I said, the words feeling like shards of glass in my throat.
Dax didn't answer. He signaled to the pilot, and we were hauled into the vibrating belly of the bird. The interior smelled of hydraulic fluid and adrenaline. Tank was there, his face streaked with soot, already wrapping a thermal blanket around my shaking shoulders. No one cheered. The victory felt like a hollow shell, brittle and cold.
"We saw the jump, Ghost," Tank rumbled, his voice barely audible over the rotor wash. "The sensors picked up a secondary craft a submersible, maybe moving away from the wreckage right after the scuttle. She had an exit strategy, Mia. She always has an exit strategy."
I pulled the blanket tighter, my gaze falling to the Norton. It was lashed to the center of the bay, dripping seawater, the silver Engine gleaming under the harsh overhead lights. It had survived the fall, but it felt like a relic now, a monument to a father who had traded his life for a tablet that was currently melting in the depths of the Atlantic.
"She doesn't have the data," Dax said, sitting heavily on the bench beside me. He winced as the medic began to cut away his soaked jacket to get to the bloodied bandage on his arm. "Your father made sure of that. The feds have the core files you uploaded, and the physical blueprints went down with the ship. She has nothing but a bike and a name."
"She has the memory," I countered, looking at him. My hair was a salt-crusted mess, and my eyes burned. "She knows how the compression cycle works. She saw the final mapping. And she knows where we are."
Dax leaned his head back against the fuselage, his eyes closing for a moment. The cold morning light through the cabin window made him look older, the sharp lines of his face carved by a weariness that went deeper than bone. "Then let her come. Coldwater is a fortress now. The Wolves have the perimeter, and the feds have the evidence to keep the agencies off our backs. We’re not running anymore."
The helicopter touched down on the clubhouse lot forty minutes later. The pack was there, a sea of leather and chrome, but the atmosphere was funereal. They watched in silence as the Norton was lowered from the bay. I stepped onto the gravel, my legs feeling like lead.
"Reaper," Dax called out, his voice regaining its presidential rasp as he hopped down from the bird. "I want the tech bay swept for trackers. Every bike, every terminal. If Elena left a back door in our systems when she was 'The Queen,' I want it welded shut."
I walked toward the workshop, the heavy sliding door groaning as I pushed it open. The space felt different hollowed out. I sat on my father’s old stool, my hands resting on the cold metal of the workbench.
The silence was broken by the soft scritch-scritch of a pen. I looked up to see a small, yellowed envelope tucked under my father's heavy-duty vise. It hadn't been there when we left for the docks.
My heart skipped a beat. I reached out, my fingers trembling as I pulled the paper free. It was a handwritten note, the ink slightly smudged, the script elegant and familiar.
The Engine was never just about speed, Mia. It was about the choice of when to accelerate and when to hold back. You chose well on the bridge. But a wolf is only as strong as its pride, and a queen is only as dangerous as her exile. I’ll be seeing you at the National Championship in Daytona. Don’t be late.
I felt a shadow in the doorway. Dax was standing there, his arm in a fresh sling, his eyes fixed on the paper in my hand.
"What is it?" he asked, stepping into the dim light of the shop.
I didn't say a word. I handed him the note. He read it once, his jaw tightening until a vein throbbed in his temple. He crumpled the paper in his good hand, his eyes finding mine.
"Daytona is three weeks away," Dax said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, lethal whisper. "That’s the Death Dealers' home turf. It’s where Silas Thorne’s predecessors still hold the gavel. If she’s heading there, she’s not just looking for a race. She’s looking for an army."
I stood up, the fatigue vanishing, replaced by a cold, sharpening focus. I looked at the Norton, the silver Engine waiting for its next command.
"Then we give her one," I said. "We’re going to Florida, Dax. But we’re not going as a club. We’re going as a storm."
The clubhouse sirens began to wail again, but this time it wasn't an alarm. It was the rhythmic, synchronized revving of thirty engines in the lot a call to arms that shook the very walls of the garage.
I reached for my helmet, but as I did, I noticed something on the back of the note Dax had dropped. A small, hand-drawn map of the Daytona International Speedway, with a single 'X' marked not on the finish line, but on the underground fuel bunkers.