Page 3 of Tater
Same thing.
Ren turned away from the door before she heard more, she didn’t want to. Down the hall, the light over our room flickered. The patch-worn walls smelled like sweat and him. Familiar. Home.
Inside the room, the bed was still a mess from the night before. His leather cut hung on the chair, the crowned-skull patch catching the light. Ren’s chain laid against her throat, warm from her skin.
She unclasped it.
The sound it made when it hit the floor outside his door was small but sharp — metal against wood, like a period at the end of a sentence she hadn’t meant to fuckin’ write.
“Guess that’s that,” she muttered.
The dragon stirred. “He will follow.”
“Not if I’m gone before he knows.”
She grabbed her jacket, zipped it against the chill, and headed out into the night.
The rain had already started — thin needles hissed against the lot. The Royal Bastards’ bikes sat in two perfect rows, chrome caught every flash of lightning. Ren’s waited at the end, black and lean, exhaust still ticking from the earlier ride.
She swung a leg over, keyed the ignition. The engine growled awake.
“Just a ride,” she told herself. “Clear my head.”
The dragon didn’t believe me. “You’re running again,” it said.
“Maybe.”
She rolled out of the lot, past the gates, the sound of the engine swallowing the guilt.
Behind her, the clubhouse lights dimmed to nothing.
Half a mile down the county road, the storm thickened. Water sheeted across the asphalt, her headlight carved tunnels through mist. The dragon liked the way the rain steamed where it touched her heated skin, and the hiss that followed. It made her feel alive.
Then the second engine came.
At first, she thought it was just a late-night trucker. Then another joined it. Then two more. The sound multiplied until it wasn’t background anymore — it was a chorus, tuned wrong, teeth on metal.
Headlights filled her mirrors.
The Hades Hellhounds.
Their colors were black and bone white, their engines loud enough to drown prayer. They fanned out behind her — three, four, and five bikes. The lead rider whistled — a sharp, mocking sound that cut through the rain.
“Evenin,’ fire-girl!” he yelled. “Where’s your President now?”
The dragon snapped awake, claws dragging against her ribs.
“Kill them.”
“Working on it.”
She kicked into a higher gear. The bike jerked. Trees blurred on both sides, the road was slick under the tires. The Hades Hellhounds followed, headlights were bobbing like hungry eyes.
A gunshot cracked. Something pinged off her rear fender. Another round tore past her shoulder.
That was enough.
Heat flared up her spine, it pooled behind my teeth. Steam rolled off her jacket. The rain turned to vapor around her.
