Page 31 of Tater
Something changed.
The air felt wrong, heavy in a way she recognized. It was the kind of pressure that used to hang over us before Shadow made a move. That perfect stillness before violence.
She stood, every nerve awakened, scanning the tree line below the ridge. Nothing but black and rain. Still… the dragon didn’t lie.
A flicker of headlights flashed far down the road. Just one. It was too slow to be a random traveler, and too deliberate to be chance.
“Not yet,” she whispered to the night. “You don’t get to find me first.”
The wind snatched the words, hurled them into the dark. Somewhere below, the engine cut out.
And for a breath, there was silence again.
Then the dragon spoke, low and cold:
“He remembers the fire too.”
Lightning cracked across the sky, splitting the clouds wide open. For just a second, she saw the road below—wet asphalt, an empty bike parked at the curve, and a figure stood beside it.
She couldn’t make out his face.
She didn’t need to.
Shadow found her.
The dragon purred like a blade being drawn.
And she smiled, slow and bitter.
“Good,” She whispered. “Let him come.”
Rain poured harder, washing the blood from her fingers. The storm wasn’t mercy—it was a witness.
And tonight, it belonged to her.
CHAPTER 15
The Chain
The chain wasn’t hard to find.
Nothing ever is when you know what to take.
He’d followed them that night—kept to the dark roads, low lights, quiet engine. Watched from the tree line as the Hades Hellhounds dragged their wounded out, sirens in the distance. He saw her—Ren—bleeding but alive, clinging to that bastard president like she belonged there.
He waited until the bikes were gone, until the smoke cleared and the silence started to settle. Then he walked into the wreckage.
The smell of gunpowder and blood still hung thick in the air.
Tables overturned.
Bodies cooling.
And in the middle of it, near a smear of her blood, something small glinted on the floor.
A chain.
He crouched down, lifted it with two fingers. Still warm. Still hers.
