Page 68 of Tater
Tater scanned the road again. “No body. No bike.”
“Could mean she made it out.”
“Could mean they took her,” Eagle said.
Tater’s jaw flexed. “No.”
He stood, stepped past the twisted guardrail, eyes on the riverbed below. Smoke drifted over the rocks like ghosts. Down there, half-buried in mud, something caught the light—small, metallic, deliberate.
He slid down the embankment, boots slipping in the ash, and crouched beside it. A casing. A flare cap burned black at the edges. He turned it over with gloved fingers.
“Red phosphorus,” he murmured. “She lit the fire herself.”
Eagle called down, “You sure?”
Tater looked up at him, the morning sun cutting his face in half. “She always did like a clean message.”
He tucked the cap into his vest and scanned the riverbank again. The mud was a mess of tracks—boot prints, tire marks, one set leading away on foot. Smaller stride. Light step.
Ren.
“Eagle,” he barked. “She might be on foot. Westbound. Still ahead of us.”
Eagle turned to the others. “You heard him! Mount up!”
The Bastards scrambled back to their bikes. Engines roared alive again, echoing against the canyon walls.
Brick rolled up beside Tater, visor down. “If she’s running west, she’s either headed for the truck stop or the freight yard.”
“Golden gate,” Tater said, the words bitter on his tongue. “That’s what she sent in the code. Could be a route marker, not a place.”
Brick frowned. “You really think she found it?”
“I think she’s walking straight into it.”
He kicked his bike into gear and tore up the slope. Gravel spit out from under his tires, smoke curling behind him. The others fell into line, a blur of black and chrome carving through the morning.
The radio crackled as they cleared the ridge.
Eagle’s voice: “Feed’s live again. Sac’s signal came back. You want me to patch him in?”
“Do it.”
Static, then Sac’s voice, harsh and breathless:
Tater’s answer came out low, steady. “She’s alive. u be sure?”
Sac was quiet for a beat. Then:
Tater—you sure she’s alive?”
Tater answered low, steady. “She left me a trail.”
A beat of silence.
“Hell of a woman,” Sac muttered. “You better?—”
He cut the line before Sac could argue.
