Chapter 23 –
The headlights ahead were no accident — they belonged to a matte-black jeep, skidding sideways to block the road.
"Jace—" I started, but my voice was stolen by the wind.
The rider in front of me tilted their head just enough for me to see the profile I knew too well beneath the helmet — sharp jawline, that infuriating half-smirk even in the middle of hell.
"You didn't think I'd leave without you, did you?" Jace's voice cut through my panic, low and steady in my earpiece.
I tightened my arms around him, the scent of smoke and leather clinging to him, grounding me even as the chaos raged. "You could've called."
"Didn't have time. And you look better when you're terrified."
Bullets snapped past us, sparks spitting off the bike's frame. Jace leaned hard into a turn, the bike tilting so close to the dirt my knee almost scraped it. The trucks behind us roared in, engines screaming.
"Hold on," he ordered again — but softer this time, almost… tender.
We shot past the jeep, the gunmen inside swiveling to follow us. Jace's hand dropped briefly from the handlebar to squeeze mine where it clung to him. That single touch lit something in my chest — dangerous in its own way, because it made me forget, for half a second, the death chasing us.
The road narrowed into a bridge, black water surging below. One wrong move, and we'd vanish into it. Trucks thundered behind us, headlights glinting off their windshields.
"They're not letting us go," I said, breathless.
Jace's smirk deepened, eyes fixed ahead. "Then we make them wish they had."
He yanked the bike into the oncoming lane just as a semi-truck loomed toward us, horn blaring. My heart stopped.
At the last second, Jace veered right, tearing us through a gap so narrow my boot brushed the steel railing. The explosion of gunfire behind told me at least one of the pursuing trucks hadn't been as lucky.
"Still scared?" he asked over his shoulder.
"Yes," I breathed.
"Good. Means you're still alive."
The bike roared on, and somewhere in the madness — in the pounding of my heart, the heat of his back against my chest — I realized it wasn't just fear keeping me awake. It was him.