We didn’t look anything alike.Star was taller, louder, more fearless.She carried herself like she dared the world to try something.I’d always been quieter.Smaller.More careful.
Idiots.
Dangerous idiots, but idiots all the same.
I opened my eyes again and stared at the ceiling, my thoughts racing now.
They hadn’t meant to take me.That meant I wasn’t part of the original plan.
Which meant I was expendable.
My chest tightened painfully.
Before, I’d been leverage.A hostage.Something they could use or trade or hold onto.
Now?
Now I was a complication.Something their president might decide wasn’t worth the trouble.
The birds chirped again, bright and cheerful, and I nearly laughed at the sound of it.The contrast was almost obscene.
If Yogi decided to play by club rules, maybe I lived.Maybe I got handed back as an apology or a peace offering.
But if Yogi decided these idiots were liabilities…
If he decided they’d fucked up too badly to protect…
Then I didn’t make it out of this camper.
Not alive.
Chapter Eight
Ender
Four hours.
That was all Yogi had left.
Four hours until the twenty-four ran out.Four hours until Wrecker decided whether we were walking into Northbound territory with diplomacy or fire.Four hours until someone finally said something that mattered.
I was done waiting.
I sat on my bike in the clubhouse parking lot, boots planted on the cracked pavement, and the engine cold beneath me.A cigarette burned between my fingers, the smoke curling up into the late afternoon air.The sky was a washed-out blue, the kind that made everything look deceptively calm.
The kind of day where nothing looked wrong.
I exhaled slowly and watched the smoke drift away.
Clove had been gone four days.
That thought sat heavy in my chest, unmoving.It didn’t spike anymore.Didn’t flare hot and wild like it had the first night.Now it was constant.A pressure.A presence.
I didn’t pace.Didn’t storm the halls.Didn’t bark at anyone who crossed my path.
I waited.
That should’ve been reassuring.