I turned the key and the bike roared to life beneath me.I didn’t wait for Jude to answer.I rolled forward, tires crunching over gravel as I headed toward the road.
A second engine fired up behind me.I glanced in the mirror just long enough to see Jude pulling out after me.
Good.
We hit the road, the clubhouse shrinking behind us as we headed north toward Rapids, the late afternoon sun hanging low in the sky.
Four hours or not, I wasn’t waiting for permission anymore.
Clove was out there.
And I was done sitting still.
Chapter Nine
Clove
Time stopped behaving normally.
Every second stretched, thick and heavy, like it was daring me to blink.Like if I did, that second might be my last.I couldn’t tell how long I’d been sitting there—minutes, hours?But my heart beat too fast for any of it to matter.
Panic was setting in.
My chest hitched as I sucked in air that felt too thin.I forced myself to breathe more slowly, more quietly.Panic would get me caught.Panic would get me dead.
I scanned the camper again, desperate now, really looking instead of hoping.The kitchenette.The bed.The bathroom.The door that might as well have been welded shut.The boarded windows that mocked me with slivers of daylight I couldn’t reach.
I moved to the back corner with my heart pounding so hard it made my head throb.
The boards over the window were old.Weathered.Nailed in crooked, like whoever put them up hadn’t expected them to matter for long.
I grabbed the edge of one and pulled.
It didn’t budge.
I swallowed hard and tried again, bracing my foot against the wall and yanking with everything I had.
Nothing.
A sob burned at the back of my throat, but I swallowed it down.
Then voices outside and close.
I froze; my fingers still curled around the wood.
“You’re fucking insane,” one of them yelled.
Another voice shot back, “I’m not doing this anymore.We should just let her go.”
My pulse roared in my ears.
“You can’t,” the first snapped.“She’s seen Rocket’s face.”
My stomach dropped.
Rocket.
That had to be the one.