Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Riot
Take Me To Church - Hozier
Deadmoor reeks of ash, ruin, and the rot of a city that should’ve stayed dead.
What’s left of Chicago isn’t a city anymore.
It’s a Syndicate warzone with a name scrawled in blood.
High walls stretch skyward like ribcages around the carcass of downtown, barbed wire curling along the tops like the Syndicate’s crown.
Watchtowers blink red through the smoke, their gun turrets tracking every movement with mechanical patience.
We roll in first, me and Sin. The bike eats the broken asphalt, kicking up dust laced with soot and bone.
Behind us, the bus rumbles through the checkpoint gates, our crew riding inside.
Armed guards line both sides of the entry lane, faces blank, fingers twitching on triggers.
One move out of line and they’ll drop you just for breathing too loud.
The skyline’s a graveyard—rusted steel bones jutting from burned-out high rises, glass teeth shattered, blackened windows like hollow sockets. The Sears Tower’s nothing but a crippled silhouette now, its peak caved in like the city folded in on itself from the inside out.
The air tastes like cordite and smog. Metallic and sharp, like biting down on a bullet. Every breath feels borrowed.
Deadmoor doesn’t pretend to be part of the world anymore. It’s been claimed, gutted, and renamed by the Syndicate. Now it’s theirs.
I cut the engine and flick the kickstand down, the sound echoing off the bunker walls ahead. Sin slides off behind me, silent as ever, boots hitting the cracked concrete. Her hair’s a mess from the ride, dust streaked across her neck, but she looks like a fucking weapon—tight, coiled, lethal.
I light a cigarette and lean back against the seat, watching her walk. Smoke fills the hollow in my chest, but it doesn’t touch the heat curling low in my gut.
None of the other districts or races shook her.
But this place? This zone of concrete, decay, and crawling tension?
It gets in your blood.
The Syndicate built this whole thing like a war compound.
Reinforced gates. Steel fences wrapped in razor wire.
Watchtowers, drones, motion sensors. Racers are herded like cattle.
Guards shout orders. Handlers make their rounds with clipboards and guns strapped tight. This isn’t a welcome. It’s a warning.
The bus hisses to a stop behind us and doors creak open.
Bishop is the first one out, boots hitting pavement like he’s ready to square up with whatever comes next.
Luca follows, shielding his eyes from the neon glow of a broken sign that reads DEADMOOR in cracked, flickering red.
Ghost steps out last, eyes scanning every corner like he expects to get shot on sight.
A streak of red muscle darts between them.
Taz bolts down the cracked sidewalk, nails clicking, her thick frame weaving through racers and handlers. She barrels straight toward Sin with ears perked and tail wagging like she hasn’t seen her in weeks.
Sin bends at the knees and rubs under her chin, whispering something I can’t hear.
It softens something tight in my chest.
Luca slings his duffel over his shoulder. “Place smells like a corpse.”
Bishop snorts. “That’s because it is one.”
“I give it twelve hours before one of us gets shot for breathing wrong,” Ghost mutters.
I glance over. “Try not to breathe so loud then.”
“Not helpful, Carter.”
Taz finally trots back to the group, brushing past my leg as I flick ash to the ground. Sin lingers a beat longer, watching the other racers—quiet, observant. She clocks every movement, every face. I know that look. I’ve seen it in the mirror.
She’s locking it down.
“Carter. Vega,” a voice barks across the lot.
A Syndicate handler steps up, all square jaw and storm-gray uniform, clipboard in hand, scar like a knife slash across one brow. “Room twelve. Bunker level three. Gear check is zero six hundred. Surveillance is live. Don’t test it.”
I crush the cigarette beneath my boot and nod once. “Got it.”
The handler doesn’t wait, he spins and walks off, barking more assignments at another group of racers.
I turn to Sin. She’s staring past the checkpoint, jaw tight.
I step up behind her and grab the back of her neck, not rough, just enough pressure to ground her. To remind her I’m right fucking here.
“We’ve made it through worse,” I say low, voice just for her. “This? Just another graveyard to walk through.”
Her eyes flick to mine, bright with heat, sharp with something deeper. She steps a little closer, voice low but steady, coiled tight like a fuse ready to burn.
“I know. We got this,” she murmurs. “They should be the ones scared. After all… I’m the one riding with the Reaper himself.”
That earns a slow smirk from me. One she mirrors, just barely, like a secret we’re both in on. I lean in and kiss her—brief but hard—staking my claim like I’m sealing a vow in blood.
“Then stop worrying,” I mutter against her mouth. “You’re mine to protect. So trust me to fucking protect you.”
She breathes in deep, and I see it, that tension in her shoulders, that flicker of fear behind the fire. But she doesn’t let it win.
“We protect each other,” she says, firm. “That’s the deal.”
I nod once. “Then let’s go.”
I drop my hand to the small of her back, guiding her as we fall in step with the rest of the crew.
Ghost scans the burned skyline like he’s already trying to find the exits. “Soon as we’re squared away, I’m setting up shop,” he mutters, eyes sharp. “That hard drive’s not gonna crack itself.”
Luca groans, hauling his bag over one shoulder. “You’ve been glued to that thing for days.”
“It’s important,” Ghost fires back without missing a beat. “We don’t know what’s on it yet. Could be the key to taking the whole fucking Syndicate apart.”
Bishop grins. “You just like talking to wires, man.”
“Wires don’t lie.”
They keep talking, tension biting at the edges of their words, but it’s familiar. A rhythm. A pulse that means we’re still alive.
We’re led past a checkpoint that used to be a lobby but now just shattered tile, rusted beams, and blood-slicked floors. Cameras in every corner. Guards posted every fifteen feet. The scent of old gunpowder and rot sticks in your throat like a warning.
A man leans against a dented steel doorframe halfway down the corridor, arms crossed over a chest thick with muscle.
He’s big, broad through the shoulders, the kind of size that used to mean power before the world turned power into currency.
His dark hair hangs loose to his jaw, beard thick but trimmed, like he gives just enough of a shit to keep it clean but not enough to be soft.
Tattoos crawl from his neck to his knuckles, bold lines and heavy ink meant to intimidate, and judging by the way he’s standing, he knows how to use the weight he carries.
His eyes are already on us.
More specifically, on her.
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t nod. Just watches, quiet and still, like he’s tracking prey through smoke.
There’s no curiosity there. No lust. Just that gleam of violence that’s harder to shake once you’ve seen it.
The kind that says if it were up to him, the race would already be over and we’d be lying cold on the track with our names crossed off a bounty list.
Sin doesn’t look away. Neither do I.
But it’s me who stops first.
He doesn’t flinch when I shift direction, stepping in front of Sin like a closing gate. I don’t raise my voice. I don’t need to.
“You looking for something?” I ask, tone level but sharp enough to draw blood if he leans in too close.
The man doesn’t answer right away. His gaze flicks to me, slow and deliberate, like he’s weighing how much noise my death would make if he snapped my neck and left my body right here in the hall. Then, just barely, his jaw ticks and he shrugs.
“Nah,” he says, voice low and gravel-rough. “All good.”
I keep my stare locked on his, cataloging every detail.
The way his left boot angles slightly outward.
The faint shimmer of blood crusted into the cuff of his sleeve.
The tension in his forearm like he’s one heartbeat from drawing whatever blade he’s hiding under that vest. He wants the bounty.
He wants the blood. But he knows better than to make his move where the cameras can see.
I nod once. Not at him. At the kill I’m promising later.
Then I turn back to Sin and walk on, the heat of his stare crawling across my spine like a brand I’ll scrape off soon enough.
She doesn’t speak, but I can feel her watching me, reading the way my hand hovers near my blade and my stride turns colder with every step.
She knows I don’t just remember threats.
I fucking bury them.
The descent to bunker level three is steep and silent. Drones drift overhead. Lights flicker like they’re on their last breath. When we reach the door, it hisses open slow, like even the fucking metal knows this place wants us dead.
Inside, it’s worse. Concrete walls sweating with damp. One narrow bed. One rust-stained sink. A single bulb buzzing overhead like it’s got seconds left to live.
Sin steps in first. I follow, crowding her space like I always do. And I don’t care that the cameras are still watching. Let them. Because this place might be the end of the road for most, but it won’t be for us.
Not for her.
She’s mine and I’ll tear down every inch of Deadmoor, slaughter every fucking racer, and burn the Syndicate down before I let it take her.
She tosses her bag down, strips out of her jacket, and pulls her hair back into a messy knot at the base of her neck. Her tank rides up slightly with the movement, exposing the curve of her waist, my name on her hip and the faded bruise near her ribs.
I watch. I always fucking watch.
“Something on your mind, Carter?” she murmurs without turning.
“Always.”