Chapter 8
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.
It wasn’t.
The clubhouse door creaked open behind me. I heard it even over the distant hum of traffic and the occasional bark of someone’s dog. I didn’t turn.
Boots crossed the lot.
Jude stopped a few feet away.
“You good?” he asked.
I took another drag and blew the smoke out through my nose. “Just thinking.”
Jude snorted softly. “You’ve been doing a lot of that.”
I tipped my head back slightly, staring up at the sky. “Yeah.”
He waited. Jude always did. Never rushed into things. Never filled silence just to hear himself talk. Finally, he asked, “Thinking about what?”
I exhaled, long and slow, watching the smoke scatter. “That I’m sick of fucking thinking.”
Jude shifted his weight.
“And I want to fucking do something.”
He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Hopefully in a few hours we’ll have answers.”
I turned my head then, meeting his gaze. I shook my head once. “No.”
That caught his attention.
“No?” he repeated.
“I’m not waiting,” I said. “I’m going up there.”
Jude frowned. “Up where?”
“To that town the pipeline’s working out of.”
His brows pulled together. “Why? Mason already asked around. Scoped the place out.”
I flicked the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under my boot. “Because she’s up there,” I said.
Jude studied my face, like he was looking for something. Anger, desperation, doubt, or anything.
He didn’t find it.
“I can feel it,” I said.
That was the truth. Not a guess. Not a hunch. Something deeper than logic that had been gnawing at me since the second Wrecker said pipeline.
Jude shook his head slowly. “You sound real sure about that.”
“I am.”
Silence stretched between us, thick but not uncomfortable. Jude glanced back toward the clubhouse, then back at me. “You want company?” he asked.
I swung my leg fully over the bike and settled into the seat, my hands gripping the bars. “Come with if you want.” I didn’t look at him when I added, “But I’m going up there either way.”
Jude huffed a quiet laugh. “Figured.”
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.