Chapter 42
Zeke
‘In Between’ - Beartooth
I'm riding up the mountain towards Ash and D’s house, but I’m going the back way.
The security cameras from the bank showed Damien turning in this direction.
So, he must’ve taken this way to get home, and not from the other side of the mountain like we all normally take.
We’ve driven this way a few times while we’ve searched for him, and no one that’s looked has found anything, but there must be something we’re missing.
There has to be. There’s no way he could’ve vanished out of thin air, and now that we know where he went when he left the Attic, we have a much better idea of what the hell happened.
If he said he was coming straight home, then I believe it.
Somehow, between the ice cream parlor and their home, he was taken, and I’m going to figure it out. Today.
I’ve avoided this side of the mountain like the plague.
Whenever Taylor wanted to go on rides, I’d bring her up this route.
Our first date was at the lookout here. I would’ve taken her anywhere she wanted, but she insisted that she didn’t want some normal restaurant date.
So, instead of taking her to some bougie, five-star joint, I brought her up here.
We sat at the edge of the cliff and watched the sun set.
It was chilly then, so I gave her my hoodie and watched her as she took in the scenery.
Her face melted like it was exactly what she needed, and I knew that she would be special then.
Fuck, I miss her.
I try to remember her that way, and not how I walked in the morning she died.
Her vomiting woke me up, and I rushed into the kitchen, but I was too late.
By the time I made it over to her, she was already gone.
I knew it then. I just couldn’t accept it.
I did everything I could to save her, but it just wasn’t enough.
A part of me still hates Ashia, but only because she gave me a reason to live when I didn’t think there was one anymore.
My fist almost crashes into my eyes as I wipe the tears away, but I don’t give a fuck.
Giving myself a black eye would be the nicest thing I could do to myself.
The guilt that lingers under my skin has driven me mad.
It keeps buzzing and twitching at the worst times, and now is definitely the wrong moment.
I have to find Damien. He would know how to fix everything.
I love my sister, but D knows the pain. He understands the manic feelings and the dark thoughts—he would know how to make them go away.
I can’t let them down. Ashia can’t feel this torment anymore.
She can’t suffer from the unknown another day.
Damien can’t be tortured and put through the type of agony Leanne described.
I can’t let them feel the same pain I do.
There isn’t much room between the forest and the road, but I pull over for every little thing I see out here—pieces of trash, tires, signs, and anything else that might lead to a clue.
There’s a good chance that they just took D’s bike with them when they took him.
Obviously, along with our system, they messed with the street cameras somehow.
So, it would be simple enough for them just to drive his motorcycle out of town.
While I hope that’s not the case, it’s definitely a possibility we’ve considered.
I finally get about halfway up the mountain when I see two skid marks on the pavement.
They look wide enough for a car, and there’s plenty of wrecks on this road with how curvy and dark it can be, but something is off.
The angles of the tires are different, and one of the marks veers off slightly before the other.
It could’ve been a really bad crash, but it’s still not consistent with car wheels.
They might just be close enough to match a motorcycles, though.
Excitement breeds throughout my body, and I pull over with a screech.
Even up close, the tire marks look strange.
They veer off into the trees, but the brush doesn’t look disturbed.
There’s a good chance that these are old, and we wouldn’t find anything new if we looked over the crash reports from the PD again.
I walk over anyway, not knowing what to expect.
I’ve seen weirder things, but I can’t help but imagine a deer or a racoon giving me a jump-scare the moment I step up to the foliage.
Nothing happens, though, and now I’m sort of disappointed.
The brush is thick and dense. Each branch and thorn sticks into my palms and forearms as I move it around, causing tiny stings to shoot up my limbs.
They’re easy enough to move, though, and thankfully I step through the majority of it after a few minutes.
Once I make it into the tree line, it’s fairly clear.
I look around and move some more branches aside, keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.
Besides animal shit, leaves, and dirt among the sticks and bushes, there’s not much else.
Disappointment starts to build in my chest, but I try to shake it away, knowing that I have to keep going.
Nothing instantly grabs my attention, so I go to turn back, but as I move at just the right angle, something silver catches me from the left.
There are a few larger branches, and they’re piled haphazardly like they fell during a storm or something, but it might just be enough to be intentional.
I run over and start pulling the branches apart, silently praying that I don’t find a body—his body.
With each yank and tear, my heart beats a little faster.
Fear is starting to take over, and it expands from my chest outward.
More and more gleaming gray pokes through with every branch I remove, and that only makes me move faster.
With one final pull, my heart completely stops for a beat or two.
It’s D’s bike… Damien’s fucking bike… It’s turned over, scraped up, and the elements from the past few weeks have eroded some of the paint, but it’s definitely his.
I can tell by the chrome, and I remember when he put these mirrors on the handles himself.
The side pockets are open, and three now-empty and moldy quart containers lay on the ground.
Holy shit…
Suddenly, I can’t fucking breathe. The air around me has turned into a vacuum, and I punch myself in the chest, just to force an inhale.
I immediately pull out my burner phone and dial Alex’s programed number, grateful that I can give him some kind of news—some kind of update that actually fucking matters.
My heart starts to pound in my chest, and while I’m elated to finally have a real clue, I’m also terrified of what this means.
“Yeah?” he answers.
“Are you near Ashia?” I hate how my voice shakes a little as I speak, but I can’t help it.
Ash doesn’t need to know anything until I have something solid, and if she found out that I found his bike, it might just send her over the edge.
I heard what the doctors and nurses were saying, and it’s imperative that she stays as stress-free and relaxed as possible right now.
She’s my sister. I may have promised to keep her updated, but protecting her and my niece or nephew comes first. She can be as mad at me as she wants to be.
“No, I'm in the hallway. They’re checking her out,” Alex says quietly.
“Why? Is she okay? Did something else happen?”
“No, she’s fine. They just wanted another look to make sure they didn’t miss a bleed or something.”
“Oh, okay…” I run my hand through my hair and then drag it down my face. I don’t know how to say this lightly, and I wish I had more to tell him, but I just don’t. “I found his bike, man.” I clear my throat and shake my head, forcing the burning behind my eyes to stop.
“What?! Where is it?” he says loudly, but then hushes towards the end after he realizes how harsh he sounds.
“Off the southside of Route 311—about halfway up.”
He audibly sighs.
“Damn…you didn’t find him, did you?” he asks cautiously, and I shake my head to myself.
“No, his body isn’t here, thank fuck. I don’t know what to do from here, man.
His bike is messed up, and there’s no other signs out here.
Now I’m worried that he might be in worse shape than we were hoping…
” We’re both silent for a moment, and I force myself to calm down.
This isn’t the end of the road. Just because it’s another clue, doesn’t mean we’re anywhere closer to finding him.
I need to keep my head straight and follow whatever signs I can.
Alex clears his throat, and then I hear him shuffle a little, like he’s moving to a different spot.
“Zeke… Carter and Kade talked to me and Ash…” He pauses, and I might just punch him in the throat if he doesn’t get to it. “There was a bomb infused to her car’s engine…” My heart flies out of my chest, and shock explodes in its place.
“A bomb?!”
“Kade thinks it was one of theirs. He said that the structure and the stability of it is too similar not to be.”
My vision turns red. I fucking knew it. He didn’t say Satori’s name, but that’s where my mind immediately goes. No one else has any reason to hurt Ashia, and while I’m not quite sure why he would, my finger immediately points to him.
“So, he thinks someone from Sahara wants to kill Ash?” I’m sure to put that little emphasis in there, just to make sure he knows exactly who I’m thinking of.
“We don’t know. He said that from the way the chemicals seeped into the material, that it had to have been there for at least twenty-four hours.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Alex. If someone wanted to kill her, they had plenty of time to blow it.”
“Not without her in a deadly range of it. She was either in it, close to it, or it was in the garage at the house the past two days,” Alex explains.