11. Ghost
The desert heat is a heavy, suffocating blanket, but it’s nothing compared to the pressure building behind my ribs.
The roar of the engines is the only thing that keeps the voices in my head from screaming.
We’ve been riding for hours, the asphalt of the highway blurred into a grey ribbon of penance.
I’ve lost fifteen pounds. My eyes are permanently bloodshot.
I haven’t been back to Onyx—I can’t even look at the neon signs of the city without feeling like I’m going to choke on my own tongue.
Every time I close my eyes, I see her. I see the black dress.
I see the look of utter, soul-destroying humiliation on her face when I shoved her off me.
I tried to call. Every night for the first week, I dialed her number until my thumb went numb. But the mechanical voice on the other end just told me the number was no longer in service. She changed it. She scrubbed me out of her life like a stain.
We pull over at a scenic turnout, the sun dipping low and turning the ocean into a sheet of hammered gold. I kick the kickstand down and rip my helmet off, gasping for air that isn’t there.
Bear pulls up beside me, his massive frame casting a long shadow.
He’s the only one who knows. He knows why I threw up that night.
He knows about the ghosts that live under my skin—the ones that have nothing to do with the Broken Halos and everything to do with a little boy who learned that hands aren’t always for holding.
“You’re vibrating, Ghost,” Bear says, his voice a low rumble. “Knock it off. You’re going to lay your bike down if you keep riding like a maniac.”
“I can’t breathe, Bear,” I rasp, leaning my head against my handlebars. “She’s three thousand miles away and I can’t breathe.”
“Then go get her,” he says simply. “Doc married Kasia when she was nineteen and he was pushing forty. Nobody said shit because everyone saw the way he looked at her. They see the way you look at Angel. Or they did, before you let your head get in the way.”
I used to worry about the shame. I used to worry about what the patch meant if I took the Doc’s daughter.
Now? I’d burn the clubhouse to the ground if it meant I could sit on the floor of a London flat and watch her breathe.
I’d let Doc put a bullet in me if I could just tell her it wasn’t her. It was never her.
Shade pulls up on my other side, his engine cutting out with a sharp metallic snap.
As a new patch, he’s required to ride with us.
He’s grown a lot in three months—broader, harder—but he still has that protective streak when it comes to his sister.
He doesn’t know what happened between us. He just knows I’ve been “off.”
Shade is reaching for his gloves when his phone starts to blare from his vest pocket. He frowns, pulling it out.
“The hell?” he mutters, staring at the screen. “Why the fuck is a UK number calling me now? It’s what, two in the morning over there?”
The air in my lungs turns to ice. My heart gives a sickening, heavy thud against my breastbone. My hand snaps out, gripping the seat of my bike so hard the leather groans.
Shade answers, his voice casual. “Hello? Yeah, this is Shade.”
I watch his face. He’s dark-skinned, but I see the blood drain from his features, leaving him a sallow, sickly grey. His eyes widen, and the hand holding the phone begins to shake.
“Whoa, whoa. Oliver? Oliver, slow the fuck down,” Shade says, his voice rising in pitch. “I can’t understand you, man. What happened? What do you mean?”
My knees feel like they’ve been replaced with water. I have to lean my entire weight against the tank of my bike to keep from collapsing onto the gravel.
“No,” Shade whispers. The word is a jagged shard of glass. “No. No, no, no. Fuuuuck.”
He turns away from us, pacing a small, frantic circle. He sounds like he’s about to vomit. My ears are ringing. The sound of the waves below us is a roar, deafening and cold.
“Is she...” Shade’s voice breaks, a wet, choked sound. “Is she alive? Is she going to make it?”
The world tilts. I feel my soul leave my body. I don’t think I’m breathing. I’m just a statue of meat and leather, waiting for the killing blow. My knees finally give out, and I sink onto the frame of my bike, my head hanging low. I’m not a man anymore. I’m just a heartbeat, fast and terrified.
Shade is shaking now, his free hand balled into a fist so tight his knuckles are white. “Fuck. Yes. Of course. I’m coming. I’ll be there as soon as I can, I’ll fly out tonight. Just... don’t leave her. Don’t let her be alone.”
He hangs up and just stands there, staring at the ocean. He looks like he’s aged ten years in sixty seconds.
I can’t speak. I can’t even form a thought. My throat is closed, locked tight by a grief so sudden and sharp I think it might actually kill me right here on the side of the road.
Bear steps in, his hand coming down heavy on Shade’s shoulder. “Shade. Talk to us. Was that about Angel? What happened?”
Shade looks at us, and I see the tears tracks on his cheeks.
“She’s in the hospital,” he chokes out. “She was... she was assaulted. That was her roommate, Oliver. He found her. He said... he told me not to tell Dad yet. He said it’s not something a father should see. That if Dad saw her like this, he’d never be the same.”
A sound escapes me—a low, animalistic whine that I don’t even recognize as my own. Assaulted.
The word is a poison. It seeps into my blood, turning my grief into a white-hot, blinding rage.
“Roommate?” I rasp, my voice finally cracking through the numbness. “A man? A man lives with her and he let this happen? He let someone touch her?”
“He’s her friend, Ghost,” Shade snaps, his voice brittle. “He’s the one who found her. He’s the one at the hospital right now while I’m standing on a fucking cliff in California.”
Shade starts pacing again, his hands raking through his hair. “I have to get home. I have to tell Dad I’m going on a trip. I’ll tell him it’s a run for the club. He can’t know. Not yet...”
“I’m going with you.”
The words are out before I’ve even processed them. I’m standing up now, my legs steady with a terrifying, singular purpose. The fear is still there, but it’s been paved over by a layer of lethal intent.
Shade stops and looks at me, confusion clouding his grief. “What? No. Ghost, this is family business. You aren’t... it’s not your place. I need to handle this.”
I step into his space, my face inches from his. I don’t care about the patch. I don’t care about the three thousand miles or the three months of silence.
“It is my fucking place,” I growl, the sound vibrating deep in my chest. “She is mine. She has always been mine. And I’d like to see you try to fucking stop me from getting on that plane.”
Shade looks like he wants to argue, but then he looks into my eyes. He sees the monster I’ve been keeping on a leash. He sees the man who will kill anyone who gets in his way. He sees that I’m not asking for permission, so he nods.
I turn and climb back onto my bike. I don’t look at Bear. I don’t look at the sunset. I just look at the road ahead.
Someone touched my Angel. Someone took her light and tried to snuff it out. And when I find them, there won’t be enough of them left to bury.