Chapter 17 - Seraphina #2
I chewed the inside of my cheek, stared at the ground. “They wanted me to open the file system. Not just the project code, but the fallback triggers. The self-repair routines. They brought printouts, diagrams, and translation software. One of them had a degree. Maybe more than one.”
He listened without interrupting, but his eyes never left my face.
“They used restraints. Not the zip-tie kind. The real kind. Metal. They taped my wrists to a pipe. When I wouldn’t talk, they put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger empty. Four times.”
Nitro’s jaw clenched so hard I could hear the teeth grind.
I forced myself to keep going. If I didn’t, I’d never be able to say it.
“They told me I had one hour to crack my own work, or they’d start by taking fingers.
I believed them. I…” My voice faltered, but I pressed on.
“I started talking. At first, I fed them garbage, old protocols, dead-end branches. They weren’t dumb, though.
Every time I stalled, they got angrier. I thought if I gave them something, anything, they’d relax.
Instead, they just—” I stopped, unable to finish the thought.
He closed the gap between us in two steps, but didn’t touch me. “You survived.”
“I shouldn’t have,” I said. “I should have let them pull the trigger. Or at least held out until someone got there.”
He shook his head. “They’d have shot you, then moved on to the next target. You made the right call.”
I wanted to believe him. I really did.
The silence grew heavy, then heavier.
“I kept thinking about you,” I said, the words tumbling out before I could edit or soften them. “Not just that you’d find me. I was sure you wouldn’t. But I kept thinking, this is it, this is the last thing he’ll remember about me, some video clip of my face splattered on a wall.”
He looked away, the scar on his jaw twitching.
I laughed, a thin, pathetic sound. “I guess I’m not very brave.”
He moved then, sat beside me on the bed, close enough for our legs to touch. He reached up, brushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear. His hand was rough, bandaged with the memory of what it had just done.
“You’re the bravest person I know,” he said. “You just don’t believe it yet.”
I bit my lip, tasted blood.
He let his arm settle around my shoulder, loose, not pinning me but not letting me drift either. I was really in the arms of an angel.
I wanted to say thank you, or I’m sorry, or anything that would mark the moment. But nothing seemed true enough, so I let the silence have its way.
Heavy boots echoed in the hallway, the sound out of time with the usual clubhouse chaos. Nitro tensed, all the ease gone from his frame. I caught his mood instantly, the way he straightened his back, the way his left hand hovered at his thigh as if expecting a gun. Old habits, unkillable.
The door opened a crack. Damron’s silhouette filled it, broad and unmistakable, the overhead fluorescents cutting his face into sharp black and white.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, voice flat and official. “But we’ve got a problem.”
Nitro stood. I followed, nerves raw all over again.
Damron stepped into the room, boots clicking on the concrete. He didn’t waste time. “The cops have put out a warrant. Not for you, Doc.” He looked at Nitro. “For you. Assault with intent, possible homicide. They’ve got you on camera, brother—clear as day, walking out with her.”
Nitro didn’t blink. “So what?”
“So,” Damron said, “they’re coming here within the hour. And if you’re still on the premises, the Feds will roll us all up. Not just you.”
I glanced at Nitro. “What about me?”
Damron shrugged. “You’re a civilian. And a victim. They’ll want a statement, but unless you’re carrying a kilo of coke, you walk.”
I felt the old ache in my chest, the certainty that the universe was a system designed to punish any deviation from the expected outcome.
Nitro looked at me, then at Damron. “What’s the move?”
Damron grinned, but it was ugly, humorless. “You run. You hide. You call me when the heat dies down, and I’ll get you a new name and a new bike.”
Nitro nodded, as if he’d known all along.
I wanted to scream, to break something, to demand that the world give me one day—just one—without having to run or hide or apologize. Instead, I said, “I’m sorry.”
Nitro shook his head. “No more apologies, Doc. Not from you.”
He turned to Damron, hand on the doorknob. “Got a head start for me?”
Damron laughed. “Garage is clear. Augustine left you a burner in the saddlebag. I’d be gone ten minutes ago.”
Nitro flashed a grin. “Always the planner.”
He looked at me one last time. I tried to read his eyes, to memorize the shape of them, the angle of light, the unspoken whatever that lived behind the brown and black.
He touched my shoulder, just a second, then was gone.
Damron watched him leave, then turned to me. “He’s a good man, for what that’s worth.”
I nodded, but the words had no place to go.
The door swung shut, and I sat back on the bed, numb all over.
The world had started up again, all right.
And this time, it wasn’t going to stop for either of us.
The room felt emptier without him in it, like something vital had been exhaled and never replaced. The bed was still warm where I’d been sitting, but the rest of the clubhouse was refrigerated and lifeless, full of the ghosts of adrenaline and gunpowder.
Damron stepped in, less looming than before. He’d swapped the cut for a plain jacket, but the way he filled a room didn’t change. He looked at me, then at the bed, then back to me.
“Need a ride somewhere?” he said.
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say I need to go home, or I need to find Nitro, or I need to not be here, surrounded by the stink of defeat and old sweat. But the words stuck.
He waited, as if he’d seen it all before. Maybe he had.
“Thanks,” I said, voice hollow.
He nodded, moved to the window, and checked the angle of the parking lot like he expected a drone strike at any second.
“They’ll be here in twenty,” he said. “Cops, not Feds. But that’s a distinction without a difference these days.”
I almost laughed. “Will they be looking for me?”
He shook his head. “You’re the hero. Or the victim. Depends who writes the press release.” He looked at me again, a little softer. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Doc.”
I thought about the gun, the Russians, the code. The promises I’d made, the ones I’d broken. “That’s not what it feels like.”
He shrugged, and for a second, the weight of the world hung off his shoulders instead of mine.
“You want my advice?” he said.
I didn’t, but I let him talk.
“Forget him. Forget us. Find someplace quiet, dig in, and let the world eat itself without you in it.”
It was, in its way, the kindest thing anyone had ever said to me.
I nodded. “Thanks.”
He started to leave, but then turned, looked at the cup in my hand. “You want to know a secret?”
I shrugged, not trusting myself to speak.
He grinned, all broken teeth and nostalgia. “He’ll find you again. No matter how hard you run. That’s what makes it so goddamn hard to quit him.”
The words lodged in my ribs, sharp and hard to breathe around.
Damron left without waiting for a reply. The door clicked shut, a sound like a period at the end of a sentence nobody wanted to write.
I stood, wrapped myself in the blanket, and crossed to the window.
The sun had finally topped the horizon, but the world outside looked just as gray, just as unforgiving as before.
I watched the movement in the lot—the bikes coming and going, the men stripping down a car for parts, the slow migration of business as usual.
I tried to see myself in it. I failed.
I looked at the bed one last time. The dent where Nitro had sat was already fading, the impression smoothing out like a wound that healed too fast, too perfect.
I didn’t want to heal. Not yet.
I stepped into the hallway. The sound of the world was louder here—curses, laughter, the clang of metal on metal, the old familiar soundtrack of men who built their lives out of nothing and expected nothing in return.
I drifted toward the front, blanket trailing behind me like a bad idea. I passed Augustine, who looked up, nodded, then returned to his work. There was no need for words. There had never been.
Near the entrance, I stopped. Nitro was there, hunched over a phone, knuckles white on the casing. He looked up, saw me, and in the span of a breath, every calculation he’d made about how to leave, how to survive, how to forget, vanished.
I stepped closer, until I could see the bruise under his eye, the line of dried blood on his cheek. I reached up, touched his face. He flinched, but didn’t pull away.
“They say you have to go,” I said, voice thin as paper.
He nodded, swallowed hard. “You could come with me.”
I almost said yes. I wanted to. But the memory of Damron’s words, the truth in them, held me back.
“This is my fault,” I whispered. “If I hadn’t called you—”
He shook his head, but I pressed on.
“You’d be free. You wouldn’t have to run. You wouldn’t have to leave the only home you’ve ever had.”
He took my hand, held it between both of his, so gentle I could barely feel the bones inside.
“I’m not leaving because of you,” he said. “I’m leaving because that’s what men like me do. It’s all we know.”
Tears came again, hot and fast, but I didn’t wipe them away.
“I can’t be with you,” I said. “Not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t bear to watch you go to prison for saving my life.”
He smiled, sad and real. “Then don’t watch.”
He kissed me, quick and clean, then turned away, walking toward the back, the exit, the endless road.
I stayed in the doorway, watching until he was gone.