Chapter Eleven
I stared straight ahead as I drove away, fighting the urge to watch Ryan grow smaller in my rear-view mirror.
Fighting the same urge to stay, or to turn round and go back.
And say what? Tonight, I’d caught a glimpse of his life.
Rough. Leather. And no matter how much he deflected, dangerous.
My dad had always said his wasn’t the life for me.
That I would never fit into their world.
I’d seen that tonight. The tension. Being marched into a pub by a group of men I didn’t know.
The fear building in the pit of my stomach, leaking into the palms of my hands.
Ryan had turned up before fear turned into a panic attack.
I could feel the hint of it. The numbness creeping over my toes and my fingers.
The tightening of my chest. And then suddenly he was there, and his huge frame alone was enough to block the rest of it from taking shape.
Just like the other night at the hospital.
But he wasn’t safety. I could see that. He was something else equally as dangerous.
And then suddenly I was almost home. I’d crossed the Tyne Bridge and pulled off the entral Motorway, barely thinking.
My mind anywhere but where I was driving to.
I couldn’t remember the lights. Not a single one.
Not stopping. Not checking. Just the smear of headlights and the steady drag of the road beneath me.
A cold flicker slid down my spine. I’d been behind the wheel the whole time.
But I hadn’t really been there at all. Anyone could have stepped out in front of me.
Anything could have happened. And I would have just kept driving.
And anyone could have followed me. I glanced in the rear-view mirror, realising that I had already half noticed the single headlight a few minutes back.
It was still there. Just hovering in the distance.
Unmistakeably a motorbike. Every now and then, peeking out from behind the car between us.
It held steady. Lower. Heavier. Not just a bike.
Something bigger. Something that stayed behind me like it meant to. Then I heard it.
It wasn’t loud. Not obvious yet. The low, rolling hum threaded through the noise of the road, deeper than it should have been.
It didn’t rise and fall like the rest of the traffic.
It didn’t fade when it should have. It lingered.
I’d noticed it before. I knew I had. Somewhere between the bridge and here, slipping in and out of my awareness like a half-formed thought.
It wasn’t the car in front of it I was suddenly aware of; it was the thing behind.
My fingers tightened round the steering wheel, heaviness descending in my chest. The same as it had when those prospects tapped on my window.
I pressed a little harder on the accelerator before I realised I was doing it.
Just enough to feel the engine respond, watching the space I was creating in my rear-view mirror.
The car behind didn’t hesitate. It came with me.
A prickle spread across the back of my neck.
I eased off again, testing it this time.
Slowing just slightly, like I’d changed my mind.
The car behind also adjusted. So did the bike.
It didn’t weave. Just reacted. It was subtle.
Barely noticeable. And it might have just been my imagination.
Fear supercharging it. But I was sure it wasn’t reacting the way it should have if it was just another rider caught in traffic.
The bike stayed exactly where it had been. Behind the car. Holding it. My stomach dropped. It wasn’t following me. It was following them. My breath caught, sharp and sudden. Fear combusting into panic. No. No. No.
I turned the wheel too quickly, taking the next left without signalling. The tyres bit against the road, the car jolting as I cut across the lane.
That was stupid. Too fast. Too obvious what I was doing.
My heart was hammering in my ears, drowning out everything else.
Every rational thought, every attempt to slow down and think this through.
I just needed distance. Space. I risked another glance in the mirror. The car followed. Of course it did.
A choked sound caught in my throat as I pushed the accelerator harder, the houses blurring slightly at the edges as I picked up speed down a road I barely registered choosing. And then that sound again. Lower. Closer. Still there.
Ahead, a car pulled out without warning.
I swore, slamming my foot down on the brake.
The seatbelt locked hard across my chest as the tyres screeched, the bonnet of my car dipping down almost out of my sight.
For a second, just one, I thought I’d hit it.
The inevitability of it. The impact I couldn’t stop.
And then it didn’t come. I stopped inches short.
My hands were shaking now, my knuckles whitening as my pulse roared in my ears, drowning everything else out. Everything except that sound. Still there. Closer. Not revving. Just there, waiting.
Shakily, I inhaled, but it didn’t fill my lungs, and I forced myself to look in the mirror again. The car was still there. And behind it. That single headlight. Steady. Unmoving. Like none of this had changed a thing.
My pulse was still racing when the bike moved. Not reckless. Deliberate. It slipped out from behind the car like it had been waiting for the exact moment to do it, the headlight shifting, widening, growing larger in my mirror. My breath caught again, the gallop in my chest didn’t slow.
The engine note deepened as it pulled alongside the car behind me, low and controlled.
For a second, nothing happened. They sat side by side.
And then the car reversed, like someone had yanked it backwards.
I swallowed hard, my grip tightening again as the road stretched out in front of me, suddenly too open.
Too exposed. Because now there was nothing between us.
The bike surged forward. That low, rolling sound pressing in, wrapping around the car until I could feel it more than hear it. I didn’t need to see his face to know it was him. I knew.
Relief hit first. Sharp and immediate, loosening something tight in my chest. And then something else followed it. Something darker. Because he hadn’t rushed. Hadn’t panicked. Hadn’t even hesitated. He’d handled it. Like it was nothing.
Like they were nothing.
The headlight filled my mirror now. Close enough that I could see the shape of him behind it.
Broad, solid, unavoidable. Protecting me or hunting something else.
I couldn’t tell which one felt worse. Then the headlight bobbed, the engine tone deepening.
The vibrations winding up through my tyres growing as it pulled up alongside me. Close. Too close.
I turned my head before I could stop myself, but I couldn’t see his face through his face mask.
It didn’t matter. I knew it was Ryan. I’d memorised the shape of him since that night at the hospital.
I’d seen it every night I’d fallen asleep as I lay comparing the Ryan I used to know to the man now named Reap who held himself like the world didn’t get a say.
He tapped on the window, and for a moment I didn’t move, just stared.
Relief, excitement, and anxiety all twisted low in my stomach.
A cocktail of emotions battling each other.
Sharp, unwanted, addictive. All because he was here.
And whatever that car had been, it had gone.
He’d protected me before I even knew I needed it.
And yet I still didn’t know what he was protecting me from.
Ryan waited patiently, and slowly I moved my fingers over the little black button, pushing it with uncertainty.
“You ok?” His voice still rumbled even as he slid the visor up.
I opened my mouth. And closed it again.
“Soph. Are you ok?” Deeper now, the command in his words more obvious.
“I… yes… I’m ok.”
Ryan’s eyes dropped to the steering wheel, where my knuckles were still white and my hands shook.
“Are you far from home, Grey?”
I shook my head.
“Just two streets.”
“Can you drive?”
I nodded.
“Good. I’ll follow you. Just go slow. Take your time. I’m right here.”
Right here.
My hands tightened on the wheel as I pulled forward, aware, too aware, of the bike staying with me.
Just behind. Every turn I took, he took.
Every slow, careful press of the brake, he matched.
By the time my street came into view, my pulse hadn’t settled, it had changed.
Less panic. More anticipation. I pulled to the kerb without signalling this time.
He followed anyway, the bike rumbling behind me.
When he shut it off, everything muted. It was as if all noise had been sucked out, trapping us in a vacuum.
“This is me,” I mumbled as I got out of the car, pulling my little backpack with me.
Ryan tilted his head slowly upwards.
“All yours?”
“No. Just an apartment.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Still expensive, though.”
“Looks it,” he mumbled.
“That car back there…”
“Followed you.”
“How? Where from?”
“From the clubhouse,” he answered.
“Why?”
“That I don’t know.”
“But you knew it followed me?”
“Aye. Saw it pull out behind you when you left. Unusual. None of the other clubs had left yet. So it wasn’t one of them. Besides, they were all on their bikes, anyway.”
I glanced up at the row of terraces. Pale brick and rising three storeys high.
Each property had a tree, or a bush, or a neatly trimmed garden at the front of it, carefully tended like someone cared.
Cars lined the kerb. The same as mine. Expensive, polished, privileged.
Barely a weed peeked through a pavement crack here.
Even the council looked after it. We picked up litter when we saw it and stuffed it into bins placed every few metres.
It was serene, quiet, and the sound of Ry’s motorbike would not have gone unnoticed.
“Am I safe?”
“Now you are.”
“And what about later?”
“They didn’t follow you back here. They don’t know where you live.”
“But you do.”
Those words tumbled out before I’d had the chance to really check them. And I saw how they hit him right in the chest.