24. Carter
CARTER
The fire still burns behind us when the engines are quiet. Three smoldering ruins dot the horizon like dying stars. Barstow, East L.A., and the basin. The air reeks of gasoline and victory, but the silence that follows feels heavier than any battle cry.
Rebel leans against my shoulder as I drive the club's SUV. She doesn’t speak. Neither do I. There’s too much between us now. Blood, loss, love, and the kind of peace that never comes easy. The highway hums beneath the tires, a low rhythm that sounds almost like breathing again.
By the time we reach the coast, the sky’s bruised with the edge of dawn. Gray light drapes over the ocean, soft and uncertain. I turn off the road onto a narrow dirt path that winds through a stand of wind-torn pines. The sea’s close enough to taste salt, oil, and the promise of rain in the air.
Rebel glances at me, brow furrowing. “Where are we?”
I kill the engine. “Someplace I come when I need to remember.”
She slides out of the SUV, boots crunching over gravel.
The wind catches her braid and flings it across her cheek.
The ocean is a dark sheet beyond the cliffs, waves breaking against black rock.
A single grave sits a few yards away, marked by a steel cross sunk deep into the earth.
Fresh flowers lean against it. A gleaming nameplate catches the light:
Alex Slade.
Brother. Son. Free Rider.
Her breath leaves her in a shudder. “You did this?”
I nod. “Yeah. Couldn’t let him fade to asphalt and memory.”
It cost me more than I’d ever admit. Coming here every month, leaving flowers, keeping the site hidden from the world.
There were nights I sat here until dawn, listening to the waves hit the rocks and wondering if I should’ve died instead of him.
But this place kept him real. It kept me steady when the rest of it didn’t.
Rebel steps forward, knees bending until her hand rests on the cool metal of the marker. Her voice breaks, a whisper torn by the wind. “I thought… I thought I had his grave already.”
“You did,” I tell her quietly. “But it was an empty grave. I didn’t want anyone to find him as easily as you did.
I couldn’t risk the wrong people finding him.
The Vultures would’ve desecrated what was left.
He was my brother, my confidant, my friend.
His actual grave is here marked for you and Levi to find. ”
“Something about that other site didn’t sit right with me.” Rebel closes her eyes to collect her thoughts. When she opens them, tears well, but she doesn’t let them fall. “I thought I wouldn’t ever get to say a real goodbye.
“You are. Here. Now.” I cup Rebel’s face gently with the palm of my hand. “Every mile you rode, every woman you saved, that was him. Still riding with you.”
She laughs once, broken and soft. “You sound like you almost believe in ghosts.”
“I do.” I pull something from my pocket. A single dog tag, dull and scarred. The chain glints as I hold it out. “He gave me this one the night before it all went bad. Said if anything happened, to make sure his sister didn’t lose her fire.”
Her hand trembles as she takes them. “You kept them all this time?”
“Couldn’t let them go.”
Rebel presses the tag to her lips. For a long moment, she just kneels in front of Alex’s real grave. Her hand resting on the cross I had put in, with her head bowed, ocean wind tangling her hair. When she finally looks up, her eyes aren’t glazed with grief anymore. They’re clear, burning steady.
“I spent years hating myself,” she murmurs. “For not being there. For living when he didn’t.”
“You don’t owe him guilt, Rebel,” I say. “You owe him living.”
Her fingers trace the engraved letters like she’s memorizing the shape of him. I can see the shift happen. The way her shoulders drop, the tightness around her mouth easing for the first time in years.
In her silence, I hear all the words she never said, laughter traded over handlebars, the smell of oil on his hands, the sound of him yelling her name across a crowded yard. The grief doesn’t vanish. It just changes shape, turns into something she can carry without breaking.
Tears cut clean tracks through the soot on her face. She lets out a shaky breath that sounds like a release. “Then I forgive him. And I forgive me.”
I crouch beside her, my hand resting over hers on the cross. The metal’s cold beneath our palms. “He’d be proud, you know.”
She turns to me, a faint smile ghosting her lips. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
The wind picks up, carrying the sharp scent of rain mixed with salt and motor oil. Somewhere down the coast, thunder rolls. A low, distant rumble that sounds almost like engines.
She rises, putting the tag with the other one on the necklace she wears around her neck. The chain settles against her collarbone, catching the gray light. “Then ride with me,” she whispers.
I stand beside her, the sea raging below us and the ghosts quiet at last. “Always.”
We walk back to the SUV as the first drops of rain start to fall. Rebel slides in, and I climb in behind her. The road stretches ahead, slick and endless.
When the engine roars to life, it sounds like forgiveness. We ride east into the gray, two survivors chasing whatever comes after redemption.