Chapter Thirty-Six
THE ROAD STRETCHED endless, the sun climbing high, heat shimmering off the blacktop like waves off fire. The pack rode tight, engines growling low as we cut across the desert chasing ghosts.
Bones.
Every lead felt thinner than the last. Some cousin of a cousin swore they’d seen him near Tucson. Another said he’d been up north, holed up in a dive outside Flagstaff. All smoke, no fire. Bones was too smart to leave a trail worth following. Still, we chased, because stopping wasn’t an option.
The miles dragged, hot wind slapping against my cut, grit stinging my skin where it slipped past my shades. My hands ached on the bars, not from the ride but from the restless urge to do something—anything—that might bring us closer. Every mile between me and the clubhouse felt wrong.
We pulled into a cracked parking lot outside a rundown bar, paint peeling in long curls, neon sign flickering like it couldn’t decide whether to live or die.
Warden killed his engine first, the rest of us falling silent one by one.
The stillness afterward felt louder than the roar had been.
The air smelled like dust and old beer, a stale mix that clung to the back of my throat.
Inside, the place was half-dead. A few drunks slumped at scarred tables, boots propped up, eyes glazed.
One woman fed the outdated jukebox like it owed her money, punching the buttons so hard I thought she’d break them.
The bartender barely looked up as we filed in, his rag pausing on a chipped glass for half a second before he dropped his gaze.
Warden stepped forward, the weight of his cut filling the room. His questions came straight and gruff, no wasted words. “Heard anything about a man calling himself Bones. Tall, shaved head, tattoos down both arms.”
The bartender snorted, shaking his head. “You just described half the bastards that crawl through here.”
“Not like him,” I cut in, my voice hard enough to make one of the drunks lift his head. “He leaves a mark wherever he goes. You seen him, you’d remember.”
The man’s jaw tightened. He looked between us, then down at the glass he was smearing with that tired rag. “Ain’t heard that name in a while. Not here.”
A chair scraped behind us. Slow, deliberate. One of the drunks who’d looked half-dead a second ago pushed to his feet, swaying as he grabbed his jacket. He moved toward the door, too steady for someone who’d been nursing beers all day.
Maul stepped in his path. “Where you headed, brother?”
The man froze, eyes darting between us, throat working hard. “Just… outside. Smoke.”
“Funny timing,” Scyth said, his voice like gravel.
The drunk’s hand twitched against his pocket like he was thinking about a weapon, or a phone. My pulse spiked.
Warden’s tone stayed calm, almost bored, but his eyes were menacing. “Sit back down.”
For a second, the man hesitated, his jaw clenched, and in that heartbeat I swore I saw recognition flash when Bones’s name had been spoken. Then his shoulders sagged and he shuffled back to his seat, muttering something under his breath.
The jukebox croaked out a broken note, spilling into a scratchy outlaw tune. The bartender busied himself harder than ever with his glass, refusing to look our way.
Another dead end, or maybe just another wall keeping the truth tucked out of reach.
We regrouped outside, the heat pressing down heavy, swallowing air and patience.
Warden lit a cigarette, the flare of his lighter catching the hard set of his jaw.
He scanned the horizon like the desert might cough up answers if he stared long enough.
His silence said more than words, the frustration of a man who hated chasing shadows.
“He’s out there,” he muttered finally, smoke curling from his mouth. “He doesn’t disappear without purpose.”
Maul shifted beside him, restless. “Feels like we’re chasing our own tails.”
“Better than sitting on our asses.” Scyth’s voice was biting, the edge of loyalty cutting through doubt.
I dragged a hand through my hair, the sweat at my temples stinging. My chest felt too tight, every mile away from the clubhouse pulling harder. Wren’s face kept flashing in my head, the way she’d looked curled on the couch, blanket around her shoulders, refusing to meet my eyes.
“You alright?” Maul asked, squinting at me like he could see too much.
“Fine,” I lied, sliding my helmet on before he could push.
But I wasn’t. Something itched under my skin, a pull I couldn’t shake. Like the road itself was trying to tell me I was in the wrong place, headed the wrong way.
Warden ground out his cigarette, eyes narrowing as if he’d made some decision. “We’ll check one more spot before heading back.”
Engines roared to life again, the pack rolling out in formation. Dust clouds rose behind us, the desert swallowing the noise as we tore down the road.
But no matter how fast I rode, the knot in my chest wouldn’t ease.
Something was wrong. I could feel it.
***
THE RIDE BACK felt like someone had hammered a crowbar into my skull and left it there. Rain had turned the road to oil; chrome spat and hissed in the dark. We rode tight, elbows pressed to leather, cuts shoulder-to-shoulder, one moving wall of patch and teeth. That’s how we moved.
Whole. Solid. Close enough to feel each other breathe. Still, every mile toward the clubhouse felt like walking blind into a hole.
Bones was already a bad smell in my mouth, rumor and iron and whatever rot follows him.
I kept getting flashes of Wren: the flat of her back under my palm, the way she breathed like she’d come home, the whisper in the dark — I want you — a small damn promise I’d been carrying in my chest. Now that promise sat there like a coal, hot and fixed, ready to burn me if I let it.
By the ridge the clubhouse sat against the sky like a fresh bruise. Wrong. The lot looked watched, like someone had circled the place and waited. Even the security lights were half dead, nothing but dull bulbs, like the breakers had been pegged.
Engines died in order. Starters clicked like safeties. We filed inside and the air hit before anyone spoke: Wren was in trouble.
Jewel paced the hall, heels cutting wood.
Her lip trembled; her eyes were raw. Elara sat empty in a chair, face streaked with salt.
Dusty leaned against the wall, head wrapped, fingers still bloody at the temple.
His shirt split dark where heat met blood.
He looked smaller than he should’ve — edges knocked off.
“Ashen!” Jewel’s voice tore open the room. She shoved through the others and hit me with it. “She’s gone.”
My gut dropped like the floor had been pulled out. Sound narrowed to my heartbeat. Air went thin.
“What the fuck do you mean gone?” I snapped. Fury came out hot and sharp.
“We thought she was on the couch reading.” Jewel was a machine of breath, clipped and fast. “Dusty found the back door open. He went after her—”
“All I remember is getting hit,” Dusty interrupted her. He kept pressing at the blood in his hair like maybe he could rub the memory away. “Didn’t see who did it. Came to, she was gone.”
The words draped over me like an insult. My fists closed until knuckles gleamed white. Time thickened like someone winding a clock toward a blade.
“Bones,” Warden said behind me, flat and hard, no surprise in it, only the cold math of what he knew. “This reeks of him.”
I spun before my head cleared. Muscle memory got me to Dusty, and everything snapped loose. “You’re telling me someone found the one weak spot in our perimeter, and you didn’t see a damn thing?”
Dusty folded. “I failed her. I’m sorry, brother.”
“Sorry.” The word tasted like bile. The image of her — warm breath, that stupid whisper — flared and went black. Whatever warmth had been calcified into something harder in my chest. “Sorry don’t get her fucking back.”
Jewel grabbed my arm like she could hold me. I shook her off. Her fingers left a sting so clean it felt like a lesson.
I went to the back door. Rain had stopped but the dirt was soft and clotted.
Tire tracks plunged toward the scrub: one set hard east, another east-south.
A skid where something heavy had been dragged.
Boot prints. I crouched, brushed the dirt with two fingers; crushed grass clung to a print.
Something small flashed in the mud — the glass bird, wing snapped, Wren’s charm.
She thought it would protect her.
When I stood the world went red at the edges. Everything focused into one center: she was gone and someone had taken her.
“We find him,” I said. The voice that came out was low and animal, quiet and dangerous. “We find Bones and we put him down. Proper.”
Warden’s hand landed on my shoulder, heavy and sure. “We will. Smart first, then brutal.”
“Smart?” I barked a laugh that had no humor. “You want me to sit on my hands while he toys with her?”
“No.” Warden’s stare went cold, the look of a man who’s already done the sums and picked the straightest road to payback. “You ride with your brothers and bring her back. Don’t run off on your temper. That’s exactly what he wants.”
The brothers closed up around us. We weren’t just a crew; we were a wall of leather and scars and iron will. The patch wasn’t just cloth, it was a promise and a debt. I should’ve felt steadied by it. Instead I felt everything I loved wrapped in someone else’s hands.
My fingers found the glass bird at my hip, the weight of it was a promise and a prayer. For one stupid, soft second I heard her voice again from that night: I choose you. It flared like a flare and I let it harden into something else, a tool.
“We split,” I said flat, blade-quiet. “Warden, take Maul and Scyth north along the ridge, cut their exits. Throttle, Rex, sweep the south roads. Dusty, you ride point out here. Don’t let anyone slip back in. Call contacts. Trackers. Dogs. No lone wolves. No fireworks until we’re set.”
Warden nodded. “We move in an hour. Quiet until then. Hit hard when we do.”
I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and downed it. It tasted thin. Rage cooled into a working heat, the kind that plans and kills and keeps a club alive.
“Bones’s capable of sick shit,” Throttle said low in the kitchen. “He’s not human in what he does.”
“I’ll make him human,” I said through my teeth. “If he touches her — if he hurts her — I’ll make him beg to die.”
Outside the lot the desert swallowed the sound of men gearing up. Engines choked and coughed to life. Leather rang on steel. The day narrowed until only the hunt existed. Every man in that clubhouse felt it: the world tilted, and we would tilt back.
I would tear the world open for her. I would dig every truth out until it bled answers. If I had to, I’d pull Bones up from wherever he hid and watch him rot in the sun.
We rode for war.