Chapter 13
The Night I Ran
It was supposed to be a deal run.
Quick pickup, in and out, no witnesses.
Shadow sent her with two of their men—Rhino and Lace. Both were mean as rust and twice as dull. She knew something was wrong when Shadow didn’t look at her as they rolled out. He always looked. He liked to see his leash still fit.
Halfway down the state line road, Lace started asking questions that didn’t sound like questions.
“Shadow says you been keeping secrets.”
“Shadow says he saw fire in your eyes again.”
“Shadow says he ain’t sure you’re his anymore.”
That was when she knew it wasn’t a pickup. It was a grave waiting to be dug.
The dragon stirred hard, hot, and wild, pressing against her ribs like a second heartbeat. “Run,” it said. “Or burn.”
When Lace reached for his gun, Ren didn’t think.
She moved.
The truck swerved, slammed into the guardrail, steel screaming. Rhino went through the windshield. Lace didn’t get a second shot. By the time the world stopped spinning, the smell of gas was thick enough to choke on.
Ren crawled out with blood in her mouth and fire her my lungs. One spark from the wreck was all it took, the night went up behind her, orange and furious. Ren didn’t look back.
The dragon carried her for miles, through smoke and dirt and the edge of nowhere. She rode a stolen bike until the gas ran dry, then walked until her knees gave out. When she finally collapsed on the outskirts of some no-name town, she thought that was it.
But fate had other plans.
Headlights cut through the dust. A bike engine, deep and low. A man’s voice cursing as he killed the ignition.
Boots on gravel.
Then a shadow—tall, broad, ink, steel, and authority wrapped in leather.
“You look like hell,” he said.
Ren remembered trying to laugh, but it came out a cough. “Feel worse.”
He crouched, handed her a flask. “You running from someone?”
“Everyone,” she said.
That was the first time Tater looked at her. Really looked. Like he recognized something sharp and broken that matched his own reflection.
He didn’t ask again. Just nodded once, slow.
“Then you’re with me now.”
And that was it.
No questions. No judgment. Just a man who didn’t flinch when she smelled of blood and gasoline and old ghosts.
Sometimes Ren wondered if he knew, even then, what she was running from.
Or if he just didn’t care.
Either way, that night, the dragon went quiet for the first time in years.
And she slept without dreaming of fire.