Chapter 16 The Ridge
The Ridge
Rain hammered the ridge like the sky was trying to drown the earth.
The wind tasted like metal and old memories.
Shadow stood in the curve of the road, helmet still on, the chain gleaming under the lightning. She could see it — streaked dark where blood never fully washed away. Not hers. Not his. One of theirs.
Ren stopped ten paces from him, the knife loose in her hand. The dragon prowled under her skin, pacing, whispering for violence.
“You really want to do this here?” she called. Ren’s voice carries easy, steady, like the storm learned to speak through her.
He tilted his head, visor reflecting white fire. “You always did like theatrics.”
“I learned from the best.”
He took a step forward. “You left me to rot, Ren.”
“You earned it.”
“Did I?” His tone softened, twisted with something almost fond. “Because last I checked, I made you. I gave you power. I taught you what you are.”
“No,” she said quietly. “You taught me what I’ll never be.”
He laughed — low, warm, poisonous. “And now you think the Bastard’s president will save you?” He lifted the chain; let it swing between them. “He bleeds easy.”
Ren’s stomach turned to ice. “What did you do?”
He just smiled.
Lightning cracked, close enough that she could smell ozone and burning pine. The dragon inside her surged, its voice a guttural growl in her chest. “End this.”
“I told you once,” she said, stepping closer, “if you came for me again, I’d finish it.”
“You said that before.”
“This time,” she whispered, “I fuckin’ mean it.”
He lunged first — a blur of leather and fury. Ren ducked under the swing, blade slicing air, rain exploding between them. He was faster than she remembered, but she’s not the same woman he built.
The dragon slid up her spine, searing every nerve. Her eyes burned gold. The air around them heats, steam rose from the wet ground.
He hesitated for half a second. It’s all she needed.
She slashed across his chest — not deep, but enough. The chain rattled against the knife’s edge, sparks flying as metal meets fire.
He stumbled back, growling, clutching the wound. “Still got teeth, I see.”
“Teeth,” she said, stepping forward, “and wings.”
The ground trembled. The dragon’s roar shattered the rain. Fire bursts from her palm, bright and wild, cutting through the dark.
Shadow laughed even as the flames lick toward him. “There she is.”
The fire hit the asphalt, and the storm screamed with it.
For a heartbeat, everything slowed.
Flame and rain collide midair, hissing into steam that curled around them like ghosts.
Her lungs burn, but it wasn’t from the heat, it was from the pull.
The dragon is all the way awake now, thrumming through every bone, whispering in a voice that sounds half like her and half like every woman who’s ever refused to kneel.
“End him,” it urges. “End what he made of you.”
Shadow circled through the smoke, a dark outline against the firelight. His blood hit the ground, mingling with the rain, and the smell drug her back to every night she swore she’d never crawl again.
But through it—through the rage, the noise, the storm, she heard something else.
Tater’s voice, low and rough from that night on the ridge.
He said we.
Not you. Not I.
We.
The dragon hesitated. For the first time, it listened.
Ren’s fire flickers, gold turning faintly silver, the color of the chain that started all of this.
Shadow sees the hesitation and laughs, breath coming ragged. “That’s it, sweetheart. You always stop when it matters most.”
She tightened her grip on the knife. “Not this time.”
But when she moved again, it’s slower, sharper—hers, not the dragon’s.
Because this wasn’t about rage anymore. It was about the promise she left behind.
The one Tater found. The one he kept.
If she died here, she would die with that promise unbroken.
Lightning flashed again, and she caught her reflection in Shadow’s visor—eyes glowing, smoke rising off her skin, a monster shaped like a woman who finally looked unafraid.
The storm steadies. Her heart does too.
“Let’s finish it,” she whispered.