Chapter 11
Kaze
The hell I’m going to wait here.
As soon as I see her leave the house on her bike, hurried and disoriented from the news she received on the phone, I run after her.
Of course, she’s moving faster than I am, and honestly, my energy isn’t what it used to be.
Days without siphoning energy so regularly have taken their toll.
But the pull to be near her, to protect her from whatever is happening, is stronger than my limitations, so I follow the connection that binds us, just as I did the first night I saw her.
My focus is on her, but my mind starts spinning, invaded by flashes of a past I can’t fully grasp.
* * *
“Don’t go, Kaze!” someone yells in the distance. The voice is desperate, frantic.
I feel unsteady, but I clench and unclench my hands to regain focus, the rings digging into my skin with every movement. I slip on the helmet, swing my leg over the bike I instinctively know is mine, and speed into a dark road.
“Kazemiro!” the same voice calls again, louder now, but I don’t stop. I don’t even glance back. I’m so angry, so out of control.
The road blurs. I’m not myself, not entirely. My movements are erratic, and I can feel something in my veins. Alcohol? Drugs? Both? I don’t know, but the anger I’m feeling burns through it all.
The last thing I see is a blinding light, headlights rushing toward me, growing larger and hotter until there’s nothing but the sound of screeching tires and tearing metal.
After, just silence.
* * *
The memory dissipates, leaving a hollow ache in its wake.
My entire being feels sick, like I’m carrying the weight of my death all over again. Tears sting my eyes, a reflex I thought I’d lost.
Whoever was screaming for me, they cared. And I ignored them.
Fuck this.
I can’t focus on it right now.
So I don’t stop moving, though.
I can’t.
In the distance, I spot the vet clinic and see her bike parked outside.
I quicken my pace, ignoring the heaviness in my chest.
Nice bike, by the way.
Before I even reach her, the door bursts open, the bells clanging wildly as she storms out, gripping Cosmos’s carrier like it’s a damn shield.
Her expression is a mix of frustration and worry, her jaw set, her eyes stormy.
“I told you to wait at the house,” she snaps, like I’m some unruly stray who followed her here.
“Don’t,” I fire back, irritation flaring to match hers. “What the hell happened?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” she says flatly, brushing me off with a wave as she secures the cat carrier onto her bike. I clench my jaw.
“WILL YOU STOP?”
The words explode out of me before I can pull them back. My voice echoes down the quiet street, and even I startle at the force of it.
She stills.
Her grip tightens on the handlebars, her back stiff as she inhales sharply.
“What do you care, anyway?” she mutters, her voice lower now but no less sharp. “It’s my business.”
“Because I care,” I say, the words spilling out raw and unfiltered.
The truth hangs thick between us, heavier than I expected.
Her shoulders slump slightly, like she’s suddenly tired.
“I don’t have the energy for this.”
“And I don’t care.”
Her head snaps up, her eyes narrowing. “Don’t you have anything else to do? Besides, I don’t know, follow me around? What part of ‘I need space’ didn’t you understand?”
“None, actually, because we never got to that part of the conversation. So I’m just working with what I have.”
She lets out a humorless laugh, shaking her head. “And what exactly do you have?”
I exhale sharply, raking a hand through my hair, feeling the weight of the answer pressing against my ribs.
“Right now?” I meet her gaze, my chest tight, my mind a mess. “Nothing besides you.”
And somehow, that feels like the truest thing I’ve said all day.
Weirdly, that does something.
I see it, how her shoulders lose some of their tension, how the anger simmering in her dark eyes fades just enough to reveal the sadness beneath. The sadness that never quite leaves her.
She exhales slowly, the fight in her posture draining. “My sister was supposed to pick up Cosmos, but she didn’t show. Now I can’t reach her. That’s all.”
“Then let me help you find her,” I offer, stepping closer, trying to bridge the gap she insists on keeping between us. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
Her eyes soften, just a little. I can feel the walls she’s built around herself faltering a bit more, but she’s still holding them up, still bracing herself.
She hesitates, her lips parting as if she wants to argue, but instead, she nods.
“Okay.”
Well… that was easy.
“Where could she be?” I ask, my worry deepening.
“She told me she was having lunch with some friends.”
I don’t like the way she says it.
“Which friends?”
Hopefully not the assholes from the Cove.
“Probably the worst of them all.”
I knew it.
“The ones from the party?” I ask, even though I already know the damn answer.
“Unfortunately, yeah. Might be them.” She sighs, pressing her sister’s number again with no success. “Good thing you may know them.”
“I don’t know them.”
My words come out harder than I intended, sharper, edged with something I can’t quite temper when it comes to her and them.
“And you shouldn’t either.”
She bristles, her jaw tightening. “Believe me,” she mutters, her tone laced with bitterness, “if I could, I wouldn’t know them either.”
“Good girl.”
Ups… I spoke out loud.
Her head snaps up and, even under the helmet, I can see the flush creeping up her neck, staining her cheeks with a deep, unmistakable red.
“You shouldn’t…” she starts, her voice wavering slightly, whether from shock or something else, I can’t tell.
“Sorry,” I say quickly, my voice softer this time. “I just… I don’t want you getting caught up with people like that.”
“Too late for that.” She murmurs and sighs, some of the tension returning to her shoulders. “I appreciate the concern, Kaze, but I can handle myself. I’m more worried about Mada right now.”
“Let’s go to the Cove, then,” I say abruptly, the name spilling out before I think.
“The Cove?” She looks at me, confused.
“That’s what that idiot calls his house,” I explain, rolling my eyes but keeping for myself the fact that the Cove isn’t just a house. It’s a place where things go wrong fast.
In no time, we go back to the house, leave the cat that, for the matter, was ready to kill me again, and jump on the bike together to search for her deranged sister.
I climb onto the bike behind her without hesitation.
The cold touch of metal against my legs is fleeting because it’s the warmth of her body that surrounds and holds me.
The wind cuts across our faces as we ride toward an uncertain, perhaps dangerous, destination, yet I can’t tear my focus away from her.
The scent of her hair—lavender laced with leather—spreads through the space between us, grounding me like an anchor I can’t explain and have no desire to release.
I close my eyes, memories of my last moments flashing again, fragmented and disjointed.
But that’s not all. Being near her stirs something deeper, something I can’t grasp but also can’t ignore.
It’s like the edges of a long-forgotten dream brushing against my consciousness, just out of reach.
There’s a sense of familiarity, a pull that goes beyond the physical, beyond the inexplicable connection of this moment, because for the last week, inside me, something screams that all that matters is her.
It’s overwhelming, like a voice I can’t silence, an instinct I can’t deny.
That’s why I lost my shit after running after her to the vet.
That’s why I ended up screaming at her to stop, because I can’t fight the need in me to be there for her, even if we’re just on talking terms for a couple of hours, and I only know her for a week.
My chest tightens with the weight of it all.
This feeling is not new. It’s ancient, rooted deep within me, like she’s been carved into the fabric of my being.
I can’t explain it. I don’t have the words. But as the bike hums beneath us, her warmth against my chest, and her scent filling the space between us, I know this: she’s not just someone, she matters to me, and the thought is as terrifying as it is undeniable.
As we approach the Cove, unease settles deep in my bones.
Whatever we find there, I hope I can help Khalee.
I have to.
Because there’s a difference between her sister and the girls who end up tangled with Patrick’s crew.
The others? They come and go. Some leave. Most don’t come back.
But Mada? She stays, always clinging to those three bastards.
And I don’t know how much Khalee knows about her sister’s lifestyle, about the things Mada does to stay in their orbit.
But after everything that’s happened today, after how emotionally drained she already looks,
I decided not to tell her.
Not now.
Because I’m afraid this night is about to get worse, and I’m pretty sure she feels it too.