Chapter 1 #2
Sometimes I hated her so much I could taste it.
Not because she died. People died. Cars crashed. Bodies broke. The desert took people and gave nothing back.
I hated her because she left me with questions that had teeth.
I hated her because every room I entered had already met her first.
I hated her because men who loved me still looked haunted when my face caught the light a certain way.
I hated her because I had never gotten to ask why she wanted me, why she left me, why she thought naming me Destiny was anything but a curse wrapped in glitter.
My phone buzzed in my blazer pocket.
Regan.
Again.
She had been texting all morning.
You eat?
Then:
Your father is pretending not to hover. It’s pathetic.
Then:
Graduation meeting tonight. Don’t forget. Also Edge says no to the lake party. I told him to say it himself if he wants to die brave.
I stared at the printed picture.
The lake party.
That was what everyone called it, even though there wasn’t much lake involved.
It was really a desert bonfire on private land outside town where the seniors went every year before graduation.
Rich kids pretending to be wild. Beer in coolers.
Trucks parked in a circle. Music too loud.
Girls in denim and white boots. Boys in hats they hadn’t earned leaning against tailgates they hadn’t paid for.
I had not been invited.
Technically.
Brielle had made sure I heard about it. She had stood in front of my locker talking loudly about how it was “kind of a legacy thing” and “not really open to randoms.” Then her boyfriend had looked at me and said maybe I could come if I brought entertainment.
Everyone laughed.
I went home.
I said nothing.
Tonight was the party.
Tonight, they were going to drink cheap beer out of expensive coolers and congratulate themselves for surviving four years of private school oppression.
Tonight, they thought I would sit at home behind the clubhouse gates while Edge counted my breaths and Regan pretended not to know I was angry.
My fingers curled around the picture until the paper creased.
No.
I was done being the whisper.
Done being the punchline.
Done being Mandy’s daughter like that was all I had ever been.
If they wanted a biker’s daughter, I would give them one.
Not the sad secret.
Not the girl who swallowed every insult because she was too proud to tell.
Not the almost-eighteen-year-old princess kept behind locked doors and bulletproof love.
I was going to show up.
Not in my school uniform. Not in neat braids. Not in the borrowed name Regan had put on my records to keep me safe.
I was going to show up as Destiny Rourke.
Edge’s daughter.
Mandy’s blood.
Steel, spite, and desert fire.
And I was going to make every single one of them remember it.
The bell rang.
I stood, folded the paper carefully, and tucked it into my pocket.
The boy by the fountain lowered his phone fast when I looked at him.
Smart.
For the rest of the day, I became perfect.
I took notes in economics.
I smiled at Sister Margaret.
I turned in my final English essay.
I ignored the whispers in the hallway, the giggles, the way someone had taped a dollar bill to my locker with my name written across it in red lipstick.
I took the dollar.
Folded it.
Put it in my pocket too.
Evidence, maybe.
Or fuel.
By final period, my anger had cooled into something better.
A plan.
The Royal Bastards clubhouse sat outside town behind gates, dust, and enough unspoken threat to keep most sane people away.
I got home before Edge because he had a meeting at the garage.
Regan’s SUV was gone too, probably at the shop or running errands for three different people who would never admit they depended on her.
For once, nobody was watching the front door.
The house was quiet when I slipped inside.
Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that made bad ideas sound reasonable.
I went straight to my room and stripped out of the Desert Saints uniform piece by piece. Blazer. Blouse. Skirt. Knee socks. All of it landed on the floor like shed skin.
In the mirror, I looked at myself for a long time.
Almost eighteen.
That phrase had become a locked gate.
Almost old enough.
Almost free.
Almost allowed.
Almost trusted.
My birthday was in two weeks. Graduation was in nine days. Nursing school orientation was in August.
Nursing school.
That was the dream I kept folded inside me where nobody could stain it.
I wanted clean halls and steady hands. I wanted anatomy textbooks, clinical hours, night shifts, and the kind of exhaustion that came from saving people instead of surviving them.
I wanted to learn how to stitch wounds without needing to know who caused them.
I wanted to be useful in a way that belonged to me.
Mostly, I wanted space.
College was not just college.
It was oxygen.
No club gate.
No prospects shadowing me between buildings.
No Edge telling me I couldn’t go somewhere because he had a bad feeling.
No men with guns making every decision feel like it had to pass through a committee of leather and trauma.
I loved them.
That was the worst part.
I loved Edge. I loved Regan. I loved Tarak, even when his grief sat between us like a third person at every table.
But love could still suffocate.
I opened my closet.
The leather jacket hung in the back behind sweaters and school dresses.
It wasn’t mine exactly. Regan had bought it for me last Christmas after I accused her of trying to dress me like a polite hostage.
It was black, soft, fitted, and dangerous enough that Edge had stared at it for a full ten seconds before saying, “No.”
Regan had handed it to me anyway.
I put it on now.
Then black jeans. Boots. Silver hoops. Dark eyeliner smudged at the corners because if they wanted to call me trash, I might as well make it fashionable.
Last, I unbraided my hair and let it fall wild around my shoulders.
Mandy’s hair.
My jaw tightened.
No.
Mine.
I grabbed my phone and texted the only people who wouldn’t tell me I was being stupid because they were probably already worse.
You in town yet?
A reply came from Tris first.
Already here, princesa. Your fancy people ready to die?
Then Jake.
Tell me we’re not doing something that gets me shot by your dad.
Then Naya.
We are absolutely doing something that gets him shot by her dad.
They were my friends from back home. From before Santa Fe.
From dust roads, aunties who knew everything, fry bread after ceremonies, cousins who weren’t really cousins, and people who understood silence without trying to fill it.
They had come in for graduation and were staying with family outside town.
They knew me before Rourke meant anything.
Before Mandy’s ghost got loud.
Before Edge’s love turned into surveillance.
I texted back:
Desert bonfire. Rich kid party. Need backup.
Lala responded instantly.
Outfit level?
I looked at myself in the mirror.
Then I smiled.
Funeral for their social lives.
Her answer came with skull emojis.
I tucked my phone into my back pocket and headed downstairs.
The garage sat behind the house, connected to the long driveway that led toward the clubhouse lot. Technically, Edge’s bikes were not toys. Technically, touching one without permission was a death wish. Technically, I did not have a motorcycle license.
Technically, a lot of things.
The back garage door stuck when I pulled it open, groaning like it wanted to warn someone.
“Don’t,” I whispered at it.
The garage smelled like oil, metal, leather, and my father. It was dim inside, sunlight cutting through high windows in dusty gold strips. Three bikes sat parked in a row.
Edge’s favorite was in front.
Black. Chrome. Mean enough to look alive.
I stopped beside it, my pulse kicking hard.
This was the stupid part.
The party? Reckless.
The outfit? Dramatic.
Bringing my friends? Satisfying.
But taking Edge’s bike?
That was crossing a line painted in gasoline.
I could already hear Regan’s voice in my head.
Baby girl, revenge is fun until your father has an aneurysm.
I could also hear Brielle’s voice.
Destiny. Really? That’s a stripper’s name.
My hand closed around the handlebar.
The key hung on the wall because Edge trusted locks, gates, guns, men, and fear more than he trusted common sense. Nobody stole from Edge Rourke because nobody wanted to die tired.
I took the key.
My heart hammered so hard it felt like it might crack a rib.
I had ridden before.
Not legally.
Not alone.
Not this bike.
But I knew how. I’d grown up around engines. I knew throttle, clutch, brake, weight, balance. I knew the way power vibrated through metal before it obeyed. Edge thought he had kept me from learning.
Men underestimated what girls could learn by watching.
I rolled the bike backward slowly, wincing at every sound. The tires touched gravel outside.
The desert opened in front of me.
For one second, fear crawled up my throat.
Not fear of crashing.
Not fear of getting caught.
Fear of what happened after.
Because once I did this, I couldn’t fold myself back into the good little almost-daughter who obeyed because everyone had already lost too much.
Once I did this, Edge would know.
Regan would know.
Tarak would know.
And maybe, finally, I would too.
I swung my leg over the bike.
It was too big.
Too heavy.
Too much.
Perfect.
The engine roared to life beneath me.
The sound slammed through the garage, the driveway, my bones.
Somewhere in the house, a dog started barking.
Somewhere near the clubhouse, a man shouted.
My phone buzzed.
Probably Regan.
Probably Edge.
Probably the beginning of the end of my life as I knew it.
I didn’t look.
I kicked up the stand, turned the bike toward the road, and let the throttle answer for me.
Dust flew behind me as I shot down the driveway.
For the first time all day, nobody laughed.
Nobody whispered.
Nobody said my name like it was a joke.