Chapter 17 Crash
SEVENTEEN
CRASH
KNIGHT
The fire has burned down to embers and my neck is going to hate me tomorrow.
Lark is half on top of me, blanket tangled around our legs, her breath a soft, warm puff against my throat.
The cabin smells like smoke and her shampoo and the faint citrus detergent from the sheets.
It’s quiet in that heavy, late-night way, the kind that makes you forget the rest of the world exists.
For a second, surfacing from sleep, I let myself believe it.
Just a cabin.
Just a girl.
No bounties. No mobs. No Luka.
Then something slams against the side of the cabin.
The sound yanks me all the way awake.
Wood splinters. Glass shatters. A second later, the faint jingle of the fishing-line can alarm at the back window snaps under the crash.
Every nerve in my body goes live.
I’m moving before I’m fully conscious, adrenaline punching through the last of the fog.
“Lark,” I snap, already rolling us. “Wake up. Move.”
She jerks, blinking, hand fisting in my t-shirt. “Wh—?”
Another crash. The rear window this time. The sound of boots hitting floorboards.
They’re inside.
“Up,” I bark, shoving her toward the low couch. “Couch. Down. Now.”
She doesn’t argue.
She scrambles on all fours, diving behind the old couch just as the cabin door explodes inward, splintered wood skittering across the floor.
The world narrows.
I’m on my feet in front of her without thinking, heart pounding, eyes already tracking entry points, cover, angles. There’s a fireplace poker next to the hearth and her metal bat propped by the wall.
I grab the bat.
Better reach.
The first guy through the door is all black: hoodie, mask, gloves. No words, no hesitation. Just a gun up and sweeping the room.
Suppressor.
Of course.
We don’t get the courtesy of noise.
He pivots toward the couch—toward where Lark was—and I move without thinking, swinging the bat in a tight arc.
It connects with his wrist with a sickening crack.
He grunts, gun flying, and staggers back.
A second shape slips in behind him, smaller, quieter, gun already up. Laser sight skims the wall as they step around the first guy’s shoulder.
“Down!” I bark, dropping sideways as the laser crosses, swinging the bat again.
The first shot is a muffled fthp that tears through the air where my chest was a heartbeat ago. Plaster explodes off the wall. Lark curses softly, ducking lower behind the couch.
The bat connects with something solid on the second swing—colliding with the second shooter’s knee. He crumples with a strangled cry, shot going wide, punching a neat hole through the front window.
Another shooter comes from behind, and I slam the bat across his skull and I’m not sure if he’s dead or alive, but he falls fast. Blood spills from his head. He’s not getting up anytime soon.
The last guy looks at his buddy on the ground and aims his gun right at me. “You fucked up, kid,” he says, aiming his shot.
I lunge right at him, swinging the bat at his face, a move he wasn’t expecting. I connect and he goes down. Lights out.
Fuck.
So much for logs and firelight.
The whole front of the cabin is open now. Cold air knifes in, carrying the smell of pine and cordite.
The first guy recovers faster than I like.
He barrels into me, shoulder in my ribs, driving me back into the corner of the stone hearth. Pain explodes up my side. The bat slips from my grip, clattering away.
We slam into the wall, his weight pinning me. He’s stronger up close than I expected. Or I’m more tired. Maybe both.
He goes for a knife—a flash of matte black at his hip.
I grab his wrist, muscles screaming, fighting the downward plunge. His breath is hot against my face, the lower half of his features covered by a cheap balaclava.
“Hayes,” he grunts, voice muffled. “The boss sends his regards.”
So Luka does know exactly who he’s paying for.
Great.
“Tell him I said hi,” I rasp, twisting hard.
His wrist wrenches sideways.
The knife clatters.
He drives his knee up, catching my thigh. Pain spikes, leg half buckling. My grip slips, just enough.
The knife’s back in his hand.
He goes for my throat this time.
There’s a blur of movement to my left, the familiar whump of metal on flesh.
Lark.
She comes in from his blind side, bat in both hands, and cracks him across the back of the skull.
He folds like a bad chair, collapsing against me, then to the floor.
I shove him off, chest heaving.
“That’s my bat,” she pants.
“Remind me never to steal it,” I manage.
The second shooter is still moving, crawling for the gun that landed near the overturned chair.
“Lark—” I start.
“Got it,” she says, already on him.
He swings an arm toward her, slow and sloppy. She steps in, pivoting on the ball of her foot, and brings her heel down hard on his wrist. The gun-hand slams to the floor. He howls, fingers spasming.
I hear her earlier voice in my head—weight down, straight line, no mercy—and something like pride flickers even through the adrenaline.
I grab the dropped gun, kick his away for good measure, and level ours at his face.
He freezes.
The cabin is a mess of broken glass, upended furniture, and heavy breathing.
“Two?” Lark pants, eyes flicking toward the busted window.
“Four inside,” I say. “Doesn’t mean there aren’t more outside.”
Her throat bobs as she swallows.
“How’d you find us?” I ask the guy at my feet.
He laughs, low and ugly.
“It was easy,” he says. “Of course you’d have Maddox helping you. And Luka owns his enemies.”
Maddox has enemies? Willing to talk?
“Who?” I ask.
He laughs, almost maniacally and I press the gun against his forehead. “She’s been after Maddox a while. NS-11, Serafina.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I’m guessing Dean would know. I file the name away for later. “Let’s get outta here,” I say to Lark.
He smirks. “You won’t make it past the tree line.”
A chill skates down my spine.
He believes that.
He’s not bluffing.
“Time to go,” I say to Lark, backing toward the bedroom, gun trained on him, mind already on the bag in the closet. “Grab the go-bag. Shoes. Jackets.”
She hesitates just long enough to crack the guy’s arm with the bat again.
He screams.
“Souvenir,” she says, then bolts for the bedroom. She’s in the bedroom for half a second before rushing back out, tossing me some line to tie them up with. “Here,” she says, and rushes back into the bedroom.
I keep the gun on him until I hear her yanking drawers, the thump of the duffel hitting the floor.
“Roll to your stomach,” I tell the shooter. “Hands out. You move before I’m out that door, I ventilate your kneecaps.”
His eyes gleam mean in the firelight. “You won’t shoot me,” he sneers. “You’re the little hero. The one who leaves his monsters breathing.”
My thumb flicks the safety off. “You’re right,” I say. “Tonight, I don’t have time.”
I fire.
The bullet slams into the floor half an inch from his ear, showering his cheek with splinters.
He goes pale.
“You’ll wish I’d shot you if you get up,” I say flatly, tying him up. I rush toward the other guy on the floor and tie him up as well.
I back toward the bedroom, never fully turning, gun steady until I’m through the door.
Lark’s already lacing her boots, hair yanked into a messy knot, jacket half on. The duffel is gaping on the bed—everything we came with, the tablet, the radio, spare drives, first aid kit, extra clothes, the burner phones I hoped we’d never need.
Our whole temporary life, reduced to one bag.
“Front or back?” she asks, grabbing her mask and shoving it into the side pocket.
“Back,” I say. “Tree cover. Car’s closer that way.”
We’d parked the car in the hollow fifty yards down the slope, half-hidden behind a fallen log, just in case.
“Is he dead?” she asks.
“Not yet,” I say.
“Good,” she mutters. “I want him to tell his friends we’re not easy.”
That’s my girl.
I sling the duffel over my shoulder, tuck the gun at the back of my waistband, and grab her hand.
“Stay low,” I say. “Follow me.”
We slip out through the tiny bathroom window we’d tested on day one—the one that sticks a little at the top but opens wide enough if you hit it just right.
I shoulder it up, glass still intact on this side. Cold air rushes in, smelling like wet dirt and pine.
“Feet first,” I whisper.
She swings through, dropping lightly into the ferns outside, then looks up, hand raised.
“Bag,” she hisses.
I lower the duffel, and she catches it with a grunt.
Then I haul myself through, landing beside her in a crouch.
The forest is dark and alive.
Crickets.
Distant owl.
Closer, the crunch of boots on snow-crusted leaves from the front of the cabin, voices low and angry.
Backup.
Of course.
“Move,” I breathe.
We run.
Branches whip at my arms, cold air burning my lungs. The car is a dark lump in the trough between two pines, exactly where we left it.
I throw myself at the driver’s side door, fumbling the handle. It opens with a groan that sounds deafening.
Lark is already tossing the duffel in the back. “Keys?” she pants.
I flash them. “On it.”
We piled in within seconds—she in the passenger seat, slamming her door, me behind the wheel.
The first shout goes up from the direction of the cabin.
“Back! They’re out back!”
I turn the key. The engine coughs, then roars to life. Headlights stay off. We can’t risk spotlighting ourselves.
“Seatbelt,” I snap, flooring it.
The vehicle lurches forward, tires spitting mud and pine needles. We bounce over roots, rocks, and a half-rotted stump. My teeth rattle, but the engine holds.
Behind us, a flashlight beam cuts through the trees, wild and swinging. Something thuds against the car’s rear quarter panel—a bullet, maybe, or just a branch. No time to check.
The old service road looms ahead, a darker line between the trees.
I wrench the wheel, sending us fishtailing onto it, gravel and slush crunching under the tires. The car skids, catches, straightens.
“Knight,” Lark says, voice too steady for how wide her eyes are. “There’s a guy with a gun on the road.”
Of course there is.
He’s standing dead center of the track like he owns it, gun up, braced, totally unfazed by two tons of car barreling down on him.
“Duck,” I bark.
She does.
I slam my foot down harder, the engine howling.
For a heartbeat, it’s a game of chicken—him with his payout, us with nowhere else to go.
He breaks first, diving to the side as we roar past. A shot cracks, punching a hole through the windshield on the passenger side, spiderwebbing the glass inches from Lark’s head.
She yelps, ducking lower. “Okay,” she gasps. “Not a fan. One star. Would not recommend.”
“You okay?” I grunt, fighting the wheel as we hit a rut.
“I’m fine. Windshield’s not,” she says. “You?”
“Adrenaline’s doing all the work,” I say. “Check the back window. Are they following in a car?”
She twists in her seat, peering through shattered glass.
“I see movement near the cabin,” she says. “Flashlights. But no headlights yet. I don’t think they had time to park anyone closer than the access lot.”
“Then we’re ahead,” I say, more to convince myself.
The service road vomits us out onto the old county highway—a strip of cracked asphalt winding through the dark trees. No street lights, no houses. Just miles of empty.
I gun it, still no headlights, counting on the weak glow of the dash and the sliver of moon to keep us out of the ditch.
Lark braces one hand on the dash, the other clutching the oh-shit handle.
“At what point,” she says tightly, “do we tell Arrow that his ‘stay put’ plan is officially not working?”
“Soon as we’re far enough that we’re not handing these assholes the GPS coordinates to the cabin and the car at the same time,” I say. “Another ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.”
“Can we survive ten minutes?” she asks.
“That’s the fun part,” I say. “We’re about to find out.”
She snorts, a shaky little sound, and then reaches over and grabs my forearm, her fingers squeezing tight.
“Hey,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“We’re not dying tonight,” I say it, meaning every word. “Not after… all of this. Not when we haven’t even told your brother yet. I refuse to let my ‘we’re dating’ announcement be a memorial.”
Despite everything, a choked laugh escapes her.
“Dark,” she says, “but fair.” She stares straight ahead at the broken road, jaw set.
“I’m serious,” I say. “You don’t get to die on me. Not here, not like this, not for sixty stupid Bitcoin. I will follow you into hell if I have to, but I am not doing it tonight.”
“Yes, sir,” she says, quietly.
The road stretches out in front of us, an endless strip of cracked black. Behind us, no headlights yet. For now, it’s just us and the empty.
“We’re going to need a new plan,” Lark says after a moment, voice calmer. “Cabin’s burned.”
“Yeah,” I say. “We’re mobile now whether we want to be or not.”
“Dean’s going to love that,” she mutters.
“Dean will survive,” I say. “We just leveled up from sitting ducks to moving targets. Different kind of problem. We’re better at those.”
She glances at me, eyes searching my profile. “You okay?” she asks softly. “Really?”
I keep my gaze on the road, the wheel steady in my hands. “I had a guy call me by my real name and try to stab me in my own murder cabin,” I say. “I’m somewhere between furious and focused. We’re going to make Luka regret every Bitcoin he put on our heads.”
Her grip tightens on my arm. “Good,” she says. “Because I’m not done making plans with you.”
The corner of my mouth lifts. “Plans, huh?” I say.
“Yeah,” she says. “Starting with: survive the night. Then: find a place to crash that doesn’t come with complimentary assassins. Then: call Dean and Arrow and give them so much shit.”
“Ambitious,” I say.
“You love that about me,” she reminds me.
I do.
More than I’ve ever loved anything.
I flick the headlights on once we’ve put enough distance between us and the cabin, the beam cutting through the trees, turning the road from shadow to something navigable.
The vehicle barrels into the dark, tires eating up the miles.
Behind us, somewhere in the forest, Viktor Luka’s hired guns are regrouping around a busted cabin with four very unhappy colleagues on the floor.
Ahead of us?
Every uncertain, dangerous mile between here and whatever comes next.
We’re on the run now.
Not hiding.
Not waiting.
Moving.
Lark shifts closer, hip pressed against mine, hand still on my arm like she’s anchoring us both.
“Hey, Knight?” she says.
“Yeah?”
“Let’s make them beg,” she murmurs.
I tighten my grip on the wheel, eyes on the road, heart locked on the girl beside me. “Oh, Birdie,” I say. “That’s the plan.”