Prologue #3
The radio was still on. The static crackled, a faint buzz that set my nerves on edge. I pulled at my sleeve—a nervous tic, something I’d done since childhood whenever anxiety threatened to swallow me whole.
“—confirmed at least twelve dead and several more critically injured in what authorities are calling the Diamondback Clubhouse Massacre. The brutal attack occurred late last night at the motorcycle club’s headquarters on the outskirts of town.
The Vasquez Cartel is believed to be responsible for the coordinated assault, which witnesses describe as a military-style operation involving automatic weapons and multiple vehicles.
Law enforcement officials say this marks a significant escalation in the ongoing turf war between—”
Earlier that night, everything was normal—at least, as normal as it ever was for us.
The reporter’s words crashed over me, and I felt a cold sweat bead at the back of my neck.
My heartbeat thudded in my ears, loud and insistent.
I reached out, fingers clumsy, and shut the radio off.
The silence was sudden, oppressive, almost suffocating.
I sank onto the couch, burying my face in my hands. My skin was clammy, my breaths shallow, and for a moment I counted them—one, two, three—a mantra to keep myself anchored, keep myself from unraveling. And then, with a jolt, I remembered.
John’s voice. Three weeks ago—before everything changed, before I knew I was pregnant, before he was lost to me.
We were tangled in bed, my head resting on his chest, and he got quiet.
His fingers brushed my hair back, lips pressed to my forehead in that gentle way he did whenever the world felt too sharp.
“Lina, I need you to promise me something.”
“What?”
“If something happens to me. If something goes wrong. I need you to leave. I need you to run and never look back.”
“John, don’t.”
“Promise me.” His hand had tightened on my hip, the way it always did when he was scared but wouldn’t admit it. “Promise me you’ll get out. That you won’t stay here. That you’ll be safe.”
I’d promised. I didn’t understand then. I couldn’t. But now—only a few hours after the massacre that took him—I understood. My hands still shook, but I pressed my palm to my belly, trying to convince myself the flutter I felt was hope and not fear.
He had known. Somehow, he’d sensed this was coming. The danger, the violence, the club’s world threatening to swallow us whole. And all he wanted was for me to survive.
I stood up, rubbing at my wrist with my thumb—a habit John used to tease me about. My mind was sharp now, the fog burned away by adrenaline and what felt like grief’s cruel clarity. My inner mantra echoed: Be strong. Keep moving. Protect the baby.
I had to go. Leave Lawton, leave Oklahoma, leave everything behind. Because John was gone—only hours gone—and the world he lived in, the violence and blood, was still here. I was barely pregnant, but already every instinct screamed at me to run for the sake of the small life inside me.
Our baby. The only piece of him I had left. I whispered it under my breath, the way I used to when I needed courage.
I moved through my apartment like a ghost—feet barely making a sound on the worn hardwood.
I grabbed a duffel bag. Threw in clothes, toiletries, the old sweatshirt John used to wear, still smelling faintly of his cologne.
I hesitated over a framed photo of us at the diner, laughing during a late-night pancake binge—my favorite meal to cook with him, because he’d always insist on extra chocolate chips and pile the whipped cream high.
For a moment, I pressed the frame to my chest, struggling to let go of normalcy amid the chaos.
But finally, I wrapped the pregnancy test in that same sweatshirt and tucked it into the bottom of the bag—a secret, proof that he was real, we were real, and this baby was made from something good.
I counted my savings from the nightstand drawer—three thousand dollars, painstakingly collected from shifts at the diner. My hands shook, but I steadied them, whispering my mantra again: Be strong. Keep moving. It wasn’t much, but it would get me somewhere—anywhere.
San Francisco. The thought dropped into my mind, unexpected but right. My college roommate lived there—we’d messaged just last week. She’d help. She’d let me crash until I figured things out.
I could start over. I could raise this baby far from Lawton, from the Diamondbacks, from the violence. I could give our child a life that wasn’t haunted by sirens and blood.
I slung the duffel over my shoulder, then took one last look at the apartment—at the tiny kitchen where we’d cooked breakfast together, at the couch where we’d dreamed and laughed and let the world slip away.
Now it was just walls, empty and echoing.
I pressed my fingers to the light switch, flicking it off with a sense of finality.
Empty. Like me. But I was not nothing—I was a mother, a survivor, a keeper of hope.
I locked the door behind me, feeling the cool metal beneath my palm, and walked to my car.
The night was dark and silent, the stars distant pinpricks of light.
I tilted my head up, wondering if John could see them too, wherever he was.
If he knew I was keeping my promise, protecting our baby, clinging to the hope he’d given me.
My chest ached with the memory, but beneath it, determination thrummed—a racing heartbeat urging me on.
I’m sorry, I thought, pressing my fingers to my lips—a new habit, born of grief. I’m so sorry. But I have to protect our baby. I have to keep it safe. Like you wanted me to be safe.
I got in my car, started the engine, and drove. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. Because if I did, I would fall apart completely. And I couldn’t afford to fall apart. Not anymore. Not when I had a life growing inside me that depended on me to be strong.
So I drove west, toward California, toward a future I couldn’t see but had to believe in. I left Lawton, left John, left the Diamondbacks—and everything I had known—behind in the rearview mirror, the timeline of my life split in two: before, and now.
Gone. Like smoke, carried away on the wind.
Like the dream I’d never truly wake from, except now, the nightmare was real—and I was running, holding onto hope, and to the tiny heartbeat inside me that kept me moving forward.