Nikki
The red light glows steady—recording. My heart is a frantic bird against my ribs.
"Episode seventy-four," I whisper into the mic. My voice is steady, which is the biggest lie I’ve told all year. "The Silver Serpent Syndicate. For eighteen months, they’ve been a shadow in the corner of every story I’ve told.
A rumor in Crimson Hollow. A ghost on the Hollow Routes.
But shadows don't sign payrolls, and ghosts don't buy judges.
Today, we put names to the faces. Today, we talk about the exile. "
The wind howls through the pines, a low, mournful sound that the dead-cat windscreen on my mic picks up as a soft hiss. I love that sound. It’s honest. Unlike the bastards I’ve been tracking since I burned Tina.
The thought of her name is a physical weight.
Tina. Two years ago, I was a hungry journalist with a platform and a savior complex.
I promised her safety. I promised her the truth would set her free.
Instead, the truth got her found in a drainage ditch three miles outside of town.
I burned a source. I lit the match that ended her life.
I carry her death in the SD card of every recording I make.
It’s my penance. It’s my armor. It’s why I don't sleep, and why I don't stop until the people who did it are dragged into the light.
The Malibu groans, the metal contracting in the morning frost. The front left tire is a pancake, shredded by a jagged piece of granite I didn't see in the dark. I’ve called AAA, but out here, on a switchback that doesn’t officially exist on most maps, I might as well have called the moon.
"The Syndicate thinks they’re untouchable," I continue, my breath blooming in a white cloud.
"They think they’re the kings of the ridge.
But every king has a beginning. And for the Silver Serpents, that beginning is a betrayal.
They weren't born in Crimson Hollow. They were cast out of Pine Valley. Banished. And they want back in."
I click it off. The silence that follows is sharp. It’s the kind of silence that feels like someone is watching you. I glance at the road, a narrow ribbon of gray gravel that disappears into the trees. Nothing. Just the pines and the cold.
I check my phone. No bars. Of course not—the storm's eating what little signal this switchback had to begin with.
I'm in the dead zone, right where a true-crime podcaster with a price on her head shouldn't be. I should be scared. My palms are sweating despite the frost. But there’s a sharp, jagged edge of humor in my chest. If the Syndicate kills me here, at least the acoustics are incredible.
The mountain would echo my final scream for miles. Great for the ratings.
The sound starts as a low vibration in the soles of my boots. A rumble. Not the wind. Not the mountain. An engine.
A truck appears around the bend, moving with a deliberate slowness. It’s an old Ford, the kind that’s more rust and primer than actual paint, battered and bruised by years of mountain work. There are no plates on the front. The windows are tinted dark enough to hide a soul.
It pulls up ten feet from the Malibu and stops. The engine doesn't die; it idles with a heavy, rhythmic thrum that feels like a heartbeat.
Thirty years on this earth and I've never had a sound make the back of my neck go cold like that. The engine just sits, idling, breathing.
The door creaks open.
A man steps out, and for a second, the air just stops.
He’s massive. Not just tall—he’s a mountain made of muscle and granite.
He’s wearing a heavy canvas jacket that’s seen more miles than my car, and a pair of worn jeans that hang off hips that could crush stone.
His hair is dark, messy, and his jaw is covered in a thick, rough beard.
But it’s his eyes that do it. They’re the color of a storm over the ridge, gray and cold and focused.
He smells like birchwood. Not the sweet, smoky smell of a campfire, but the sharp, medicinal scent of the tree itself. It’s clean. It’s lethal.
I don't back away. I don't flinch. I reach for the recorder and click it back on.
"State your name for the record," I say, my voice cracking just enough to show I’m human.
The man doesn't blink. He doesn't even look at the mic. He looks at me. His gaze travels from my messy ponytail down to my hiking boots and back up to my face. Something shifts in the air. It’s not a Thunderbolt. It’s not a bolt of lightning.
It’s the sound of a key turning in a heavy engine that’s been cold for a thousand years.
It’s the click of a safety being moved to 'off. '
The Ignition. I’ve heard the rumors in town. The Broken Halos talk about it like it’s a curse and a blessing all at once. The moment a man realizes he’s no longer his own.
The stranger doesn't speak for a long time. He just stands there, the wind whipping his jacket, his presence filling the road until there’s no room for the mountain anymore.
"AAA isn't coming," he says. His voice is deep, a gravelly baritone that vibrates in my sternum. "The lines are down in the valley."
"How convenient," I snap, leaning harder into the sass because if I don't, I might actually fall over. "And I suppose you just happened to be out for a morning drive on a road that leads to nowhere?"
"I live at nowhere," he says. He takes a step toward me. Just one. It’s enough. I can feel the heat radiating off him. "You’re Nikki. The one with the microphone."
"I have two point one million subscribers who know where I am," I lie. My heart is drumming against my ribs so hard it hurts. "And they’re expecting an update in twenty minutes."
"They’re going to be disappointed," he says. He’s not threatening me. He’s stating a fact, like he’s reading the weather. "You’re hunted, Nikki. By nine a.m., there will be two men on this road, and they won’t be looking for the car. They’re coming for the voice."
I feel the blood drain from my face. The Syndicate. I knew the episode would trigger them, but I didn't think they’d move this fast. I didn't think they’d be on the ridge before the sun was fully up.
"I can handle myself," I say, patting the pocket of my jacket where I keep my tactical pen. It’s a pathetic gesture, and we both know it.
He almost smiles. It’s not a happy expression. It’s the look of a wolf watching a rabbit trying to sharpen its teeth. "You can't handle them. They aren't enforcers. They're hitters. Out-of-state pros."
The sound of a motorcycle cuts through the trees. It’s high-pitched, fast, screaming up the switchback from the east. The man doesn't look toward the sound. He keeps his eyes on me.
A bike skids around the corner, throwing gravel. The rider’s a woman, lean and dangerous, wearing a leather jacket with no patches. Nadia. The information broker. She kills the engine and kicks the stand down, her eyes scanning the road with practiced ease.
"Tracker," she says, nodding to the man.
She doesn't look at me. To her, I’m just cargo.
"The Lieutenant is panicking. He authorized the retrieval an hour ago. Forty thousand on her head. The two-man team is five miles out, coming in from the east drainage." Forty thousand. I’m worth a mid-sized SUV. That’s insulting.
Nadia looks at the man—Ian, I realize. The tracker. "Logan wants her clear. Mac says don't bring her back through the front gate. Use the high trail."
Ian nods. "I've got her."
Nadia pulls a wad of cash from her pocket, counts out five hundred, and tosses it to Ian. He catches it without looking. She doesn't stay. She fires the bike up, pulls a U-turn that kicks a rooster tail of gravel across the road, and vanishes back down the mountain.
The silence returns, but it’s different now. It’s sharper.
"Get in the truck," Ian says.
"I don't even know you," I say, clutching my recorder. "For all I know, you’re the one who’s going to collect that forty grand."
He takes another step. He’s in my space now.
He’s so tall I have to crane my neck to look at him.
He reaches out, his hand hovering near my face.
I expect him to grab me, to force me into the truck, but he doesn't. He brushes a stray hair away from my eye.
His fingers are rough, calloused, and freezing cold, but the touch sends a jolt through me that makes my knees weak.
"I’m the only reason you’re going to see ten a.m.," he says. His eyes are so intense I feel like I’m being branded. "And if I wanted the money, I wouldn't have waited for the sun to come up."
He’s right. I know he’s right. The way he’s looking at me—it’s not about money. It’s not even about the club. It’s something older. Something more primal.
The key has turned in him, and dammit, I can feel the heat of it from here.
"What about my car?" I ask, my voice small. "My gear? My notes?"
"The car stays. The gear is in your hands," he says. He reaches past me, grabs my heavy laptop bag from the front seat, and tosses it into the bed of his truck like it weighs nothing. "The notes are in your head. Move, Nikki. Now."
I look at the Malibu. It’s my cage. It’s been my home for three days while I scouted these routes. Giving it up feels like losing a limb. But I look at the road, where the hitters are coming, and then I look at Ian.
He’s standing by the passenger door of his truck, holding it open. He’s waiting. He’s a granite wall between me and the people who want me dead.
I take a breath, the cold air stinging my lungs, and I walk toward him. I don't look back. I don't look at the flat tire or the beige paint. I step up into the cab of the truck, and the smell of him wraps around me.
Ian slams the door. He rounds the hood in three long strides and climbs into the driver’s seat. He doesn't say anything. He just puts the truck in gear and guns it.
We aren't going down. We aren't going toward Pine Valley.
We’re going up.
"Where are we going?" I ask, clutching my recorder. I’ve forgotten to turn it off. It’s still running, catching the sound of my own frantic breathing.
"Three thousand four hundred feet," he says, his eyes fixed on the narrow trail ahead.
"My ridge. My cabin. No one goes there."
"And now I am?" I ask, my sassy mask slipping back into place. "Should I be honored or terrified?"
He glances at me, and for the first time, I see a flicker of something that might be a smile in the corner of his mouth.
"Both," he says.
The truck bounces over a deep rut, throwing me against the door. Ian reaches over, his hand landing on my thigh to steady me. His palm is huge, heavy, and hot through my jeans. He doesn't move it. He leaves it there, a claim, a promise, a warning.
My skin tingles under his touch. My brain is screaming that I should be running, that I should be recording an SOS, but my body... my body is leaning into him.
"This is Nikki," I whisper, the mic catching the tremor in my voice. "I’m on the eastern ridge. I’m with a man who smells like trees and looks like a storm. And I think... I think the hunt just changed."
Ian’s grip on my leg tightens.
"It didn't change," he says, his voice vibrating through the seat and into my bones. "It ended. You’re mine now, Nikki. The Syndicate can have the mountain. But they don't get you."
The truck hits a patch of ice, and we slide toward the edge of a drop-off that would kill a god.
Ian doesn't even flinch. His hand leaves my thigh and both fists lock on the wheel; he steers into the slide, his muscles rippling under his jacket, and brings us back onto the trail with a precision that’s terrifying.
He’s not a tracker. He’s the mountain itself.
And I’m the woman who just walked into his territory.
I look out the window at the ridge falling away below us. The sun is fully up now, hitting the peaks with a blinding white light. It’s beautiful. It’s lethal.
Just like him.
I click it off. Some things don't need to be on the record. Some things are just for the silence.
Ian shifts gears, his hand brushing my knee, and the weight of Tina’s death doesn't feel like it’s going to crush me. It feels like someone else is helping me carry it.
The key has turned. The engine is running. And God help anyone who tries to get in our way.
Continue reading Prospect's Curvy Podcaster here.