Page 1 of Ride Forever
Chapter 1
Sloane
The sun was hot on my shoulders, the rays frying my skin to a crisp.
Pressing my fingers on the arms of my aviator sunglasses behind my ears, I angled them up so I could take a look at the horizon without the polarized filter. There was a hazy brown smudge breaking up the expanse of blue.Wildfires, I thought. I’d had enough of the dry furnace heat of burning buildings and was glad we were in the desert away from all of that.
I allowed my sunglasses to fall back into place, and I rubbed my eyes, trying to forcibly remove the images of flames roaring toward the sky. The smoke and the stench had blotted out the stars… It’d been unbelievable.
The roof of the motel was empty, the high heat keeping most people away from the lackluster patio area. Behind me, broken and faded lawn chairs were scattered across the tarred surface and tattered beach umbrellas cast mediocre shade. At some point, someone had the foresight to blow up an inflatable wading pool, but it had long since burst from neglect. Chaser sure knew how to find the shittiest shithole this side of the desert oasis.
My feet dangled over the side of the building, my ass firmly behind the lip of the flimsy railing my arms were threaded through. Staring at my boots, I closed one eye then the other, focusing on the car park below. The right toe had a deep gouge mark across the leather that hadn’t been there two nights ago.
A gust of wind stirred my hair, and a tumbleweed bounced across the street.The Santa Ana winds are whipping up, I thought.Sucks for those wildfires.
There were lots of things I should’ve been thinking about, but I couldn’t focus. It wasn’t the heat or my exhaustion, it was just…trauma, I guessed. Ever since I’d woken up in the motel room downstairs, I hadn’t closed my eyes. I couldn’t.
Reaching into the pocket of my jeans shorts, I pulled out the ring I’d stolen from Marini’s bedside table back at the Fortitude compound.
My fingers worried the gold band, and my fingernail dragged along the ridges of the diamond setting. It was the only thing I had of my mom’s, and before the other day, I’d had nothing at all. I didn’t like what it stood for, but it was hers, and it was all that mattered.Daddy gave that to me on the beach, she’d said. I hated that he’d kept it.
“All right?”
Closing my fist around the ring, I glanced up at Chaser. His left eye was swollen and slightly bloodshot, and his entire face was mottled black and blue with added scratches. He’d really taken a pounding the night we’d faced off against the Fortitude renegades.
“I’ve got a headache,” I replied, leaning my head against the railing.
“You should drink more water.” He sat beside me and wiped the back of his arm across his brow.
“You should put ice on your face. It’s the perfect weather for it.”
He shrugged, and I glanced at his leg. The stab wound he’d gotten on the train had been bothering him, but he seemed okay today. Either he was hiding the pain or it was finally getting better.
“There are wildfires near Santa Clarita,” he said after a moment.
I didn’t like the mention of fire. We still hadn’t heard from Gasket, who, Chaser said, had ridden off with the rest of Fortitude to hunt down the remaining renegades. That was two nights ago.
“At night, I can see the light from the Strip,” I said absently. “The entire horizon glows this strange bluish orange, like a neon explosion.”
When Chaser had let slip that the Best Western from hell was sitting on the outer rim of actual Hell—aka Hollow Men ground central, aka Las Vegas—I wasn’t sure how to take it. On the one hand, I wanted to run in the other direction, the thought of more heartache and pain too much to handle. On the other appendage, nothing would be as satisfying as murdering King, the head honcho of the desert mafia. The man I was going to be sold to as a sex slave, and the man who was responsible for killing Chaser’s wife. I had promised revenge, after all.
“We’re safe here,” Chaser said. “I made sure of it.”
I grunted, turning my head so I was staring at the desert.
“Sloane.”
“We should be planning, not sitting in a musty motel room,” I said, unable to hold onto my annoyance a second longer. “Can you get a respiratory disease from mold? Because I feel like I’m getting one.”
Chaser just gave me his trademark blank look. He was a master at hiding his emotions, which mainly pissed me off but must have been a riot when he was out on a job. Until recently, he’d been my father’s executioner. An image of Marini’s vacant eyes appeared in my mind, and I shook my head. I didn’t know how Chaser did it.
If things had just gone the way they were supposed to, I’d have an entire motorcycle club riding into battle behind me, but the coup had been screwed before it had even gone down, and now I was here with Chaser in hiding. The two of us against a criminal organization that had its claws sunk into every major law enforcement agency? I may as well fling myself off the side of this shitty motel right now and be done with it.
“You are not alone,” Chaser said, reading my mind with uncanny accuracy.
“What? Are you a psychic now?”
“Having the plan go off without a hitch was a dream, Sloane,” he replied. “They know we’re out there, planning something, so we may as well take our time.”
