Page 39 of Ride Forever
Chaser was silent so long, I was starting to believe he’d spiraled into some kind of mental episode.
“What did he offer you?” he whispered.
“My name will be cleared, the murder charges… If I don’t give him what he wants, I’ll be sentenced to life in prison, or… Or I can hang from his ceiling as he—”
“Don’t,” Chaser snapped. “Don’t fucking say it.” He turned, fisting his hands into his hair. “What does he want?”
“You,” I whispered, my throat constricting. “He wants you.”
He tensed, but he didn’t explode again. Glancing over his shoulder, he asked, “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
“I don’t know!” I exclaimed, my exhaustion getting to me. “I was angry, confused, scared…”
“How long did he give you?”
“Forty-eight hours.”
He grunted.
“You were going to use yourself as bait anyway,” I continued. “How is this any different?”
“Because he knows everything we’re going to do before we do it.”
“There’s no way he could know,” I scoffed. “He isn’t a fucking supervillain with mind control powers.”
Chaser raised his eyebrows. “He may as well be. He’s one step ahead of us at every point.”
“That’s because he’s a professional,” I exclaimed, tugging on his sleeve. “This is what he breathes in and out. It’s what he eats and shits. He’s the king for a reason. All we have to do is…” I trailed off, knowing anything I could suggest would be lame as hell. I didn’t know shit.
“What we have to do is give him what he wants,” Chaser declared.
“What? No!” I curled my hand around his arm, my fingers biting into his flesh. “We have to turn his game around and fuck him up the ass with it.”
“Sloane… If we fail…” Chaser swallowed hard, his eyes lowering.
“We were going to do the same thing,” I argued. “Nothing’s changed.”
“Everything’schanged.”
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “You can’t—”
A knock broke us apart, and I stared at the door, tensing up further. Chaser didn’t hesitate though. He strode across the room and peered through the peephole before opening the door and letting in a familiar hulking mass.
“Gasket!” I leaped across the room and flung myself into his arms, holding him tightly. He smelled like leather and motor oil. Gasket would talk sense into Chaser. I knew he would.
“Hey, kid,” he said, his gravelly voice comforting as he returned my embrace. “I hear you’ve been on one hell of a ride.”
“That’s the understatement of the century.”
“You came alone?” Chaser asked.
“Had to,” Gasket replied. “Things are still up in the air.”
“Why are you here?” I asked. “Isn’t it a risk?”
Gasket nodded. “After Chaser told me what happened, I had to see you. Besides, things are getting dicey.”
“Are you back at the compound?” I went on, firing off questions left, right, and center. “The FBI said they’d swept the place after the cabin.”
