Page 62 of Silent as Sin
“Not like him,” I cut in, my voice hard enough to make one of the drunks lift his head. “He leaves a mark wherever he goes. You seen him, you’d remember.”
The man’s jaw tightened. He looked between us, then down at the glass he was smearing with that tired rag. “Ain’t heard that name in a while. Not here.”
A chair scraped behind us. Slow, deliberate. One of the drunks who’d looked half-dead a second ago pushed to his feet, swaying as he grabbed his jacket. He moved toward the door, too steady for someone who’d been nursing beers all day.
Maul stepped in his path. “Where you headed, brother?”
The man froze, eyes darting between us, throat working hard. “Just… outside. Smoke.”
“Funny timing,” Scyth said, his voice like gravel.
The drunk’s hand twitched against his pocket like he was thinking about a weapon, or a phone. My pulse spiked.
Warden’s tone stayed calm, almost bored, but his eyes were menacing. “Sit back down.”
For a second, the man hesitated, his jaw clenched, and in that heartbeat I swore I saw recognition flash when Bones’s name had been spoken. Then his shoulders sagged and he shuffled back to his seat, muttering something under his breath.
The jukebox croaked out a broken note, spilling into a scratchy outlaw tune. The bartender busied himself harder than ever with his glass, refusing to look our way.
Another dead end, or maybe just another wall keeping the truth tucked out of reach.
We regrouped outside, the heat pressing down heavy, swallowing air and patience. Warden lit a cigarette, the flare of his lighter catching the hard set of his jaw. He scanned the horizon like the desert might cough up answers if he stared long enough. His silence said more than words, the frustration of a man who hated chasing shadows.
“He’s out there,” he muttered finally, smoke curling from his mouth. “He doesn’t disappear without purpose.”
Maul shifted beside him, restless. “Feels like we’re chasing our own tails.”
“Better than sitting on our asses.” Scyth’s voice was biting, the edge of loyalty cutting through doubt.
I dragged a hand through my hair, the sweat at my temples stinging. My chest felt too tight, every mile away from the clubhouse pulling harder. Wren’s face kept flashing in my head,the way she’d looked curled on the couch, blanket around her shoulders, refusing to meet my eyes.
“You alright?” Maul asked, squinting at me like he could see too much.
“Fine,” I lied, sliding my helmet on before he could push.
But I wasn’t. Something itched under my skin, a pull I couldn’t shake. Like the road itself was trying to tell me I was in the wrong place, headed the wrong way.
Warden ground out his cigarette, eyes narrowing as if he’d made some decision. “We’ll check one more spot before heading back.”
Engines roared to life again, the pack rolling out in formation. Dust clouds rose behind us, the desert swallowing the noise as we tore down the road.
But no matter how fast I rode, the knot in my chest wouldn’t ease.
Something was wrong. I could feel it.
***
THE RIDE BACKfelt like someone had hammered a crowbar into my skull and left it there. Rain had turned the road to oil; chrome spat and hissed in the dark. We rode tight, elbows pressed to leather, cuts shoulder-to-shoulder, one moving wall of patch and teeth. That’s how we moved.
Whole. Solid. Close enough to feel each other breathe. Still, every mile toward the clubhouse felt like walking blind into a hole.
Bones was already a bad smell in my mouth, rumor and iron and whatever rot follows him. I kept getting flashes of Wren: the flat of her back under my palm, the way she breathed like she’d come home, the whisper in the dark — I want you — a smalldamn promise I’d been carrying in my chest. Now that promise sat there like a coal, hot and fixed, ready to burn me if I let it.
By the ridge the clubhouse sat against the sky like a fresh bruise. Wrong. The lot looked watched, like someone had circled the place and waited. Even the security lights were half dead, nothing but dull bulbs, like the breakers had been pegged.
Engines died in order. Starters clicked like safeties. We filed inside and the air hit before anyone spoke: Wren was in trouble.
Jewel paced the hall, heels cutting wood. Her lip trembled; her eyes were raw. Elara sat empty in a chair, face streaked with salt. Dusty leaned against the wall, head wrapped, fingers still bloody at the temple. His shirt split dark where heat met blood. He looked smaller than he should’ve — edges knocked off.
