Page 77 of Blood & Throttle
Doc pats my cheek on her way out. “If you need me, I’ll be patching up the ones who didn’t get laid last night.”
She pauses in the doorway, one hand on the frame, and flicks her eyes toward Riot.
“Crews are already in the pit. Handler’s calling for staging.”
Then she looks at me and the smirk fades from her lips.
“I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but someone just dropped a bet on your head.”
My stomach twists.
Doc doesn’t blink as she says it. “One point four million credits. Dead or dying.”
Riot straightens behind me, slow and sharp.
I turn to look at him and find him grinning.
A low, cocky laugh slips past his lips, but there’s nothing soft in it. Just heat. Teeth. A warning dressed like humor.
“Cute,” he mutters. “They think they’ll get a shot.”
He steps closer, eyes locked on Doc. “Not while she’s onmybike.”
His tone is casual, but every word lands like a bullet.
Doc nods once, satisfied. “Didn’t think so. Still, eyes up. Everyone out there wants their payday.”
Her gaze flicks back to me, cooler now, but no less real.
She turns and walks out, heavy boots echoing across the metal floor.
Silence follows.
And in that silence, something inside me shifts.
This isn’t just survival anymore.
This is war.
And I’m the fucking prize.
By the timewe step into the yard, the air already feels like war.
Engines roar. Smoke clings to the ground like it’s trying to suffocate us before the race even starts. Drones buzz overhead like mechanical vultures, red lenses blinking as they lock onto riders and beam every second of this bloodsport straight to the districts. Live. Raw. No edits.
The crowd’s packed in tight behind the barricades—handlers, smugglers, junkies, degenerates—every last one of them screaming for violence like it’s a sporting event and not a televised execution.
Wraithmoor doesn’t do subtle.
Everything here is cracked, rusted, or bleeding.
Cranes sit frozen mid-collapse. Overpasses dangle by cables, half-swallowed by smog. The ground is scarred with old tire marks and fresh blood. This place? It doesn’t care who you are, or how fast you ride.
It only cares if you survive.
They call this circuit The Concrete Graveyard.
Which is fitting.
