Chapter 1: Last Call Temptation
The neon sign of the Quick-Stop buzzed like an angry insect, flickering a sickly yellow over the rain-slicked pavement. Kate killed the engine of her black and pink Kawasaki 650, the sudden silence a relief after the roar of the ride. Her knuckles ached from clutching the handlebars too tightly, the ghost of a twelve-hour shift still vibrating in her bones.
All she wanted was the burn of a cheap sugary FourLoko or a Buzzball at the back of her throat and the muffled silence of her apartment.
She pulled off her helmet, letting the damp night air hit her face. Her dyed black hair, plastered to her scalp, stuck to the lollipop tattoo on her upper arm as she shook it out. The glare of headlights from the highway cut through the mist, but the lot was shadowy near the store’s entrance.
Three figures were clustered there, leaning against gleaming motorcycles. The low rumble of their conversation and the occasional rasp of a lighter cut through the hum of the neon. Bikers. Not the weekend warrior types on gleaming Harley baggers, but sports bikes—Kawasakis like hers, but modded, predatory. Her social anxiety, a live wire in her chest, sparked instantly. She kept her head down, eyes on the cracked asphalt, and walked a wide berth around them.
“Nice ride,” a voice said, friendly and light.
She didn’t look up. A compliment on the bike was just an opener. It always was. Her boots scuffed against the concrete.
“Torque, she ain’t interested in your tech specs, man,” a deeper, rougher voice grumbled.
She pushed through the glass door, the electronic chime a sharp, insultingly cheerful sound. The fluorescent lights inside were a sterile, buzzing assault. The place smelled of stale coffee, heated plastic, and the tang of motor oil from a stand of additives by the register. She beelined for the coolers at the back.
Aisle 3 was a canyon of cheap consolation. Towering shelves held every possible permutation of sugar, caffeine, and alcohol in garishly colored cans and bottles. The hum of the cooling system was a low, steady drone. She stood there, her fingers trailing over the cold metal, staring at a vibrant pink can without really seeing it. The events of the day played on a loop behind her eyes: the condescending tone of her manager, the missed deadline that wasn’t her fault, the crushing sense of being utterly invisible in a room full of people. She grabbed two FourLokos, the cans slick with condensation.
As she turned, she almost walked into him.
He filled the end of the aisle, blocking the light. He was tall—so tall she had to tip her head back—and broad, wearing a weathered leather jacket over a plain black tee. Tattoos coiled up his neck and spilled over the backs of his hands. His hair was dark, shorn close at the sides. But it was his eyes that stopped her breath. They were a pale, piercing grey, like stone washed smooth by a river, and they were fixed on her with an unnerving, direct stillness.
Not on her body. On her face.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, a trapped bird. She clutched the cans to her chest like a shield. The mantra started in her head: Don’t speak don’t stammer just go just move.
He didn’t leer. He didn’t smile. He just… observed. Then his gaze flicked down, just for a second, to the cans in her arms. Back to her face. A single, almost imperceptible eyebrow twitched. Was that judgment? Amusement? She couldn’t read it.
“Rough day,” she mumbled, the words escaping before she could cork them in. It wasn’t an invitation. It was a defense, a pathetic explanation for the sad choices in her hands.
His lips parted as if to say something. No sound came out. He just gave a slow, slight nod that seemed to hold an understanding so deep it was unsettling. Then, silently, he stepped aside, granting her passage. The space he cleared felt charged, like air after lightning.
She hurried past, the warmth of his body and the scent of leather, gasoline, and clean sweat hitting her senses. She went to the counter, snagging a candy bar and a bag of chips, her skin prickling with the awareness of his presence somewhere behind her in the store. The clerk rang her up with a bland disinterest. The chime sounded again as she left, the two heavy cans dangling from her fingers in a plastic bag.
The three men were still outside. The friendly one, Torque, was laughing at something. The rugged one, Dez, was lighting a cigarette, his eyes sharp and assessing as they landed on her. And the tall one—him—was now leaning against the brick wall beside the door, arms crossed. Watching. Always watching.
She forced her legs to carry her to her bike. Fumbled with her helmet. The bag hook on her handlebars seemed to defy physics.
“You know,” the tall one’s voice cut through the night, calm and low. It wasn’t a shout. It was a statement that simply arrived at her ears. “The 2018 Z650 has a slipper clutch. Makes downshifting smoother. Less jarring when you’re tired.”
Kate froze, one strap of her helmet unbuckled. He’d not only identified her bike from a glance in the dark, he’d diagnosed her jerky ride home from fifty feet away. He’d seen the frustration in her body, translated it into mechanical terms.
She turned her head, just enough to see him in her periphery. He hadn’t moved from the wall. His grey eyes glinted in the neon.
“Thanks,” she said, the word barely more than a breath.
Dez snorted, exhaling a plume of smoke. “Leave her be, Ghost. She’s a Booktok girl. Probably thinks a carburetor is a fancy French pastry.”
Something hot and sharp flared behind Kate’s ribs. Anxiety melted, burned away by a sudden, pure jet of anger. She looked right at Dez, her shy facade cracking to reveal the edge beneath. “I know what the fuck a carburetor is,” she said, her voice clearer now. “I used to help my stepdad rebuild cars and sports bikes, asshole.”
Silence fell over the three men. Torque’s mouth hung open. Dez’s assessing look deepened into genuine surprise.
Dez blinked, then a slow, reluctant smirk spread across his face. He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, the cigarette dangling from his fingers. “Alright, alright. My bad, little sister.”
The one called Ghost pushed off the wall. His movement was fluid, deliberate, not a single motion wasted. He took two steps toward her, closing the distance between them without seeming to rush. Up close, the details of him were overwhelming. The intricate ink on his knuckles, a pattern of interlocking gears and old-school film reels. A faint, silvery scar through his left eyebrow. That quiet intensity radiating from him like heat off asphalt.
“He’s an asshole,” Ghost said, his voice still that low, steady rumble. He wasn’t apologizing for Dez. He was stating a fact. “But he’s right about one thing. You should be careful. This lot gets sketchy after midnight.”
“I can handle myself, thanks,” Kate said, the defiance automatic, even as her pulse thrummed in her throat. She gestured to her pink and black Spiderco knife clipped onto her pants pocket and the keychain with a bright dispenser of gel pepper spray on her backpack. She finished securing her helmet, the click of the strap overly loud.
Ghost’s eyes tracked the movement, then returned to her face. That almost-nod again. “I don’t doubt it.” He didn’t smile. It wasn’t flattery. It was a reassessment, and it felt more genuine than any compliment she’d ever received.
Dez took a drag of his cigarette, the ember flaring in the gloom. “Feisty. You sure you’re not lost, Sweetheart? Book club meetup’s probably at the Starbucks.”
Kate swung her leg over the bike, the seat cool through her jeans. She looked right at him, the neon reflecting in her dark eyes. “And you’re sure you’re not compensating for something with all that chrome? It’s a common psychological tell.” The words left her, sharp and quiet. She hadn’t planned them. They just came, from that hidden, angry place her manager never got to see.
A beat of silence. Then Torque let out a loud, genuine laugh, slapping his thigh. “Oh, shit! She got you, man! She got you good!”
Even Dez’s stern facade broke into a grudging, wide grin. He shook his head, exhaling smoke. “Alright, you got a mouth on you. I’ll give you that.”
Only Ghost remained unchanged, that penetrating stillness focused on her. But something in his grey eyes had shifted, a flicker of intense, unmistakable interest. It wasn’t predatory.
Tucking her drinks in her bag, she started up her bike. "I can also throw hands." She said, kicking her bike into gear and pulling her black visor down on her helmet.
The roar of her own engine was a welcome barrier, sealing her off from the world. She let the throttle out a bit too fast, the rear tire giving a slight, satisfying skid on the damp asphalt before it caught and propelled her toward the highway onramp. The wind whipped at her jacket, trying to steal the heat her confrontation had generated.
Behind her, under the buzzing sign, Ghost watched her go. The red taillight of her bike shrank to a single furious pinprick and was swallowed by the traffic stream.
“What the hell was that?” Dez grunted, tossing his cigarette butt into a puddle where it died with a hiss.
“That,” Torque said, still grinning, “was a fucking event. Did you see her face when you called her a Booktok girl? I thought she was gonna stab you with that little pink knife.”
“She’s trouble,” Dez said, crossing his arms. His eyes were still on the empty road. “The quiet, mouthy ones always are. You see those tattoos? That ain’t a Sunday school teacher.”
Ghost said nothing. He was replaying it. The way she’d hunched in the aisle, trying to make herself small against the towering shelves of forgetfulness. The sudden, volcanic shift when Dez poked her. The fire in her dark eyes wasn’t just anger; it was intelligence, a sharp, assessing wit that calculated the exact phrase to cut with. She’d looked at Dez’s bike, at his persona, and in a split second, she’d found the seam in his armor. That took a rare kind of nerve.
“You’re staring at empty road, man,” Torque noted, elbowing Ghost gently.
“She’s got a messed-up chain,” Ghost said finally, his voice quiet. “Heard it clicking. Too tight. Wears the sprocket, kills the output.”
Dez shook his head, a short, exasperated movement. “Of course you were listening to her chain. I’m telling you, she’s a complication. You don’t need complications.”
Ghost pushed off the wall, the movement decisive. “We’re done here.” He walked toward his own bike, a matte black Z650 with custom grips and no unnecessary chrome. He didn’t need complications. He had a past that functioned like a locked room, and he was careful about who got a key. But complications, he knew, were rarely convenient. And they were almost always the only things that mattered.
The vibration was wrong.
Kate felt it halfway home, a high, metallic whine underneath the familiar pulse of the engine. It came through the footpegs, a jarring chatter in her bones. “Damn it,” she muttered into her helmet. She’d been so focused on getting away, on the adrenaline of the exchange, that she’d ignored the machine’s language.
She took the next exit, gliding into a poorly lit rest stop dominated by the hollow shell of a closed diner. She killed the engine, and the sudden silence was filled with the distant whine of semis on the overpass. The rain had softened to a cold mist that clung to everything.
Dismounting, she crouched by the rear wheel, pulling a small penlight from her jacket pocket. The beam cut through the gloom, illuminating the chain. It was bone-dry, the links caked with old grime. And it was, as the towering stranger had diagnosed, far too tight. She could barely force a half-inch of play in it. A recipe for a snapped chain or a fried transmission. “Stupid,” she whispered to herself. She’d been meaning to adjust and lube it for a week, but the depressive fog of her job had made even basic maintenance feel like climbing a mountain.
The frustration that followed was a physical weight. It wasn’t just the chain. It was the manager’s smirk, the silent, judging nod from the grey-eyed man at her choice of poison, the sheer, accumulated exhaustion of holding herself together. A hot, sudden pressure built behind her eyes. She squeezed them shut, gripping the cold metal of the swingarm until the feeling passed.
"Fuck fuck FUCK!"
Standing up, she wiped her hands on her jeans and pulled out one of the FourLokos. The crack-hiss of the tab was loud in the empty lot. She took a long, bitter swallow, leaning back against her bike’s seat, staring at the dark diner windows. The sugar and alcohol hit her system, a cheap, warm simulacrum of comfort.
Headlights swept across the tarmac, slow and deliberate. Not a semi. A single bike. Her body went taut. The engine was a low, tuned growl she recognized from the gas station. It purred to a stop about twenty feet away.
He cut the engine. The silence returned, heavier now.
Ghost sat on his bike for a moment, a silhouette against the sodium vapor lights of the overpass. Then he dismounted, his movements unhurried. He didn’t approach her directly. He walked to the front of his bike, pulled a weathered leather tool roll from a saddlebag, and laid it on the seat.
“Chain’s too tight,” he said, not looking at her. He stated it like it was a fact of nature, the time of day.
“I know,” Kate said. Her voice sounded small. She took another drink, the can trembling slightly in her hand.
“Sprocket’s probably starting to hook. You hear the whine?”
“I heard it.”
He finally looked at her then. In the flat, shadowless light, he looked older. The tattoos on his knuckles were just dark smudges. His grey eyes seemed to see right through the bravado she’d displayed an hour ago, down to the shaky, tired woman drowning her day in sugar and alcohol in a deserted parking lot.
He didn’t mention the can. He didn’t smirk. He just nodded toward her rear wheel. “Got a stand? I’ve got the wrenches.”
This was the moment to refuse. To tell the strange, intense, tattooed man to leave her alone. Every instinct born from a lifetime of anxiety and city-living warned her to. But another instinct, deeper and quieter, recognized the offer for what it was. It wasn’t pity. It was a tradesman seeing a job that needed doing.
“Under the tail,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
He found her compact paddock stand, set it up, and rolled the rear wheel off the ground with an effortless efficiency that spoke of a thousand repetitions. He worked in silence, the mist beading on his leather jacket. The rhythmic clink of the wrench on the adjuster nut, the soft rustle of the chain as he checked the play, were the only sounds.
Kate watched, sipping her drink, the cold seeping through her clothes. “Why?” she asked finally.
He didn’t pause. “Because a screwed-up chain’ll fail at the worst possible time. Probably in a curve. Or in traffic.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He stopped then, one hand on the wheel. He looked over his shoulder at her, his profile sharp. The silence stretched, filled with the sigh of distant trucks. “You knew what a carburetor was,” he said simply, as if that explained everything. He turned back to his work. “Most people don’t.”
It was the strangest compliment she’d ever received. It acknowledged the person she was behind the shyness and the bad choices. It saw the stepdad’s garage, the grease under her nails, the mind that understood basic mechanics. A lump formed in her throat that had nothing to do with the sickly-sweet drink.
He finished the adjustment, then sprayed a thick, clear lubricant from a can in his roll onto the chain, turning the wheel slowly by hand. The sticky, petroleum smell cut through the damp air. “That’ll get you home. Needs a proper clean and a new front sprocket soon. You’re welcome to my garage if you don’t have the space.”
He packed his tools with the same methodical care. He didn’t ask for her number. He didn’t suggest a drink. He offered a use for his garage.
He walked back to his bike, slinging the tool roll into the bag. He swung his leg over the seat and looked at her once more. The mist caught in his short hair, making it gleam under the pale light. “The whine will be gone. Should ride smoother.”
“Thank you,” she said. The words felt inadequate.
He didn’t wait for a response. He kick-started his bike, the engine roaring to life, a sound of pure, contained power. He lifted a hand, not a wave, just a brief acknowledgment, and then he was gone, merging onto the overpass and disappearing into the river of light.
The silence he left behind was different. It wasn’t empty. It was charged.
Kate stood there for a long time, the empty can cold in her hand. She looked at her bike, the chain now glistening and slackened to a proper tension. The weariness was still there, a dull ache in her bones. But layered over it was something else, a faint, unfamiliar current.
She mounted her bike, started it. The engine’s pulse was steady, clean. She pulled onto the road, and the whine was gone. Just the smooth, rhythmic growl of a machine running right.
Just the smooth, rhythmic growl of a machine running right.
For two days, the memory of it played on a loop in Kate’s head. The ghost of the repair. The ghost of the man. Ghost. She rolled the name around in her mind while stocking shelves with romance novels at the bookstore where she worked. It fit him—a silent, watchful presence that appeared and vanished, leaving only a tangible change in his wake. Her bike did ride smoother. The absence of that metallic nagging whine was a physical relief, a correction she hadn’t realized was so necessary.
Her manager, Brenda, a woman whose face seemed permanently pinched by disdain, materialized at the end of the aisle. “McCoy, the new True Crime display is looking cluttered. It’s supposed to be evocative, not look like a garage sale. Fix it.”
“Sure,” Kate said, the word automatic and hollow. She didn’t look up from the box of paperbacks. The desire to tell Brenda exactly where she could shelve her evocative display was a hot, sweet coal on her tongue. She swallowed it. This job kept the lights on and the bike in gas. Rebellion was a luxury.
Later, hunched over her phone in the dim break room that smelled of burnt microwave popcorn and defeat, she did something stupid. Her thumbs moved before her anxiety could veto them. A search. Local bike forums. Racing clubs. His name was too generic, but “Ghost” paired with “Z650” and the vague memory of his license plate frame—Vale of Shadows Customs—narrowed it down. Her pulse ticked up when she found it. Not a profile, just a mention in a build thread from two years ago: “Shoutout to Ghost at VoS for the wicked subframe mod. Dude’s a damn artist with a welder.”
An artist. The guy with knuckles like weaponized machinery was an artist.
She stared at the words until they blurred. Vale of Shadows Customs. It sounded like a metal band or a bad omen. She tapped the address linked to the post—an industrial unit on the south edge of town, in the maze of warehouses and auto-body shops. She memorized it. A reckless, thrilling impulse made her screenshot the map.
She didn’t go that day. Or the next. She carried the address with her like a stolen talisman, her secret dissent against the Brenda-shaped reality of her life.
The following Friday, the sky opened up. Rain fell in thick, diagonal sheets, turning the streets into shallow rivers. Riding was out of the question. The bus was late, soaked, and smelled of wet wool and despair. By the time she stumbled into her apartment, her Docs were squelching and her mood was blacker than her dyed hair.
The four walls of her studio seemed to press closer in the grey afternoon light. The curated shelves of horror novels and manga, her sanctuary, felt like a cage. The quiet hum of the refrigerator was a maddening drone. The silence was complete, and in it, her own thoughts were too loud. The chain on her bike was fine. Everything else felt catastrophically loose.
She changed into dry clothes—faded jeans, a band t-shirt for a horror-punk group—and paced. The screenshot on her phone was a pixelated beacon. An artist with a welder.
“Screw it,” she said to the empty room.
Her voice sounded strange, decisive. It sparked a flicker of the person who’d told off Dez. She grabbed her keys, her leather jacket, and a helmet, and called for a rideshare. This was insanity. Showing up at a custom bike shop unannounced? Her social anxiety screamed a dozen scenarios of humiliation. But the momentum of the decision, the need to move, was stronger. The potential for a disastrous interaction was almost perversely appealing. It was a feeling. Anything was better than the numb, rainy-day emptiness.
The rideshare dropped her at the mouth of a service road lined with corrugated metal buildings. Vale of Shadows Customs was Unit 17. The roll-up door was shut against the rain, but a pedestrian door stood ajar beside it, yellow light spilling out onto the wet asphalt. The sound of classic rock—something with a snarling guitar riff—warred with the hiss of rain and the deeper, sporadic buzz-rasp of a welder.
She stood there for a full minute, getting wetter. This was the part where a sane person turned around. She took a breath that did nothing to steady her, and pushed the door open.
The smell hit her first: ozone, hot metal, fresh paint, and leather. It was a clean, purposeful smell. The space was a cathedral of machinery. Two motorcycle skeletons were up on lifts. A third, a vintage cruiser, sat gleaming under drop lights. Parts were organized on shelves with a meticulousness that bordered on obsessive. In the center of the bay, under a shower of brilliant white sparks, was a figure.
Ghost.
He was crouched, torch in hand, welding a delicate seam on a custom exhaust pipe. The light was blinding, painting his silhouette in stark relief against the shadows of the shop. He wore a black tank top now, and the tattoos on his arms and shoulders shifted and coiled with the play of muscle as he worked. He was utterly absorbed, a study in intense, singular focus.
The music died, switching to a slow, bass-heavy track. The welder’s buzz cut off. He lifted his helmet, the auto-darkening lens clearing to reveal his face. He was sweaty, a smudge of grime on his cheek. He saw her.
He didn’t startle. He just looked. Those grey eyes tracked from her rain-damp hair, down her jacket, to the helmet in her hand. His expression was unreadable, but a flicker in his gaze—surprise, maybe, followed by that same deep assessment—passed through them.
“Chain came loose?” he asked, his voice flat. No hello.
“No.” Kate’s own voice was tighter than she wanted. She took a step inside, letting the door swing shut behind her. The rain sound muted. “It’s perfect. Thank you, again.”
He nodded, setting the welder down and standing up. He was even taller without the bulk of his jacket. The tattoos on his arms were a museum of iconography: vintage camera lenses, old-school monster movie posters in fine detail, intricate geometric patterns that flowed into more stark, brutal imagery. It was breathtaking work.
“So.” He grabbed a rag, wiped his hands. The motion was slow, giving her space. “You lost?”
She forced herself to meet his gaze. “You offered your garage. For the sprocket. I was in the neighborhood.” The lie was pathetic. Nothing was in this neighborhood.
A corner of his mouth twitched. It wasn’t quite a smile. It was an acknowledgement of the bullshit. “Right.” He looked past her, out the door at the pouring rain. “Bike’s not here.”
“I took a car. It’s… wet.”
“Yeah.” He tossed the rag onto a workbench. “Sprocket’s a fifteen-minute job. You don’t have the tool for the counter-shaft nut.”
“I have a big wrench and a hammer,” she said defensively.
He actually snorted. A short, soft sound. “That’s how you strip splines. Come here.”
He turned and walked toward a cluttered but organized bench against the far wall. After a heartbeat, she followed. The concrete floor was stained with decades of oil and paint. Up close, the work on the bench was astonishing. He was hand-forming a fender from raw steel, the curves fluid and perfect. Next to it was a sketchbook, open to detailed drawings of biomechanical designs merging flesh and machine.
“You draw these?” The question escaped her.
“Yeah.” He didn’t elaborate, rooting in a bin for a small, sealed box. He held it up. “JT 525. You need a new chain too, while you’re at it. That one’s stretched.”
She just blinked. The casual authority, the assumption she’d agree, was somehow not offensive. It was practical. “Okay.”
“I’ll do it. You can watch. Or you can make coffee.” He gestured with his chin toward a small, grimy kitchenette in the corner. “Pot’s there. Stuff’s in the cabinet. I take it black.”
It wasn’t a request. It was a test, or an assignment. A way to make her presence have a function, to diffuse the weirdness of her showing up. She was suddenly, profoundly grateful for it.
“I can do that.” She set her helmet down and moved to the kitchenette. As she fumbled with the ancient coffee maker, she was intensely aware of him moving behind her. The clatter of tools, the solid thunk of her new sprocket being laid on the bench. She sneaked glances. He moved with an economical grace, every action precise. He didn’t fill the silence with chatter. The rain and the low music did that.
She brought him a chipped mug of black coffee. He took it, his fingers brushing hers. A brief, electric contact. “Thanks.”
He took a sip, then set the mug down and rolled her bike’s rear wheel over to a stand. “So. ‘I was in the neighborhood.’” He repeated her words, his tone neutral.
“I looked you up,” she admitted, the truth easier now with her back to him, watching his hands work. “Vale of Shadows. It’s not exactly a florist.”
“No.” He loosened the axle nut with a long breaker bar, his bicep straining. “It’s not.” He didn’t ask why she looked him up. He let the silence hang, giving her the room to offer more.
“My day sucked. My boss is a soul-sucking harpy. The rain felt… personal.” She leaned against the bench, crossing her arms. “This place smelled better than my apartment.”
He nodded, as if this made perfect sense. He slid the old, hooked sprocket off and held it up for her to see the worn teeth. “This was about three hard shifts from leaving you stranded. See the curve?” His explanation was technical, but his voice was calm, almost gentle. It was how he connected. Through the mechanics of things.
“I see it.”
He cleaned the hub, his movements reverent. “What does the soul-sucking harpy do?”
“She manages a bookstore. And micromanages my will to live.”
“Books.” He slid the new sprocket on. It fit with a satisfying, solid click. “You read the stuff you sell?”
“Mostly horror. Some dark romance. The stuff that makes people feel things, even if they’re awful things.”
He paused, looking at her. A real look, the first one that felt prolonged. “The Haunting of Hill House or The Shining?”
The question was so unexpected, so perfectly targeted, it knocked the breath from her. “Hill House. No contest. The book, not the show.”
A slow nod. A spark of genuine warmth in the grey. “The house is the monster. It’s quieter. Smarter.” He returned to torquing the axle nut. “I’ve got a print of the original cover art in the office.”
Of course he did. The puzzle piece slid into place with an almost audible click. The film reel tattoos. The monsters in the sketchbook. Her heart did a slow, heavy roll in her chest. It wasn’t just bikes.
The roll-up door rattled suddenly, then began to grind upward. Rain and grey light flooded in, along with two figures shaking water off their jackets.
Dez and Torque.
Dez saw her first. He stopped dead, his rugged face hardening into immediate, open suspicion. Torque, behind him, looked surprised, then broke into a wide, delighted grin.
“Well, shit,” Dez said, his voice cutting through the music. “Look what the cat dragged in. You following us now, Booktok?”
Ghost didn’t even turn around. “She’s getting a sprocket. Make yourself useful or shut up.”
Torque chuckled, walking over to peer at Ghost’s work. “Clean install. Ignore him. He’s got the social skills of a feral badger with a toothache.”
Dez wasn’t mollified. He walked closer, his eyes on Kate. “You just happen to be at Ghost’s shop. In the rain.”
The anxiety rose, a familiar acid tide. But beneath it was that newer, sharper thing—the anger, the wit. She kept her voice low, calm. “I just happen to need a sprocket. And Ghost just happens to be the only person who noticed mine was about to explode. Is there a problem, or do you just enjoy staring?”
Dez’s eyes narrowed. He glanced at Ghost, who was finally standing, wiping his hands, his posture relaxed but his eyes now fixed on Dez. A silent communication passed between them. A warning, clear as day in the set of Ghost’s jaw.
“No problem,” Dez said finally, the words taut. “Just looking out.”
“She doesn’t need you to,” Ghost said, his tone leaving no room for argument. He looked at Kate. “Chain’s next. You want to learn, or you want to hide in the office from the badger?”
The offer, the protection, the tiny sliver of humor. It was a lifeline.
“I’ll learn,” Kate said. She didn’t look at Dez.
Torque clapped his hands together, the sound echoing. “Excellent! I’ll provide commentary. And snacks. I think there’s old beef jerky.” He wandered off toward the kitchenette.
Dez lingered a moment longer, his gaze a weight on the side of Kate’s face. Then he turned and stalked toward a motorcycle in the corner, pulling out his own tools with unnecessarily forceful clatters.
Ghost moved to get the new chain. As he passed Kate, his shoulder barely brushed hers. He didn’t apologize. He just dipped his head, his voice a rumble meant only for her. “He’s not wrong to be careful,” he murmured. “But he’s aiming it at the wrong thing.”
She looked up at him. “I get it. Really. But I bite back.” She replied, her lips pressing into a hard line.