Page 130 of Blood & Throttle

He doesn’t answer, and I don’t need him to. Because grief doesn’t need answers. It doesn’t need permission. It doesn’t care who’s watching. It just swallows you whole and dares you to keep breathing.

This isn’t comfort. Not really.

It’s just survival.

Or at least our version of soft.

The kind that doesn’t promise healing. Just a heartbeat. A breath. A body next to yours while the rest of the world burns.

And if they try to take any more from us?

They better bring fire.

Because we’re not falling again without setting the whole goddamn place onfire.

The bed’scold when I wake up the next morning.

Riot’s already up, moving around the room in slow, deliberate steps. His movements are stiff, but clean. His shirt hangs half on, twisted around his torso as he adjusts the sling strap across his shoulder. There’s a mug of something dark and bitter-smelling on the windowsill—coffee, probably. Or Luca’s version of it, which is one missed fuse away from transmission fluid.

I groan and sit up, rubbing sleep from my eyes. My limbs ache. My throat’s dry. My brain feels like it’s been wrapped in barbed wire and set on low simmer.

“You didn’t sleep,” I mutter.

Riot shrugs one shoulder. “Didn’t need to.”

I roll my eyes. “Right. You and the reaper, best fucking friends.”

He doesn’t argue, just grabs the mug, takes a slow sip, and leans against the wall like the weight of everything hasn’t crushed him yet. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and reach for the second mug waiting on the crate beside his. It’s still warm. Barely. But it’s the closest thing to comfort I’ve had in days, so I take a long drink and let the bitterness burn the back of my throat.

He’s got one arm through his shirt but hasn’t pulled it all the way on. His back is bare, streaked with dried sweat and tension, the bandage at his ribs taped tight. He’s cleaned up since yesterday, but he still looks like he lost something that mattered. Because he did.

I glance down at myself, frowning at the state of the clothes I pulled from the donation bin. The combat leggings are okay, minus the scorch hole near the ankle. But the cropped hoodie is faded, stretched, and scrawled across the front in cracked white block letters is:

PROPERTY OF SHAW

I don’t know who Shaw is, but I hope they were hot. Or at least had decent taste in music. The hem’s torn and one sleeve’s got a grease handprint on it that I’m definitely not responsible for. I pull my hair into a messy knot at the top of my head using an old rubber band I found stuck to the corner of Riot’s toolbox. It’s frayed, barely elastic, but it holds.

“Luca says the bike’s still fucked,” Riot says, voice low and rough.

I glance over at him. “Of course it is.”

“He’s got it stripped on the lift. Frame’s warped. Coil’s fried. Needs parts. He’s sending us to the Yard.”

The Yard.

I’ve heard the others talk about it like it’s some kind of post-apocalyptic scrapyard—where dead bikes go to rot and dreamers go to find ghosts. No lights. No guards. Just the bones of old machines waiting to be picked clean.

“Of course we’re going shopping in a biker graveyard,” I mutter, grabbing the protein bar off the nightstand and tearing into it with zero enthusiasm. “Romantic.”

Riot smirks, but it’s faint. “Wear something nice.”

I snort, mouth full of dust and disappointment. “This is me dressed up. Try not to come in your pants.”

His gaze flicks over me once, slow, deliberate, and way too amused for someone still stitched together with spite and surgical thread.

“No promises.”

We finish our sorry excuse for breakfast, toss back what’s left of the coffee, and pull on our jackets. Mine’s got more holes than armor. His still reeks of sweat and dirt and dried blood, but at least it fits like a second skin.