Page 76 of The Order of Disorder

He steps closer. The phone beam lands square on my chest.

“And you?” he says. “You’re the piece that connects it all.”

He kills the light.

Dark floods back in.

“I should bury you right here. Fucking bitch. Traitor.”

He turns and walks off.

The gravel absorbs the sound.

I don’t know what time it is.

The stars are sharp now, uncaring and endless. The cold’s gone deeper. My breath fogs and vanishes before I can hold it. The wind hasn’t let up. It slices through the cage, through my shirt, through my skin.

I can’t stop shivering.

The hangar’s quiet.

I shift, trying to find a position that doesn’t grind bone against gravel but there isn’t one. My shoulders ache from holding tension, my spine’s tight from hours of stillness, and I don’t know how many more I’ll have to endure.

Something rustles by the tanks, low to the ground, but it’s smart enough to keep its distance.

If I had those pills clutched in my hand now, I’d take them. Swallow every last one and let the cold blur into nothing.

But I don’t.

I keep thinking about the way Billy talked about Wyatt—what he implied, what he might already believe.

If he decides Wyatt’s a traitor, he’ll kill him.

And Wyatt…

Wyatt means everything to me.

I try not to picture it, but I do: both of them gone. Ryder already buried in memory. Wyatt folded under Billy’s rage. Two men who loved me, who tried to save me, wiped off the map like they were nothing.

All because of Billy.

He doesn’t just want to keep me. He wants to erase everything that ever held me.

And if it comes down to letting me go—

He’ll kill me too.

In his world, I’m not allowed to belong to anyone but him, and no matter what I do, I can never escape.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE SUN HIT my face early, killing any chance of sleep. Not that I got much before that—just hours of drifting in and out, cold, uncomfortable, scared. Gravel bit into my back. Creatures skittered past me in the dark. At one point, I had to pee in the corner with my jeans around my ankles. Now I’m curled up at the opposite end of the cage, waiting to see somebody.

Anybody, at this point.

Everything aches. My lips are dry. My mouth is worse. I don’t even remember when I last had water.

By the time there’s stirring and movement in the hangar, the sun’s high enough to blind me. One engine starts—a cough, a sputter, then the steady growl of a throttle. Another follows. And another. Soon it’s a chorus: mufflers snarling, speakers and sound systems being tested, voices rising. Today is race day.