Page 29 of Falcon’s Forever

He looks at me like he's hoping I'll be the reasonable one, because I usually am, and today that costs him, because today I don't have the patience for reasonable. I put my hand flat on his desk and lean into it until he stops talking.

"Two weeks," I tell him. "If it's not here in two weeks, Rook comes back without me, and Rook doesn't negotiate as nicely."

Rook doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to, Garcia's eyes go to him once and that's the whole message delivered.

We're back on the bikes inside ten minutes. There’s no blood, no broken glass, and nothing that would look like anything to a passerby except two men in cuts having a conversation with a business owner. That's most of what this looks like, most of the time. The men who think a motorcycle club runs entirely on gunfights and rescue missions have never sat in the back of a tire shop watching a grown man's hands shake.

I don't feel good about it. I don't feel bad about it either, and that's the part I don't examine too closely most days, because examining it too closely is how a man starts wondering what he actually is under the cut.

After that, I do exactly what I'm supposed to. I sit with Condor while he pulls camera footage from every road around the south side, check the revised patrol schedule with Ice Pick, spend twenty minutes with Sterling going through the feeder-company records instead of finding an excuse to disappear. For a while I feel almost normal. Useful, at least.

Then the walls start closing in. It happens slow enough that I don't clock it right away. A tightness across my shoulders. The noise in the common room starting to grate. Every conversation around me turning into one more thing I've got to work at not hearing.

Cara's voice from the porch keeps coming back. I hated you for not finding me. She hadn't said it to hurt me, which somehow makes it worse. I understand why she blamed me. If I'd spent five years waiting for somebody to walk through a door and save me, I'd have hated them too. Knowing that doesn't stop the guilt from digging in deeper.

By three I've read the same paragraph in Sterling's report four times and none of it's staying in my head. I shove the file closed.

Zip looks up from the other side of the table as I reach for my keys. “Where are you going?”

“Out,” I reply, shoving the keys into my pocket.

He taps the schedule lying in front of him. “You’ve got the supply meet at four.”

“I know,” I snap.

Zip raises one eyebrow. “Do you?”

I stop halfway to the door and glare at him. “We’ve already had this conversation.”

“Apparently, we need to have another one.” He folds his arms and settles back in his chair.

“I’m going for a ride,” I tell him. “I’ll be back.”

Zip checks the clock on the wall. “You’ve got forty minutes.”

“Then why are you still talking?” I demand.

He points to the radio sitting on the table. “Take your radio.”

“I’ve got my phone,” I argue.

“Radio,” Zip repeats, his expression making it clear he isn’t backing down.

He waits me out. For a second, I consider arguing simply because I’m pissed off enough to enjoy it. Instead, I snatch the radio from the table and clip it to my belt.

“Happy?” I ask.

“Ecstatic,” Zip replies dryly.

I turn toward the door. “Try not to miss me.”

He picks up the paperwork again. “I’m pretty sure I’ll survive.”

I'm out the door before he can say anything else, and the second the engine turns over beneath me, something in my chest loosens. That's the whole problem with the bike. It's the one place I can outrun myself. The wind doesn't ask questions. The road doesn't look at me with concern and tell me to deal with my shit. It just lets me go.

I take the road west, meaning to make one loop and come back. Twenty minutes, thirty at most. The first turn leads to another, then another, and by the time I check my watch it's three forty-seven. I turn the bike around.

The radio at my belt crackles. "Falcon." Zip. I reach for it, catch static, then nothing. I try again and get the same. Reception's shit out here. I pull my phone from inside my cut at the next stop and find no signal at all, and for one stupid second I consider riding another mile before I turn back properly.