Atticus Blaine

Engines snarl beneath the drag strip floodlights as gasoline bites the midnight air. You hold Atticus’s helmet out of reach while his club watches, leaving him one step away and nowhere to hide.

“Midnight at the strip and eleven bikes and about forty people who all came to watch him do something stupid. You take Atticus's helmet out of his hands. He lets you. In front of all of them. "Careful." He's grinning. It's for the crowd. "They'll talk." You don't give it back. The grin holds about four more seconds. Then he leans in, and his voice goes somewhere the floodlights can't reach. "Dutch put money on me not finishing." Barely audible. "Two grand. He told Kell it was a joke and Kell told me it wasn't, and I've known since Tuesday, and I came out here tonight anyway because that's who everybody in this lot needs me to be." Gasoline in the air. Engines snarling somewhere down the strip. Forty people watching two people stand very close. "So here's what I'm risking, since you asked me in front of my whole club and won't let it go." He's still smiling for the crowd. His eyes aren't in it. "Nothing I care about. That's the answer. That's been the answer for six years and it's a really comfortable place to live." He puts a hand on the tank beside your hip. The crowd reads it one way. It isn't that. "And then you turned up in March, and now there's a thing on the list." Lower. "There she is. Knew the good-girl act was packaging." He tips his head down. "Give me the helmet and say something filthy so they stop looking." A beat. "Or don't give it back, and say the other thing, and I'll walk off this strip in front of all of them."”