Two miles down, where the road narrows to enter the mining complex, sits a wall of Arizona Highway Patrol cars. They’ve funneled the two lanes down to a single choke point with orange cones and portable floodlights that cut through the morning sun.
Noah rests his chin on his crossed arms, staring down at the blockade. His breathing is ragged, but I can tell his mind is already working. “They probably know we’re in the mountains somewhere for some reason. They’re just waiting for us to ride down into the net.”
“There’s no way through that, Noah. There are too many of them.”
“We just need to watch,” he says, his voice a low, steady rasp. “People get bored, Rue. They get tired, they get sloppy. Watch the cars.”
I focus on the cruisers below. The time passes. The cold bites through my clothes, but Noah remains perfectly still, a predator waiting for a slip.
Finally, a fresh cruiser, white and gold, pulls up from the direction of the mine. It stops a car-length away from the lead patrol vehicle, blocking the lane. The officer in the stationary car opens his door. He stands up, stretching his arms over his head, a clipboard in his hand.
The officer in the new car rolls down his window and then steps out to meet him. They converge between the two idling vehicles.
“Shift change,” Noah murmurs, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “The day shift is maybe relieving the night patrol. They’ll be busy with the hand-off. Talking shop, signing the logs, maybe…”
“For how long?”
“No clue.” He looks at me, his exhaustion masked by pure adrenaline. “We can't ride through. They’ll hear the pipes for miles before we even reach the cones.”
“Then what?”
“We could… coast,” he says. “It’s a steep downgrade from here to the mine entrance. If I kill the lights and we hit the asphalt in neutral, we’re a ghost.”
“That sounds absolutely stupid,” I say, giving him a look. “This isn’t a fucking movie, Noah. We can’t just kick it into gear once we’re through. That’s just… asinine.”
Noah clambers back from the bluff and jumps to his feet. “It’s either that or stay up here forever, trying to wait them out.”
I glance back out and then chase Noah down.
I guess we’re really going to do this.
The descent back to the hidden bike is a frantic blur. We reach the Knucklehead, and Noah swings his leg over the seat. He looks exhausted, his skin seems pale in the dim light, but his grip on the handlebars is iron-tight.
I slide onto the seat behind him, wrapping my arms around his waist.
“This is so stupid. You’re counting on us riding in the shadow of the road.”
“I know,” he says, his voice strained. “But this is the best idea I’ve got.”
He kicks the bike into neutral. He doesn’t touch the ignition. He just leans forward, his heavy boots pushing against the dirt to roll the seven-hundred-pound beast out of the brush and onto the shoulder of the highway.
The moment the tires hit the steep blacktop, gravity takes over.
The silence is terrifying. There is no roar of the exhaust, no vibration of the engine to ground me. There is only thehissof rubber slicing over cold pavement and the strangetick-tick-tickof the drive chain.
We are a heavy, dark shape sliding down the mountain.
We round the first hairpin turn, picking up speed. The checkpoint is a mile below us, then a half-mile. The portable floodlights are blinding, casting long, distorted shadows of the police cruisers against the canyon walls.
Noah is a statue in front of me. His body is rigid, steering with tiny, precise shifts of his weight. I press my face against his back and hold my breath until my lungs burn.
We’re getting closer. The two officers are still standing between their cars. One is pointing at the clipboard, tapping it with a pen; the other is holding a steaming foam cup of coffee. They are entirely focused on each other, their backs to the dark slope descending behind them.
None of them looks. My chest constricts.
This is insane. We’re so fucking insane.
We glide toward the narrow gap between the cruiser’s rear bumper and the steep rock wall of the canyon. The bike hits a patch of loose gravel on the shoulder. It makes a loudcrunchthat sounds like a gunshot in the silent canyon.
