Page 60 of Property of Scar

Rogue vampire. Spotted at the Birch Street warehouse, our Birch Street warehouse, where all our artifacts come in through the docks, moving through the loading bay like it owns the place. Coil clocked it on the perimeter feed and killed the exterior lights before it noticed the cameras, which means we have a small window, and I am not wasting it.

I find Cali in the corridor outside the library, already pulling on her tactical vest like she heard the radio through the wall, which she probably did—Dhampir hearing and all.

She doesn’t wait for an invitation, just falls into step beside me and says, “How many?”

“We don’t know yet,” I reply.

She studies me for a second, like she’s weighing whether that’s enough. Then she nods once, sharp and decisive, like it always is with her.

We move out of the room, through the hallway, down the stairs, the noise of the club fading behind us as we step out into the night. The air is cooler here, carrying the distant hum of the city and the low, constant thrum of engines from the street beyond.

My bike waits where I left it, dark metal catching the glow of the overhead lights. I reach it first, swinging a leg over and settling into the seat in one smooth motion, conditioned response carrying the movement without thought. The engine turns over in a low, controlled growl beneath me, vibration running up through the frame.

Cali stops beside me. She looks at the bike, then at me. There’s a flicker of something in her expression, not hesitation exactly, but consideration.

“You always this subtle?” she asks, one brow lifting slightly as she takes in the machine.

“It gets me where I need to go,” I reply.

Her mouth curves, just slightly. “That wasn’t what I asked.”

“No,” I agree, watching her. “It wasn’t.”

A moment stretches between us, thinner than it should be, carrying something unspoken from the gym that neither of us is acknowledging. Her expression tightens for half a heartbeat before smoothing out again, like she’s made a decision and immediately locked it in a box she has no intention of opening.

“Fine,” she says. “Try not to kill me.”

“I won’t.”

She steps closer, and for a second, I think she’s going to argue again, going to default to distance the way she always does, but instead, she swings her leg over the back of the bike and settles behind me in one fluid motion, close enough now that the space she usually keeps is… gone.

Not by much, but enough.

Her hands come to my sides, not wrapping around me, just bracing, fingers splayed against my ribs like she’s maintaining control of the contact rather than giving into it.

The restraint is deliberate.

I notice it anyway.

Which is the problem.

The engine hums in that familiar way under us, something I’ve trusted longer than most things that still exist in this world. I’ve ridden through cities burning and cities asleep, through blood, silence, and everything in between, and it has never felt like this.

Not like something I am suddenly aware of.

Her presence shifts the balance.

Not physically.

It is something else.

I don’t move right away. There’s a fraction of a second where I am aware of the exact placement of Cali’s hands, the absence of her body against mine where it could be, the controlled distance she’s maintaining as if it matters.

Like it’s necessary.

Three hundred and fifty years of nothing, and now…

Now I notice this.