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“It’s empty.” My shoulders droop. “Everything’s gone, like they cleaned house as soon as they finished loading the outgoing shipment.”
“I was afraid of that.” His grip on my thighs flexes. “Damn it.”
“We’ll figure it out. You have those pictures. We can use them hopefully.”
Fox sighs raggedly, lifting me down from his shoulders like I weigh nothing. His sharp jaw is clenched, a muscle quivering in his cheek. I reach up and smooth my thumbs over his face until his attention is back on me. He relaxes and lowers his forehead to rest against mine, hands finding my waist.
“Sorry,” he rasps. “I thought maybe we’d be able to learn something more after such a big break.”
“It’s okay.”
“Let’s head back. It looks like it might rain.”
Taking my hand, he leads me back to the low-hanging tree where he parked the Harley to hide it from anyone who might catch us here. He gets on and hands me the helmet before I swing my leg over the bike and take my place behind him. The leather of his jacket is cool to the touch as I slip my arms around him. Once the engine roars to life, we speed away from the mysteriously wiped shipping warehouse Nexus Lab used to distribute drugs they made.
We’re only on the road for a few minutes before Fox tenses.
“What is it?” I shout to be heard over the wind.
He angles his head back to surreptitiously glance behind us, then faces front again. If he’s uneasy, it can’t be good. I want to look back, but his voice stops me.
“Hold on tight,” he commands.
It’s the only warning I get before he takes a sharp turn onto a gravel cut through that connects to another lane. As we hit it, heading in the opposite direction from Fox’s warehouse studio apartment, I see it—the blacked out SUV tailing us.
My heart thuds loud enough in my ears to rival the growl of the motorcycle’s engine. I hold on tight as Fox weaves us through the roads. This isn’t like the last time he was followed, when we were in his car and had the cover of the more populated downtown area to get away. This time there’s only long stretches of road surrounded by foothills and random warehouses in the shipping district.
Behind us, the SUV revs its engine as it speeds up, keeping hot on the bike’s tail. Fox curses and takes another route. My fingers are sore from how tightly they’re clenched in his leather jacket. We whip around corners and fly down roads, climbing up higher into the mountains where the motorcycle maneuvers faster than the SUV can.
When we finally lose the tail, Fox spends another twenty minutes taking us on a winding path, still not fully relaxing. We eventually make it back to his place. My limbs are stiff when we climb off the bike. His big rough hands help me by removing the helmet. He tugs me into his chest, locking his arms around me in a hug.
“Close call,” I murmur, slipping my hands into his open jacket.
“Too close.” He squeezes me tighter. “Come on. We have to see what your parents had on their computer.”
As we take the stairs up from the garage, the clouds open up with a heavy rain that pounds the gravel lot outside, quickly creating puddles and rivers. Fox shrugs out of his leather jacket and pushes a hand beneath his muscle shirt, lifting it as he chases an itch. The downpour creates a white noise amplified by the metal roof and the large industrial windows that wrap around the second floor.
We return to our spots on the couch from earlier and I hand over the flash drive I used to copy the hard drive of the computer in my parents’ home office. Fox plugs it in. My phone vibrates with a text and I pull it out of the back pocket of the cutoff shorts I changed into before we left for the shipping facility.
“It’s Holden,” I say when Fox shoots me a curious glance. “He’s just checking in. Wants to make sure I’m okay.” I run my fingers through my hair and give him a sidelong look. “You know, since it’s my first time running away and all.”
He snorts. “You’re eighteen, not eight. I don’t think they call that running away anymore.”
“Semantics.”
While Fox gets everything set up, I text my brother.
Maisy: I’m all good [peace sign emoji]
Holden: Where are you though? I hit up Thea because I assumed that’s where you went and she said she hadn’t seen you.
Maisy: I thought about it but she’s been busy with her own stuff, I didn’t want to dump more on her. She should just enjoy being married and focus on her bakery right now, not letting me couch surf.
Holden: So where are you then?
Maisy: Safe. That’s all you need to know. Keep me posted on if Mom and Dad seem like they’re going to send out a search party because I’m being “over dramatic” [eye-roll emoji]
Holden: Actually I overheard them last night. They didn’t know there wasn’t music playing on my headphones when they were talking. They were acting kinda weird and Mom said she didn’t think you knew anything and wasn’t worried. She’s sure you’ll come around before things get out of hand.
