novelraw Chapter 354: Toward Her
Chapter 354: Toward Her
Sera’s tone of it wasn’t a command; it was concern, and Lachlan felt it more than heard it.
The truck climbed the rise. He lined the man with good footing and waited for the suspension to lift.
The hum in his bones matched the engine note.
She’d kiss you for this.
He pulled the trigger.
The man folded and slid. The others grabbed for him and turned the roof into chaos. The driver jerked the wheel. The hook whipped the rear window. The transport hit the melted patch that looked dry and learned the lie.
When he opened them, the flatbed’s cage had slid off the bed and lay on its side, panels twisted. The thing inside stayed in the shadow of the wreck and did not test the gaps.
He knew why.
It felt Sera through smoke and distance and would rather be ignorant than wrong.
The wind shoved heat toward the ridge again. A new engine note rose from the compound—another truck, different gearing, heavier. The South Gate wasn’t done. Marrow didn’t fold on one burn.
Lachlan tracked the sound and found the new movement through the shimmer: a heavier transport, dual tires, two men on the roof with lengths of chain and a third man at the rear with a hook.
They were going to drag the wreck out of the lane and force the route open wider. Smart, dumb, both. The new line would cut across the leak’s far tail where the mixture was thinner.
Not safe.
Not safe enough to stop them.
He shifted to a new rock notch and set the rifle for roof height. The nearest chain-man crouched behind the cab’s light bar with his weight wrong. The second had good weight and bad knees. The man with the hook wore gloves that looked too new for the job.
Three choices.
He set the crosshair on the man with the good weight and waited for the truck to reach the swell in the road where the suspension would kick.
He wanted to say something—humor, a line, light over the dark. It caught at the back of his teeth and didn’t come.
Say something. Make her look your way.
But he didn’t.
The transport climbed the swell. The good-knees man rose to adjust his stance. Lachlan took the shot. The man folded and slid. The other two grabbed for him and made the roof a problem. The driver jerked the wheel.
The hook smacked the glass of the rear window and rebounded. The chain went slack and then tight in a bad place at a bad time.
Elias came through. "Secondary fuses hot."
Zubair: "Stand by."
The transport corrected. The roof pair split to adjust the drag. Someone yelled something about weight. The driver didn’t listen. He hadn’t learned to listen to the man who saw more.
Lachlan lined the second roof man and breathed on the trigger, waiting for the moment his foot would lift from the brace. The hum in his skin climbed until it felt like it might rattle his teeth out of his head.
She would kiss you for this. She likes blood.
"Shut it," he said, and fired.
The second man went off the roof headfirst. He hit the hood, then the road, then nothing that mattered. The hook-man ducked and lost the hook. It danced on the chain and cracked the rear glass again, this time hard enough to spider out white.
The transport hit the melted patch of lane that had looked dry and learned the lie by doing.
Zubair: "Light tail."
Elias: "Lighting."
A thin line of blue crawled under the transport and flicked the world open. Heat. Light. Sound baked onto the ridge and stayed there. Lachlan didn’t blink.
His comm hissed for a second and came back with Sera, low and even. "Good work."
He let out a breath he hadn’t planned to keep. "Told you I’m pretty."
There was a pause. It didn’t feel like judgment. It felt like hands on a railing, steadying. "Stay with me."
"Always."
The line closed.
He watched the transport turn into shapes and smoke. He watched the lane choke with dead trucks and bad choices. He watched the bikes that hadn’t burned yet make small circles at the edge like dogs deciding whether to run or bite.
The wind shifted again and pushed the smoke west.
A small engine note rose on the far side of the yard—sharp, thin, wrong. Not a truck. Not a bike from the wedge. A single dirt machine, light frame, maybe a courier, maybe an idiot. It cut out of the compound on a goat path and hooked south, trying to bypass the lane entirely.
Lachlan slid his rifle to that angle and found the rider through heat and dust. No mask. Young. Fast hands. A bag strapped to the rear fender with a code stamped on it big enough to read with cheap glass.
Run him down. Bring her the bag. Make them all look at you.
He rolled his shoulders, lined the shot at the fender strap, and eased the trigger until the rifle built pressure under his finger. Heat ran up the barrel and sat in his mouth.
"Lachlan," Zubair said, voice tighter now. "Hold your shot. We need the route, not the rider."
Sera’s voice followed, quiet but firm. "He’s just running. Let him."
Lachlan held the breath, then let it go. "Copy."
"Good," she said. "Come back when it’s clear."
He lowered the rifle. The rider disappeared into the smoke. Behind him, the compound horn blew again—three long, one short, closer this time. Something big moved behind the haze.
Lachlan kept the rifle ready but didn’t fire.
The hum under his skin stayed sharp.
He didn’t know if it was the creature, or himself, that wanted to see what came next.
But either way, Lachlan was already moving down the ridge.
Yes. Move. Toward her.
Lachlan scoffed at that idea. He didn’t need the creature inside of him to tell him what he already knew. He has been away from her for too long. He needed his Sera hit.
And this time, he wasn’t going to let anyone else distract her from him.