Chapter 10. Rumors and Rides

The quarry burned.

Flames leapt orange into the night, licking the jagged walls with wild shadows. The air stank of spilled fuel, cigarette smoke, and cheap beer. Engines revved just to hear the echo off stone. Bikes lined the walls like fangs circling prey.

Riven stood at the edge, helmet dangling from her fingers, pulse still uneven from the chase. The rival’s words clung to her skin like ash:

Magnus made the deal. Ask him who lit the match.

Axel had brought her here. Dragged her, really. She hadn’t wanted to come. Her bones still shook from the ride, her heart still splintered from the silence he’d left her with.

“Stay close,” he’d said when the engines died in the quarry. But now, he was swallowed whole by the Wolves. And she—she was left under the weight of a hundred eyes.

She wasn’t invisible here. She was Hale.

Conversations dulled as she walked past. A few muttered her name like a curse. Others just stared, assessing, calculat