When Ben told him to not look back, Kane no longer questioned his intentions. He didn’t stop to think if it was a trick or if Ben was playing him. He just hoped that his Blood Brother would honor his word and keep Noel spinning in circles until he could find Angeline, tell her the plan, and bring her deeper into hiding.
“Dead?” Angeline cried. “What do you mean?” She broke free of her father’s hold and gingerly wrapped her arms around his back. “What are you saying?” she asked.
And Kane started to spill.
***
He was driving faster than ever before. Racing away from everything that he had ever known, he nearly stopped at the turnoff for Jeremy’s house. Should he risk it and tell his brother what he was really doing with the address? He nearly made the move when he thought of Jeremy spending the rest of his life worrying where Kane was and if he was still alive. However, letting him in was the wrong call. Noel would seek him out, and Kane could only hope that he would do so at a time when Ellen wasn’t present. His brother might take a beating. Just one more time when Kane left Jeremy holding the bag. But if Jeremy didn’t know where he was, he stood a better chance of surviving—until Noel hit the road again in a useless search. He believed that Ben would make it so that Jeremy got the chance to be a father.
A chance that Kane was taking, too.
Hitting the highway, Kane smiled, really smiled, for the first time in years. No one was on his tail yet, and every roll of the rubber on the road was bringing him closer to Angeline. The thought of seeing her with his own eyes, smelling her hair, touching her soft flesh caused him to accelerate the bike, and he whispered into the wind, to a vision of her green eyes that he was on his way. Now, it was only a matter of time.
Stopping to refuel, Kane lingered for as long as he dared at a rest stop. As he gassed up his bike, his eyes drifted towards a board of tacked up notices. Lost puppies and used cars like new for sale. And right in the middle, there was a wanted poster for a supposedly dangerous thief. The mugshot seemed to tell a different story, someone so desperate that he had made a bad choice or ten, but the guy’s visage was plastered for everyone to see, and Kane took note of the promised reward.
10K.
Dropping the hose, Kane knew that Noel would never go to the cops and blow his own cover. However, money talked, and Noel had the funds. As long as he thought that Kane was alive, there was nothing that would stop him from promising a hefty bounty if someone could single Kane out in a crowd and point Noel in the right direction. There was a permanent target on his back, and sometimes Kane wondered what it was to Noel. Was it some hidden desire for Angeline or the fact that Kane failed to stay the grateful boy who was saved from munching on scraps? Noel thought that Kane owed him total loyalty, and Kane had betrayed that trust when he found and helped Angel. So, he worked to find ways to keep them apart, and now Kane was on the verge of screwing up his plans again. Noel would promise his own reward, and when he found him, them, his vengeance would be brutal.
Kane started to head back to Frisco. His need for Angeline wasn’t’ worth the price of her life or Theo’s. It was better for him to head for what no longer felt like home and take his medicine. In the end, it would cost him his life, but Angeline would stay safe. Noel couldn’t hurt either of them anymore if Kane was…
…if he was dead.
Pulling off to the side of the road, Kane considered the possibilities. Maybe he was driving too fast as he tried to get away, and his tires skipped a stone before he knew what was happening. That would stop Noel in his tracks and send him back to club frustrated for the rest of his days. All he had to do was pull it off, and Noel would have to admit defeat.
It would bring him back to Angeline and only cost him his bike.
Mounting again, Kane remembered the days spent restoring the chopper, playing with the wires and polishing the chrome until she sparkled like new. It had been a labor of love, and now he was about to chuck it all away.
But it wasn’t murder. It was a sacrifice of the noblest order.
“One last time,” he said as removed his jacket and hit the gas. “I know you won’t let me down.”
Speeding on the edge of the road, Kane turned a sharp corner. As the gulf brimmed below his eyes, he wondered how it would feel to crash into the jagged rocks, maintaining consciousness as the flesh left his body until everything was blackness. Should he follow the bike into the abyss and truly keep Angeline safe by way of his death?
Kane considered the possibility as he spun back to the road.
No.
Noel might still find her. He had raped her once, and if he was hopped up and furious, he wouldn’t leave her alive. His mentor’s future needed to be a series of dead ends. Kane would stay three steps ahead of him until he had to get back to business and Ben convinced him that there was no joy far from home.
Just die, Kane. It’s now or never.
Driving his bike back to the edge of the cliff, Kane held his breath and watched the wheels as they started to twist about the rocky road.
Maybe he was just going too fast. Didn’t see it coming.
Say that, Ben.
Kane hoped for those words, as he curled his fingers around the handlebars one last time. The bike went wild, but he didn’t hit the brakes as it started to careen off the cliff. He stayed with it in the open air for all of a second, and then he glanced over his shoulder and saw another vision of Angeline, drawing him back to solid ground with the sound of her sweet voice.
Find me, Kane.
Real or not, it was enough. Kane leapt from the bike and grabbed the edge of the cliff for all that he was worth. As the stones and soil slipped between his fingers, he held on tight and fought to bring his body back to the road. There was no pain as he kept hearing her voice ringing in his ears, but as he climbed back to the top, Kane turned his head at the chaos, the sacrifice that he had willingly unleashed.
His bike was stumbling as he might have done. The wheels left the frame, and the chrome bruised the dirt. A small part of him almost wanted the chopper to live to fight another day. Let some other scared little boy find the carcass and restore her to her former glory. But, at the last second, the bike hit the rugged earth at the bottom of the cliff. On impact, Kane’s old friend had his back one last time as it exploded into flames.
Kane stood for a second and watched the wreckage smolder, his leather jacket burning with the rest of it. Saluting the fire, Kane hoped that it would be enough to point Noel home and away from Angeline. He turned towards Colorado and smiled at the thought that soon he would really be with her again.