Imogen stood outside the Ball & Joint waiting for Enver to return with his motorcycle. Drunken cyborgs and delighted fans passed by, returning to their homes of squalor. Sometimes stopping to piss against one of the concrete walls of the alley, and sometimes tripping with a laugh as they struggled to get back up.

She rubbed her hands together trying to slough off the last of the dried blood. They’d come without Enver's medical kit or supplies, having meant to return back to the Ward after lunch, but Imogen was proud of the work she’d done that night. Not having the tools they needed just forced them to be innovative. She'd been especially entertained when Enver poured a bottle of vodka directly on a man’s shoulder before slicing into it with a knife one of the patrons wielded. It was amazing the kind of things she saw during a cyborg cage match. The impromptu surgery had been to remove a tooth that had flown from the cage at such a high velocity it had embedded itself into the man's plesh.

Happiness swelled inside her tired heart. It had been a long day, but the excitement, the vitality of no holds bars fighting, the rawness of it spoke to her of truth. A kind of truth rarely heard and never seen on the compound. The kind of truth she’d been searching for.

Up the street a bright light blinded her, and the building growl of the motorcycle announced Enver's approach.

Imogen’s heart sped up. Her pulse raced, and she wanted to smooth down her hair but stopped before her bloody fingers reached the short do she sported. She was ugly and unworthy, old expectations whispering in her ears.

Enver pulled the bike up to the curb. The headlight left spots in her vision but as they cleared, the quiet patient face of the cyborg medic greeted her. His too long hair had been ruffled by the wind, and despite the late hour, his cheeks flushed. He looked alive.

She imagined he felt what she did, that this humming in her blood was the real reason he worked at the Ball & Joint. He may be altruistic at his core, but she suspected another part of him loved the adrenaline, the constant surprises, and the fast-paced action of the cage fights. When they didn’t have a patient, she’d watched him as he'd watched the matches. His eyes lit up, and he bounced on his toes with every punch thrown. She couldn't help but wonder if he was tempted to fight himself. Despite the hulking bodies the cyborg contenders possessed, he had to be at least as strong of them. His body was defined in controlled hard muscles.

"Are you coming, or you just gonna stare me all night?" Enver yelled over the engine.

She swept her leg over the back of the bike and climbed on, this time with no hesitation about wrapping her arms around Enver's chest. He smelled wild. Blood, sweat, adrenaline, and the faintest hint of the ocean breeze filled her senses. If he had looked alive, he smelled even better.

She leaned against his back like a lover's embrace. This time she didn’t hold her own hands but pressed them flat against his chest and stomach.

He paused, taking a deep breath before hitting the accelerator and flying them out into the darkness.

The night whipped by in shadows and the flickering light from the few remaining street lamps. From behind Enver, she couldn't see much of anything, so instead, she closed her eyes and listened to the whooshing sound of the wind around them. With every turn and lean, her hips matched his movements. Together they navigated the night.

The late hour filled the air with a cold breeze, and Imogen marveled at the disparate feelings of Enver against her front and the cold air stinging the rest of her. She leaned a little closer, clinging to him as tightly as she dared. Her fingers gripped his body, and a powerful need to be even nearer to him threatened to overcome her restraint.

Imogen knew the moment they returned to the Badlands. Here the cold had nowhere to linger, the moisture had no buildings to cling to, and instead the day's heat radiated back up at her from the sunbaked dirt blooming behind the bike. She breathed easier now that they were home.

When had this wild place become home to her?

Everything she had known before coming to Cyn City screamed that the Badlands were the very last place she should be. This patch of land between the city and the deserts, abandoned and lawless, was everything she'd been taught to avoid.

Being here offered her something she'd not expected needing. The feral land allowed her to access a wildness within herself. Her whole life it had been Verity who was the wild one, Imogen simply following along behind for the thrill. But here she learned to embrace her own independent nature and every day discovered something new about herself. Like the joy it brought her when Enver had stroked her cheek and the burning she felt in her gut at the hope he would do it again.

The bike came to a stop and Enver turned off the engine.

As hard as she tried, Imogen could not bring herself to release her hold on him. She wanted nothing more than to stay curled around his back for the rest of the night, breathing in the chaos he offered. After a beat, Enver chuckled and patted her hand before pulling away and climbing off.

"I wouldn't recommend sleeping out here," Enver said into the black around them.

Without the headlamp of his bike, the dead lands were completely black. No street lamps glowed out here, the only light coming from the shadowed stars above or from the boarded over windows of the Ward. The few other people who dared make a life out here were scavengers and scrappers who preferred the anonymity of darkness to the exposure of the bulb.