Page 22 of Rebel
I flip her off without turning, but my pulse doesn’t slow for a long time.
7
CARTER
By the time I hit the freeway, the sun’s turning the horizon into a blood smear. The world smells of gasoline, salt, and bad memories. Rebel fades in my mirrors, but not in my head. Every time I blink, I see her, chin up, anger blazing, Alex’s ghost living behind her eyes.
I tell myself I’m finished with all of this. No partners, no missions, no saints or sinners rewriting the same story. But the truth? I’ve been orbiting that woman since the moment she said her name, then she looked at me like I was both a suspect and a solution.
I take the long way home, cutting through the old oil fields where the pumps still bow like penitents in rust and dawn. My place sits on the far edge of the industrial district, an abandoned shipping office I rebuilt from bones and bad wiring. From the street, it looks forgotten. Perfect.
Inside, it’s something else altogether. Concrete floors. Reinforced windows. Two rooms, one for sleeping, one forworking. The furniture is practical, heavy, and uninviting. A couch that’s seen better days, a table made from a cut-in-half ammo crate. Nothing here is accidental. Nothing here is sentimental.
I drop my keys on the workbench and peel off my jacket. The cut Rebel wrapped still burns along my arm, tight under the bandage. I should rewrap it, but instead, I reach for the bottle on the counter and pour two fingers of whiskey. It catches the setting sun, amber and unrepentant. For a second, I see her hands in the clean edge of the bandage, steady and stubborn. I swallow the thought with the burn.
The walls hum with silence. I built them that way, insulated and sealed, with no echoes. But silence doesn’t stop memories.
Alex’s photo sits on the shelf above my desk. Us, years ago, before everything broke. He’s got that grin that could talk you into a storm. I look older now, harder, less human.
“Guess I didn’t keep my promise very well,” I mutter.
My phone vibrates on the table. Burner line, no ID. A text flashes on the screen:
VULTURES // NODE REACTIVATED — SL LOGISTICS.
I straighten. The name drills through my ribs. SL Logistics, Alex’s old cover company. Dead and buried, or so I thought.
I cross to the desk, turn on the monitors, and type fast. The servers kick up, and the screens flare to life in rowsof data and static. I dig through encrypted trails, cross-reference dormant nodes, and watch one IP blink back to life.
Downtown L.A. Abandoned textile plant. Same quadrant the Vultures used before the hit on Alex.
“Son of a bitch.”
The cursor blinks like it knows I’m already in too deep. I keep tracing. Every ping opens a new shadow of contract IDs, old shell accounts, and recycled signatures.
Then the last one hits me like a round to the chest.A. Slade — verified authorization.
My pulse spikes sharply enough to blur the edges of the screen. Someone’s resurrected Alex’s digital ghost.
The comms channel crackles before I can shut it down. A new signal piggybacks my feed, clean, confident, familiar.You didn’t knock, soldier.
Divine. Of course. The Royal Harlots’ hacker.
“Persistent,” I mutter, typing back.
Stay off my system, sweetheart. You don’t know what you’re in.
Wrong,she replies.I know exactly what I’m in. You just don’t like being seen.
My jaw tightens. She’s skilled. Better than I thought. That makes this harder.
You light up my network again, you’ll bring company we don’t want.
Too late.
That’s when I hear the sound of distant engines outside, the low rumble of approaching tires. My exterior sensors blink red across the monitor. Two black SUVs. No plates. No hesitation.
“Goddammit.”
