Chapter 6

Sage's POV

My hand fell away from my mouth.

“I bit it during breakfast.”

Sloane’s gaze moved from the cut on my lower lip to my eyes. “Interesting timing.”

“Toast can be vicious when provoked.”

“I didn’t realize toast had silver lip rings.”

My heart lurched, but the corner of her mouth twitched. She was joking—or at least giving me the chance to pretend she was.

“If I’d bitten Zane Wilder,” I said, forcing my voice to remain dry, “I would have aimed somewhere less visible.”

“That is not the denial you think it is.”

The warning bell rang before I could come up with a better answer. Students began hurrying toward their classrooms, forcing us to move closer to the wall.

Sloane didn’t leave.

“I’m not going to corner you in a hallway,” she said. “But you texted me that the shift was bad, showed up this morning with bruises and a cut lip, and now Blaire is hunting for someone from the same party. If any of that is connected, you can tell me.”

For one reckless second, I wanted to.

But Blaire belonged to the same powerful circle Sloane had grown up around, and Zane could threaten more than my reputation. The fewer people who knew my secret, the safer they would be.

“I can handle it,” I said.

Sloane’s expression tightened. “You shouldn’t always have to.”

Before I could answer, the second bell rang.

She squeezed my hand once, then headed toward the west corridor. “Call me if that changes.”

I watched her disappear into the crowd, feeling worse than I had before.

—

At four minutes to four, I entered the Wildfire garage.

The place smelled of fuel, hot metal, and rubber, strong enough that I almost believed it would cover the trace of synthetic sweetness still clinging to the ends of my hair.

Almost.

Marcus waited beside the main workbench with a tablet in one hand. In daylight, it was impossible to mistake him for the man to whom I had reported the loose brake line. Marcus was broad-shouldered, with close-cropped gray hair and grease beneath his nails. He was also at least six inches taller than the stranger and had no scar on his left hand.

“You’re early,” he said.

“Four minutes.”

“That counts around here.”

He handed me the tablet. A task list filled the screen: inventory brake pads against the latest shipment, record tire-wear measurements, clean and return diagnostic tools, and enter serial numbers from removed components into the Wildfire database.

Nothing involving brake lines, engines, or crawling alone beneath a vehicle.

“You don’t touch anything critical unless I’m standing beside you,” Marcus said. “If someone tells you otherwise, they can argue with me.”

My gaze drifted across the garage.

“Does that include Zane?”

“Especially Zane.”

I almost smiled.

Then I saw him.

Zane stood in the glass-walled office above the garage floor with Crew beside him. A security video was paused on the large monitor behind them.

Even from below, I recognized the east service corridor at the Meridian.

On the screen, a girl in a short black uniform ran toward the stairwell with her head lowered and one hand pressed over her mouth. Her hair covered most of her face, turning her into a dark blur against the bright corridor.

Turning her into me.

Crew noticed where I was looking. He said something I couldn’t hear, and Zane turned toward the glass.

His gaze found mine immediately.

I looked down at the tablet.

“Start with inventory,” Marcus said, either unaware of the exchange or kind enough to ignore it. “The shipment is in storage bay three.”

I made it halfway there before footsteps sounded on the metal stairs.

Zane came down alone.

He wore black jeans and the same Wildfire jacket from last night. One of its distinctive metal buttons was missing near his chest, leaving an empty loop in the fabric.

My fingers remembered tearing at that jacket while his mouth moved over mine.

I turned toward the storage shelves before he caught me staring.

“You left your shift early last night,” he said.

So much for subtlety.

I picked up the inventory scanner. “I didn’t realize my second job was part of your investigation.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Then why were you looking at the employee records?”

“I checked everyone who used the east service stairs.”

The scanner felt slippery in my hand. “That sounds like an exciting way to spend your morning.”

“You were scheduled for table service. At eight forty, someone changed your assignment to interactive hosting. You left without signing out just after midnight, and your clothes are still in the employee locker.”

Every fact landed with cold precision.

I scanned the first box twice before the machine registered it. “If you already know all that, why are you asking?”

“Because the camera outside the east stairwell caught a hostess leaving less than a minute after the girl from the game room disappeared.”

I forced myself to face him. “You mean the girl who bit you?”

His eyes dropped to my mouth.

The garage seemed to narrow around us.

“What happened to your lip?” he asked.

“Breakfast.”

His eyebrows rose slightly. “Breakfast.”

“I bit it.”

“Hard?”

“Are you adding dental injuries to my employee file?”

He didn’t answer. His attention remained fixed on the small cut until I pressed my lips together.

The mark on his own lower lip had almost healed. It was only a thin red line between the silver rings now, but I knew exactly how it had happened and how his blood had tasted on my tongue.

My gaze lingered a fraction too long.

“Something interesting?” he asked.

“You still have blood on your mouth.”

His thumb brushed over the fading mark. “Not anymore.”

Heat climbed into my cheeks. I returned to the shipment before he could see it.

Zane moved past me, close enough for his shoulder to nearly touch mine. He stopped.

I kept the scanner aimed at the label in front of me, although the numbers had blurred.

His head tilted slightly.

“You changed shampoo.”

The observation was quiet, almost casual, and far more alarming than an accusation.

I set the scanner down. “Are you monitoring my shampoo now?”

“There’s something underneath it.”

My pulse stumbled.

“The Meridian sprayed the hostesses with perfume,” I said. That much was true. “I washed it out.”

“All the hostesses?”

“I didn’t take a survey.”

The silence stretched between us. Beneath the fuel and metal, I caught the faint scent of cedar and smoke, and my body betrayed me with the same sudden awareness I had felt in the game room.

Zane’s nostrils flared.

Before he could move closer, Marcus called from across the garage. “Wilder, stop interrogating my assistant. Bennett, those boxes won’t count themselves.”

“They might,” I said, snatching up the scanner. “Technology is advancing quickly.”

Marcus snorted and went back to work.

Zane remained where he was for another moment. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“You haven’t asked one that’s any of your business.”

His expression hardened, but instead of pushing, he walked away.

That should have made it easier to breathe.

It didn’t.

—

For the next two hours, Zane found reasons to cross my side of the garage.

He wasn’t standing in one place staring at me. That would have been easier to dismiss. He checked recovery data with the trainers, reviewed Engine 7’s damaged brake assembly with Marcus, and argued with Crew over the quality of the Meridian footage.

Somehow, every task brought him past my station.

The first time, he checked the inventory count over my shoulder.

The second, he asked why three diagnostic tools were still missing from the cabinet.

The third, he set a coffee beside my elbow without explanation.

I looked at the cup. “I didn’t order this.”

“It was made wrong.”

“So naturally you gave it to me.”

“You’re welcome.”

I took one cautious sip after he left. It contained milk and far too much sugar, exactly the way I liked it.

That was probably a coincidence.

By six, I had finished the inventory and moved on to recording tire wear. Marcus demonstrated how to position the gauge, watched me complete two measurements, then authorized me to finish the remaining tires alone.

The red coupe waited on a professional two-post lift in the next bay. It had been raised only a few feet so the crew could inspect a leak near the rear axle. Marcus checked both locking arms before handing me an inspection mirror and a container of absorbent granules.

“Don’t go under it,” he said. “Check from the side and mark where the fluid is coming from. Then clean what’s already on the floor.”

“Understood.”

He moved to Engine 7, where Crew had called him over to examine one of the recovered brake components.

I knelt beside the red coupe and angled the mirror toward the rear assembly. A dark trail of fluid ran down the metal housing, but the label on the part was difficult to read.

As I leaned closer, my shadow stretched beneath the raised car.

For an instant, it seemed to pull away from the lift before I did.

A metallic click sounded above me.

I looked up.

The coupe dropped.

Someone shouted my name.

An arm locked around my waist, and the floor vanished beneath my knees. Zane wrenched me backward just as the lift shuddered down on one side.

We hit the concrete together.

His shoulder took most of the impact. I landed half across his chest, his arm still tight around my waist and his other hand cupping the back of my head. Behind us, the coupe fell another foot before the secondary lock caught with a violent clang.

Tools crashed from a nearby cart.

Then everything stopped.

Zane’s body tensed beneath mine. A harsh breath escaped him, and his face tightened with pain.

“Your ribs,” I said.

“I’m fine.”

Marcus and two mechanics rushed toward the lift, shouting for someone to cut the hydraulic power. I barely heard them.

Zane’s hand was spread across my waist in almost the exact place it had rested the night before. Cedar and smoke filled my lungs, untouched by perfume or alcohol, and that impossible current flashed between us.

His breath caught.

So did mine.

My fingers had closed around the front of his shirt. I released him immediately, but not before his gaze dropped to my hand.

Neither of us moved.

“Bennett,” Marcus barked. “Are you hurt?”

The spell broke.

I pushed myself upright, and Zane’s face tightened again as my weight shifted away from his ribs.

“I’m okay,” I called.

Zane sat up more slowly. “She didn’t hit the car.”

“I asked whether she was hurt, not whether she damaged the paint.”

“I said I’m fine.” I stood and offered Zane my hand.

He looked at it for a moment before taking it.

The instant our palms met, the current snapped through me again.

Zane rose without releasing my hand.

Marcus crouched beside the lift mechanism. After a brief inspection, he reached into the housing and removed a narrow steel pin.

His expression darkened.

“What is it?” Crew asked.

“The retaining pin was almost completely backed out.”

“Equipment failure?”

Marcus turned the piece between his fingers. “These don’t work themselves loose.”

A heavy silence spread through the bay.

Zane finally released my hand and stepped between me and the raised car. “Shut down the garage. No one touches this lift or leaves until security logs everyone who had access to it.”

Marcus nodded and began issuing orders.

Crew looked from the pin to me. “If that secondary lock hadn’t caught—”

“But it did,” I said.

Zane turned on him. “Pull the bay cameras.”

Crew left without another word.

I wrapped my arms around myself. First his brake line, now a tampered lift.

I was beginning to hate coincidences.

Zane stepped closer.

“Did you see anyone near the controls?” he asked.

“No.”

“Did anyone tell you to work at this bay?”

“Marcus assigned it after checking the lift.”

His jaw tightened. His eyes searched my face, as though the answer to both mysteries might be written there.

Then he reached up and caught a damp strand of my hair between his fingers.

The gesture was so unexpected that I froze.

He brought it close enough to breathe in.

The last trace of synthetic sweetness lingered at the ends.

His gaze sharpened.

I pulled my hair from his hand. “What are you doing?”

He advanced one step, forcing me to tilt my head back to hold his gaze. When he spoke, his voice was low enough that no one else could hear.

“Where were you last night?”