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Semua Bab RIDING WITH THE BEAST : Bab 1 - Bab 10

20 Bab

The Night I Ran

Chapter 1: Running isn't a choice anymore. It's the only way I know how to breathe. The house is quiet behind me. That's the thing about this house. It's always quiet when it's about to happen. I'm in the back hall, barefoot on the marble, holding my dress up in one hand so it doesn't rustle. Upstairs the shower is still running. Water hitting tile. Pipes creaking in the walls. He's got ninety seconds before the water stops. I've got ninety seconds before he realizes I'm gone. The kitchen door is open. Delia leaves it open every night when she clocks out at nine. She knows what this house is after dark. She leaves it like a small quiet gift. Thank you, Delia. I'll owe you forever. The gravel cuts my feet. I left the heels in the hallway. They were his. Everything was his. My car's the old Honda. The one he's been promising to replace for two years because it doesn't match the house. There's a spare key in the wheel well because I knew. I knew. I'm on my knees b

Terakhir Diperbarui : 2026-11-02

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The Lock Door

Chapter 2: "Lock the door." The words go through the room like a switch flipping. The man at the bar — the one with the snake tattoo — puts his glass down and stands up. The kid with the new patch gets to his feet. Two more men by the window move at the same time, and the front door's chain comes up off the hook and rattles through the handles. The bell over the door swings once and stops. I hear the bolt turn. And then twenty men sit back down. Not all at once. In pieces. A chair scrapes. A bottle clinks. Somebody mutters something low and the laugh that follows is short and mean. But they sit, and they turn back to their drinks, and the room fills up with the sound of a bar again like nothing happened. Except nobody's looking at their drinks. They're all still looking at me. The big one hasn't moved. He's standing ten feet away with his hands loose at his sides and his eyes on my face, and he's got a look about him like a man who's already decided something an

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Only My Beds

Chapter 3: The room upstairs is small. A bed that's too big for it. A dresser with a lamp. A window that looks out at the street. And a door with a deadbolt on the inside that's been there so long the brass has gone green. Kael stands in the doorway with his shoulder against the frame. "Bathroom's through there. Water's hot if you let it run." I don't move. "There's no motel in Blackpine," he says. "There's no hotel. There's no bed and breakfast. There's my bar, there's the room above it, and there's my bed." I look at him. "And that's supposed to make me feel safe?" "No." He tips his head. "That's supposed to make you understand the situation." --- He walks in and sets a paper bag on the dresser. "Toothbrush. Soap. A comb. It's from the gas station. It was the only place open." I look at the bag. "You went to the gas station." "I went to the gas station." "At two in the morning." "Carl opens at four. He came down when I called." Kael's mouth moves.

Terakhir Diperbarui : 2026-11-02

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No Girl Here

Chapter 4: I wake up alone. The bed's cold on his side. The shotgun's gone from the nightstand. The deadbolt's still turned. Downstairs I hear voices. Not many. Two. Maybe three. Low and steady, the kind of talking men do when they don't want to be overheard. I get up. I'm still in his shirt. My dress is draped over the back of the chair where I left it — torn, bloody, useless. I put my jeans on from my bag and leave the shirt on because it's warm and it smells like leather and I don't want to think about why that matters. Then I go down. --- The bar at six in the morning looks like a different room. Chairs are up on the tables. The floor's been swept. The lights are half off and the neon's dark and the whole place smells like bleach and old beer. There's three men at the end of the counter. Dutch — the one with the snake tattoo and the beard, the one Kael called by name. The kid with the new patch, who's maybe twenty-five and looks like he hasn't slept. And

Terakhir Diperbarui : 2026-11-02

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Under My Patch

Chapter 5: "Good morning. I'm looking for a woman named Elara Sterling." The man in the doorway is forty-something. Gray suit. Rain on his shoulders. A leather folder in his hand and a smile that's been practiced in front of a mirror. Denny's already between him and the room. Dutch has come back through the door behind him and is standing at his shoulder. Callum's boots are on the porch boards, just out of sight. Kael doesn't move from behind the counter. "Bar's closed." "I'm not here for a drink." The man steps forward. Denny doesn't move. "I'm here on behalf of Marcus Sterling. I believe his wife is in this establishment." "Believe whatever you want." "I have a photograph." The man opens the folder and slides a piece of paper across the counter. "This is Elara Sterling. She was reported missing from her residence in the Heights at approximately two o'clock this morning. The report describes her as confused, possibly endangered, and in need of medical attention."

Terakhir Diperbarui : 2026-11-02

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Then It For You

Chapter 6: "Yeah," Kael says into the phone. "She's here." The voice on the other end comes through loud enough that I can hear the shape of it from across the room. Fast. Sharp. Used to being obeyed. Kael doesn't interrupt. He stands behind the counter with the receiver against his ear and his jaw working slowly, chewing on nothing, and he lets the man talk himself all the way out. I stay where I am. Feet wrapped. Back against the chair. Watching. "Uh huh," Kael says. Silence. "You done?" More sharp sound. "No," Kael says. "Now you listen to me." He doesn't raise his voice. That's the thing I notice. He doesn't raise it and he doesn't move and he doesn't put any heat into it at all. He just says it flat, the way you'd read out a list. "I'm gonna say this one time, and then I'm gonna hang up this phone and go back to drinking my coffee." The line goes quiet. "You put your hands on her. I don't know when and I don't know how many times. But I know a handpr

Terakhir Diperbarui : 2026-11-03

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The bell

Chapter 7: The bell rings at seven in the morning. I'm still on the stool where Kael left me. Coffee going cold. Feet wrapped. His cut still hanging off my shoulders like a coat on a hook. Kael's hand goes flat on the bar. "Expecting somebody?" "No." The door opens. It's a woman. Seventy-something. Gray hair pinned back. A coat over a nightgown. A pot of coffee in one hand and a plate covered with a dish towel in the other. She stops in the doorway and looks at me. "Well," she says. "You look like hell." Kael exhales. "Miss Ada." "Don't you Miss Ada me." She comes in and sets the pot on the counter. "Word's been going around since five. Carl from the gas station called my house before the sun was up. Said there's a woman at the Vipers with a busted lip and a stolen jacket." "It's not stolen." "It's on her, isn't it?" She pulls the dish towel off the plate. Eggs. Biscuits. Bacon. "Eat." I look at Kael. He tips his head at the plate. I eat. --- Th

Terakhir Diperbarui : 2026-11-03

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The Hall

Chapter 8: I wake up in the dark. The room's blue-gray. The lamp's off. The hallway light's still on, spilling through the open door and across the floor in a long yellow rectangle. And the doorway's empty. I sit up. My heart's slamming. It takes me a second to remember where I am. The bar. The stairs. The small room with the dresser and the green toothbrush. Then my feet touch the floor and the bandages remind me, and it all comes back. The doorway's still empty. I get up. My feet hurt when I stand on them — a good hurt, the wrapped kind — and I go to the door and look down the hall. Nobody. The floor's got two dents in the rug where his boots were. That's all. I go down the stairs. --- The bar's dark. Not empty. Dark. One lamp on behind the counter with a green glass shade, throwing a circle of light across the wood. The chairs are up on the tables. The neon's off. The whole room smells like coffee and bleach and the ghost of all that food. And Kael

Terakhir Diperbarui : 2026-11-03

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Homework

Chapter 9: The black car is still there when the sun comes all the way up. I watch it from the window. Same car. Same spot at the town line. No headlights, no wipers, no movement. Just a dark shape parked sideways on the shoulder like somebody left it there and forgot. Then Jax comes in from the back and says, "It's been there since six." Kael's already behind the counter with a cup of coffee. He doesn't look up. "How long's it been there?" "Since six. Carl called it in at six-fifteen." Jax shakes rain off his jacket. "Said the fella inside ain't getting out. Ain't rolling the window down. Just sitting." I come down the last steps. They both look up. And Kael's eyes go somewhere they haven't been yet. Not to my face. Not to the bruises. To the cut. His cut. Still on my shoulders. Hanging off me, the sleeves swallowing my hands. Something in his face goes tight and satisfied. "Mornin'." "Who's in the car?" "Probably the detective." My stomach drops. "Mar

Terakhir Diperbarui : 2026-11-03

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The Lot

Chapter 10: The key's in the bike. I sit at the window for an hour and think about that. Not the key. The fact that he told me. He could have kept his mouth shut. He could have taken the key out and put it in his pocket and I'd have gone out there and found an empty slot and gone back inside and never known he'd done it. Instead he looked me in the eye and told me where it was. That bike's got a key in it. It's been in it since last night. It's still in it now. That's not a mistake. That's a door held open. --- The town goes by the window. Carl's truck pulls out of the gas station and heads east. The woman from the hardware store sweeps her sidewalk. The kid on the bicycle comes back and does a loop in front of the bar and looks at me through the glass and pedals away fast. Miss Ada comes out of the general store at nine-thirty with a bag of something and walks across the street and comes in without knocking. "Eat." "I already ate." "You ate eggs at seven.

Terakhir Diperbarui : 2026-11-03

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