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her, and nothing would stop me from bringing her back. “His name was Garret Xavier Sebastian.”

 
    Ember
    Three hours on the back of a motorcycle, the sun beating down on your shoulders and the wind whipping through your hair, though exhilarating, reminds you why flying wins every time.
    “You okay back there, Firebrand?” Riley called over his shoulder. I peeked up from his leather jacket and caught my reflection in his dark shades. My hair whipped and snapped like a flame atop my head, too short to tie back but just long enough to be horribly tangled when we stopped. Before us, the highway stretched on, an endless strip of pavement heading east. Around us, the Mojave Desert provided much the same scenery: sand, scrub, cactus, rock and the occasional hawk or turkey vulture. The air shimmered with heat, but heat never bothered me. My kind was well adapted to dealing with blistering temperatures.
    “My butt has gone numb!” I called back, making him smirk. “My hair is going to take hours to untangle, and I think I’ve eaten like four bugs. And I swear, Riley, if you tell me I should keep my mouth closed, you’re going to be riding the rest of the way sidesaddle.”
    He grinned. “We’re about forty-five minutes out. Just hang on.”
    Sighing, I laid my chin against his back, watching the eternal sameness flash by around us, and let my mind wander.
    It had been three days since we left Crescent Beach. Three days since my world had been turned upside down, since I’d learned Talon was hiding things from me, since I’d fought the Order of St. George and discovered that Garret wasn’t who I thought he was. Three days since I’d made the decision to go rogue and leave town with Riley, abandoning my family and my old life, and branding myself a traitor in the eyes of Talon.
    Three days since I’d last seen Garret. And Dante.
    I clenched a fist in Riley’s jacket, my emotions churning with anger, sadness and guilt toward them both. Anger that they’d lied, that I’d trusted them, only to have them betray that trust. Garret was part of St. George; he’d been sent to Crescent Beach to kill me. Dante, the brother who’d promised to have my back no matter what, had turned me in to Talon when he’d discovered I was going rogue. But at least Garret had redeemed himself somewhat, saving me and Riley from a Talon assassin, then warning us that his own people were on their way. It was because of him that I was here now, on the back of a motorcycle with Riley, flying across the Mojave Desert. I didn’t know where my brother was, but I hoped he was okay. He might’ve abandoned me to Talon, but I knew Dante. He thought he had been doing the right thing.
    Idiot twin. He still didn’t know the truth about the organization, the dark secrets they kept, the lies they told us. I’d make him see, eventually. I would get him out of Talon soon.
    After I took care of this other thing.
    The sun was beginning to drop toward the horizon when Riley slowed and pulled off the highway into a large, nearly empty lot on the side of the road. A sign at the edge of the pavement cast a long shadow over us as we cruised by, making me squint as I gazed up at it.
    “‘Spanish Manor,’” I read, then looked at the “manor” in question, finding a boxy, derelict motel at the end of the nearly empty parking lot. Peeling yellow doors were placed every thirty or so feet, and ugly orange curtains hung in the darkened windows. Exactly one car, an aging white van, was parked in the spaces out front, and if not for the flickering vacancy sign in the office window, I would’ve thought the place completely abandoned.
    Riley cruised up beside the van and killed the engine, and we both swung off the bike. Relieved to be able to move around again, I put my arms over my head and stretched until I felt my back pop. Gingerly, I tried running my fingers through my hair and found it hopelessly tangled, as I’d feared. Wincing, I tugged at the snarls