The wasteland remembered everything.
It remembered footsteps pressed into ash, the heat of gunfire lingering in the air, the smell of blood drying under a merciless sun. Nothing ever truly disappeared. It only waited.
Raven rode until the smoke from the destroyed convoy faded into the horizon.
The road stretched wide and empty, cracked asphalt swallowed by sand and debris. His motorcycle hummed beneath him, steady but tired. Like its rider.
He didn't stop until dusk.
The sky burned orange and gray as the sun sank low, turning the wasteland into a silhouette of jagged ruins and broken silhouettes. Raven cut the engine near a collapsed fuel station, its roof caved in, rusted pumps leaning like dead men.
Shelter.
He rolled the bike inside and listened.
Wind. Distant metal creaking. No engines. No voices.
Good.
Raven dismounted and checked his supplies. Water—half a canteen. Ammunition—scavenged, mismatched, barely enough for a real fight. He cleaned his knife with a rag already stiff with old stains.
He flexed his shoulder.
Pain answered.
The enforcer's blow had cracked something. Not broken. But close. He wrapped it tight, jaw clenched, refusing to make a sound.
Pain meant he was alive.
That night, he slept with one eye open.
The dream came anyway.
Fire. Metal screaming. The smell of burning oil thick in his lungs.
Raven stood inside a convoy—his convoy. Men shouted orders, engines roared, and then the explosions came. One after another. A trap.
He turned and saw her.
Her face streaked with blood and ash. Eyes wide, not afraid—betrayed.
"You said it was safe," she yelled over the chaos.
Raven reached for her.
Gunfire cut him down.
He woke with his hand on his knife, breath sharp and fast.
The fuel station was silent.
Dawn crept in through the broken roof, pale and cold.
Raven stood, rolled his shoulder once, and ignored the pain. He packed quickly. He didn't stay anywhere long. Staying meant dying.
He was pushing the bike out when he heard it.
An engine.
Not one.
Many.
He froze.
The sound grew louder, closer—multiple vehicles, fast, reckless.
Not Barons.
Too light.
Raven dragged the bike back into the shadows and climbed the wreckage, moving slow, careful. From the top of the station, he saw them.
Kan Yolcuları.
Blood Riders.
A swarm of motorcycles and stripped-down cars, engines screaming, flags snapping in the wind. Red paint streaked their armor and faces, crude symbols scrawled across metal.
They were hunting.
And they were following his trail.
Raven cursed silently.
He had been clean. Careful. But mercy had a cost, and the wasteland always collected.
The Blood Riders stopped near the ruined convoy remains in the distance. Raven watched as they dismounted, circling the wreckage like vultures. One of them—a tall woman with a shaved head and a rifle slung across her back—knelt by the tracks.
She smiled.
"He's close," she said. Her voice carried even at this distance. "Real close."
Raven slid down the rubble and moved.
If they found him here, he was dead.
He mounted the bike and kicked the engine to life, roaring out the far side of the station just as shouts rose behind him.
"THERE!"
Gunfire exploded.
Bullets tore into the station as Raven accelerated, the bike screaming across the open road. The Blood Riders poured after him, engines howling, laughter echoing over the wasteland.
A chase.
Raven leaned forward, gripping tight, weaving through debris and broken concrete. Shots cracked past him, some close enough to feel the heat.
He reached for his pistol, firing backward without looking. One rider spun out, crashing hard into the dirt.
The others didn't slow.
They never did.
The road narrowed ahead, twisting through a canyon of ruined buildings—an old city spine collapsed into itself. Raven smiled grimly.
Terrain.
He ducked into the ruins, tires screeching, disappearing into shadows. The Blood Riders followed, reckless and hungry.
Raven hit the brakes suddenly, skidding sideways behind a fallen wall. He killed the engine and rolled free as bullets ripped through the space he'd occupied.
He moved fast.
Knife first.
The first rider came around the corner laughing—until Raven buried the blade in his throat. He caught the body, lowered it silently.
The second rider raised his gun. Raven fired once, point-blank. The pistol jammed immediately after.
Perfect.
He threw it aside and ran.
Gunfire chased him through corridors and collapsed stairwells. He climbed, jumped, slid through gaps barely wide enough to fit. He could hear them shouting, splitting up.
Good.
One by one was how he liked them.
He dropped behind a rider, snapping the man's neck with a sharp twist. Took his shotgun. Fired once. Twice.
Bodies fell.
But there were too many.
A bullet tore through Raven's leg. He stumbled, pain flaring white-hot. He ducked behind cover, breathing hard, blood soaking his pants.
The woman's voice echoed again.
"Still running?" she called. "Thought you were better than this, Raven."
He froze.
She knew his name.
She stepped into view slowly, rifle lowered, confident. Her eyes were sharp, calculating.
"You left a trail," she said. "A convoy burned to ash. Slaves freed. One kid talking about a silent rider with dead eyes."
Raven stood.
Knife in hand.
She smiled wider.
"Mercy gets people killed."
They moved at the same time.
She fired. Raven dove. The shot shattered stone where his head had been. He closed the distance, slashing. She blocked with the rifle, metal ringing loud.
They crashed together, brutal and fast.
She was good.
Too good.
She drove a knee into his wounded leg. Raven roared silently, slamming his head into hers. Blood sprayed. She laughed.
"You don't remember me," she said, breathless. "Figures."
She twisted, trying to bring the rifle around. Raven shoved the knife forward.
She caught his wrist.
They locked eyes.
"I remember you," she whispered. "Left us to burn."
Raven's grip tightened.
Then he let go.
He headbutted her again, hard enough to break free, and drove the knife into her shoulder instead of her throat.
She screamed.
Raven stepped back, breathing heavy, blood dripping from his leg and arm.
He could finish it.
He didn't.
He turned and ran.
The Blood Riders shouted, firing wildly, but Raven was already gone, vanishing into the ruins, leaving blood and silence behind him.
By the time they regrouped, he was dust.
Night fell hard.
Raven collapsed near an old drainage tunnel miles away, breath shallow, vision swimming. He stitched his leg with shaking hands, teeth clenched so hard they ached.
He thought of the boy.
Of the convoy.
Of the woman's words.
Left us to burn.
The wasteland didn't forgive.
It followed.
Raven lay back, staring at the stars barely visible through the haze.
He wasn't running from Barons anymore.
He was being hunted.
And mercy had put a price on his head.
He closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, the road would bleed again.