The Rider (Complete)

Chapter Fifteen

With the exits blocked, the scavies knew their prey was hiding somewhere and they were hellbent on finding him. If they had to scour every building and every room to flush Kade out, they would. Time was on their side. They knew hiding was futile and he would have to come out eventually. Travellers always had a limited food, water, and oxygen.

Kade tried to catch some rest, but the drug was causing debilitating paranoia. He could hear loud bangs and the savage howls from the scavies in the streets below. They were relentless. He had underestimated their resolve and now that nightfall had set in, he had realized the crucial mistake he had made. 

As the drug wore off, his mind played tricks on him. He would hallucinate, hear voices that were not there, and twitch for no reason. He was bugging out and desperately wanted to take another dose to keep the demons at bay. Plus, the pain from earlier was flaring up. His body had endured a beating and needed rest, but that was a luxury he could not afford.

Kade rose to his feet. In his sleep depraved, drug-induced brain, he wasn't able to think clearly. He commanded his drone to deploy from his bike and exit through one of the hundred smashed out windows. It would surveil on the grounds below and provide him valuable intel. 

The drone zipped through the old office and flew above the skyline. As it cruised through the city, it picked up several figures, informing Kade exactly which areas to avoid and what was the best route to escape.

Glancing at the timer, he was approaching the twenty-four hour mark. He had six more days to go. Mounting his bike, he engaged his night vision. The entire building, and city for that matter, was pitch black. Nobody had seen the moon in years. Even on the clearest of nights, only a faint hazy circle was visible.

Kade silently rode his bike through a large set of doors and down the hall. The walls and other objects in his field of view lit up with green highlights, allowing him to navigate. He passed a set of inoperable elevators, making his way toward the stairs from which he came. He took a moment to double check the route and ensure it was still viable. Once the coast was clear, he descended the stairs and took off into the night.

Racing through the city, Kade followed the map in his display. The scavies appeared to be completely unaware of him, which brought a smirk to his face. He leaned into a turn as he rounded the block at high speed, nearly hugging the pavement. Before he could straighten out, he was yanked off his bike abruptly and unexpectedly, and brought to the ground with a thud. The wind had been knocked out of him and he desperately gasped for breathe.

His bike continued to ghost ride for several yards before crashing into the side of a building. Kade heard the loud crash, but was too hurt to pay any attention to it. He was in survival mode, writhing on the ground in more pain than he had ever felt. He wondered what the hell he had run into because he didn't see anything.

As he laid in the foreign streets, gasping for breath, a thick cable hovered above him. The cable that stretched across the street was painted black so that it was nearly undetectable at night.

Moaning on the ground, he slowly regained control of his breathing. He had his body armour to thank for keeping his bones from breaking. He cranked his oxygen to one hundred percent, which helped ease some of the pain.

Kade felt as though he was dying and there was no point to carry on. He had failed. There was nothing better to do than to allow the ghost to take him away and die with peace and dignity.

The scavies were like a pack of savage hyenas that would surely strip him naked and take anything of value without batting an eye and leave him in the streets to die. Since his bike was likely trashed and he could barely move, he knew he was likely lying in his final place of rest.

The celebratory howls of the scavies echoed throughout the streets as they circled around their prey.

Without hesitation, Kade injected his second hit of ghost and let it mix with the oxygen. The drug entered his lungs and gave him a second wind. He was hoping to space out the doses, but with three hits in the last twenty-four hours, he was now a full-blown junkie again. If he were to survive, this would definitely complicate matters for him.