Sloe Ride (Sinners, #4) by Rhys Ford
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always to the Five! Jenn, Tamm, Lea, and Penny. May the road rise up to meet your feet—although knowing us, it’s ’cause we tripped over the dog and went ass over teakettle to land in the hedge. Kisses and hugs to my sisters: Lisa, Ree, and Ren.
I am forever grateful to Elizabeth North and everyone at Dreamspinner. They polish the apple to a gleam. And a special love, adoration, and affection to Grace and the editing team who slogs through my words. A special thank you to lyric, who is beyond delightful and everyone else who has lent a hand with this novel.
I would also like to send a bit of love to everyone who has been told they are wired wrong, off-in-the-head, off-in-the-clouds, or any of those other labels people like to hang on us. Being in the “spectrum” means we’re sitting in the middle of the rainbow looking out. No one can see the colors we do nor hear the songs of the clouds as they pass. So the world for us is a little different, and sometimes it’s a bitch to cope, but please remember to stop and breathe. It’s important for us to be here. Who else is going to share those songs and colors but us?
Prologue
Got shadows on my ass
Time’s not on my side
Life came to give me a kiss
Then Death took me for a ride
—Riding A Pale Horse
A Couple of Years Ago
RAFE ANDRADE couldn’t shake off the black tendrils wrapped around the base of his brain. Whatever he’d taken the night before lingered, dragging him down, and there were stretches along his back and legs where he couldn’t seem to get warm. His bones ached from the cold, a brutal, icy seep into his marrow. Rafe didn’t think he would survive if he didn’t stop it soon. Moving didn’t seem to help, or at least not when he tried to shift about. For some reason, he couldn’t get his arms and legs to work properly, and his balls were pulled up someplace beneath his destroyed liver. After a moment or two of flailing about, Rafe realized he was trapped, contained in a small, hard box he was painfully banging his elbows and shins against whenever he moved.
“Oh God.” Panic and fear set in when he opened his eyes and found nothing around him but a darkness his vision couldn’t penetrate. “They buried me. Oh God, they thought I was dead and buried me. God, no.”
He fought against the box’s solid, icy sides, his elbows and heels shocked with pain with each glancing blow. The air in his chest grew hot, and his lungs folded in, tightening until Rafe couldn’t draw in another breath.
“Think, dude. I’m naked. Who the fuck buries someone naked? Up. Push. Up.” His feeble brain sparked a thought from its murky drowning. Shoving his hands up against the top of the box, Rafe felt… nothing. His arms shot straight up into the air, momentum carrying him off the cold bottom an inch before gravity slammed him back down.
“What the fuck?” The box wasn’t covered. “Where the hell am I?”
Rafe slowly sat up, ducking his head in case he hit a top as solid as the walls, but once he got upright, he found he could grasp the thick sides. Moving was still a problem, and his foot struck something solid at the bottom of the box. Feeling around the space’s slightly rounded sides, he found a spigot sticking out of the short wall by his foot, its metal surface as frigid as the slick walls around him.
“I’m in a goddamned bathtub.” His relief nearly made him sick. Sucking in heaving breaths, Rafe tried to figure out exactly where he was. There wasn’t a whisper of memory in his confused mind. Nothing to pinpoint where he’d been before the tub’s high walls held him in. The air was warmer once he’d sat up, although his ass was still freezing, and Rafe blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust.
Nothing. Not even a sliver of light coming from under a door.
“Okay, Andrade. You can do this.” He carefully tried to stand up, but his legs didn’t seem to be connected to whatever part of his brain he normally used to move him around. It took what felt like forever before he could hook a leg over the side of the tub and then another long hour or so before he felt the floor with his toes. Stepping carefully, he lowered his foot to the solid tiled surface, then gripped the tub tightly until he could get his other leg similarly untangled.