Into the Fire (Into the Churn Book 2)

by Hayley Reese Chow

After eight grueling minutes, Sylvia guided her back out, Ezren’s mahogany hair now braided in an intricate crown atop her head. Streaks of orange and magenta crisscrossed elegantly beneath the teal goggs nestled in her hair and swirling gold ink curled around her eyes. Ezren would’ve much preferred her leggings and oversized sweater, but now that she was a Belethea athlete ambassador, she was expected to put on a show at every appearance.

“You’ve always been the underdog. Honestly, it’s where you thrive.” “Fod off, she said she’s not doing it.” Tension unspooled from Ezren’s shoulders, relief cascading through her as she turned to see Foster Yunin-Sterling, resplendent in his three-piece and messenger hat, holding two cups of coffee. “It’s not consistent with the BRR message. We always have a team.”

Three weeks was way too chaffing long. A wave of emotions too big to name swelled through her chest, but in the end, all that escaped her was a breathless whisper. “Foster.”

Then his lips were on hers, his hand cupping her cheek as his arm curled around her back, pressing their bodies together. He tasted of coffee and cinnamon and just so completely Foster, his mouth warm as it moved against hers, skirting the edge of restraint. The cams whirled around them with a clamor of hoots and hollers that Ezren tried to block out. Because Foster was here. And that’s all that mattered.

Ten years ago, her dad had accepted a remote job to help pay for Sam’s regen surgery, but after a few years, the messages slowed to a trickle. Then, shortly after she turned fourteen, they’d disappeared entirely—and so, it seemed, had her father.

“Ezren, get back!” Foster seized her elbow, yanking her away from the stage’s edge. She barely had time to process before Foster tugged her into his chest and turned his back to the crowd. Just before everything exploded around them.

His fingers spasmed at his side, a lasting, and irritating, reminder of the royale accident that had taken his hand, and the ensuing regeneration treatment that had grown it back. He massaged it into submission as he paced back and forth among the metal chairs where a scattering of other uninjured VIPs waited.

“No, gloating is a young man’s game, Foster.” He folded his hands on his cane, his shoulders falling. “I need your help.” Foster blinked, once… twice. But the words still didn’t make sense. “Help?”

“You have the influence, the resources, the experience, and the history to shoulder Belethea’s Race Royale legacy. You were born to be a royaler, and you carried your doubles partner across the finish line, just as I once did.” He lifted his chin. “Now, if you really love Belethea, we need to work together to keep the rest of the system from scrapping her for parts.”

Foster’s hand spasmed, and he grimaced, massaging it with the other. “Did you forget you tried to kill me only a couple months ago?” “I never forget anything. Especially a race royale finish for the history books.”

“You can be afraid of the arena, but if you want to stay alive, you’ll enter anyway, always keeping your enemies where you can see them.”

The thought of the Beletheans they represented turning against them made his shoulders tense. And the worst part was, since Ezren had become the voice of the terraforming movement, she took the brunt of it. His arm tightened around her.

“Villegas is trying to force Ezren and Foster to race again.” Though annoyance edged Sylvia’s tone, she couldn’t hide the worried furrow of her brow. Foster’s jaw tightened, and he could practically hear his teeth grinding. “Because risking our lives for Belethea once wasn’t enough.” He thought of Ezren’s screams beneath the twisters of the Churn Belt, the stony flatness of Villegas’s stare. And he couldn’t shake the feeling that another race would be a death sentence. She wishes to remove you from the real playing field…

The hiss of the front door cut through Sylvia’s mock tirade, and a man in a long trench coat with a thick crop of tangled black hair walked into the room.

“I’m Inspector Ian Shiro.” A holo of a badge glowed from the black, military-grade goggs hidden in his untamed hair.

“It’s time sensitive, Sterling.” He rubbed an agitated hand across the five-o’clock shadow darkening his angular face. “He’s alive. I found him.”

“I’ve located Hart, but he’s in a precarious situation,” Shiro continued from where he stood in the lobby, looking out of place amid the teal décor in his dark trench coat. “And if it were my dad, I’d want to know.”

“No.” Ezren’s gaze sharpened, closing in on the man as if she were on the attack. “It’s fine. You said you found him. Is he alive?” “Yes.” Shiro took a hesitant step backward from her charge, his mag-boots clicking on the gray tile floor. “But he may not be for long.”

Shiro lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug, and in that movement, Foster realized he probably wasn’t much older than mid-twenties—Sylvia’s age.

They’d barely made it two steps before Ezren’s eyes cleared. “I’m going to Otho.”

Ezren lifted her chin and shifted away from Foster, standing taller, as if her mettle had seeped back into her. “If my dad’s in trouble, I need to go get him.” Her gaze darted to the mass of skirts still swathing her legs. “Or at least talk to him.”

“Thank you for finding my dad, Foster.” Though Ezren’s voice was soft, there was no uncertainty in it. “But you have to realize that now I know he’s alive, I can’t just stay here while Calderon murders him.”

After years of wondering, Ezren finally knew where her dad was, yet somehow they were left with more questions than answers. And if it was bothering him, it must’ve been killing her.

He turned to her with a wistful smile that felt too heavy to lift. After weeks away, he’d wanted nothing more than to hold her all night and into the next day, and here he was letting her go.

Ezren pulled back to look up at him, her expression tender with a love that seemed to break him and put him back together every time he saw her. Suns, he’d missed this—her scent, her touch, how the edges of her face softened when she looked at him. He’d never get enough. He held her gaze, something urgent and fierce bubbling up in his chest. “I love you, Ezren.”

“I love you too.”

Her hands circled his back as he deepened the kiss, the warmth smoldering into a blazing heat that filled him from toes to fingertips. The two of them melding into one as they moved together. Sterling/Hart. Hart/Sterling. Like two halves to a whole. Completely right.

“I love you, Foster Sterling.”

She threw on a frayed oversized sweater of Foster’s and a pair of leggings before slinging her bag over a shoulder and stalking onto the nearly empty streets of Petraskis.

While she understood the reasoning, the urgency of the situation threatened to choke her. Like every childhood nightmare of her father’s death was coming true. But if she was going to convince Foster, she needed more information first. And she needed it now.

Ezren nodded, something about his matter-of-fact air quelling her doubts. That, and it was hard to be suspicious of a man with sugary white foam coating his upper lip.

“Please say you’ll go with me.” For a moment, they only stared at each other, their past and future stretching between them like a taut wire. They’d faced impossible odds before. Storms. Murder. Death. She knew if anyone could do it, they could.

“Yeah, Ezren, I’d rather you not run off to the most dangerous planet in the system in direct line of sight of a murderer, but I’d rather cut off my hand again than let you do it alone. Besides…” He massaged his right palm, his face softening. “It’s your dad. I get it.” An unexpected sob caught in Ezren’s chest, relief and love cascading through her. “Thank you, Foster.”

After all, she needed her dad. And it was quite possible he needed her too.

“Thank you so much for this opportunity, but I really have to run.” With that, he charged through the front door and literally ran down the street, the holologger’s protests fading in the crowd behind him.

Pulling up an algorithm Ezren had made him to avoid crowds, he turned sharply down a side street and stuffed his newsboy cap on his head. He yanked his scarf over his face as he ran toward Carmella, relishing the feel of the ground beneath his feet.

Though he’d never particularly loved one leg of the BRR over the others, after Ezren had entered his life, her love for the run had spilled over to him, and he’d missed the stretch of his legs on those weeks aboard the stations.

Mother. Suns. What would they have done to her if she’d been here? Foster’s hand curled tightly around his bag, fury pulsing through him in hot waves.

“Foster!” The figure paused at the shout, turning to face the newcomer just as Simon Grady tackled him from behind.

Foster shoved open Carmella’s back door, trying to ignore the pain now forcing its way to the forefront of his mind. “Grady, I can’t stay here when Ezren’s⁠—” “I know. That’s why I’m coming with.” Foster paused at the back gate and looked at Grady only to find his expression serious. “Royalers don’t go alone, Sterling.” His lips curved into a smile. “I mean, I did just save your ass after all.”

They’d competed fiercely that first year, then grieved separately after Genevieve’s death, their guilt festering into bad blood and then jealousy once Ezren came along. It was really her bright smile and unending resolve that had finally brought the four of them together as a team. But she wasn’t here.

But with two attacks in two days, leaving him behind could be just as bad. And in the end, he was right. They were stronger together.

More than the explosions, the shouts, or the crowd, it was that silence that cemented his uncertainty into dread.

With his usual air of unruffled amusement, Inspector Ian Shiro patted the belly of the small ship with a hollow clang. “I think the phrase you’re looking for is ‘under the radar.’ When you’re trying to break into a top-secret facility, you don’t really want to attract a lot of attention.”

Shiro started up the boarding ramp, but Ezren paused, her fingers curling in the overlong sleeves of Foster’s hooded sweater. Once she got on that ship, there would be no going back.

“You have to admit”—Ezren gestured to the ship as she walked up the ramp toward him—“this screams dodgy.” “Well, of course, I’m a private investigator. Dodgy is literally my business.”

“How are you even here?” Bex jerked a thumb at Shiro. “We paid him to tell us if you did anything stupid.”

Ezren turned to the boarding ramp entrance where Shiro watched the proceedings as if it were the day’s entertainment. “You sold me out.” He hooked his hands onto the lapels of his trench coat with a placating grin. “I had a previous arrangement that was in your best interest.”

Ezren’s voice pitched, her confusion and desperation bubbling into a shout. “But this is my dad!”

“I have to go.” Ezren looked from Sylvia to Bex and back, both of them shocked into silence. “I’m not going to miss my chance.”