Fangs and Asphalt

Bramble Rae has run the same garage for eleven years and answered exactly one question about the Sump Riders: no. She does not ask why they only ride at night. She does not ask why their road captain has been alive since before the highway was paved. She fixes their bikes, takes their cash, and locks up at midnight. Then the state decides to run a bypass through both their properties, and the only legal name on the deed belongs to a vampire who has spent ninety years avoiding paperwork. One courthouse in Ridgecrest. Ten minutes. No witnesses, no rings, no feelings about it whatsoever. Four months later, there is a burning storage lot, an ex-boyfriend with a developer's offer, and a sworn hearing where Lux has to say his real name out loud for the first time in a century. Bramble has never asked him a single question. She is about to start.