Chapter 1: The Girl Under the Streetlamp
The night we buried our brother Wizard, thirty-two bikers rode into an empty parking lot and found a little girl running for her life.
The neon sign above the abandoned gas station flickered like it was struggling to stay alive.
Blue light.
Then darkness.
Then blue again.
It was almost midnight, and the only sounds in the world were the cooling engines of our motorcycles and the distant hum of a highway three miles away.
We had just come from the cemetery.
No one talked much.
There are moments when even a group of thirty-two loud, stubborn men who had spent decades riding through storms, fights, and impossible roads suddenly become quiet.
Wizard had been the loudest among us.
He was the guy who could make a stranger laugh in ten seconds.
The guy who carried extra gloves because someone always forgot theirs.
The guy who never walked past a broken-down car without stopping.
And now his leather jacket was hanging on an empty chair in our clubhouse.
Big Tom, our president, parked his Harley near the entrance of the old lot and turned off his engine.
The silence hit immediately.
Tom removed his helmet and rubbed his tired face.
Nobody wanted to say the words out loud.
We had lost one of our own.
Then Tom suddenly raised his hand.
Every rider looked toward him.
"Hold up," he said.
I looked over.
"What is it?"" I asked.
Tom narrowed his eyes toward the far side of the parking lot.
"Look.""
At first, I saw nothing.
Just shadows.
Just an empty lot surrounded by old warehouses.
Then I heard it.
A strange scraping sound.
Shriek.
Scrape.
Shriek.
Scrape.
Something moved beneath the flickering streetlamp.
A tiny pink bicycle rolled into view.
And sitting on it was a little girl.
She couldn't have been older than six.
She wore faded butterfly pajamas covered in dirt.
Her hair was messy.
Her face was wet with tears.
One training wheel on the bicycle was bent sideways, dragging against the pavement every few seconds.
She wasn't riding like a child taking a late-night adventure.
She was running.
Her tiny legs were pushing the pedals as fast as they could.
"Is that a kid?"" Tom whispered.
Nobody answered.
Because everyone saw the same thing.
Fear.
Pure, unmistakable fear.
The little girl looked behind her again and again, like she expected something terrible to appear.
Tom slowly stepped away from his motorcycle.
For a man who looked like he could lift a truck, his voice became incredibly gentle.
"Hey, sweetheart.""
The girl slammed on the brakes.
The broken training wheel screamed against the asphalt.
She stared at us.
Thirty-two men wearing black leather jackets.
Thirty-two motorcycles.
To any other child, we probably looked terrifying.
Tom lowered himself onto one knee.
"We're not going to hurt you," he said.
"What's your name?""
The girl opened her mouth but no sound came out.
Her eyes moved past Tom.
Toward the darkness behind him.
Then she whispered.
"Please don't let him find me.""
My stomach tightened.
Tom's expression changed.
"Who are you talking about?""
The girl gripped the handlebars.
"My dad said I had to keep riding.""
A cold wind moved through the empty lot.
I glanced at the others.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Tom looked around.
"Where is your father?""
The girl shook her head quickly.
"He told me not to stop.""
"Why?""
She looked directly at the road behind the dumpsters.
Then she said something that made every biker straighten.
"Because the bad men were coming.""
A second later, headlights appeared.
Except they weren't normal headlights.
They were off.
A black SUV slowly rolled out from behind the dumpster.
No lights.
No license plate visible.
Just a dark vehicle creeping forward.
The girl screamed.
"He's here!""
Tom immediately stood.
Every biker moved.
Thirty-two men who had been mourning moments earlier suddenly became a wall between a terrified child and whatever was coming toward her.
The SUV stopped.
The driver's door opened.
A man stepped out.
He wore a black jacket and expensive shoes that didn't belong in a place like this.
He looked at us.
Then he smiled.
Not a friendly smile.
A confident one.
The kind of smile from someone who believed nobody could stop him.
Tom walked forward.
"You lost something?"" Tom asked.
The man looked around at all of us.
Then his eyes landed on the little girl.
"She's my daughter.""
The girl immediately hid behind Tom.
"No," she whispered.
The man heard it.
His smile disappeared.
"Emma," he said sharply.
"Come here.""
The little girl grabbed Tom's jacket.
"Don't let him take me.""
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
Because every person in that parking lot understood one thing.
A child doesn't look at her own father like that unless something happened.
The man reached into his pocket.
And every biker prepared for the worst.
Then he pulled out a folded piece of paper.
He held it up.
"Before you make a mistake," he said, "you should know who this girl really is.""
Tom stared at the paper.
The man unfolded it.
And the first words written across the top made Tom's face go completely pale.
May you like
Because it was a document with a name we all recognized.
A name connected to our dead brother Wizard.
