Chapter Eleven #2
He reached over, set his hand on my knee. “You did good,” he said. “Called for help, stayed with me. I’m proud of you.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob. I pressed my face to the glass, watched the blue and red lights bounce down the road behind us, and let myself shake for a minute.
I could still see the road in my head, replaying the chase on an endless loop, every curve and near-miss bright with panic and the chemical taste of not-dying.
But I’d only managed three breaths before Jo said, “Down. Now,” and shoved my head hard enough that my forehead bounced off the dashboard.
The world exploded in a spray of tempered glass and hot air. The passenger window went first—shattered by a bullet, a brick, or maybe just the inevitable hand of fate.
I dropped to the floorboard, hands over my skull, knees jammed up against the glove box. A fragment of glass sliced through the back of my hand and stuck there, glittering, but I couldn’t feel it over the shock.
Jo was shouting, one hand braced on my shoulder, the other slamming the F-250 into a slide that fishtailed us across the gravel and straight into Harley’s path.
I heard the bikes behind us swerve, engines pitching up in a sick chorus, but Harley was too close. He aimed for the gap, but Jo was already there, using three tons of Detroit steel to sweep the road clean.
The impact was dull and wet. Harley’s bike bucked sideways, caught Jo’s bumper, and flipped up in a high arc before landing somewhere in the blackberries with a sound like a bowling ball going through a window.
For a second, everything went silent. Then the pain came back, sharp and hot, along with the metallic taste in my mouth.
I crawled up from the floor, shaking, just in time to see the last two bikers hesitate. They rode parallel for a moment, indecision written in the wobble of their lines, then peeled off—one into the ditch, the other gunning it for the main road.
Jo didn’t waste time. He slammed the truck into gear and powered out of the ditch, mud and broken glass spraying in his wake. He didn’t look at me, just kept his eyes forward, knuckles white on the wheel.
I found my phone in the footwell, still miraculously in one piece, and checked my hand. The glass had sliced a neat V into the web between thumb and finger, but it wasn’t deep. I ripped a corner off Jo’s flannel, wrapped it tight, and flexed my fingers until the blood slowed.
The truck roared through a stand of trees and broke out onto the main road, tires squealing.
In the rearview, I saw a streak of red taillight—Harley’s bike, or what was left of it—wobbling to a stop behind us.
Then the world went pure white as Jo hit the floodlights again, burning away the shadows and the panic.
“Are you hit?” he said, voice flat, eyes scanning the road.
“No,” I said, and then saw the blood streaking down his face, bright against the skin at his temple. “But you—”
“It’s nothing,” he snapped, wiping it away with the back of his hand. The blood smeared, but he didn’t wince, just blinked away the sweat and glass and kept driving.
“Should I—”
“Stay down. We’re not clear yet.”
I ducked, half on the seat, half on the floor, watching the world through the lattice of busted glass. Ahead, the blacktop shimmered with heat and dust, the horizon flat and endless.
But behind us, in the mess of trees and headlights, I could still see Harley—one hand on his helmet, the other braced on what was left of the handlebars, staring after us like a man who’d just lost his favorite toy.
Jo checked the mirror again, then hit the gas. The engine screamed, but the truck held the line, eating up the last miles to the turnoff.
Then, as we crested a hill, the cavalry arrived.
Four pickup trucks, headlights blazing, barreled up the center line, side by side.
The one in the middle had the McKenzie logo stenciled on the hood, just above the bug-splattered grill.
In the beds, shadows moved—figures with shotguns, axes, one idiot with what looked like a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.
They didn’t even try to be subtle. The McKenzie trucks formed a wedge, forcing the remaining bikers off the pavement and onto the shoulder. There was a crunch, a spray of gravel, and then the trucks circled up like wagons around us, engines idling in the dusk.
Bo. Stay in the truck. The words echoed from my phone, Knox’s voice coming through the cracked speaker, thick with adrenaline and something else—fear, maybe, or just the kind of anger that came out when you saw your baby brother nearly murdered on a back road.
I stayed put, heart thrumming, watching as Jo killed the engine and let the silence settle. The brothers piled out of their trucks in a tangle of boots and bad ideas.
Ransom was first—bare-chested and barefoot, like he’d rolled out of bed and straight into a street fight. Next was Quiad, in a battered field jacket and carrying a length of chain that looked suspiciously like it used to belong to Harley.
Knox moved slower, calculated, his shotgun held low but ready. He scanned the tree line, then walked up to our truck and peered in through the busted window.
“You alive?” he said, voice like ground glass.
I nodded, not trusting my mouth.
He looked at Jo, then the blood on his face, and nodded once, satisfied. “You good?”
Jo shrugged. “Took a hit. Nothing broken.”
Knox grunted, then opened the door and yanked me out, one arm around my shoulders, steering me toward the center of the circle. My legs felt like they’d turned to noodles, but I managed to stay upright, even when the world started to spin.
In the space between the trucks, the McKenzies formed up—bigger, meaner, and a hell of a lot more pissed than I’d ever seen them. Ransom spat on the ground, eyes still locked on the trees. Quiad swung the chain in slow circles, testing the weight.
Harley’s bike sputtered, then died. He limped out of the brush, helmet gone, blood running down the side of his face in a crooked line. He looked at the circle of trucks, the shotguns, the chain, and for the first time, I saw fear in his eyes.
He wiped his mouth, then glared at me. “This isn’t over, Bo.”
Knox took a step forward, gun loose in his grip. “Yeah, it is.”
For a second, I thought Harley might go for the gun at his belt, but instead he just spat blood onto the road, got back on the busted bike, and gunned it into the dark. The other bikers followed, tails between their legs.
The silence after was absolute. I stood there, breathing hard, until the shakes started in earnest. My hands buzzed, my jaw wouldn’t stop trembling, and the taste of blood filled my mouth.
Jo came around the front of the truck, wiping his face with a bandana. He took one look at me, then pulled me into a hug so tight it cracked my ribs.
“You did good,” he said again, voice softer now. “It’s over.”
But I knew better. Even with the McKenzies, even with the shotguns and trucks and the chain, nothing was ever really over. Not with people like Harley.
I pulled back, blinked away the sweat and glass from my eyes, and looked at the brothers. They watched me, silent, all of them waiting to see if I’d break or stand up straight.
I stayed standing.
Jo ran a hand down my arm, fingers finding the place where the glass had cut me. He touched the bandage, gentle, and I almost lost it.
Instead, I smiled, just a little.
The brothers relaxed, tension bleeding out of the group as they realized we’d made it, at least for now.
Knox clapped a hand on my back, nearly knocking the air out of me. “You ready to go home?” he asked.
I looked at Jo, then at the battered truck, then at the family waiting behind me. “Yeah,” I said, voice steady for the first time all day. “Let’s go home.”
And with that, we piled into the trucks—broken, bloodied, but alive. For the first time, I didn’t care what the road held ahead. I just wanted to see what came next.
The ride back to the homestead was a funeral procession in reverse—six battered pickups in tight formation, headlights blazing, every driver hungry for a fight that had already ended.
We tore up the last two miles of gravel, the trucks close enough that I could see the faces of my brothers in the side mirrors, mouths set and eyes gone hard with the afterburn of adrenaline.
The sky was deepening to purple when we hit the turnoff. The old mailbox, shotgun-pocked and listing, marked the start of the drive. I watched it flash past, then let my gaze drift up the long curve of the hill to the farmhouse, where every window was lit up against the dusk.
From the road, the place looked like something from an overproduced beer commercial: barn in silhouette, fields going gold in the dying light, two horses grazing in the near pasture, tails flicking at flies.
I tried to take it in, but my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. My skin crawled with leftover fear, the glass splinters and dried blood a roadmap for every second I’d thought I was about to die.
Jo parked the truck at the foot of the porch, engine idling. He didn’t move to get out right away, just let the thrum of the motor fill the cab. I kept my eyes on the house, counting the shadows that moved behind the kitchen window.
“You ready?” he asked, voice soft.
I wasn’t, but I nodded anyway.
He opened his door, the dome light flickering on overhead. I reached for the handle on my side, but my fingers slipped, useless, until Jo came around and opened it for me. He put one hand under my elbow, steady and unhurried, and I let him pull me to my feet.
The chill in the air hit all at once. My teeth started to chatter, and I realized I was still only wearing the thin white tee I’d thrown on that morning—now torn at the shoulder, smudged brown-red around the collarbone where Jo’s blood had soaked through.