Chapter 8 Scar Across the Hills
Scar Across the Hills
The highway opened like a scar across the hills.
They rode tight, the line of them cutting through morning fog, engines hammering in sync.
Wind whipped through his jacket; the weight of the cut sat warm on his back.
Eagle’s bike stayed just off to his right side—always close, always watching, always waiting.
They hit the old gas station stop outside Ada County by noon. Place had been dead since the interstate reroute, only thing left was a row of busted pumps and the shell of a diner. Perfect ground for a meet.
Ghost and Mouse swept the perimeter while he checked the map again. The Hades Hellhounds’ clubhouse sat another twenty miles south. Word from the locals said they’d been stockpiling. Word from one of our own said nothing—because no one wanted to name the leak yet.
Ren should’ve been here.
He could almost hear her voice, teasing, sharp. You planning to scowl them to death, Prez?
Eagle broke the thought. “You’re quiet.”
“Thinking.”
“That’s dangerous.”
He handed him a thermos. “Coffee. You look like hell.”
“I feel worse.”
He leaned against the post, watching the horizon. “You really believe it’s one of ours?”
“I believe nobody else knew she was taking that road, and some mother fucker has eyes on my woman.”
He didn’t answer.
By afternoon, the clouds broke. Sunlight hit the road hard and flat. They rode again, this time toward a stretch of scrubland known for bodies that never got found. The plan was simple: send a message, mark a border, make the Hades Hellhounds think twice.
It should’ve been clean.
It wasn’t.
They were half a mile from the turnoff when the first shot rang out. A bullet clipped the mirror off Mouse’s bike, spun him sideways. Another burst cracked the asphalt near Tater’s front tire.
“Cover!” Eagle barked, voice cutting through the chaos. Bikes split, engines screaming. Dust exploded off the road. Shots came from the ridge—high ground, well-planned.
Too well.
Tater dumped the bike behind an old drainage ditch, drew his pistol, and scanned. Shadows moved up there—four, maybe five shapes. Hades Hellhounds, maybe, but their formation looked wrong. Not wild. Military.
Eagle crawled up beside him, breathing hard. “How the hell they know the route?”
“Because somebody gave it to them,” he said.
He cursed under his breath.
Bullets tore the dirt inches from his head. He counted three mags before the return fire started slowing. Then the ridge went quiet.
Tater motioned to Brick. “Flank ‘em.”
He nodded, then vanished into the brush.
The silence stretched too long. Wind stirred dust. Then—an explosion. Small, sharp. A flash of fire, then black smoke curled up from the ridge.
“Trap inside the trap,” Eagle said.
Brick’s radio hissed, then cut to static.
Tater clenched his jaw. “Mount up.”
They climbed the ridge slow. The air stank of burnt powder. The bodies they found weren’t theirs—they were Hades Hellhounds, four of them, charred bad. Someone had rigged their own position to blow.
Eagle crouched beside the nearest corpse, picked up a piece of metal half-buried in the dirt. He turned it over, frowning.
It was a piece of a timing cap from a Bastards-issue grenade.
He looked at Tater. “Ours.”
He said nothing. The wind did the talking for a while.
They rode back silent.
By the time They hit the lot again, the sun was gone. The brothers dismounted slowly, glancing at one another with that unspoken question on every face: Who sold them out?
Tater walked straight past them, into the chapel. Shut the door. Sat down at the table with the map still pinned from the night before. A new stain marked the corner—blood or coffee, didn’t matter.
Eagle came in after a minute. He closed the door behind him.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked.
“I’m thinking I don’t like coincidences,” he said. “And I don’t believe in luck.”
He nodded toward the door. “You want me to start digging?”
“Quietly.”
He hesitated. “You sure you want to know who it is?”
“Knowing’s better than bleeding in the dark.”
He nodded once and left.
Tater sat alone again, hands clasped, eyes on the bent gold chain in front of him.
Ren’s fire. His war.
The crown-skull patch above the table flickered in the candlelight like it was grinning.
“Tomorrow,” he whispered, “we stop surviving.”