The boy appeared out of the shimmering Arizona heat like a ghost, his bare feet kicking up dust at the edge of the cracked asphalt. He was small, maybe eight years old, with eyes that were too old for his face, holding a worn spiral notebook against his chest like a shield. He didn’t make a sound. He just stood there, watching the lone motorcycle parked by the gas pump.
Blade felt the kid’s stare before he saw him. It was a prickling on his neck that years on the road had honed into a survival instinct. He finished screwing the gas cap back on his bike, his movements slow, deliberate. He was a mountain of a man, clad in sun-faded leather, his face a roadmap of hard miles and harder memories. The patch on his back wasn’t a club name, just a stark image: a single, broken chain link.
The screen door of the station’s greasy convenience store slammed shut.
A man and a woman stepped out of a dusty sedan that had seen better decades. They didn’t look like parents. The woman’s smile was a slash of red lipstick that was too bright, too forced. The man’s hands kept twitching, patting his pockets like he’d lost something.
“Leo! There you are, buddy,” the woman called out, her voice gratingly sweet. “Time to go. Stop bothering the man.”
The boy, Leo, didn’t move. His knuckles went white where he gripped his notebook. His eyes darted from the couple to Blade, a frantic, silent plea.
Blade’s hand rested on the handlebar of his bike. He could get on, fire up the engine, and be a memory in sixty seconds. It wasn’t his fight. It was never his fight. That’s what he told himself every morning.
“He with you?” Blade’s voice was a low rumble, like gravel turning in a cement mixer.
“Of course, he’s with us,” the man said, stepping forward. He tried for an authoritative tone, but it cracked with nerves. “He’s our nephew. A bit of a handful. Doesn’t listen.”
Leo took one shaky step backward, then another, until his back was against the cool metal of Blade’s saddlebag. He’d made his choice.
That’s when Blade knew he wouldn’t be leaving just yet.
“He doesn’t look like he wants to go with you,” Blade said, not moving, not blinking.
“Look, mister, we don’t want any trouble,” the woman said, her smile faltering. “Leo, get in the car. Now.”
The boy flinched but held his ground. He fumbled with his notebook, opened it, and held it up for Blade to see. On the page, in shaky block letters, was a single, frantic word: HELP.
Blade’s world narrowed to the space between him and the couple. He saw the desperation in their eyes, but underneath it, something colder. Predatory. His hand instinctively went to the lump in his jacket—a small, worn cloth doll that hadn’t left his side in five years.
“The boy wrote something,” Blade stated, his voice flat. “Says he needs help.”
The man, Hicks, lost his patience. “He doesn’t know what he needs. He’s sick. Traumatized.” He took another step, his hand reaching for the boy. “Give him to me.”
Blade moved faster than a man his size had any right to. One moment he was leaning against his bike; the next he was a wall of leather and muscle between the man and the child. He didn’t touch Hicks. He didn’t have to. His presence was enough.
“I think you should get back in your car,” Blade said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper that was more menacing than any shout. “And drive away.”
Hicks’s eyes flickered to the bulge under Blade’s jacket and then to the woman. A silent conversation passed between them. The woman nodded, her sweet facade melting away into something hard and ugly.
Hicks lunged. Not for the boy, but for Blade.
It was a mistake. Blade sidestepped, using the man’s momentum against him, sending him stumbling into the side of the gas pump. In the same fluid motion, Blade scooped Leo up with one arm, settled him in front of him on the bike’s seat, and kicked the starter.
The engine roared to life, a thunderous crack that shattered the desert silence.
“Get him!” the woman shrieked.
The sedan’s engine screamed as Hicks threw it in gear. Blade twisted the throttle, and the bike shot out of the gas station, tires spitting gravel. The desert highway stretched out before them, a black ribbon disappearing into the blazing horizon.
Leo clung to him, his small body trembling, the notebook still pressed to his chest. He was silent. Utterly silent. The kind of silence Blade knew all too well. It was the sound of a hole being ripped in the world.
He risked a glance in the mirror. The dusty sedan was a hundred yards back and closing fast. This wasn’t a rescue. It was just the beginning of the fight.
They rode for an hour, the engine a constant drone, the sun a hammer beating down on them. The sedan stayed with them, a persistent shadow of violence. Blade knew his bike was faster, but he had a passenger, and the road was straight and offered no cover.
He finally saw his chance: a sign for a scenic overlook, leading up a winding dirt road into the mesas.
He veered off the highway without warning, the bike skidding on the loose dirt. Behind them, the sedan fishtailed before following, its suspension groaning in protest.
The road was treacherous, climbing sharply.
Blade navigated the turns with practiced ease, but the sedan was reckless, bouncing over rocks, gaining on the switchbacks. He needed to stop. He needed a plan.
He rounded a sharp bend and killed the engine, coasting into the shadow of a towering rock formation.
He helped Leo off the bike, pointing to a narrow crevice between the rocks. “In there. Don’t make a sound,” he commanded.
Leo nodded, his eyes wide with terror, and scrambled into the darkness.
Blade pulled a heavy tire iron from his saddlebag just as the sedan roared around the corner and skidded to a halt. Hicks and Donna got out, their faces flushed with anger.
“Nowhere left to run, old man,” Hicks sneered, pulling a hunting knife from his belt. The blade glinted in the harsh sunlight.
“Just give us the kid,” Donna said, her voice strained. “He has something that belongs to us. That’s all we want.”
“He’s a child,” Blade growled. “He belongs to no one.”
Hicks charged. Blade met him, the tire iron clanging against the knife in a shower of sparks.
They were a tangle of desperate motion. Hicks was wiry and fast, but Blade was stronger, fueled by a cold, familiar rage he thought he had buried long ago.
He saw an opening, kicked Hicks’s knee, and the man went down with a howl of pain.
But Donna was already moving. She’d pulled a small pistol from the car’s glove box. She wasn’t aiming at Blade. She was aiming at the crevice where Leo was hiding.
“Get out here, Leo!” she screamed. “Or I swear, I’ll shoot your big, ugly friend right now!”
Blade froze. His heart hammered against his ribs. It was happening again. A choice he couldn’t win. A child in danger because of him.
