The monster from the news, the biker who put my son in this coma during the riots, has been in the room down the hall for ten days, and I’ve spent every one of those days praying he’d die first.
Ten days. That’s how long my son, Alex, has been asleep. Ten days since the protest, since the shouting and the chaos turned my world inside out. Ten days of watching my sixteen-year-old boy, so full of life and fire, lie perfectly still under a web of tubes.
The doctors use words like “cerebral edema” and “fluctuating pressure.” I don’t hear them. All I hear is the sound of that motorcycle engine, a sound I now hear in my nightmares. All I see is Alex falling.
And for ten days, that man—the one they call “Reaper” on the news—has been just fifty feet away.
I didn’t know his name at first. I just knew his colors. The “Iron Legion” vest. The flag on his bike. The symbols of everything I was fighting against.
The media on my side calls Alex a “young martyr for justice.” The media on their side calls him a “rioter who got what he deserved.” I don’t care about any of that. He’s just my son. And he isn’t waking up.
I saw him on day two. I was walking back from the cafeteria, numb, and I saw them wheeling him past. His arm was in a sling, his face was a swollen map of purple and black. He was conscious. He was alive. And my son wasn’t.
I wanted to lunge at him. I wanted to claw his one good eye out. “You did this,” I whispered, so full of venom I could barely breathe.
A nurse pulled me back. “Ma’am, you can’t be here.”
He just looked at me. No hate. No anger. Not even any recognition. Just… exhaustion. That made me hate him more.
My husband, David, tries to be the voice of reason. He’s always been the calm one. “Elias,” he said on day three, holding a police report. “The detective says it’s not clear. They said there was… a van involved.”
I snatched the papers from his hand. “A van? I was there, David. I saw him. He was riding with them. He pointed, and he rode at us.”
“You were scared. It was chaos,” David pleaded. “The report says his bike was… it was totaled. He’s lucky to be alive, Elias.”
“Good,” I snapped. “I hope he suffers. I hope he feels every single break in his body.”
David stopped trying after that. He just sits with me, holding my hand, while I stare at the flat line of Alex’s intracranial pressure monitor.
But that biker… he keeps showing up. Not at Alex’s room. He’s a patient, just like I’m a visitor. I see him in the hallways.
On day five, I saw him in a wheelchair, being pushed by a nurse. His club members were there. Three huge men in leather vests, looking lost and worried in the sterile white hallway. They were talking quietly to a doctor. They looked… sad.
It didn’t fit. Monsters aren’t sad. They’re supposed to be angry.
On day seven, I confronted him. I couldn’t help it. I was at the end of my rope, running on three hours of sleep and stale coffee. I saw him near the physical therapy wing, trying to stand on a pair of crutches.
“You,” I said, my voice shaking.
He looked up slowly. His face was paler now, the bruises fading to a sick yellow. He looked older than I remembered.
“My son,” I choked out. “My son is in a coma because of you. Because of your hate.”
He didn’t say anything. He just leaned on his crutches, his jaw tight. He wouldn’t even look at me.
“Say something!” I screamed, and a few nurses turned. “Defend yourself, you coward! Tell me why you did it!”
He finally met my eyes. The exhaustion was still there, but underneath it, I saw something else. A deep, bottomless ache that looked shockingly familiar.
“Ma’am,” he said, his voice like gravel. “I can’t.”
“You can’t?” I laughed, a horrible, sharp sound. “Or you won’t?”
He just shook his head, wincing as he put weight on his bad leg. “I… I’m sorry about your boy.”
“Don’t you dare,” I whispered. “Don’t you dare say his name.”
I walked away before security came. I sat by Alex’s bed and I cried. I cried for my son, and I cried because I hated that man so much it felt like it was hollowing me out.
On day nine, David came in again, this time with a laptop. “Elias. Detective Miller is outside. He says… he says you have to see this. It’s from a traffic cam, two blocks away.”
“I don’t want to see it, David! I don’t want to watch him hit my son!”
“He says it’s not what we think. He says we have to watch it. Please, honey. For the case. For Alex.”
I agreed. I wanted justice. I wanted that man in jail for the rest of his life.
The detective came in. A tired-looking man named Miller. “Mrs. Harris. I’m sorry to do this now. This footage is… it’s difficult to watch. But it’s important you see the whole thing.”
He pressed play.
I saw the crowd. I saw myself, holding Alex’s hand. I saw the line of bikes. The Iron Legion. I saw the shouting. I saw the chaos as the two sides met.
“There,” I said, pointing. “There he is.”
I saw Alex get separated from me. I saw him trip over a discarded sign. He fell backward, into the street.
“See?” I was sobbing. “He was right there.”
But the biker… “Reaper”… he wasn’t looking at Alex. He was looking past him, down the street. His head snapped around.
And then I saw it.
A white delivery van, no logos, no plates. It had broken through the police line two blocks back. It was accelerating, driving against traffic, aiming straight for the thickest part of the crowd.
It was aiming right where Alex had fallen.
“Oh my god,” David whispered.
I watched, frozen. My son, on the ground. The van, maybe three seconds away from him.
Then the biker. “Reaper.” He gunned his engine. He wasn’t riding at Alex. He was riding for him.
He shouted something I couldn’t hear. He didn’t swerve. He didn’t brake.
He aimed his motorcycle—his beautiful, expensive machine—directly at the front fender of the van.
He turned his bike sideways and slammed into the van at full speed.
The sound on the video was a sickening explosion of metal and glass. The motorcycle disintegrated. The van spun out, its front end caved in, and smashed into a lamppost.
The impact of the bike hitting the van threw debris everywhere. A large piece of the van’s grille flew through the air and struck Alex, who was still on the ground. It hit his head. He went limp.
The biker… Mike… he was thrown thirty feet. He didn’t skid. He just tumbled, a broken doll in a leather vest, and landed in a heap.
The detective stopped the video. The room was silent, except for my own breathing, which was coming in ragged, painful gasps.
“The van driver fled the scene,” Miller said quietly. “We’re still looking for him. The van was stolen.”
He looked at me with pity. “Your son was knocked unconscious by the debris. But Mrs. Harris… if that man hadn’t done what he did, the van would have… it would have…”
He didn’t need to finish. I knew. Alex would be dead. He wouldn’t be in a coma. He’d be gone.
“The man you call Reaper,” Miller continued, “his real name is Mike. Mike Jensen. His pelvis was shattered. Three ribs, internal bleeding, and a compound fracture in his left arm. The doctors said… well, they said he’s a miracle.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stood up. I walked out of the room, past David, past the detective.
I walked down the hall. Fifty feet.
His door was open. A nurse was checking his vitals. He was asleep.
He looked… small. Not like a monster. Not like a biker. Just a broken man in a hospital bed. His breathing was shallow.
On the table next to his bed, there wasn’t a flag. There wasn’t a political pamphlet.
There was a small, half-finished wooden model. A rocket ship. Next to it was a framed photo of a little girl with pigtails, smiling, missing her two front teeth.
I backed away, my hand over my mouth. I went to the chapel.
I sat there for hours. I didn’t pray. I just… tried to unwire my own brain. Tried to undo ten days of pure, uncut hatred.
I had prayed for this man to die. And he had, almost. For my son.
The next day, day eleven, I went back. He was awake. He saw me in the doorway and his eyes widened. He tensed, as if expecting me to scream at him again.
I walked in. I sat in the chair by his bed.
“Mrs. Harris,” he said, his voice weak. “I… I don’t want any trouble.”
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