She looked at my motorcycle outside, then at me. “I’ve… I’ve never been on one.”
“It’s not a joyride,” I said gently. “But you’ll be safe. You’ll hold onto me. Understand?”
She nodded like she was signing a contract with her whole life.
We got her a spare helmet from Chains’s saddlebag. Too big, but better than nothing. I wrapped her in my cut again and settled her carefully in front of me, between my arms.
The ride to St. Helena’s Hospital was fast and cold, engines screaming through streets that slept like nothing in the world was wrong.
Meera’s small hands clung to my wrists.
At the hospital, we walked into fluorescent light and judgment.
The intake nurse froze when she saw us: four Hell’s Angels, road-dust and urgency, and a little girl wrapped in biker leather like it was a security blanket.
Her eyes flicked to the security phone.
I didn’t threaten. I didn’t posture. I simply said, calm as stone, “That child’s mother is in surgery. She’s staying with us until her family gets here.”
Meera looked up at the nurse, voice thin. “My aunt… I texted her but I got the number wrong.”
The nurse’s face changed. Not softened exactly, but recalibrated. Like the story rearranged her assumptions.
“All right,” she said, clearing her throat. “Come with me.”
We sat in a waiting room that smelled like disinfectant and anxiety. Plastic chairs bolted to the floor. A TV playing a game show nobody watched.
Meera curled into my lap like she’d been designed to fit there.
Reaper stood by the window, arms crossed, scanning the parking lot out of habit. Chains paced. Gunner filled out forms with handwriting that looked like it had fought wars.
Hours passed.
At one point Meera whispered, “Are you… are you bad guys?”
The question didn’t come with accusation. Just honest curiosity. A kid trying to label the world so it makes sense.
I looked down at her, at the dried blood still in the lines of her fingers.
“Sometimes,” I said. “Sometimes I’ve been the bad guy in somebody’s story. But tonight? Tonight I’m just… here.”
She blinked slowly.
Then she asked, “Why?”
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