Blood on the Highway: The Biker’s Silent Debt

The cold mountain air bit into their skin. Jax scooped Toby into his left arm, using the thick pine trunks as cover as he moved rapidly up the rocky incline. The boy wrapped his arms around Jax’s neck, burying his face in the leather vest, trembling but making no sound.

"Jax!" Cole’s mocking voice echoed through the towering pines. "You can't outrun me in these hills, brother! Leave the truck, leave the kid, and maybe I'll let you bleed out in peace!"

Jax didn't answer. Making noise was how men died in the wilderness. He knew these mountains; he had hidden in them fifteen years ago when the feds cracked down on the northern chapters. There was an old trapper’s cabin two miles up, perched on the edge of a sheer limestone ravine.

"Jax," Toby whispered against his ear. "I dropped the tin box."

Jax halted behind a massive boulder, catching his breath. He looked down at the boy. The fear in Toby’s eyes wasn't about the gunshots; it was about losing the only pieces of his mother that remained.

"It's safe in the truck, Toby," Jax lied softly, brushing a stray lock of brown hair from the boy’s pale forehead. "I'll get it back. I swear to you on my life, I'll get it back."

A gunshot tore a chunk of bark from the pine tree inches above Jax’s head. Jax spun around, raised his pistol with two hands, and fired two rapid shots down the slope. A scream of pain cut through the trees—one of Cole’s gunmen went down, clutching his thigh in the snow.