Chapter 11
The screech of tires on asphalt echoed across the rear parking lot as Leo burst out of the alleyway behind the laundromat. The morning air hit his burning lungs like ice, making him cough violently as he stumbled across the gravel lot. He didn't know where he was going, only that he had to follow Jax’s final instruction: Run straight to the truck stop off Highway 12. Ask for Big Mike. Show him this strap.
He looked down at the faded leather strap clenched tightly in his sweaty palm. The worn leather bore the faded embossed emblem of an old motorcycle club—a soaring hawk clutching a wrench—the very same emblem tattooed across Jax’s left forearm.
“Hey! Kid! Stop right there!”
Leo whipped his head around. Stepping out from the side of the laundromat was the heavy-set accomplice in the canvas jacket, panting heavily with the iron tire iron still gripped in his fist. The man grinned maliciously, blocking the only paved path leading toward the highway overpass.
Leo’s breath caught in his throat. He spun around, looking for another escape route, but a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire blocked the rear perimeter. He was trapped against a dead end.
“Nowhere left to run, kid,” the heavy-set man wheezed, taking a slow, heavy step forward. “Hand over whatever the biker gave you, and maybe I won't have to hurt you like I'm about to hurt your guardian.”
Leo backed up until his shoulder pressed hard against the cold chain-link fence. His mind raced frantically. He remembered Jax’s hard, unblinking eyes back at the school, the absolute promise that no one would touch him. He couldn't let them take the strap. It was their only lifeline.
As the man lunged forward with a heavy swing of the iron bar, Leo dropped flat to the gravel, letting the weapon whistle harmlessly over his head. Using every ounce of momentum, the eight-year-old scrambled between the man's legs, kicking out blindly with his scuffed sneaker and catching the attacker squarely in the shin.
The heavy-set man let out a sharp yelp of pain, stumbling backward and losing his footing on the loose gravel, crashing hard onto his side.
Leo didn't waste a single microsecond. He scrambled over a low wooden pallet, leaped across a narrow drainage ditch, and sprinted up the grassy embankment toward the roaring traffic of Highway 12.
Minutes later, panting and bleeding slightly from a scrape on his knee, Leo stumbled into the dusty, oil-stained parking lot of the Highway 12 Truck Stop. Towering over the entrance was a neon sign buzzing loudly in the daylight. Standing by the open garage bay was a massive, bear-like man with a graying beard and a grease-stained mechanic’s jumpsuit, wiping his hands on a dirty rag.
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Leo staggered forward, holding up the faded leather strap with a trembling hand, tears streaming down his face. “Are… are you Big Mike? The shadow rider sent me.”
Big Mike dropped his rag instantly, his eyes widening as he stared at the emblem in the boy's hand. Then, looking past Leo down the highway, he saw a sleek black sedan pulling aggressively off the exit ramp toward the truck stop.
