Chapter 9
The engine ticked loudly as it cooled down in the quiet mountain air, the only sound besides the gentle whispering of the wind through the high pine needles. Jax killed the ignition, killed the lights, and stepped off the bike, planting his heavy boots firmly in the damp dirt of the clearing. He turned around and reached out to steady Leo, who unclasped his small hands from Jax’s belt and slid off the passenger peg with stiff, trembling legs.
Leo looked around the clearing, his hazel eyes wide as they took in the weathered wooden walls of the cabin, the overgrown patch of wild ferns near the porch, and the towering granite cliffs rising up behind the structure like silent sentinels.
"Is this where you live?" Leo asked, his voice echoing softly in the vast, empty cathedral of the forest.
"It's where I sleep," Jax corrected quietly, unbuckling one of the leather saddlebags and pulling out a heavy iron key ring that looked like it belonged to a medieval dungeon. He walked up the three wooden steps of the porch, the boards groaning under his weight, and unlocked the heavy padlock that secured the front door. With a firm shove, he pushed the door open, letting a wave of stale, dry air escape into the cool mountain breeze.
The interior was sparse, almost monastic. A cast-iron woodstove sat in the corner next to a stack of split oak firewood. A sturdy wooden table with two mismatched chairs occupied the center of the room, and a narrow iron cot covered in a faded wool military blanket stood against the far wall beneath a small, dust-filmed window. There was no electricity, no running water except for a hand pump on the back porch, and no sign of the modern world whatsoever.
Jax flipped a wall switch out of habit before remembering there was no power grid connected out here. He struck a wooden match against the side of the iron stove, lighting a kerosene lamp sitting on the table. The warm, yellow glow immediately pushed the gathering shadows back into the corners of the room, casting long, dancing silhouettes across the rough log walls.
"It's not much," Jax said, setting down Martha’s brown paper bag on the table. "No television. No running water inside. But the roof doesn't leak, and nobody comes up this way unless they're lost."
Leo walked over to the small window, pressing his pale face against the cool glass to look out at the darkening tree line. He didn't look disappointed; if anything, his small shoulders dropped in a long, shuddering sigh of pure relief. For the first time since he had started walking that endless stretch of asphalt three weeks ago, the constant, low-grade terror of being found, of being alone, of not knowing where his next meal was coming from seemed to evaporate from his small frame.
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"It's better than the trailer park," Leo said quietly, turning around to face the big biker. "Nobody yells at night up here."
Jax felt a strange, unfamiliar tightness in his throat. He looked down at the boy, really looked at him—at the scuffed sneakers caked in dry mud, the oversized denim jacket with the rolled-up sleeves, and the big hazel eyes carrying the weight of a lifetime in an eight-year-old body. The armor he had spent ten years forging around his heart felt like it was finally, permanently melting away under the quiet scrutiny of a child.
