Chapter 7
The sun dipped entirely below the western ridge, leaving the sky a bruised purple that slowly bled into absolute black. Highway 9 narrowed as it climbed higher into the Black Hills, the smooth asphalt giving way to cracked, patched pavement bordered by towering Ponderosa pines that loomed like silent sentinels in the headlight beam. The temperature dropped sharply with every mile they gained in altitude, the mountain air biting at exposed skin.
Behind Jax, Leo pressed his small face firmly against the broad, leather-clad back of the biker, using him as a shield against the rushing wind. Despite the bone-deep vibration of the V-twin engine and the terrifying lean of the heavy bike around sharp mountain curves, the boy didn’t cry out or complain. He just held on tighter, his small fingers locked hard into Jax’s belt loops. Every time the FXR hit a pothole or leaned hard into a hairpin turn, Jax could feel the light, fragile weight of the boy against his spine—a constant, undeniable physical reminder of a life he had abandoned twenty years ago.
They rode in silence for over an hour, the only sounds being the steady, mechanical heartbeat of the engine and the rushing hiss of wind through the pines. Jax kept the throttle steady, his eyes scanning the dark shoulders of the road for deer, gravel patches, or anything else that could spell disaster on two wheels. He was heading for the address Clara had written down on that folded piece of paper—an old, abandoned forestry cabin near Deadwood Creek that his old club used to use as a crash pad back when they were young, stupid, and bulletproof. If the roof hadn’t caved in by now, it would at least keep the mountain wind off them until morning.
As they rounded a sharp bend past mile marker 42, the headlight beam swept across a rusted mail-box half-swallowed by blackberry bushes. Painted on the battered metal in peeling white letters was the number 74. Jax clicked down on the shifter, the engine barking a harsh protest as he slowed the bike to a crawl. He eased the clutch, turning the heavy machine off the highway and onto a narrow, overgrown dirt track that disappeared into the dense timber.
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The dirt path was rough, choked with exposed tree roots and deep ruts carved by spring runoff. The FXR bucked and swayed under the weight, but Jax’s veteran hands kept the wheels true. Ten minutes later, pushing through a curtain of low-hanging pine branches, the cabin materialized in the headlight's yellow glow. It was a miserable sight: a sagging single-room structure made of weathered, silver-gray logs, a tin roof rusted a deep orange, and a crooked porch that looked like it would collapse if a stray cat sneezed on it.
Jax cut the engine. The sudden silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the ticking of the cooling exhaust pipes and the distant hoot of an owl somewhere deep in the timber.
