Part 2 of 6
The hospital parking lot filled with motorcycles.
One after another, engines shut down until the sudden silence felt almost unnatural.
Ava climbed off Bull’s bike with legs that barely seemed capable of holding her.
She was exhausted.
Frozen.
Still trying to understand how she had gone from walking alone through a snowstorm to arriving at a hospital surrounded by hundreds of bikers.
Inside, nurses looked up as leather-clad men began entering the lobby.
For a moment, everyone seemed to freeze.
“You can’t all stay in here,” one nurse said carefully.
Bull lifted both hands.
“We know.”
His voice was calm.
“We just need to know where they took our president.”
The state trooper entered behind them.
“They’re here for the motorcycle accident victim.”
The nurse checked the computer.
“Trauma bay. They’re preparing him for surgery.”
“Only a few people can wait inside.”
“Fine,” Bull said.
He immediately began organizing the men.
No shouting.
No arguments.
No threats.
The bikers moved with surprising discipline.
Ava followed Bull into a smaller waiting room.
Bones sat across from her.
His hands had been washed, but stains still marked the skin around his fingernails.
“You did good out there,” he said.
Ava looked down.
“I think I did something wrong.”
“What?”
“Moving the motorcycle.”
“You said his leg was trapped.”
“Yeah.”
“Then in a perfect world, we wait for paramedics.”
Bones leaned forward.
“But that wasn’t a perfect world.”
“He was freezing and bleeding in a ditch.”
He shrugged.
“I’ll take injured over dead.”
The words settled inside her slowly.
Bull had been watching from across the room.
Then he asked something that made her uneasy.
“Ava Wright.”
She looked up.
“That’s your full name?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re from Washington?”
“Spokane.”
Bull’s expression changed.
“Your father’s name?”
Ava stiffened.
She thought about lying.
Something in Bull’s face told her it would be pointless.
“Michael Wright.”
Bull leaned back.
A curse escaped under his breath.
Bones looked at him.
“You sure?”
Bull kept staring at Ava.
“Same eyes.”
“Same last name.”
“Reaper never forgets a face.”
Ava felt the room tighten around her.
“What does that mean?”
Bull leaned forward.
“Your father saved Reaper’s life.”
Ava stared at him.
“What?”
“Seventeen years ago.”
“Outside a bar in Tacoma.”
“Somebody fired at Reaper.”
Bull paused.
“Your father took the bullet.”
Ava’s breathing slowed.
“No.”
“He did.”
“My father left.”
Bull’s jaw tightened.
“That’s what you were told.”
Ava’s hands curled around the edge of the chair.
“He walked out when I was a baby.”
“Never came back.”
“Never called.”
Bull shook his head.
“There was more to it.”
Ava looked at him.
“Then tell me.”
Bull glanced toward Bones.
Then back at Ava.
“The man who shot at Reaper had friends with badges.”
Ava said nothing.
“Your father witnessed something he wasn’t supposed to see.”
“He helped put the shooter away.”
“After that, people wanted him dead.”
Ava’s mouth went dry.
“So what happened?”
“Your mother was pregnant.”
“You were on the way.”
Bull rubbed a hand across his beard.
“Michael knew that if he stayed, the people hunting him could eventually come after both of you.”
Ava felt suddenly cold again.
“So he disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Witness protection?”
Bull nodded.
“New identity.”
“New life.”
“He didn’t leave because he didn’t care.”
Ava stared at the floor.
For seventeen years, she had believed the opposite.
Her stepfather had repeated the story often enough that it had become part of her identity.
Her father had left.
He had chosen something else.
He had decided she wasn’t worth staying for.
Now Bull was telling her Michael Wright had vanished because staying might have gotten his family killed.
Ava didn’t know whether to believe him.
But she desperately wanted to.
The state trooper entered with a notebook.
“I still need your statement.”
Ava nodded.
She told him everything.
The skid marks.
The broken guardrail.
The voice from the ditch.
The motorcycle.
Her call.
The arrival of the bikers.
When she finished, the trooper closed his notebook.
“A lot of people would have kept walking.”
“You didn’t.”
“You did the right thing.”
Ava looked away.
She wasn’t used to hearing that.
After the trooper left, the room went quiet again.
Then a doctor entered.
Green scrubs.
Tired eyes.
“You’re here for the motorcycle accident?”
“Reaper,” Bull corrected.
The doctor nodded.
“He’s alive.”
Several men exhaled at once.
Then the doctor continued.
“But he’s not out of danger.”
“We managed to save the leg.”
“The head trauma is what concerns us.”
Bull’s expression hardened.
“What are you saying?”
“He’s in a coma.”
The room went silent.
“How long?” Bones asked.
“Could be hours.”
“Days.”
“Maybe longer.”
Bull looked toward the hallway.
“Can we see him?”
“One at a time.”
The doctor added:
“Immediate family first.”
Bull looked around the room.
“He doesn’t have blood family here.”
The doctor glanced at the bikers.
“Then what are all of you?”
Bull answered without hesitation.
“Family.”
“The kind you choose.”
Then he turned toward Ava.
“You go first.”
Ava blinked.
“Me?”
“You pulled him out of the snow.”
“You go in before I do.”
Ava followed the doctor down the corridor.
The hospital room was dim.
Machines hummed softly.
Reaper looked almost unrecognizable.
Tubes.
Bandages.
Wires.
His injured leg was elevated.
His leather vest hung over a nearby chair.
Without it, he no longer looked like the frightening biker president from the ditch.
He looked like an injured man being kept alive by machines.
Bull stood near the doorway.
“Say something.”
“He might hear you.”
Ava stepped closer.
“Hey.”
Her voice cracked.
“It’s Ava.”
“The stupid kid who didn’t keep walking.”
Nothing happened.
Ava swallowed.
“They say you knew my father.”
Reaper’s fingers moved.
Ava froze.
Then they moved again.
Bull stepped closer.
“You saw that?”
Ava nodded.
Reaper’s eyelids fluttered.
His mouth moved.
“Cold.”
Bull leaned toward him.
“You’re inside.”
“You’re warm.”
Reaper’s eyes opened slightly.
His gaze wandered.
Then landed on Ava.
“Kid.”
Ava almost laughed from relief.
“You’re still here,” he whispered.
“Yeah.”
“You’re hard to walk away from.”
A weak smile crossed his face.
Then his expression changed.
He stared more closely at her.
“Wright.”
Bull looked at Ava.
“He knows.”
Reaper reached weakly toward her.
Ava took his hand.
His grip was fragile.
But deliberate.
“You have his hands,” Reaper whispered.
“Your old man.”
Ava’s eyes burned.
“You knew him?”
“He saved my life.”
Reaper drew a careful breath.
“Took a bullet meant for me.”
“Then walked away so trouble wouldn’t follow his kid home.”
Ava felt something inside her crack open.
“He never told me.”
Reaper’s eyes closed for a moment.
“Some debts you don’t brag about.”
“You just carry them.”
He opened his eyes again.
“We owe him.”
“Now we owe you.”
Ava shook her head.
“I didn’t save you for a reward.”
“Good.”
Reaper’s hand tightened slightly around hers.
“Because what I’m offering isn’t a reward.”
Ava waited.
“It’s a place to stand.”
Reaper looked directly at her.
“You got somewhere safe to go tonight?”
Ava thought about the ruined bus ticket.
The underpass.
The frozen highway.
The home she couldn’t return to.
“No.”
Reaper looked toward Bull.
“Kid doesn’t spend another night on concrete.”
“Room.”
“Food.”
“Clothes.”
“Work if she wants it.”
Ava stared at him.
“Why?”
Reaper’s answer came quietly.
“Because your father stepped into a fight that wasn’t his and changed my life.”
“Tonight, you did the same.”
Bull’s phone buzzed.
He checked the screen.
The warmth disappeared from his face.
“What?” Reaper asked.
Bull looked at him.
“Your brake line was cut.”
Ava went still.
“Clean slice.”
“Not wear.”
“Not road damage.”
Bull’s voice lowered.
“Somebody wanted you to hit that guardrail.”
Reaper closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, there was no surprise in them.
“I figured.”
Ava stared at him.
The crash had not been an accident.
Somebody had tried to kill the man she had dragged out of the snow.
Then another memory surfaced.
A black SUV.
Moving slowly past the crash scene.
Tinted windows.
No front plate.
And someone inside holding up a phone.
Recording.
Ava looked at Bull.
“There was a car.”
His head snapped toward her.
“What car?”
“Black SUV.”
“It slowed down while I was in the ditch.”
“They didn’t stop.”
“They watched.”
Bull’s expression hardened.
“Whoever cut that brake line was watching the scene.”
Ava felt fear crawl back into her chest.
“So they saw me too.”
Reaper looked directly at her.
“That’s what worries me.”
Ava had just discovered that her father had disappeared to protect her.
Now she was beginning to realize that the same old danger might have finally found her anyway.