Chapter 8: Meeting the Club Brothers
Before Jax could step fully inside the dim interior of the old garage, the low, unmistakable rumble of two heavy engines echoed up through the quiet valley. The vibration hit my chest before the exhaust notes even reached our ears over the sound of the wind. Jax froze instantly, his hand dropping automatically to his side near the heavy knife sheathed on his belt. He cursed under his breath, stepping back out into the open sunlight and pulling me slightly behind his leather-clad frame.
Two customized choppers crested the rise in Ridge Road, kicking up a thick wall of white dust as they slowed to a crawl. The riders wore black cuts identical to Jax's, though their vests bore different patches across the back—rough-looking men with sun-baked skin, dark sunglasses, and heavy silver chains hanging from their belts. The lead rider, a stocky guy with a thick red mustache and a jagged scar running down his left cheek, cut his engine and coasted to a stop right beside the faded blue pickup truck.
"We thought you got lost in the parking lot, brother," the red-mustached rider called out, swinging his leg over his saddle and pulling off his helmet. His eyes flicked past Jax and landed directly on me, hidden behind my oversized jacket. "Who's the stray? We running a daycare service for the rally now?"
"Cut it out, Miller," Jax said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly register that made me squeeze my eyes shut for a second. He didn't move an inch from his protective stance in front of me. "This isn't club business. Go back down to the fairgrounds and tell the others I'll catch up with them tomorrow morning."
The second rider, a tall, thin man with a greasy ponytail and a tattoo of a coiled rattlesnake on his forearm, cut his motor and spat a stream of dark tobacco juice into the dirt. He grinned, revealing a row of crooked teeth. "Boss said we were supposed to escort you back to the main stage before dark. The promoters are expecting that speech about the charity ride. You can't just ditch the formation for a kid, Jax. Especially not a kid wearing your old spare gear."
"I said move along, Miller," Jax repeated, his fingers curling slowly into tight fists at his sides. The air between the two bikers grew thick and heavy, the kind of quiet tension that usually came right before a fistfight in the diner parking lots. "I'm taking care of something personal. You want to make an issue out of it right here in the dirt?"
Miller stared at Jax for a long, hard moment, his eyes scanning the set of his jaw and the rigid stance of his shoulders. Whatever he was looking for, he found it in the hard set of Jax's eyes. The red-mustached biker gave a slow, reluctant nod, spat into the grass again, and pulled his helmet back on.
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"Your funeral, Jax," Miller muttered over the rising roar of his engine. "The road captain's going to have questions when you miss the sundown roll call."
With a sharp twist of the throttle, both bikes kicked up another cloud of dust and tore back down the ridge road, their engines whining until the sound finally faded into the constant background hum of the distant highway.
