When the EMTs burst through the door, the spell of silence in Room 104 broke.
“Clear the way! Move! Move!”
Two paramedics, a man and a woman, pushed through the crowd of stunned students. They didn’t look at the broken door. They didn’t look at the biker in the leather cut. They looked at the boy on the floor.
“Male, twelve years old, blunt force trauma to the occipital region,” I rattled off the sitrep like I was back in the Marines. “Loss of consciousness for approximately ten seconds. Seizure activity noted immediately after impact. History of severe asthma. I administered one dose of Albuterol ninety seconds ago.”
The female paramedic looked at me, surprised by the clinical precision coming from a man who looked like a Viking.
“Copy that, Dad,” she said, kneeling down. “We’ve got it from here. Step back.”
Stepping back was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. My instinct is to shield. To cover. To be the wall. But I knew I couldn’t fix a brain bleed with my fists. I had to let the professionals work.
I stood up. My knees cracked. My jeans were stained dark crimson at the knee where I had knelt in my son’s blood.
I looked around the room.
The police had arrived. Two uniformed officers were standing by the door, hands resting near their holsters, eyeing me warily. They saw the “Iron Reapers” patch on my discarded vest. To them, I was a gang member. A threat.
“Sir,” the older officer said, stepping forward. “We need you to step out of the room.”
“I’m not leaving my son,” I growled.
“He’s being loaded onto the gurney,” the officer said, his voice firm but not aggressive. “You can ride with him. But right now, I need to secure this scene. Did you… did you kick this door in?”
I looked at the shattered frame. Splinters of wood hung like jagged teeth.
“Yeah,” I said. “I knocked.”
The officer looked at the teacher, Mr. Henderson, who was now frantically typing on his phone in the corner. Then he looked at Trent, who was still kneeling, paralyzed by guilt and fear.
“Go,” the officer said to me, nodding toward the gurney. “We’ll catch up with you at the hospital. Don’t leave town.”
I grabbed my vest—my “cut”—from the floor. It was stained with Leo’s blood. I didn’t wipe it off. I put it on. That blood was a badge now. A reminder of the debt that was owed.
I ran after the gurney.
The ride to the hospital was a nightmare in a metal box.
The siren wailed, a high-pitched scream that drilled into my skull. Leo was strapped down, a neck brace securing his head. He was conscious now, but groggy.
“Dad?” he whispered, his eyes fluttering. “My head hurts. It’s really loud.”
“I know, buddy,” I said, leaning over him, gripping the metal rail of the stretcher until my knuckles turned white. “We’re going to see the doctors. They’re going to fix it.”
“Am I going to die?”
The question sucked the air out of the ambulance.
“No,” I said fiercely. “No. You are a Tate. Tates are made of iron. You hear me? We don’t break.”
But he was broken. I could see it in the way his pupils were different sizes—anisocoria. A sign of intracranial pressure. A brain bleed.
I stared at the paramedic monitoring the EKG. She caught my eye and looked away quickly. She knew.
When we hit the Emergency Room bay at St. Jude’s Medical Center, it was organized chaos.
“Trauma One! We need a neuro consult stat!”
They wheeled him away. They pushed me back.
“Family waits here!” a nurse shouted, pointing to a plastic chair in the hallway.
“That’s my son!” I yelled.
“And he needs a CT scan right now,” the nurse said, her face softening slightly. “Sir, if you go in there, you’re in the way. Let us save him.”
I stopped. I watched the double doors swing shut, swallowing my world.
I was left alone in the hallway.
I looked down at myself. Big, scary biker. President of the Iron Reapers. I had faced down rival clubs, knife-wielding drunks, and riot police. I had never felt fear.
But standing there, under the buzzing fluorescent lights, smelling the rubbing alcohol and floor wax, I was terrified.
I walked to the waiting room. I paced. Back and forth. Five steps turn. Five steps turn. My boots clicked on the tile. Clack. Clack. Clack.
People moved away from me. A mother pulled her child closer. An elderly man shifted his seat. They saw a thug. They didn’t see a father whose heart was being ripped out.
I needed a distraction. I needed to do something before I put my fist through the drywall.
My phone rang.
It wasn’t the hospital. It was an unknown number.
I answered. “Tate.”
“Mr. Tate,” a voice said. Smooth. Polished. Arrogant. “This is Richard Sterling.”
Sterling. The name clicked instantly. The local real estate mogul. The guy whose face was on billboards all over town. Sterling Realty: We Own This Town.
And Trent’s father.
“You have five seconds to tell me why you’re calling before I find you,” I said.
“Now, now, let’s not be hasty,” Sterling said. “I heard about the… accident at the school. My son, Trent, is very upset. He called me in tears. He says a man in a leather vest threatened to kill him.”
My grip on the phone tightened. The plastic housing creaked.
“I didn’t threaten to kill him,” I said, my voice low. “I told him to apply pressure to the wound he caused. He’s lucky I was the one who walked through that door and not the Grim Reaper himself.”
“Look, Mr. Tate,” Sterling sighed, as if he were dealing with a tedious employee. “I know you’re upset. But let’s be reasonable. Boys roughhouse. It’s what they do. Trent feels terrible. It was a prank gone wrong.”
“A prank,” I repeated. “My son is in a CT scan right now checking for a brain hemorrhage. If he has permanent damage, Sterling, your son’s life is over.”
“Is that a threat?” Sterling’s voice sharpened. “Because I have the Chief of Police on the other line. You broke into a school. You destroyed property. You assaulted a minor by forcing him to kneel. I can have you arrested before you finish your coffee.”
“Do it,” I dared him.
“I have a better idea,” Sterling said. “I’m willing to offer a settlement. I’ll cover your son’s medical bills. All of them. Plus, let’s say… fifty thousand dollars for your trouble. In exchange, you sign a waiver, you drop any police report, and you publicly state that this was an accident.”
He was buying me off. He was trying to buy my son’s brain injury like it was a cracked windshield on a used car.
I laughed. It was a dark, hollow sound that made the receptionist in the waiting room look up in alarm.
“Fifty thousand?” I asked.
“One hundred,” Sterling countered quickly. “Cash. Today.”
“Sterling,” I said. “You listen to me closely. You could pile a hundred million dollars in this waiting room, and I would burn it just to see by the light of the fire.”
“You’re making a mistake, Tate. You’re a biker. You have a record. Who do you think a jury is going to believe? The pillar of the community, or the thug in the leather vest?”
“I don’t care about juries,” I whispered. “I care about justice.”
I stood there, shaking with rage. The system was rigged. I knew that. It had always been rigged against guys like me. Sterling had the money, the lawyers, the connections. He would spin this. He would make Leo look like a clumsy kid and Trent look like a victim of a biker’s rage.
Unless I changed the game.
I looked at my phone. I scrolled down to a contact labeled REAPER 1 – VP.
Tiny. My Vice President.
I hit dial.
“Prez?” Tiny answered on the first ring. “What’s up? You sounded weird on the radio earlier.”
“I need the club,” I said. “Oakridge Hospital. Emergency Room parking lot.”
“Who are we hitting?” Tiny asked. No hesitation. No questions about why. Just who.
“We aren’t hitting anyone. Not yet,” I said. “We’re holding court.”
“How many?”
“Everyone,” I said. “Call the Nomads. Call the terrifying looking bastards from the mechanic shop. I want every piece of chrome and leather within fifty miles.”
“On it. ETA twenty minutes. Rolling thunder.”
I sat down in the plastic chair. I put my head in my hands.
And I waited.
Chapter 4: The Brotherhood of Steel
