I knew I couldn’t stay in the Jeep. It was a beacon. Even with the engine off, the heat signature of the block would be visible to a high-end infrared sensor for hours. I gently shook Maya’s shoulder.
“Maya. Wake up. We have to move.”
She bolted upright, her eyes wide and wild, her hands coming up to protect her face. It was a defensive reflex that told me everything I needed to know about her life before the gas station. It broke my heart in a way I didn’t think it could be broken.
“It’s me,” I said softly. “It’s Jax. We’re okay. But we have to walk.”
“Where are we going?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“Deep,” I said. “We’re going to a place where the trees are too thick for their cameras. We’re going to find an old friend.”
I grabbed the MP5 and two extra magazines. I slung a pack over my shoulder filled with water, some protein bars, and a heavy wool blanket. I made Maya put on a pair of tactical gloves I found in the back—they were too big, but they’d keep her fingers from freezing.
We stepped out into the mud. The rain had slowed to a miserable, freezing drizzle. I led her away from the Jeep, heading toward a limestone overhang I remembered from a hunting trip years ago. We walked for miles, the only sound the squelch of our boots and the distant, rhythmic thumping of helicopter rotors. I kept Maya close, my hand often resting on the back of her neck to guide her through the dense brush.
Every time a branch snapped, she jumped. Every time an owl hooted, she froze. I realized then that she wasn’t just running from the men in the SUVs; she was running from the memory of every hand that had ever been laid on her in anger.
“Tell me about your dad, Maya,” I said, trying to keep her mind off the dark.
She hesitated, her small boots struggling to find purchase on a mossy log. “He was quiet. He smelled like coffee and old books. He used to sit at his computer for days, typing things I didn’t understand. But he always made time to play ‘Star Quest’ with me. That’s the game he hid the list in. He told me that in the game, the princess has a secret map that can stop the Dark Lords. I thought it was just a story.”
She stopped, looking up at me. “Then the men came. They didn’t look like Dark Lords. They looked like lawyers. They took him into the kitchen, and I heard them shouting. He yelled for me to run out the back. I heard… I heard a loud noise. Like a firecracker. I didn’t look back.”
I gripped the MP5 tighter. The “loud noise.” The firecracker that ends a world. I’d heard it too many times.
“He was a brave man,” I said. “He gave you a weapon, Maya. That list? It’s the map. And we’re going to make sure the Dark Lords don’t get it.”
We reached the limestone overhang just as the sky began to turn a bruised, sickly purple—the first hint of dawn. The cave was shallow, but dry. I laid down the blanket and sat at the mouth of the cave, my back against the cold stone, the submachine gun across my knees.
“Sleep,” I told her. “I’ll watch the door.”
She curled up on the blanket, but she didn’t close her eyes. “Jax?”
“Yeah, kid?”
“Why do you have a skull on your vest?”
I looked down at the “Death’s Head” patch. “It’s a reminder. That life is short, and you have to stand for something before the end comes. For a long time, I thought it just meant I was part of a club. Now… I think it means something else.”
“What?”
“It means I’m not afraid of the dark anymore.”
She watched me for a long time, her eyes searching my face for a lie. She didn’t find one. Eventually, her eyelids fluttered and stayed shut.
I didn’t sleep. I watched the woods. I watched the way the shadows shifted as the sun tried to pierce through the heavy Ohio clouds. I thought about the Hells Angels. My brothers. I knew that if I brought this girl to the Iron Fortress, I was bringing a storm with me. Some of the guys wouldn’t like it. They’d see her as a liability, a magnet for federal heat. But others… others would see what I saw. A chance at redemption.
Around 8:00 AM, the radio earpiece I’d kept in my pocket crackled to life. It was a different frequency now. A cleaner signal.
“…All units, we have a visual on the abandoned Jeep. Recover the drive at all costs. Target is a Class A threat. Use of lethal force authorized for the biker. The girl must be recovered alive if possible, but the drive is the priority. Do you copy?”
I pulled the earpiece out and crushed it in my palm.
“Time to go, Maya,” I said, my voice cold. “The party’s getting crowded.”
We didn’t head for the fortress. Not yet. I knew they’d be watching the main roads. Instead, we headed for a small, dilapidated fishing cabin on the banks of the Muskingum River. It belonged to a man named “Casket” Ray—a retired biker who had spent twenty years in the funeral business before losing his mind and moving into the woods. Ray was a genius with electronics and even better with a long-range rifle.
The hike took us through some of the roughest terrain in the state. We crossed freezing streams, climbed shale slopes that threatened to slide out from under us, and stayed off any trail that looked man-made. Maya was a soldier. She didn’t complain once. She just followed my lead, her small face set in a mask of grim endurance.
By the time we saw Ray’s cabin—a lopsided shack covered in camouflage netting—the sun was high and the humidity was thick. I whistled a specific three-note tune.
A second later, the muzzle of a .50 caliber Barrett poked out of a window in the shack.
“Step into the light, brother,” a voice rasped from a hidden speaker in a tree. “Let me see the patches.”
I stepped out, holding my hands away from my sides. “It’s Jax, Ray. I’ve got a guest. And a whole lot of heat.”
The rifle barrel retracted. The door opened with a groan of rusty hinges. Casket Ray stepped out. He was a wiry man with a long, white ponytail and eyes that looked like they’d seen too many ghosts. He looked at me, then at Maya, then at the blood on my sleeve.
“You look like hell, Jax,” Ray said, spitting a glob of tobacco juice into the dirt. “And who’s the munchkin?”
“This is Maya,” I said. “And she’s the most wanted person in the state. We need to go off the grid, Ray. Deep off. And I need you to look at something.”
We went inside. The cabin was a chaotic mess of computer monitors, radio equipment, and taxidermy. Ray cleared a pile of circuit boards off a table and sat Maya down. He gave her a can of peaches and a plastic spoon.
“Eat up, kid,” Ray said. “You look like you’re about to blow away in a stiff breeze.”
I handed Ray the USB drive. “There’s a game on here. ‘Star Quest.’ My guess is there’s an encrypted partition. We need to know what’s on it before we decide who to kill.”
Ray chuckled, a sound like dry leaves. “Encryption? Jax, you know I love a challenge. Give me twenty minutes.”
While Ray worked, I cleaned my wound properly and reloaded my magazines. I looked at Maya. She was eating the peaches with a focus that was almost hypnotic.
“You’re safe here, Maya,” I said. “Ray’s a good man. Mostly.”
“I like his dogs,” she said, pointing to a pair of massive, sleeping Dobermans in the corner.
“They like you too,” Ray muttered, his fingers flying across a keyboard. “Usually they try to eat anyone who isn’t me. They must smell the ‘Enforcer’ on you, Jax. Or maybe they just know a stray when they see one.”
Ray’s monitors began to flicker with lines of green code. He started mumbling to himself, his eyebrows knitting together.
“Jesus, Jax,” Ray said, his voice losing its playful edge. “This isn’t just a list. This is a ledger. It’s got every shell company, every offshore account, and every bribe paid out by the ‘Unity Group’ over the last ten years.”
