“I didn’t steal it.”
“Who gave a runaway kid something like this?”
Leo said nothing.
Hank noticed.
“A biker?”
Leo lunged.
Hank pushed him down.
“It’s mine now.”
“No!”
Hank slipped the lighter into his pocket.
Leo scrambled up.
Higgins grabbed him again.
“Get in the truck.”
“I’m not going.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You’re a minor.”
“Hank’s hurting kids.”
“That’s for social services.”
“They don’t listen.”
“That’s not my department.”
Leo looked at him.
“Then what is?”
Higgins’s face hardened.
“Get in the truck.”
Hank opened the tailgate.
Leo stopped struggling.
Not because he had surrendered.
Because something changed beneath his feet.
A vibration.
Very small.
At first Leo thought it was his pulse.
Then dust began moving across the hood of the Explorer.
Higgins noticed.
He turned toward the highway.
“What?”
Hank looked over.
“Truck?”
The sound grew.
Low.
Deep.
Layered.
Not one engine.
Many.
Higgins stepped into the road.
Leo heard it clearly now.
V-twins.
Dozens.
No.
More.
The horizon shimmered with heat.
Then headlights appeared.
Two motorcycles crested the distant rise.
Four.
Ten.