“Stop, it’s a trap.”
“Get lost, kid.”
“The bridge, they cut it last night.”
“You’re crazy, move.”
“Please, I watched them do it. Three men with an angle grinder. You cross that bridge, none of you come back.”
The bikers shoved past her. Fifteen engines roared to life. Hope Gardner dropped to her knees in the middle of the parking lot. Barefoot, homeless, nineteen years old. She had nothing. No phone, no family, no voice that mattered. She’d run two miles at dawn on an empty stomach to save fifteen strangers, and not one of them believed her. She whispered to herself, the way her grandmother taught her to pray. At the back of the pack, one man’s eyes narrowed. He looked at her. Really looked. Then he killed his engine. What happened after that? This town has never been the same.