Chapter 2
Move
The 911 dispatcher was still on the line when the headlights arrived.
Noah had been counting the man's breaths — in, out, in, out — when the first set of lights swept across the wet road from the direction of town. A black pickup, moving slow, like it was looking for something. Behind it, a gray SUV. Behind that, an old sedan with one headlight dimmer than the other.
Three vehicles. They pulled onto the shoulder in a loose line, engines running, and four men got out.
Noah's stomach dropped.
The leader was tall, with a wet jacket and a face that looked like it had been carved out of something hard. He walked toward the fallen bike with the easy confidence of a man who owned every room he walked into, and when he saw Noah kneeling in the rain beside the rider, his mouth twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"Move," he said.
Noah didn't move.
"I said move, kid. This doesn't concern you."
The dispatcher was still in his ear. "Sir, are you still there? The ambulance is ten minutes out."
Noah swallowed. "I'm here. There are men here. Four of them. They just pulled up and they're telling me to leave."
"Stay on the line," the dispatcher said. "Stay on the line and stay safe."
The tall man took another step closer. Rain ran off his jacket in sheets. "You heard me. Get up and walk away. This man is with us."
"He's hurt," Noah said. His voice shook. He hated that it shook. "He needs an ambulance."
"And he'll get one," the man said, smooth as oil. "After we take care of him. Now move."
The other three men spread out without being told. One of them was broad and quiet, with a scar through his eyebrow, and he took up a position by the fallen bike like he was guarding it. Another stayed by the SUV with the engine running, his face half-hidden by the rain. The third — the youngest — hung back a step, and in the wash of the headlights Noah saw that he couldn't have been much older than Noah himself. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. His jacket was too big for him and his hands kept opening and closing at his sides.
"Jace," the tall man said without looking at him. "Check the bike."
The boy — Jace — flinched at his name. He took a step toward the fallen motorcycle, then stopped, his eyes flicking to Noah, and Noah saw something in them that he recognized. Fear. The boy was scared too. Not of Noah. Of the man giving the orders.
"Don't," Noah said, and his voice came out louder than he meant it to. "Don't touch it. That's evidence."
The tall man's laugh was short and ugly. "Evidence. Listen to him. Kid watches too much television."
"Sir," the dispatcher said in Noah's ear, sharp now, "the ambulance is eight minutes out. The sheriff is on the way. I need you to stay on the line and stay where you are. Do not engage with these men."
Noah's mouth was dry. "I'm not engaging," he whispered. "I'm just standing here."
And he was. Standing in the rain in his wet grocery-store apron — he hadn't even taken it off — with four men around him and a dying man at his feet, and every instinct in his body was screaming at him to run. His legs wanted to run. His hands wanted to let go of the phone. The rule he'd lived by for two years — don't get involved, don't get noticed, take care of your own — was shouting louder than all of it.
But the man on the ground had grabbed his wrist and whispered don't let them, and Noah had looked into his eyes, and that had changed something. You couldn't un-look into somebody's eyes like that.
The broad one with the scar through his eyebrow circled around to the other side of the rider, and Noah saw what they were doing. They weren't here to help. They were here to take something, or take someone, and the rider's weak whisper was still ringing in his ears: Don't let them.
Noah stood up. His legs were shaking so hard he was sure the men could see it. He stepped between them and the man on the ground, and he held his phone up where they could all see it, the speaker on, the dispatcher's voice crackling out of it.
"I'm on the phone with 911," he said. "They can hear you. The ambulance is coming. So are the police."