THE ROAR THAT ALTERED EVERYTHING
Coming around the corner was a formation of motorcycles.
Not two. Not three.
At least fifteen.
Chrome flashed in the dying sunlight. Engines rumbled low and even. The riders wore black vests over denim, patches sewn across their backs. Heavy boots. Stern expressions.
In Maple Ridge, people usually locked their doors at the sight of bikes like that.
I steadied myself, certain they would thunder past.
Instead, the engines eased.
One after another, they powered down.
Silence settled again, but this time it wasn’t hollow.
The man leading the group dismounted first. Tall and wide-shouldered, gray threaded through his beard, deep creases lining his eyes. He slowly removed his sunglasses.
He studied me. Truly studied me.
“Sir,” he said, his voice composed but resolute. “We heard you from down the block. What happened?”
Something in the way he spoke cracked the barrier inside me.
“They came into my house,” I said, gesturing with my cane. “They hurt my wife. I couldn’t stop them.”
He didn’t cut me off. He didn’t hurry me.
When I finished, his jaw set tight.
“They touched her?”
I nodded.
He faced his group.
“Two of you stay here. Check on the lady. The rest, with me.”
I blinked.
“You don’t have to do that,” I murmured.
He held my gaze.
“No one stands alone when someone screams like that,” he answered.
And just like that, engines thundered back to life.
