Little Orphan Girl Stumbled On A Biker Buried In Snow. When He Woke Up And Whispered Her Dead Mother’s Name, She Realized This Was No Accident.

PART 1

Chapter 1: The Girl in the Snow

The wind didn’t just blow; it screamed. It was a high-pitched, tearing sound, like the sky itself was being ripped open.

Lily tucked her chin deeper into the collar of her coat. It was a donated wool thing, plaid and ugly, three sizes too big. The sleeves were rolled up so many times they looked like fabric donuts around her wrists. Her hands were wrapped in mismatched socks she’d converted into makeshift mittens, but the cold still found a way to bite her fingers.

She was nine years old, and she was alone in the worst blizzard Montana had seen in a decade.

She leaned her weight forward, dragging the plastic sled behind her. It wasn’t a toy; it was a lifeline. Piled on it were sticks, a few scavenged logs, and a bag of pretzels she’d swiped from the group home pantry before slipping out the back window.

Mrs. Patterson wouldn’t notice she was gone. Not yet. Mrs. Patterson was currently busy loading her Mercedes to drive to her sister’s house in Denver to “wait out the storm,” leaving the fifteen kids in her care with a pot of lukewarm soup and a teenager named distinctively “useless” Dave in charge.

Lily knew better. She knew the power would go out. She knew the heat would die. And she knew that when the cold really set in, the bigger kids would take the blankets and the food. Survival in the system wasn’t about being strong; it was about being prepared.

She was heading for the old bus station on Route 17. It had been closed for years, a hollowed-out brick skeleton by the highway, but the back office still had a roof and a door that closed. It was her secret place. Her fortress.

The snow was falling in aggressive, thick sheets now, erasing the world. The horizon was a bruised purple-gray. Lily squinted, her eyelashes freezing together. She should be there by now.

Then, she saw the glint.

It was unnatural against the soft white landscape—a sharp, hard reflection of chrome. Lily stopped. Her breath puffed out in a cloud, instantly snatched away by the wind.

She took a step closer. It looked like a beast lying on its side. A motorcycle. A big one. The kind that shook the ground when it went by. It was half-buried, snow drifting over the black leather saddlebags.

Lily’s heart hammered against her ribs. A crash. That meant police. Police meant questions. Questions meant going back to Mrs. Patterson, or worse, being moved to a new home where she didn’t know the hiding spots.

Her instinct screamed: Run. Turn around. Be invisible.

But then she saw the boot.

It was sticking out of a snowdrift a few feet from the bike. A heavy black combat boot. And attached to the boot was a leg.

“Hey?” Lily’s voice was a tiny, cracked thing against the roar of the storm.

She dropped the rope of her sled and stumbled forward, wading through knee-deep powder. “Hey, mister?”

No answer.

She reached the body. He was face down. He was huge—broad shoulders encased in a leather jacket that was rapidly becoming an ice sculpture. The back of the jacket had patches. A skull. Wings. Words she couldn’t read because they were crusted over with frost.

He wasn’t moving. One arm was stretched out in front of him, fingers clawing at the ground as if he’d been trying to crawl before the cold shut him down.

Lily stood over him, trembling. Not just from the cold, but from the sheer terrifying reality of a dead body. She had seen death before—her mom, in the hospital bed, looking so small—but this was different. This was violent.

She turned to leave. She took three steps back toward her sled.

Walk away, Lily. Just walk away.

But then, a sound. A low, wet rattle.

She froze. She looked back. The man’s fingers—the ones clawing the snow—twitched. Just once.

“Oh god,” she whispered.

She rushed back, dropping to her knees. She grabbed his shoulder. It was like grabbing a boulder. “Mister! You gotta wake up!”

She pushed with all her might, trying to roll him over. He groaned, a sound of deep, unconscious pain, and flopped onto his back.

Lily gasped. His face was a mask of blood and ice. A nasty gash ran from his temple to his ear, frozen dark red. His skin was a terrifying shade of pale gray, his lips blue. His beard was caked with ice.

He looked dead, except for the shallow, ragged rise and fall of his chest.

“You can’t sleep here,” Lily said, her voice shaking. “You’ll die. You have to get up.”

He didn’t respond. The snow was already starting to cover his face again.

Lily looked at the bus station. It was maybe a hundred yards away. A football field. In summer, an easy run. In a blizzard, dragging a man who weighed at least 220 pounds, it might as well have been the moon.

“Okay,” she said to herself. “Okay.”

She grabbed him under the armpits. The leather was slick and freezing. She dug her heels into the snow.

“One, two, pull!”

He moved an inch.

Lily gritted her teeth. Tears pricked her eyes, hot and stinging. “I am not… leaving you!”

She pulled again. She slipped, falling on her butt, but scrambled back up. She leveraged her weight, leaning back, using her legs. He slid a foot.

It was agony. Her muscles burned. Her lungs felt like she was inhaling broken glass. Every ten feet, she had to stop and gasp, watching the man’s chest to make sure he was still breathing.

“Come on,” she hissed at him. “Help me a little!”

He was dead weight. A sack of stones wrapped in frozen leather.

It took her thirty minutes to cover the hundred yards. Thirty minutes of screaming muscles and pure, stubborn will.

She reached the broken door of the bus station. The threshold was raised. She had to lift his upper body over it, then drag the legs. She collapsed on the dirty concrete floor of the main lobby, gasping so hard she saw spots.

The wind howled outside, furious that she’d stolen its prize.

Lily lay there for a minute, staring at the ceiling where water stains looked like maps of countries that didn’t exist. She couldn’t rest. Not yet.

She scrambled up. She grabbed her sled from outside and dragged it in, kicking the door shut as best she could. She pulled the man into the back office. It was smaller, easier to heat.

She had prepared this room weeks ago. Cardboard lined the floor. Old newspapers were stacked in the corner. A metal trash can waited for a fire.

She went to work. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely work the lighter she’d stolen from the kitchen. But finally, a spark caught the newspaper. A small, orange flame flickered to life.

She fed it twigs, then thicker branches. The smell of woodsmoke filled the small room, masking the smell of old damp and decay.

The fire grew. Warmth, radiant and beautiful, began to push back the freezing dark.

Lily turned back to the stranger. Now, in the firelight, he looked even worse. She needed to get the wet clothes off him. She knew that much from the medical shows Mrs. Patterson watched.

She unzipped the heavy leather jacket. It was stiff with cold. Underneath, he wore a flannel shirt soaked in blood and melted snow.

Lily hesitated. This was a grown man. A scary man. But he was shivering now, violent tremors that shook his whole body.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

She peeled the jacket off. Then she unbuttoned the shirt. Her eyes widened.

His chest was a map of scars. Burn marks. jagged lines. And a tattoo over his heart—that same skull and wings.

She piled her own spare blankets—scratchy wool things—over him. She took off her coat and laid it over his legs. She sat close to the fire, hugging her knees, and watched him.

Outside, the world ended in white. Inside, the fire crackled.

Lily waited. She didn’t know who he was. She didn’t know that by saving him, she had just painted a target on her own back.

Chapter 2: The Promise

Time lost its meaning in the storm. It might have been hours; it might have been minutes. Lily dozed off, her head resting on her knees, jolting awake every time a particularly loud gust slammed against the boarded-up window.

The stranger hadn’t moved, but his shivering had stopped. That was either very good or very bad. Lily crawled over to him, her socks making a soft shhh sound on the cardboard.

She reached out and touched his forehead. It was burning. Hot, dry heat radiating off him like a furnace.

“Mister?” she whispered.

His eyes snapped open.

Lily scrambled back, crab-walking across the floor until her back hit the wall.

His eyes were blue. Not a nice, sky blue—a piercing, electric blue that looked terrifying in the firelight. They were bloodshot and wild, darting around the room, unable to focus.

“Contact front!” he shouted, his voice a gravelly rasp that sounded like rocks grinding together. He tried to sit up, his hand flying to his waist as if reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there.

He let out a strangled cry of pain and collapsed back down, clutching his ribs.

“Easy,” Lily squeaked. “You’re hurt.”

The man’s head whipped toward her. He blinked, trying to clear the fog of fever and concussion. He squinted at her, at the fire, at the peeling paint of the bus station walls.

“Where…” He coughed, a wet, hacking sound. “Where am I?”

“Bus station,” Lily said, keeping her distance. “Route 17. I found you. In the snow.”

He stared at her for a long, uncomfortable silence. He seemed to be cataloging her: small, dirty, scared, wearing socks on her hands.

“You pulled me in?” he asked.

Lily nodded.

He let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-groan. “Strong kid.”

He closed his eyes again, his face twisting in pain. “My jacket. Where’s my cut?”

“Your what?”

“Leather jacket.”

“It’s drying. By the door.”

“Bring it here.” It wasn’t a request. It was an order, the kind given by someone used to being obeyed.

Lily bristled. She had saved his life, and he was barking at her? But she stood up and fetched the heavy leather coat. She dragged it over and dropped it next to him.

“Water,” he rasped.

Lily grabbed her tin can, filled with melted snow she’d been warming near the fire, and held it out. He tried to lift his head but failed. Lily sighed, moved closer, and carefully tipped the can against his cracked lips.

He drank greedily, water spilling down his beard.

“Thanks,” he muttered. He fumbled with the jacket, his hands shaking. He wasn’t trying to put it on. He was feeling the lining. Searching for something.

His fingers found a hidden zipper on the inside seam. He sighed in relief.

“You’re running away,” he said suddenly. He didn’t look at her; he was still checking the jacket.

“I am not,” Lily lied instantly. “I’m waiting for my aunt. She’s coming to get me.”

The man turned his head and looked at her. Really looked at her. “Kid, you got ‘runaway’ written all over you. Clothes don’t fit. You’re too skinny. And you know how to build a stealth fire.”

Lily crossed her arms. “Who are you?”

“They call me Ghost.”

“That’s a stupid name.”

“Yeah, well. Fits better than Marcus.” He winced, shifting his leg. “Listen to me, kid. You got a phone?”

“No.”

“Damn.” He stared at the ceiling. “How long until the storm breaks?”

“Radio said two days.”

“I don’t have two days,” he whispered to himself. “I don’t even have two hours.”

Suddenly, his hand shot out and grabbed Lily’s wrist. His grip was iron-hard, shocking her.

“Let go!” Lily yanked, but he held fast.

“The girl,” he said, his eyes intensifying, fever taking hold again. “I have to find the girl.”

“What girl?”

“Sarah’s girl,” he mumbled, his gaze drifting past Lily, seeing ghosts she couldn’t see. “Promised her. On the tarmac. Said I’d find her. The system… they hid her. Changed the files.”

Lily stopped pulling. Her breath hitched.

“Sarah?” she whispered.

Ghost’s eyes snapped back to hers. He blinked, fighting the delirium. “Sarah Morgan. Best soldier I ever knew. They killed her. Made it look like an accident. But she knew… she left clues.”

Lily felt the room spin. The fire seemed to roar in her ears.

“My mom’s name was Sarah,” Lily said, her voice barely audible. “Sarah Morgan.”

Ghost went perfectly still. The pain seemed to vanish from his face, replaced by absolute shock. He stared at her—really studying her features now. The shape of her nose. The dark eyes. The stubborn set of her jaw.

He released her wrist. His hand went to the jacket, to the hidden pocket he’d checked earlier. With trembling fingers, he pulled out a waterproof pouch.

He opened it and slid out a photograph. He held it up into the firelight.

It was a picture of a woman in army fatigues, laughing, sitting on the hood of a jeep. She had her arm around a burly man with a beard—a younger, healthier version of Ghost.

Lily gasped. She knew that face. She had tried so hard not to forget it, keeping it locked in a tiny box in her mind.

“Mom,” she whimpered.

Ghost looked from the photo to the girl. Tears welled in his eyes, tracking through the grime on his face.

“Lily,” he breathed. “It’s you. I’ve been looking for you for five years.”

Lily backed away, shaking her head. “No. No, you’re lying. My mom died in a car crash. She didn’t know you. She didn’t know any bikers.”

“She wasn’t just a mom, Lily,” Ghost said, his voice gaining strength from the adrenaline of the discovery. “She was a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army. We served in the sandbox together. And she didn’t die in a car crash. She was murdered.”

“Stop it!” Lily covered her ears.

“She found things,” Ghost continued, relentless. “Bad things. People moving drugs through military supply lines. She was going to blow the whistle. She wrote me a letter, Lily. She told me if anything happened to her, I had to find you. Because you were the only loose end.”

He reached into the pouch again and pulled out a silver object. A dog tag.

He tossed it gently onto the cardboard between them.

Lily stared at it. She reached out, her fingers trembling, and picked it up. The metal was cold.

MORGAN, SARAH J. SSG US ARMY

She clutched it to her chest and let out a sob that broke the dam. She cried, finally, for the mother she barely remembered, for the cold, for the fear.

Ghost watched her, helplessness etched on his face. “I promised her, Lily. I promised I’d keep you safe.”

“Why now?” Lily choked out, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Where were you?”

“I tried,” Ghost said, his voice bitter. “The state… someone was blocking me. Every time I found a foster home you were in, you’d be moved the next day. Someone high up didn’t want you found. Someone wanted you to disappear into the system until you were old enough to be forgotten.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. But I got a lead on Mrs. Patterson’s place two days ago. I was riding straight through to get you before they moved you again. Then a black SUV ran me off the road.”

Lily froze. “An SUV?”

“Yeah. They didn’t want me reaching you.”

Suddenly, a noise cut through the wind outside.

It wasn’t the storm. It was the crunch of tires on snow. Heavy tires. An engine idling.

Ghost struggled to sit up, panic flaring in his eyes. “Lily. Kill the fire.”

“What?”

“Kill the fire! Now!”

Lily grabbed the tin can of water and dumped it on the flames. The room plunged into darkness, save for the faint gray light filtering through the cracks in the boarded windows.

“Is it them?” Lily whispered, terror gripping her throat.

“Quiet,” Ghost hissed. He managed to pull himself into a sitting position against the wall, reaching into his boot and pulling out a knife. It looked pathetically small against the darkness.

A car door slammed outside. Then another.

Voices drifted in, muffled by the wind but distinct enough to hear.

“I saw smoke, Sheriff. Coming from the vent.”

“Check it,” a deeper, authoritative voice commanded. “If the girl is in there, grab her. If anyone else is in there… no witnesses.”

Lily grabbed Ghost’s arm. “That’s Sheriff Warner,” she whispered. “He visits Mrs. Patterson sometimes.”

Ghost’s face hardened into a mask of stone. “Stay behind me,” he whispered. “Whatever happens, you run. You understand? You run.”

Heavy footsteps crunched toward the door of the bus station. The handle rattled.

“Locked,” a voice said.

“Kick it,” the Sheriff replied.

BOOM.

The front door flew open. A beam of a flashlight cut through the dusty lobby, sweeping back and forth, searching. Searching for a little girl and the man who had promised to save her.

Ghost tightened his grip on the knife. “Here we go,” he whispered.

Chapter 3: The Law of the Wild

The beam of the flashlight sliced through the darkness of the main lobby like a lightsaber. Dust motes danced in the light, swirling in the draft coming from the broken front door.

Lily held her breath until her lungs burned. She was pressed flat against the cold floor behind a stack of rotting pallets in the back room, Ghost heavy and trembling beside her.

“Check the office,” Sheriff Warner’s voice boomed, echoing off the concrete. “And Hayes? Safety off.”

“Sheriff, is that necessary?” a younger voice asked—Deputy Hayes. “It’s a wellness check.”

“It’s a blizzard, Hayes. Looters, drug addicts. You want to get shanked by a junkie in the dark? Do as you’re told.”

The heavy crunch of boots on broken glass got closer.

Ghost leaned close to Lily’s ear. His breath was hot, smelling of sickness. “Is there a back way?” he barely mouthed the words.

Lily nodded frantically. She pointed to a rusted metal door behind the pile of newspapers. It was the old loading dock exit. She’d greased the hinges with cooking oil weeks ago so she could sneak in without making noise.

“Go,” Ghost whispered. “Open it. Do not make a sound.”

Lily crawled. She moved like a spider, silent and low. She reached the heavy iron handle. She gripped it with both hands, prayed to whatever angels watched over orphans, and pulled.

Creeeeak.

It wasn’t loud, but in the silence of the station, it sounded like a scream.

“Back room!” Warner shouted. “Movement!”

“Go!” Ghost roared, no longer whispering.

He surged up from the floor, ignoring the agony in his ribs. He grabbed a heavy rusted pipe lying in the debris and hurled it toward the doorway just as the flashlight beam swung around. The pipe clattered loudly against the wall, drawing the fire.

BANG!

A gunshot. The sound was deafening in the enclosed space. A chunk of plaster exploded near Ghost’s head.

“He’s shooting!” Lily screamed, paralyzed by the reality of it. Police were supposed to help. Police were the good guys.

Ghost tackled her—not gently. He slammed into her, shoving her through the open loading dock door and out into the snow. They tumbled onto the concrete platform, the icy wind hitting them instantly like a physical blow.

“Run, Lily! The woods!”

They scrambled off the platform, landing in hip-deep snow. The blizzard had intensified. Visibility was zero. It was like running inside a ping-pong ball.

“Stop right there!” Warner yelled from the doorway behind them.

Ghost grabbed Lily’s hand and pulled. He was running on pure adrenaline now, his body a machine pushing past its breaking point. They hit the tree line just as two more shots rang out.

Thwack. Thwack.

Bullets hitting the trees to their left.

“Keep low!” Ghost grunted. He zigzagged, pulling Lily behind the thick trunks of the pines.

They ran until Lily’s legs turned to jelly. Her chest felt like it was being ripped open by the cold air. Finally, Ghost collapsed behind a massive fallen log, dragging her down with him.

He was gasping, terrible wheezing sounds coming from his chest. He checked his shoulder. Fresh blood was soaking through the flannel shirt.

“You’re hit,” Lily whimpered, staring at the dark stain.

“Just a graze,” Ghost lied. He peeked over the log. Through the swirling white, he could see the faint bobbing of flashlights back at the station. “They aren’t following us into the woods yet. Warner’s smart. He knows he’ll lose us in this whiteout. He’ll call for backup. Or he’ll wait us out.”

Lily was shaking, tears freezing on her cheeks. “Why? Why did he shoot at us?”

Ghost slumped back against the bark, clutching his side. “Because I know too much. And because you’re Sarah’s daughter.”

“I don’t understand!”

“Warner isn’t just a sheriff, kid. He’s on the payroll. The same people who killed your mom… they own him.” Ghost looked at her, his blue eyes intense. “Your mom found out they were using military transport to move girls. Kids. Trafficking.”

Lily felt sick.

“She gathered evidence,” Ghost continued, his voice getting weaker. “She was going to burn them all down. But she needed to hide the proof somewhere safe before she went to the FBI. She told me she had a ‘living vault.’ I never knew what she meant. Until tonight.”

He looked at Lily’s head. “It’s you, Lily. You’re the vault.”

“Me? I don’t have anything! I was four!”

“She told you stories, didn’t she? Songs?”

Lily blinked. A memory flickered. Her mother, sitting on the edge of her bed, smelling of vanilla and rain. Singing a strange, rhythmic song that didn’t rhyme.

Three, eight, seven, seven, nine… The rabbit goes down the hole… two, four, six…

“The numbers,” Lily whispered. “The rabbit song.”

“Account numbers,” Ghost nodded grimly. “Bank accounts. Coordinates. Names. She encoded them into you. That’s why they want you. They don’t just want to kill you, Lily. They want to see if you remember.”

A new sound cut through the wind. It wasn’t the police cruiser.

It was a rumble. Deep, throaty, aggressive. Then another. And another.

Ghost went rigid. He knew that sound. It was the sound of V-twin engines. A lot of them.

“My brothers?” Lily asked hopefully.

Ghost listened. The rhythm of the engines was erratic, angry. Revving high.

“No,” Ghost said, his face draining of color. “Not my brothers.”

“Who is it?”

“The men who killed your mother.”

Chapter 4: The Hunt

The woods were alive with monsters.

Mechanical monsters with blinding headlights that cut through the trees. The roar of the motorcycles was everywhere, a circling, predatory noise that drowned out the wind.

Ghost forced himself up. The pain in his ribs was blinding, a white-hot spike with every breath. He was running on fumes. If it were just him, he would have turned around, drawn his knife, and taken as many of them with him as he could. A warrior’s death.

But he looked down at Lily. She was small, terrified, and shivering in the oversized leather jacket he’d draped over her. She was Sarah’s legacy. She was the mission.

“We have to move,” Ghost said. “They’re setting up a perimeter. If we stay here, they’ll box us in.”

“Where do we go?” Lily asked, her teeth chattering.

“You know these woods?”

“I… I have a spot. A hunter’s blind. Made of rocks. It’s hidden.”

“Lead the way. fast.”

They moved deeper into the forest. The snow was relentless, piling higher, making every step a struggle. Ghost had to lean on Lily’s shoulder sometimes, his strength failing.

“Who are they?” Lily asked as they trudged up a steep ridge.

“They call themselves the Reapers now,” Ghost rasped. “Five years ago, they were Iron Brotherhood. My brothers. We rode together, served overseas together.”

He paused to catch his breath, spitting pink-tinged saliva into the snow.

“When we came home, some of us wanted to build a life. Clubs, charity runs, looking out for vets. But others… they missed the war. They missed the power. A man named Crowley… he convinced half the chapter that we deserved more money. That we should use our skills for ‘business.'”

“Trafficking,” Lily said, the word heavy on her tongue.

“Yeah. Weapons first. Then drugs. Then people.” Ghost’s face twisted in disgust. “Sarah found out. She confronted Crowley. She told him to shut it down or she’d bring the wrath of God down on him. Crowley chose option C. He killed her.”

“And you?”

“I was in the hospital. IED in Kandahar. By the time I got home, Sarah was buried, you were gone, and the Brotherhood had split in two. Crowley took the bad ones and vanished. I’ve been hunting him ever since.”

VROOOOM.

A dirt bike burst over the ridge to their left, its headlight sweeping over them.

“Contact!” the rider shouted into a headset.

“Run!” Ghost shoved Lily forward.

They scrambled up the rocky slope. The bike roared, its tires spinning in the snow, struggling for traction on the incline. The rider abandoned the bike and started sprinting after them, pulling a pistol.

“There!” Lily pointed.

Ahead was a pile of boulders arranged in a semi-circle, covered in brush and snow. A natural fortress.

They dove behind the rocks just as a bullet chipped the stone inches from Ghost’s head.

“Get down, stay down!” Ghost pushed Lily into the deepest corner of the small cave-like structure.

He peered through a crack in the rocks. The rider was holding his position, talking into his radio.

“I’ve got them pinned at the ridge line. Sector four. Bring everyone.”

Ghost sank back against the cold stone wall. He checked his pockets. He had a knife, a lighter, and a cell phone with 4% battery and no signal.

“We’re trapped,” Lily whispered. She hugged her knees, rocking back and forth. “We’re going to die like my mom.”

“No,” Ghost said fiercely. He grabbed her shoulders. “Look at me.”

She looked up, her eyes huge and dark.

“You are not going to die. Sarah didn’t raise a victim. She raised a survivor. You found me in a blizzard, didn’t you? You dragged 220 pounds of dead weight across a parking lot. You are tough as nails, Lily Morgan.”

He pulled out his phone again. He stared at the screen. No bars.

“Come on,” he growled at the device. “Just one bar. Give me one damn bar.”

Outside, the sound of engines grew louder. They were converging. Four, maybe five bikes were making their way up the ridge.

“Ghost!” A voice echoed from the trees. Amplified. A megaphone.

Ghost stiffened. “Crowley.”

“I know you’re in there, brother!” Crowley’s voice was smooth, mocking. “And I know you have the girl. Let’s be reasonable. You look like hell. You’re bleeding. You’re cold. Send the girl out. We just want to talk to her. You can walk away. I’ll even give you a bike and a tank of gas.”

Ghost spat on the ground. “He’s lying.”

“I know,” Lily said.

“Ghost!” Crowley called again. “Think about it. You can’t win this. We have the Sheriff. We have the numbers. It’s over. Don’t make us come in there and peel you out.”

Ghost looked at the phone. Still searching for service.

He looked at Lily. “Lily, listen to me. If they breach this wall… I’m going to go out there. I’m going to make a lot of noise. While they’re busy killing me, you slip out the back. There’s a gap in the rocks there. You run until you hit the highway. Flag down a trucker. Not a cop. A trucker.”

“No!” Lily grabbed his arm. “I’m not leaving you!”

“This isn’t a debate!”

“You promised!” Lily shouted, her voice cracking. “You promised her you’d protect me! If you die, you break the promise!”

Ghost stared at her. She was crying, but she was furious. She was holding onto his jacket with a grip that could crush steel.

Suddenly, the phone in his hand buzzed.

Ping.

One bar. A weak, flickering 3G signal.

Ghost’s thumbs flew across the screen. He didn’t dial 911. He opened a secure app, one used by the loyalists of the Iron Brotherhood. He hit the Emergency Beacon.

SOS. SECTOR 4. REAPERS. OFFICER DOWN. CHILD INVOLVED.

The message sent. The signal vanished.

“Did it work?” Lily asked.

“I don’t know,” Ghost said. He put the phone away and gripped his knife. “We just need to buy time. Twenty minutes. Maybe thirty.”

“We don’t have thirty minutes,” Lily whispered, pointing at the crack in the rocks.

Shadows were moving closer. The Reapers were dismounting. They were circling the blind, weapons drawn.

“Crowley says take them alive if possible,” a voice growled from just outside the wall. “But if the biker twitches… gut him.”

Ghost stood up, wincing as his ribs shifted. He placed himself between Lily and the entrance.

“Stay behind me,” he said softly. “And Lily?”

“Yeah?”

“Try to remember the rest of that song.”

As the first Reaper stepped into the opening of their shelter, blocking the light, Ghost roared and launched himself forward.