“Could be both,” Ethan said.
“She one of the good ones?” Rafe asked, looking at the officer with the clear, uncluttered gaze of someone who’d seen enough violence to know the difference between a cop and a human being.
“No idea. But she won’t survive the night if we don’t do something.”Rafe nodded and raised his fist. Fifty engines died almost simultaneously, the sudden silence somehow louder than all that noise had been.
When the Helicopter Arrived
The helicopter came through the clouds like something out of a military film—matte-black, no markings, just pure professional presence. It descended to about twenty feet above the street, rotors turning the rain into a kind of mist, and two figures rappelled down on ropes with the kind of precision that spoke to serious training. No insignias. No identifications. No way to know if they were contractors, private security, military, or something that didn’t have an official name.
They moved to the officer with practiced efficiency. One stabilized her neck while the other cut away her uniform with practiced shears.“Blunt force trauma,” one of them said, his voice mechanical, like he’d delivered this diagnosis a thousand times before. “Probable internal hemorrhage. She’s been moved. From where to here. The injury patterns don’t match the crash.”
Ethan felt Rafe tense beside him.
“What do you mean moved?” he demanded.
But before anyone could answer, a signal came from the edge of the block. Three quick revs of an engine—the bikers’ way of saying something was coming.Rafe turned sharply. “Movement. Two o’clock.”
From the alley behind the hardware store, headlights cut through the rain. A black SUV rolled forward with the slow, controlled precision of something that had been choreographed in advance. No license plates. Tinted windows. The kind of vehicle that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
The bikers reacted without hesitation. Fifty engines roared back to life. Fifty bikes shifted position, not in aggression but in something older and more territorial. The bikers weren’t here to start anything, but they sure as hell weren’t going to lose.
