The homeless community had noticed.
Riley assumed the worst.
They thought she had robbed Roxanne.
Maybe they believed she had caused the crash.
Maybe they wanted revenge.
So Riley prepared to leave Seattle.
She would catch a freight train south.
Disappear.
Start over somewhere nobody knew her name.
Then, behind an abandoned cannery, she heard footsteps.
Heavy boots.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Riley looked up.
A massive man stood beneath the streetlight.
Gray beard.
Tattooed arms.
Black leather cut.
His name was Wade.
Riley immediately calculated the distance to the fence.
Ten feet.
She could run.
Probably.
"Don't," Wade said.
Riley froze.
"I didn't steal anything."
"I know."
"I didn't touch her stuff."
"I know."
"Then what do you want?"
Wade pulled out a phone.
"Got her," he said.
He ended the call.
Five minutes later, motorcycles filled the alley.
One after another.
Then another.
And another.
A dozen machines rolled through the rain.
Riley was surrounded.
Cole
The bikers shut off their engines.
The silence was terrifying.
Then an older man stepped forward.
He was nearly seventy.
His face was covered with scars and deep lines.
A silver-tipped cane supported one leg.
But nothing about him suggested weakness.
This was Cole.
The club president.
Riley watched him approach.
He reached into his jacket.
She tensed.
Instead of a weapon, Cole pulled out a folded piece of stained flannel.
Riley recognized it instantly.
Her makeshift tourniquet.
"The surgeon at Harborview said my wife would have died without this," Cole said.
Riley swallowed.
"She's alive?"
"She is."
For the first time in four days, Riley's shoulders relaxed.
Cole continued.
"She told me what you did."
Riley looked down.
"I had to."
"You lifted nine hundred pounds of motorcycle."
"I just wanted her out."
Cole studied her.
"You ran because you were afraid of the police."
Riley's jaw tightened.
"They don't see kids like me as heroes."
Cole's expression changed.
Only slightly.
But Riley saw it.