The ride back to the dilapidated bar felt like it lasted hours, although it was only maybe twenty minutes before we pulled up into the gravel.

The bikers strolled into their headquarters, and began tending to their wounded. Three of them had taken bullets – one in the shoulder, and two in the leg.

These club members weren’t going to see action for a little while, but Hunter ensured that they were well taken care of. He said they had a sympathetic doctor hanging round a nearby after-hours clinic, and I watched the three of them get hauled off to get patched up.

I took a seat at the bar countertop, sipping a glass of water. Hunter was busy checking on his men, but kept glancing over my way. When his phone buzzed, he stepped aside to take a quick phone call.

Grizz was left in charge, and he took the moment to step behind the bar. He looked me over briefly before pouring a tumbler of whiskey.

“You look like you could use something stiffer than tap water,” he muttered as he placed the short glass in front of me.

“How could you tell?” I asked, gratefully smiling as I kicked back the drink.

“Just a hunch,” he answered.

We stayed in silence for a moment – me, glancing over the bikers as they shed their equipment and cleaned their weapons, and him, eyeing me cautiously.

“Why are you here?”

“Excuse me?” I asked, turning back to face Hunter’s second-in-command. The question was so direct that I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“I asked, ‘Why are you here?’” He repeatedly softly, his piercing eyes trained onto mine. I almost felt like he was looking right through me, into my very soul.

“I… because I’m looking for missing girls,” I answered quickly. “Cheerleaders.”

“Right,” Grizz nodded contemplatively, before suddenly shaking his head. “No, that’s not right. What are you really here for?”

“I don’t know what answer you’re trying to angle for there, buddy, but you’re doing a pretty bad job of it.” I laughed, taking another swig of whiskey.

“You know what I mean.”

The awful part was, I did know.

“It’s not like that,” I insisted.

“Like what?” He tilted his head thoughtfully.

“You think I’m just here for Hunter, and that I don’t really care about my case at all.”

“I never said that.”

“Oh, come on,” I insisted, setting the whiskey glass down. “You think that I’m here to fuck your boss and play at being a detective? I’m following a lead on a case – my first case. I’m here because you guys were doing a private investigation into the missing girls, and I want to know what you came up with. And Hunter…”

“Hunter is being who he is,” Grizz shrugged.

“Something like that.” I thought on this for a moment. “What do you know about the missing girls? You’re his right-hand man. Do you know anything else about them?”

Grizz thought for a moment.

“I know that we found them once.”

If I’d been holding the tumbler in my hand in that moment, it would inevitably have shattered against the floor.

“You… you what?!”

Grizz shrugged again. “Hunter didn’t mention it?”

Hellfire spilt down into my veins; my sight went blurry with building, condensing anger. I was so enraged to hear this that I could have spit straight poison.

I glared straight into those pale eyes.

“Tell. Me. Everything.”

Grizz met my furious glance, pausing uncomfortably. His sharp, pale eyes were suddenly occupied with a disarming sadness.

“We tried to help,” he simply spoke.

“You tried to help how?”

For a moment, he glanced over my shoulder at the busy bikers – all spread around the club and clearly exhausted.

“It was two weeks after they were kidnapped. Hunter found evidence that they were closer than the authorities thought, and we caught wind that they were there in Tucson, hidden in a cartel-owned warehouse…”

“And you… found them?”

“Briefly,” he clarified quietly. “Hunter was the one to discover their location. They were under lock and key, surrounded by members of Víboras Verde. There were too many of them. We were outnumbered two to one.”

“…What did he do?” I demanded.

“He had a very difficult choice to make,” Grizz explained apologetically. “Striking the cartel would have put his men and the girls at risk… Or he could alert the police and try to call down a raid on the warehouse. Everybody knew how much money was being poured into this investigation by the state… ”

I felt woozy.

I knew how this had ended.

“He went to the police,” I groaned, “and that didn’t go over so well.”

“Correct,” Grizz replied calmly as he cleaned out a glass with a rag, feigning activity to keep talking to me. “Hunter’s information got his ass locked up in interrogations for hours with the club members in his company. Myself included.”

“And by the time he went back…”

“They were gone, yes.”

The pit in my stomach grew deeper than ever. Hunter had told me that he’d gone to the cops with some evidence of the cartel’s workings, and some intelligence on where to possibly find them… Turns out he had found the girls and lost them, thanks to goddamned police incompetence.

My blood was boiling as hard as ever, but this time, it wasn’t because Hunter had hidden something from me after all… it was because he had come so close to saving them, and ineptitude and prejudice had robbed him of his chance.

“What can you tell me about the Desert Owl?” I asked suddenly, turning to Grizz again.

He paused in mid-swipe on another glass, refusing to look at me. “Trust me… you already know more than you ever want to know about him,” Grizz cryptically explained.

“He’s an interrogator, right? That’s a weird name for one of those… I know that he’s a combat medic, but that’s about it…”

Grizz sighed heavily. “He joined the armed forces to see bloodshed. He wanted to witness the horrors of war right up front and center, and so he enlisted in the medical division to treat amputations and infections on the front lines.”

I swallowed.

What kind of people has Hunter conspired with to keep the peace out here? What kind of man does it make him to have someone like this at his beck and call?

“I know what you are thinking, Sarah,” Grizz quietly informed me. “You are questioning the sanctity of the man who was your lover.”

“Something like that,” I agreed.

“Are you a good churchgoing woman?” he asked quietly.

“Not quite,” I replied, taking notice of the small cross hanging round Grizz’s neck. I hadn’t been inside a church in twenty years…

“Allow me to be perfectly clear…” he replied as the glass and its rag were set down. All illusions that this conversation wasn’t happening were cast aside.

“…I do not serve evil men,” Grizz told me under no uncertain terms, “nor do I serve men who maintain the company of the wicked. I follow the president of the Devil’s Dragons club because he has steered us from wanton violence and cruelty… He is my King Solomon, and I am his Benaiah. Hunter doesn’t enjoy fighting these evils. He does not pride himself on it. He has gathered allies, forged truces, and curried the favor of hundreds. Hunter works with men who walk the path of the righteous…”

I didn’t have words to reply, but I didn’t have to. Grizz turned to watch as Hunter stepped back into the club, looking worn and fatigued. The events of the night were starting to weigh on him.

I could only imagine that whoever was on the other end of the phone hadn’t exactly made things easy, either.

“Thank you,” I quickly whispered to Grizz, who merely nodded silently and watched Hunter approach.

“That was the Desert Owl,” Hunter mentioned offhandedly. He rubbed the side of his face with a palm, but paused when he saw the two of us near each other – separated only by the counter.

“I thought I told you to watch over the club,” Hunter remarked with a hint of irritation. “Why are you over here with Sarah?”

Grizz stiffened, but didn’t skip a beat to answer matter-of-factly: “My apologies, sir. I was answering Sarah’s questions about the club, about the Outlaws, and about the incident in Tucson.”

Hunter looked like he was about to lose his fucking mind for a split second, but then descended into raucous laughter.

“Stir the assholes who are still sleeping,” Hunter finally replied. “I need five bikers ready for a hard ride…”

Grizz paused.

“You mean…”

“I do,” Hunter cut him off. “Don’t waste your time on anyone who’s too hung over to shoot. I can’t afford to lose anyone on this.”

“Of course.” His right-hand man dutifully left the bar, descending into the bar hallway.

Hunter confidently smirked at me.

“I have a plan.”

I ignored this. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded to know. “What was the point of leaving out the minor detail of, oh, I don’t know… actually seeing the fucking missing girls?”

Hunter smiled sadly. “It doesn’t matter. The girls are gone now, and we may never see them again… But I knew you might not stay the course if you thought there was a chance those girls might still be on this side of the border.”

“They might still be here! What else aren’t you telling me? Do you know where those girls are?”

“Sarah,” he tried to cut in.

“No, Hunter, you don’t get it,” I insisted. “I can get the Tucson police out searching every damn drop house on file if there’s even a possibility they’re still in the states! We might be able to save them!”

“Sarah!” He demanded, fiercer now. His hand rested onto my shoulder a little harder than really necessary. It was when his fingers clamped tightly that I glanced up, full of confusion and irritation.

Something inside me puffed up in irritation, but I stilled my tongue. Instead of losing my shit at him, I nodded slowly.

“I have no idea where those girls are, now… they were moved very, very quickly. It doesn’t matter which side of the border they are on, because the only way to find them is to help me track down the kidnapped immigrants. Do you understand me?”

He was telling the truth, and I knew it.

“You told me you had a plan,” I recalled, wanting to change the subject.

“I do,” he revealed, letting go of my shoulder and crossing his arms. “But I need to wait for my men to – ah, Grizz! There you are.”

We watched his second-in-command file back into the room, followed by several bikers – all of whom looked like they had just crawled out of bed.

“I have assembled some volunteers,” Grizz explained, stepping aside. He took a position near me, crossing his thick arms and leaning back against the bar countertop.

We shared a quick glance as Hunter walked forward to address them.

“I have a plan,” Hunter explained to those of us assembled. “As some of you are aware, there was a midnight operation. We received a lead on the latest local abductees, and tracked Víboras Verde to a farmhouse out of town… Needless to say, it didn’t end well. They moved quicker than we suspected, and were already assembling the hand-off when we arrived. As a result, we lost the girls, but took a big bite out of the cartel in the process…”

“All except one,” Grizz clarified. “He’s having a heart to heart with the Desert Owl…”

Hunter gave a nod.

“Turns out the girls aren’t going far. They’ll be held at a safe house on the other side of the fence for a few days before they’re moved further into Mexico. This provides us with an opportunity to reclaim them fast. If we let this window close, they’ll disappear forever… and there’s no telling how soon the cartel will re-emerge here. They may take their chances somewhere else along the border…”

The bikers in attendance were quiet. It was clear that they were emotionally invested, but I couldn’t quite understand why.

“My instincts tell me that we won’t be prepared for what we find there… I don’t think we’re going to find your run-of-the-mill safe house. I think we’ll be heading into trouble. Serious trouble. We don’t have the luxury of time, but there’s no way in hell they expect us to come hauling ass into Mexico. This is our last chance.”

The bikers were hanging off of his every last word.

“That’s why I’m risking sending you into the night. You ride in different directions and connect with the other clubs. I need each of you to come back with a team of able-bodied men.”

One of them spoke up.

“Sir… what do you want us to tell them?”

“Tell them everything I have told you,” Hunter replied confidently. “Lay out everything we have done so far… the battles we have fought, the distances we have crossed, and the enemies that we face… And offer up the usual cut of the take. Our little friend told the Owl these assholes are sitting on at least seven figures, cash. I don’t want the money, I want the girls.”

“And if they refuse?”

“Do not let them,” Hunter replied. “If they don’t want to answer the call, they’ll be answering to me tomorrow…”

Another biker grimaced. “When do you need them? You know how this works. It’ll take days to get the Outlaws together…”

Hunter pointed to the floorboards beneath his boots. “I need them here before noon.”

Everyone in the room was stunned.

“Tell them to come locked and fucking loaded. I don’t have time to assemble everybody, but I want to see representatives from the five closest motorcycle clubs. I expect thirty or forty men here when the sun is high,” Hunter commanded. “If we don’t make this happen now, we are never going to see these girls again…”

The bikers shared a communal glance, and then nodded their acknowledgement.

“Prepare your bikes,” Hunter ordered.

With his eyes still on the door Hunter watched the men file out before he turned with his shoulders squared up.

“Grizz,” he spoke softly.

“I know.”

The burly biker uncrossed his arms and sauntered towards the door, casting one last look our way before departing.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Grizz has a special assignment,” he replied coolly. “There is a rather difficult rival president I need on my side tomorrow night… an old fucker who gets shit done. The effort requires some careful diplomacy. In the meantime I’ll need my rest, and Grizz knows it. Tomorrow is going to be a hard day.”

“Half these men were drinking a couple of hours ago. Do you really trust them to head off into the desert alone at night?”

“I trust Grizz’s judgment,” he replied.

With that, he started walking towards the door, preparing himself to send some of his best bikers out into the dark to seek out allies.

“Wait, Hunter,” I called out to him.

“Yes?” He turned, his handsome frame twisting on a boot to gaze across at me.

“You never explained how you were planning on going across the border,” I answered. “We can’t go back to the farmhouse after tonight. You know there’s going to be police in the area…”

“We’ll be taking a slightly different way.”

“Then what’s your angle?”

Hunter’s familiar chuckle rang out.

“We’re not going through the border, Sarah… we’re going under it.”