Rebecca twisted her body, but she wasn’t fast enough.
The blade sliced through the sleeve of her uniform and bit deep into the flesh of her left forearm. A sharp, searing heat tore through her arm.
Rebecca gasped, stumbling backward against the leather seat of the Knucklehead. Blood immediately began soaking through the cheap mustard fabric, dripping down her hand and splattering onto the pristine chrome pipes of the motorcycle.
“Now,” the tattooed man growled, stepping in close, the bloody knife raised for a second, fatal strike. “Drop the pipe.”
Rebecca closed her eyes, bracing for the impact, praying someone would find Leo in the booth.
But the strike never came.
Instead, the heavy glass door of the diner exploded open with such violent force that it shattered against the exterior brick wall, showering the pavement in a thousand glittering pieces.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The roar was so loud, so impossibly deep and filled with such raw, primal fury that it felt like a physical shockwave hitting the parking lot.
The thief froze, the knife trembling in his hand as he looked past Rebecca.
Standing in the doorway, framed by the harsh fluorescent lights of the diner, was Rooster.
He had taken off his hoodie. His massive, heavily tattooed arms were corded with muscle. His eyes, previously unreadable and quiet, were now burning with a terrifying, murderous rage.
He took one look at his motorcycle, the thieves’ flatbed truck, and finally, the bleeding teenage girl standing protectively in front of his chrome, clutching a tire iron.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
It was the heavy, terrifying silence of a predator right before the kill.
Rooster stepped off the curb, his heavy boots crushing the broken glass beneath his feet. The air in the parking lot suddenly felt thick, heavy with the promise of absolute destruction.
Rooster didn’t run.
He didn’t need to.
He stalked forward with the terrifying, deliberate momentum of a freight train.
The tattooed thief, realizing too late that his smug confidence was a fatal error, panicked. He thrust the bloody switchblade toward the advancing giant.
“Stay back, old man. I’ll cut you wide open.”
Rooster didn’t even blink.