THE NOTE AT PUMP FOUR
Chapter I: The Wet Concrete and the Slip of Paper
The dusk sky over Interstate 80 was a bruised canopy of slate and fading amber. Rain had slickened the concrete forecourt of the isolated twenty-four-hour gas station, reflecting the harsh, buzzing glow of red fluorescent canopy lights.
Standing by pump number four was Bear.
A hardened veteran of the highway in his early fifties, Bear was a mountain of a man clad in a weathered leather motorcycle cut bearing the insignia of the Bastards MC. His face bore the scars of a violent past—fresh lacerations across his forehead and temple, a scar bisecting the bridge of his nose, and a salt-and-pepper beard framing a heavy, unyielding jaw. He stood with one hand hooked near the heavy hunting blade sheathed at his hip, waiting for his tank to fill.
From the shadow of the station's parking perimeter, soft, hurried footsteps splashed across the wet pavement.
A young girl, no older than seven, approached him. She wore faded blue jeans, a dusty mauve zip-up hoodie, and had her blonde hair tied into two delicate pigtails. Her pale, innocent face was strained with desperate urgency.
"Sir..." she called out, her voice barely above a whisper.