The girl pushed the vest toward him again. “My daddy said you would know.”
The words hit harder than any punch. Kuda stared at the patch. His jaw tightened. No one in that lot spoke now—not the vendors, not the riders, not the curious onlookers with phones half-raised. The past had stepped into the middle of the lot wearing a child’s voice.
Kuda crouched slowly until his eyes were level with hers. “What’s your father’s name?”
The girl’s lips trembled. For one terrible second, she looked afraid to answer. Then she whispered, “Elias.”
Kuda stopped breathing. The name moved through him like a bullet that had taken twelve years to arrive. Behind him, one of the older bikers muttered, “No.” Another crossed himself.
The little girl clutched the vest tighter. “Elias Reed,” she said. “He told me if he ever didn’t wake up… I had to bring this here.”
Kuda’s face went pale beneath the dust. Because Elias Reed had been buried twelve years ago. At least, that was what everyone had been told.
Section 2: The Patch No One Forgot
There are patches bikers wear because they belong to a club. And there are patches men carry because they survived something they were never supposed to survive.
The All Watched Eylian patch was the second kind.
Most people in the lot did not recognize it, but the old riders did—the ones who had been on the road long enough to remember the Eylian Run. A brutal stretch of desert highway outside Nevada where, twelve years earlier, a convoy of riders had been ambushed by men no one ever officially named.
Back then, Kuda was not the old stone-faced president of a battered riding brotherhood. He was just Kuda—younger, faster, angrier. And Elias Reed had been his closest friend. Elias was the kind of man who could make a whole room laugh without trying. He rode like the highway had been built specifically for him. He had a habit of giving away money before paying his own bills and pretending every broken thing could be fixed with duct tape, whiskey, and patience.
Kuda loved him like a brother. Blood families were born; road families were chosen. Elias had chosen him.
The Eylian patch was created after a rescue ride gone wrong. The club had been hired to escort a witness across state lines—a mechanic who had evidence against a private security crew laundering stolen vehicles through charitable auctions.
The ride should have been quiet. It was not. Someone leaked the route. Two trucks blocked the desert road. Gunfire erupted before the riders could scatter. Elias was the one who got the witness out.
Kuda remembered the last time he saw him clearly: dust, smoke, the smell of burning rubber. Elias pushing the witness toward Kuda’s bike and shouting, “Ride!”
Kuda shouted back, “Get on!”
But Elias shook his head. He had blood on his sleeve and a grin on his face—that stupid, impossible grin. “Somebody’s gotta keep their eyes on the road.” Then he turned back toward the smoke.