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Each time they reached a road, Mark would point, and four bikes would break off.

Axel scanned as much of the space as he could with how fast they were moving, but he didn’t spot any movement until they rounded the last bend, where the old, abandoned coat factory sat, only it wasn’t abandoned tonight.

They encountered cars leaving a parking lot full of them when they pulled up, and people milling around outside as well as spilling out of the entryway.

“What the fuck?” Creature muttered as the four remaining bikes parked. “Hop off.”

Axel did so, immediately followed by Creature. Kong and Danger did as well, the four of them following Mark up to the door.

“Fights are over,” a bald man declared.

“Good, ‘cause we’re not here to start one unless one of you gets in our way,” Mark declared. “Now move!”

For a moment, it looked like the tall, buff, and scary doorman, along with his equally buff and bald friend, were about to do just that, until the bald guy smacked a hand across the other one’s chest and shook his head before they stepped aside.

“Good choice,” Mark said as he stepped past them, meaning Creature, Kong, Danger, and Axel followed. There weren’t many people left inside. Mostly just a bunch of men demolishing something that looked like a makeshift version of the cages he watched MMA fighters compete in on television.

The fighting ring.

Scout had mentioned that his brother was fighting to make money the same way Scout was shooting those videos. Mark marched right over to where they were working and asked where the fighters changed out.

“Back there,” one guy said, jerking a finger in the direction of a hall to their left. “But most of them are gone now, if you’re pissed about losing money tonight.”

“Does that happen often?” Mark asked.

“Often enough that I’m not risking my neck trying to get in between you five and one of them.”

Nodding, Mark led them down the dimly lit hall, one light fizzling and going dimmer before blinking and roaring back to life for a moment or so before popping and growing dim again.

“They’re gonna fry in this place one of these nights,” Mark muttered. “Electrics have got to be decades out of date.”

Spreading out, they started opening doors until Axel opened one to reveal a woman’s tearful face as she sat beside a man sprawled on his side on the floor, his face swollen so bad Axel couldn’t make out any of his features.

“They didn’t call for the EMTs, did they?” She asked, her hand shaking as she rested it on the man’s shoulder.

“I didn’t see any,” Axel said. “But I’ll call you one as soon as we’re out of here. We’re looking for a friend and his brother. Have you seen anyone with a three-headed hound tattoo on the side of his neck or wearing a jacket with that same emblem?”

“Pretty sure I saw both,” the woman said. “Sent the one asking about the one with the jacket down the hall to where they dragged him, but that was a while ago.”

“Thank you.”

“Please, you’ll call the EMTs?”

“Yes, ma’am, just as soon as I’m somewhere with a cell phone signal. This place is emptying out fast. They’re probably waiting to call until the last one leaves.”

“That might be too late,” she said with a sob, folding over to press her head against the injured man’s chest.

He made a weak, groaning noise that reminded Axel of the sounds one of the robbers made after he got shot.

It hadn’t taken long for him to fall silent altogether, but then, no one had been tending to that robber the way she was tending to him.

The way he saw it, it took guts and loyalty to remain when who the fuck knew what went on around here once the lights went out.

Was that why Scout had come here? Did he know something would happen to his brother if Sawyer wasn’t able to leave on his own?

Scrambling, he hurried to find the others, only to see them clumped together at the end of the hall. Racing to join them, Axel skittered to a stop when they all whirled at once and Kong pulled a gun on him. Axel hit the ground and immediately covered his head, babbling out what he’d been told.

“Put the fuckin’ piece away,” Creature growled, not that Axel looked up to see if Kong actually listened.

He didn’t even look up when a steel hand closed around his arm and started hauling him to his feet; he just pressed close to Creature’s leather jacket, trembling as he tried to shove the memories of the robbery from his head.

“Breathe and tell me what you just said,” Creature said, rubbing circles on the middle of his back until Axel remembered how to suck in a breath of air.

“There’s a lady back there with a hurt man, waiting for EMTs. Said she saw Scout looking for Sawyer and that he was hurt too.”

“Who was hurt?”

“Sawyer, I think,” Axel managed. “The guy she’s with sounds like he’s dying.”

“Yeah, well, it looks like someone else might be too,” Mark said. “We found Sawyer’s bag.”

Axel peered around Creature to see Mark holding an open gym bag with a black leather jacket hastily shoved inside, two of the three hound’s heads showing.

“And blood,” Kong said, finally tucking his piece back in his waistband.

“Looks like a trail of it,” Danger said.

“So we follow,” Mark said, shoving the bag into Axel’s arms.

He clutched it to his chest and stayed right by Creature’s side while they followed, his mouth going dry as his tongue started sticking to the roof of his mouth, panic setting in the deeper they got into the building.

He wasn’t gonna run and hide, though. He’d asked to come, and now that he was here, he wasn’t about to chicken out and show them that he was unreliable, because he wasn’t.

He could handle this the same as he’d been handling all the shit his old man had heaped on his shoulders over the years.

If Scout was hurt, then he owed it to his new friend to be there for him and not make him face these four scary bastards alone.

In a single file line, they followed Danger, who wielded a flashlight and led them through a series of twists and turns to a rear exit that Axel, for all of the exploring he’d done in some of these old buildings, had never known existed.

Outside, there was once again nothing to see until Kong went left, back towards the road, and Danger went right, towards the back corner and old, dented-up dumpsters riddled with pockmarks from the pellets of countless BB guns.

“Got his bike!” Danger called out moments later. “Looks like there was another one here too. Got a smear of oil on the ground.”

That must have been what Mark had been looking for when he’d been searching the grass.

“Does it start?” Mark asked as Creature headed in that direction, which meant Axel did too.

For a moment, Axel wondered how they planned to do that, since he doubted Scout had left the keys, but moments after Creature started fiddling with it, it fired up and idled beautifully.

“Nothing wrong with it except that it ain’t set up for two,” Creature declared.

Mark pulled out his phone, then cussed it out when he discovered what Axel already knew, that there wasn’t any cell reception until you got closer to the road.

“Alright, flash those lights and keep flashing them until I tell you to quit,” Mark declared as he held the phone up and headed towards the road.

It seemed like forever before the roar of other bikes grew closer, and they finally started parking along the road, where Mark waited.

“Scout and his brother are out there somewhere,” Mark declared.

“One or both of them are hurt. They’re either headed for the ER or a place to hole up, since I doubt Scout would risk bringing him to the compound.

I don’t know what kind of bike they’re on, but Scout’s is here, so don’t bother looking for that one.

Check every side street and road out to the campground.

If they aren’t headed to the ER, that’s the only place I could think for them to go.

Cage, I need you to take his bike back to the compound. ”

“On it,” the man said as he dismounted from the bike he’d been riding as the passenger on and crossed the grass and gravel to reach Scout’s.

“Don’t shut it off until you get there,” Creature declared. “I had to hotwire it.”

“Understood,” Cage remarked as he mounted it and took off.

The sight of someone else on the bike Axel knew Scout treasured was just another sobering moment in an already shitty night.

“Wait here,” Creature said, as he and the others headed back around to the front to collect their bikes.

Whatever had happened here, Axel just hoped Scout’s ability to get himself out of a jam was strong tonight, because from where he stood, it seemed like the man, and his brother, truly needed it.