— Chapter 59 —

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"I know where he is."

Stumbling through the snow in the parking lot of Joe's Bar, I said the words aloud over and over, drunk off every syllable as it left my frigid lips. It was past midnight, and the doors to the bar had long since shut—a lot of the Stray Dogs had left.

Nobody had heard of Noah since the phone call. Ever since the line cut out, everything he'd said in the short space of time had replayed in my head. None of it made any sense—until it did.

"Must be all the smoke."

There was only one place in the world that had come to mind, and I prayed I wasn't right.

"When I get home we can start that movie you've been talking about... E.T.? The thing with the... the alien, right?"

Only one place in the world fit his description... a place from my own past that someone had burned to ashes. The same place I sealed away with my own hand, along with all the memories that came with it, in marks of yellow spray paint I thought nobody would ever see again. My stupid tag. Noah never would have brought up that movie otherwise.

It was a hassle to catch my breath. Spotting his head of mussed silver hair in the crowd, I called out to Chains again.

"I know where he is!"

Chains, who'd been yammering nonsense and trying to call Noah's phone over and over for the last ten minutes, didn't seem to hear me. Bouncing energetically in his place, I had to tug the sleeve of his jacket to get his attention.

For what I hoped was the last time, I enunciated, "I know where Noah is."

Chains blinked.

Then, a shimmery grin. "Really!"

Shooter spoke up to me from beside his intoxicated friend. "Alright man, I get that we vibe all well and good and whatever, but this really isn't the time for practical jokes—"

I shook my head about as fast as I stuttered the words. "I'm not messing with you. There's a place; deserted train tracks out of the city—he's there! I know he is."

I don't think I'd ever seen a biker stare at me so intensely in my life. Chains had set a new record.

"Did you hit your fucking head sometime in the last ten minutes?" Shooter laughed lightly.

"There are no deserted tracks in Boston," Chains said while itching his nose, slurring every other word. "Are you messing with us? You're messing with us. I really don't have the time to deal with you messing with us right now, Taylor."

"Would you just listen to me? I know what I'm—"

A hand rested on my shoulder.

"Talk, kid." Chief's considerate expression strangely soothed the adrenaline rushing through my veins. "If you really know where he is, then talk. I'm listening."

I drew in a breath.

"There's a set of abandoned train tracks," I began, "the ones by the old docks. They're keeping him in one of the cargo containers."

"A cargo container?" questioned Chains.

Chief nodded. "I know the place," he said, "but are you sure about this? Every road in and out was barricaded up years ago."

"Not if they used the tunnel."

"Am I the only one who hears how insane this all sounds?" Shooter grinned awkwardly, side-eyeing Chains.

Chains craned his neck and continued to stare intently, like he was seeing every molecule in the air around him. The white powder still staining his nose and the dilation of his pupils didn't give me much confidence in his sobriety.

"A tunnel!" he laughed, "What tunnel?"

"It's off the freeway," I explained to them. "They blocked it off for structural integrity issues back in '09, but anyone with a decent set of bolt cutters could open it up again."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Chief tugged his jacket over his shoulders. "There's about a dozen of us still here, maybe more. If those bastards plan on roughing up my nephew, then we'll show 'em exactly who they picked a fight with."

"You're coming with us, kid," Shooter made sure to add.

Chains threw his arms in the air and sniffed again. "He can ride with me!"

"Shooter, go tell the boys to get their shit together," Chief directed the biker. "We're leaving now."

As Shooter nodded and left to rally the troops, Chains went to follow. But before he could leave to go anywhere, Chief scoffed into the air and pulled him back by his collar.

"You? I don't think so," He spoke dryly. "Jesus Chains, you really think I'm going to let you ride anywhere with coke up your nose? You're sitting this out."

Chains wrestled out of his grasp.

"Sit it out?" he repeated. "Sit it out? You're kidding, right? I ain't sitting nothing out! Matter-of-fact, I feel great, Unc! Let's go kick some a—"

He went to storm off, but Chief pulled him back again and slapped his hand lightly against the younger biker's cheek.

"You brought this on yourself," the older biker hissed, teeth bared. "I told you to lay off the drugs. You're a liability to us right now, and if I hear you so much as put a hand on that bike drunk, I swear to god I'll—"

"You'll what?" Chains grumbled in boredom. "Come on—you ain't gonna do shit. We need all the riders we've got, yeah? Yeah. Let's go."

Chief stopped him in his tracks again and shoved the silver-haired biker down to the snow, flat on his ass. His words were cold and slow, spoken with a kind of commanding aura that made me dip my own head.

I watched Chains' eyes widen slightly up at the president of the Stray Dogs and felt a twinge of sympathy in my stomach. If he wasn't sober before, that knock to the ground certainly helped.

"Elliot, you're getting on with Shooter. Back of the pack." Chief nodded for me to follow. "Let's go."

While he walked away, I watched Chains hit his fist into the snow. "Fuck this shit," he hissed to himself, rubbing his face with his palms. "It's all just shit."

Shooter called out for me in the distance.

"Elliot, let's go!"

We got on the bikes after that. I rode with Shooter on the back of his motorcycle, of course, wearing a spare helmet he had for me. We were the last to leave, following behind the rest of the Stray Dogs in front.

Off their leashes, I finally got the chance to see what Noah's bikers looked like in a fraction of their glory.

If this was only a small portion of them, I couldn't begin to imagine the force they'd have as a whole.

My mind didn't stray off Noah as we drove. I prayed that he was safe. I prayed that I was right—that Noah was really at those train tracks, and that I wasn't wasting everyone's time.

I just hope he's okay.

For the most part, getting there was easy. Chief knew where he was going, leading the motorcycles riding like wolves behind him. The area approaching the tracks was deserted—a cold wasteland of asphalt and gravel. Shooter's motorcycle seemed weightless beneath us, gliding along the rain-slicked road with the purr of a rumbling engine. But best of all was the skyline glistening in the distance. A sea of electric blue waters meshed with the deep navy of the night sky, its many stars refracting off the waves like shattered jewels.

It was high ground that we were riding on—tall hills of forests, cliffs, and broken roads, that kissed the line where land met sea. There were docks as well, and boats that looked older than I was.

And finally, after directing the bikers down a wide road leading away from the interstate, we came upon a massive tunnel in the path ahead of us. It led through a large hill—a hill that secluded the expansive freight railroads behind it. The chains that had once been used to block the tunnel off were now lying broken to the side—severed—inviting visitors to enter if they dared to do so in the darkness.

"That's the place?" I heard Shooter ask after flicking up the visor to his helmet. The Stray Dogs had stopped a bit further up the road. It looked like the Chief was scoping the area out.

I nodded confidently in response.

As the Stray Dogs got moving again, Shooter flicked his visor down and spoke again. "Keep an eye out."

We rode down to the entrance of the tunnel, the sounds of roaring engines right at my ears. The headlights of our motorcycles were the only things illuminating the pitch-black as we entered. It felt a bit like being in a tin can—the rumbling sounds just seemed to ricochet through the structure.

Then, lights.

Soft, slowly fading in from the other end of the tunnel. It gave us a view of our surroundings, from the graffiti staining every inch of the cement walls to the debris lying on the asphalt.

The real sight to behold appeared once we finally got to the other side, emerging out onto an expansive ground of freight tracks. Gravel was laid out as far as the eye could see, lined with rusty, brown railways. Abandoned freight trains with empty carriages rested idly on them, like forgotten monsters trapped within an endless slumber—illuminated only by the headlights of motorcycles and tall light poles that shone glaring beams down onto the field below.

But something was different now. Off in the distance... there were people.

Everywhere.

They were just specks in my vision, but visible nonetheless. A rowdy crowd spanning the horizon, as far as I could see from beneath the visor of my helmet.

Instead of taking us their way, Chief led the Stray Dogs around, keeping us out of sight of whatever was going on further down the tracks. We parked the bikes behind the carriages of a train and tore off our helmets.

By the time we caught up with the rest of the bikers, Chief was already giving out orders.

"Fangs, Ghost, Cig—" he spotted the three men out of the dozen standing before him— "I want you three to go scope the place out. I don't know what all these other bikes are doing here, but it doesn't look good. Snake, Corpse and Red, take the other side. Stay out of sight."

The six motorcyclists rushed off in the gravel, disappearing shortly in the distance.

Chief said to me, "Alright, kid, it's on you now. There's a hundred cargo containers here—if Edge is in one of them, we'll find him."

"Stay behind us," Shooter made sure to add. "We'll split up into groups. Keep your head out of trouble."

I drew in a breath.

"Let's go," Chief ordered.

The group split up into two. Chief and Shooter came with me—the other three Stray Dogs went in the other direction.

I didn't have the heart to tell them not to bother. I knew exactly which container Noah was in... I just had to find the right train. As Shooter, Chief and I headed down the space between two carriers, the bikers began prying open container after container, metal doors screeching into the night air.

Keeping my head down low, I strayed away from the group and walked along the side of one of the trains. The one I was looking for was the longest of all, in the middle of the field and close to whatever madness was going on in the distance.

My fingers trailed along the sides of its carriers, and the rust pinched my smooth skin as if to welcome me back. I counted each carrier I passed in an attempt to remember where it was... the cargo container I came here for.

Or whatever was left of it.

Fourteen... fifteen... sixteen, I counted. Stop.

I turned up to face the carriage looking back at me. A massive cargo container of maroon iron, rusted and burned and forgotten over the many years I'd been gone. Home.

Nobody was watching the door.

Why isn't anyone watching the door? I panicked. If Noah was really being held here against his will, surely there'd be someone on lookout... right?

With a strained grunt, the groaning of metal, and a desperate tug, I finally managed to get a gap big enough for me to slip inside. "For Christ's sake, wait for us!" I heard Chief hiss behind me.

A stench of ash and smoke assaulted my nostrils the moment I stepped into the container.

Coughing into my sleeve, I fanned away the smoke and noticed a piece of my heart tear at the sight that rested before me.

Nostalgia overcame my senses. Because I remembered this place—and I remembered what it was before.

A spacious little cargo carrier on a train in the middle of nowhere. Inside, a home—walls made of scarlet metal, covered in white spray paint and marked with the names of four stupid kids who only had their dreams to keep them going.

A checkered couch, and a fraying, white rug. A table covered in playing cards and takeout containers. Fake plants and real ones. Music that played from a stereo found for cheap at a garage sale. Guitars, a drum kit, and a refrigerator. Fairy lights, a box TV, and a microwave, all powered by an extension cord that was hidden beneath all the gravel outside and ran down to the main generator. And sunlight... beams that filtered in through the metal door that was always kept slightly ajar.

We were always here.

After school, on the weekends, and on nights we couldn't deal with our own homes anymore. This carrier was the only place where we could be ourselves—where we could act like dumb, reckless teenagers, away from our parents and a society that just wanted us to change.

Now... it was gone.

Those guitars, that couch, all the fairy lights, the carpet and the playing cards... they were gone. Someone had taken a match to it all, and the place those kids had once called home was now only a pile of rubble and ash hidden behind an iron door. Forgotten and abandoned. All that fun that used to be here—the joy and the laughter—it was replaced by the cold eeriness of melancholy silence.

Chief and Shooter rushed into the carrier while I tried to compose my thoughts

"Noah was here," I murmured to them, gesturing to the wooden chair resting in the middle of the room. Ropes littered the floor around it, discarded.

He's not here anymore.

My heart sank.

"Well, where the fuck is he?" Shooter asked, looking around the carrier. "Are you sure this is the place?"

My gaze caught on my own tag spray-painted in yellow onto the maroon walls of the carrier.

"I'm sure," I stammered. "They must have moved him."

Chief headed back out of the carrier, Shooter in tow. I managed to catch the older biker snap to himself, "For fuck's sake!"

I was alone in the cargo container again once they'd left, struggling to get in a breath.

Why isn't he here?

I did my best to see through all the thick air. My fingertips traced over the remnants of the old furniture, each one letting a memory seep into my mind.

The couch—where James and I slept away many nights, comforting each other from the hell that was the rest of our lives. The table—where the four of us used to play cards, and where Nate and Riven so often got caught up in intense games of arm-wrestling. The crusty spray paint on the walls, where I'd scribble whatever silly drawings came to mind.

It's all gone.

I drew in a long inhale and let go of an even longer exhale. The air tasted like splinters and smoke.

I didn't do this.

I wasn't the one who burned it all down. But nevertheless, it burned. I always thought that James did it—after all, he left only a few weeks after it happened, and he never told me why. Just like that, everything fell apart.

The band, our friendship, our hopes and dreams, and the memories that had once kept us all together. All of it. Forgotten.

I might not have burned it down... but I sure as hell locked it away.

Staring at the ash that stained my fingertips, some kind of grief swarmed my senses. That ash was like the blood of a friend who'd bled out in my arms. It was black and rotten and made my legs weak beneath me. Dusting it off on my jeans, I blinked away the moisture that had formed in the corners of my eyes—whether it was from the emotions or the putrid stench that was beating my senses, I hadn't decided yet.

A voice cut me out of my thoughts. I flinched in alarm.

Someone was walking past the container outside, talking to their partner. "Come on," I heard them say. "Han's going to put a bullet in our heads if we don't unload that truck before Sage gets here."

I frowned. Han? Sage?

Sticking my head out of the carriage once they'd walked past, I looked around, deeply aware that the Stray Dogs I'd come here with were hopelessly out of sight.

Slipping back out of the carrier, I decided to let curiosity get the best of me, watching the two other men trudge through the frostbitten gravel.

Why is Han here? I thought to myself, following the two bikers down the line of carriages.

I pulled the cover of my hoodie over my head and stayed close enough to see where they were going in the darkness—they slipped between two cargo containers on a train, away from the crowds in the distance. And when I was sure I wouldn't be caught, I followed in behind them.

What truck? The thoughts wouldn't let me go.

Where's Noah?

Aside from a few men in leather vests, the other side of the train was deserted. When I finally saw the truck they mentioned, I faltered.

It looked like the same truck Jesse's convenience store got its deliveries from.

Only this time, instead of goods packed in boxes inside... there were duffle bags. Dozens of them, stacked on top of each other. A biker in an unmarked vest was unloading them onto a wooden table, which sat beside the hefty doors of another freight carrier. What looked like two security guards were standing there to watch the truck being unloaded.

The two other men I followed here went to help unload the duffle bags, stacking them onto the table—the biker brought them into the carrier.

What is all this? I thought to myself, watching them from behind the corner. Whatever they were unloading, those duffle bags looked heavy.

Just as the last few bags were being loaded onto the table, something tugged on the back of my hoodie. I didn't even get to yell before someone's fingertip pressed to my lips.

"Have you lost your mind?" Chains hissed at me, silver hair coming into view. "If they see you, we're all dead."

My heart pounded wildly in my chest.

"Chains?" I furrowed my brows. "What are you doing here? I thought you stayed behind; how did you get—"

He shook his head. "It's not important right now. We need to get moving." Checking around the corner for trouble, Chains ushered us out once the coast was clear.

"We can't find Noah," I breathed out, struggling to keep pace. "He wasn't in the—"

"Of course he wasn't." The biker was going too fast for me to keep up. From the looks of things, the last hour had sobered Chains up pretty well. "I should've known he would do this," he said to himself. "I should have known."

"Known what? What's happening? Where are we going?" I whispered, "Chains, wait!"

Wherever he was leading us, we were getting closer and closer to the crowd of people. And the closer we got, the more lights seemed to illuminate our path... and the more motorcycles came into view.

I pleaded, "Chains, what the hell is going on?"

"They're going to make him race."