Page 2 of My Ex-Military Biker

Pull the rest of the boxes out. Destroy what we can here. The message needs to be clear. Marrow runs drugs through Route 9, this is the outcome. Every time.

One of their guys is unconscious in the dirt. The other is sitting up, holding his ribs, looking like he's reconsidering his life choices. The one I dropped with the knee is still screaming. Bone broke through skin on that hit. He'll need an ambulance.

Pity.

Cain pulls his phone and calls Clint. I listen with half my attention while I assess my own damage.

The cut runs about six inches across my ribs, left side. Shallow like I thought. Clean edges. Bleeding steady but nothing arterial. Field dressing will hold it until I get home.

I pull the kit from my saddlebag. Wrap the wound functional, not pretty. Gauze, pressure, tape.

It'll do.

Cain ends his call. "Clint says go. I'm waiting for cleanup."

I nod and mount up.

The movement pulls at the wound and fresh blood seeps into the gauze immediately. I start the bike anyway.

Route 9 stretches out empty. Heat shimmers on the asphalt like water that isn't there, sun sitting heavy in air that hasn't moved since morning.

This whole summer's been like this, heat that settles in and doesn't lift.

Bloomfield is twenty minutes east, and my house is three miles before town.

I run through the checklist. Get home. Clean the wound properly. Change the dressing. Disinfect. Check for debris. Call Clint with an update.

Normal Tuesday.

The shirt is soaked through by the time I'm ten minutes out. Sticking to my skin, pulling at the wound every time I breathe.

I'm thinking about whether I need to check the suture kit when I see her.

At first I think it's heat shimmer doing something to my vision. Or blood loss. Or my brain making shapes out of nothing because that's what brains do when you're running on adrenaline comedown.

But I slow down and she's still there.

A woman in a long white dress, sitting on the shoulder of Route 9 next to a dead car.

I process this twice to make sure it's real.

Wedding dress. Full skirt spread around her on the gravel like someone staged a photo shoot and forgot to clean up. Dark hair that was probably all done up this morning, now half-collapsed and falling loose.

She's not crying, just sitting there staring at the empty road like she's trying to understand the series of decisions that led her to this exact spot.

I should keep riding.

Not my problem. I'm bleeding through a field dressing. Stopping for strangers on empty roads is how you end up in situations that didn't need to happen.

But.

Empty road. Woman alone. Car clearly dead from the angle of the hood. Sun's heading toward evening.

She's got maybe two hours before this becomes a different kind of problem.

The medic reflex doesn't do risk assessment, it just sees someone who might not make it home without help.

Same reflex that made me stay with Danny for forty-seven minutes doing everything right while he died anyway.