Caleb followed the chain with his eyes.

Then he saw the boot.

Then the leg.

Then the man.

Caleb froze.

His heart slammed against his ribs as he stared at the biggest person he had ever seen.

The man sat slumped against the tree, his massive shoulders sagging forward. Thick chains bound his wrists behind the trunk, digging into skin rubbed raw and stained dark with dried blood.

His arms were enormous, covered in faded tattoos.

Across his chest stretched a black leather vest.

And on that vest was a patch Caleb had seen before in movies and on television.

A winged skull.

HELL’S ANGELS.

Every half-heard warning Caleb had ever overheard from adults rushed through his mind all at once.

For a terrifying moment, he thought the biker was dead.

Then the man groaned.

The sound was rough and broken, like gravel dragged across metal.

It startled Caleb so badly he nearly ran.

But instead he stood there, staring.

Slowly, painfully, the biker lifted his head.

Steel-gray eyes met Caleb’s.

They weren’t angry.

They weren’t threatening.

They were filled with something much worse.

Pain.

“Kid…” the man rasped, his voice barely more than air. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Caleb swallowed.

His legs wanted to run, but his feet stayed rooted to the ground.

“Are… are you hurt?” he asked quietly.

The biker let out a breath that might have been a laugh before it collapsed into a cough.

“That obvious?”

Caleb looked down.

The chains.

The blood-stained dirt.

A black motorcycle lying on its side nearby, its gas tank dented and the keys missing.

He didn’t understand biker clubs or rival gangs or violent ambushes.

But he understood one thing very clearly.

Someone had left this man here.

Someone had chained him to a tree and walked away.

And they expected him to die.

Caleb realized, with a sudden weight in his chest, that if he walked away too… no one would ever come back.

He stepped closer.

The biker shook his head weakly.

“Kid… go home,” he muttered. “You don’t want to be part of this.”

But Caleb had already crouched beside the chain.

He pulled at it.

Nothing moved.

He tried again.

The metal didn’t budge.

Caleb grabbed a stick and jammed it between the links, trying to pry them apart with all his strength. The stick snapped in his hands.

He tried stones.

He scraped his knuckles raw against cold steel.

The biker drifted in and out of consciousness, murmuring warnings whenever he woke.

“Leave…”

“Kid… run…”

“You don’t know who did this.”

But Caleb didn’t stop.

The sun slowly dipped lower, turning the forest gold.