Chapter 7 - Ghost Train to the North
Midnight in the Arizona high desert brought a biting chill that cut straight through leather jackets and woolen blankets.
The convoy of two motorcycles and the battered blue pickup rolled out of Rattlesnake Ridge without lights, running entirely on night-vision goggles and whispered radio comms. The decoy drone was already thirty miles south, broadcasting a pulsing satellite signal across the interstate toward the border town of Nogales, drawing the syndicate’s cleanup crew away like moths to a flame.
They made camp twenty miles off the main highway, tucked deep inside a steep canyon where towering red rock walls shielded them from the biting wind.
Tank had built a small, smokeless fire using dry mesquite roots, boiling coffee in an old tin pot while Lily slept soundly curled up in the back seat of the truck under three heavy wool blankets.
Elena sat beside Grizz on a flat boulder overlooking the canyon floor, her shoulders wrapped in Grizz’s heavy leather riding jacket. The stars above them were brilliant, glittering like scattered diamonds across the vast, ink-black velvet of the desert sky.
"Twelve years, Jax," Elena murmured, breaking the quiet hum of the night. "I used to sit on the porch of that cabin in Montana and wonder if you ever looked up at the same stars and wondered where I was."
"Every single night," Grizz said quietly, staring into the embers of the fire. "I thought you were gone, El. I blamed myself. If I hadn't gotten mixed up with those arms dealers in Tucson, we never would have had to run."
"We survived it," Elena said, leaning her head against his broad shoulder. "Both of us. And we got her."
"She’s got your stubborn streak," Grizz chuckled softly. "God help any boy who tries to break her heart when she turns sixteen. I've already got Tank and Slash ready to clean their shotguns."
Elena laughed—a light, musical sound that chased away the last lingering ghosts of the past twelve years. "You haven't changed at all, Jaxson Miller. Still an outlaw at heart."
May you like
"Some things are carved in ink, El," Grizz said, lifting his right arm and letting the firelight catch the jagged edges of the wolf-and-compass tattoo. "Some things never wash off."
---
