When the Road Went Silent novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Pellham Ground

Four more bikes pulled in behind Boone and cut their engines.

The clearing filled with the tick of cooling metal.

Boone swung one leg over and stood with his thumbs hooked in his belt.

"That's a club truck," he said, nodding at mine. "Titled to the club, bought with club money. You drove it off the property."

"I drove it to sleep in."

"Same thing. Keys, Maxine."

"And if I say no?"

He grinned, and the gold tooth showed.

"Then my boys take them."

The four men behind him shifted.

I knew all of them.

I had fed them for seven years.

One had cried on my shoulder when his mother died, and now he stared at the ground.

Ward stepped in front of me.

"Hatch," he said. "You don't want this."

"Deacon." Boone almost sounded pleased. "You abstained. That means you don't get a say."

"It means I didn't pick a side yet."

"Funny way to wait."

Ward put a hand to his vest, and every one of Boone's men tensed.

He wasn't reaching for a weapon.

I could see he wasn't.

He was only shifting his weight to cover me, and I realized he had stopped thinking about the count.

I put my hand on his arm and moved him aside.

"No," I said.

"Max."

"This is my fight."

I walked out into the headlights until I was ten feet from Boone and could smell the gas on his jacket.

I took my father's ring from the chain and closed it in my fist.

"You're on Pellham ground," I said.

Boone laughed.

"This is a dirt lot on a lake."

"It's the ground Gene Pellham stood on when he started this club, and you know the rule." I looked at the four men behind him, one at a time. "Nobody lays a hand on a Pellham on Pellham ground. Gene said it at the first meeting. All of you swore to it when you got your patches."

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