When the Road Went Silent novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Chair

I stood up with his blood to my elbow.

"Hold!" I screamed.

My voice carried over the road.

I held the ring high, and it caught the sun.

"Every patch on this road swore to my father! Every one of you!"

The fighting didn't stop, but it slowed.

Men on both sides looked at me and at the man bleeding on the asphalt at my feet.

"Whoever shot him shot a Pellham's man on Pellham ground," I said. "Say it to my face."

The young man with the gun dropped it.

It rang on the road, and the Hounds nearest him stepped back.

Sirens rose behind the trees.

The old man's daughter, the nurse, had called an ambulance when she saw the bikes come over the rise, and she'd called the sheriff after.

The Hounds' boss turned his head toward the sound.

"Sunday's over," he said to Boone, not quietly. "You told me this would be a walk."

"Give me ten minutes," Boone said.

"I'm not giving you ten seconds."

The boss mounted his bike.

Thirty engines turned over at once, and the Hounds pulled out of the road the way they'd come, dragging their wounded into the trucks.

Boone stood alone in the middle of Lake Road with his hands hanging.

Four of his men were already walking toward our side with their cuts in their hands.

He looked at them.

Then he walked to his bike, and nobody stopped him, because the ambulance had reached the gate.

I rode in the back with Ward's hand in both of mine.

The paramedic cut his shirt off and clamped his shoulder and said things I didn't hear.

Keep reading free with an account. Start When the Road Went Silent from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.