Marcus documented every bruise, every burn, every injury on those kids. The evidence was damning. Years of abuse. Tyler’s broken fingers that had healed wrong. Mason’s cigarette burns. Madison’s scars. Lily’s absolute terror of men.
“We need to report this,” Marcus said quietly. “This is serious abuse.”
Jake looked at me. “What do you think, brother?”
I looked at Madison, who was sitting on my bike holding Lily while Tyler and Mason ate sandwiches. This girl had risked everything to save her siblings. She’d driven thirteen hours on pure adrenaline and terror. She’d trusted me—a strange biker on a dark highway—with their lives.
“I think we get them to their grandmother tonight,” I said. “Then we report it from there with documentation and a safe place already established. We make it harder for the system to fail them.”
We voted. Unanimous. We were taking these kids to Tennessee.
But there was a problem—it was a six-hour drive, and Madison was dead on her feet. She’d been awake for nearly twenty-four hours. She couldn’t drive.
“I’ll take them in my truck,” Jake said. “Bill can follow me.”
“No,” I said. “I’ll take them.”
Everyone looked at me. I looked at Madison. “If it’s okay with you, sweetheart, I’d like to drive you and your siblings to your grandma’s house. On my bike, I can get us there in five hours. But in Jake’s truck, we can all go together, and you can rest.”
Jake answered. “Because we’re dads and granddads. Because we’ve seen too many kids slip through the cracks. Because nobody helped us when we needed it, and we’re not going to do that to someone else.”
“Because you’re brave as hell, kid,” Marcus added. “And brave kids deserve protection.”
Madison started crying again. But this time, they weren’t scared tears. They were relief. “Okay,” she whispered. “Okay.”
We loaded the kids into Jake’s extended cab truck. Tyler and Mason climbed into the backseat. Madison sat in the middle with Lily on her lap. I rode my bike alongside them. Bill and Marcus followed behind us. Four other brothers stayed to deal with the abandoned car and run interference in case anyone came looking.
We rode through the night like a convoy protecting precious cargo. Because that’s exactly what we were doing.
We reached Madison’s grandmother’s house just as the sun was coming up. It was a small place on the outskirts of Memphis—white with blue shutters and a porch swing. The moment we pulled into the driveway, the front door flew open.
An elderly woman—seventy if she was a day—ran out in her bathrobe. “MADISON! BABIES!”
