We drive in silence. Lily has cried herself out, her face pressed against my chest.
Then she stirs.
“Izzy?” Her voice is tiny. “Where’s Mr. Flopsy?”
My heart cracks.
The go-bag. I’ve had it—upstairs, before everything went wrong. Lily’s clothes, the money I’ve saved, her toy rabbit. I must have dropped it when he?—
“Baby, I’m so sorry. I lost?—”
Something lands on the seat beside me.
It’s Lily’s backpack, the worn purple canvas bulging—filled far fuller than I originally packed it.
“Dig in, kid,” the stranger says.
Lily sits up and unzips the bag, gasping.
“Mr. Flopsy!” She pulls out the worn rabbit, clutching it like a lifeline. “Izzy, he got Mr. Flopsy! And my purple shirt! And my crayons! Look! My princess cup!”
I stare at the bag. The slowly lift my gaze to the rearview mirror, where dark eyes meet mine.
He’d not only rescued us, he’d been thoughtful enough to grab a six-year-old’s stuffed rabbit.
My eyes burn.
I can’t speak. Can’t find words for what I’m feeling.
So I just look at him in the mirror and mouth two words.
“Thank you.”
He jerks his chin up. Once in acknowledgment. Then he turns his eyes back to the road.
We don’t speak for the rest of the drive. Don’t need to.
Lily falls asleep against my shoulder, Mr. Flopsy clutched in her arms. I watch the streetlights pass, one after another, carrying us away from everything I’ve known.
I don’t know where we’re going. Don’t know what comes next.
I touch Mr. Flopsy’s ear, my mind going blank as he drives through the streets of Stoneheart.
The Stoneheart MC clubhouse appears in the distance. Lights blazing, people spilling out the front door.
The stranger pulls into the lot and kills the engine.
Fuck, he’s a biker.
I don’t know what to do with this information.
“Ready?” he asks.
First word he’s spoken sincedig in, kid.
I look at the crowd—strangers, all of them, waiting for us. Look at Lily, still sleeping. Look at my own reflection in the window—bruised, bloody, broken.
These are the people who came for us when no one else did.
