Page 51 of Brazen Being It

“Salentino is moving in,” he says. “Not full force, but enough. They’re sniffing around weapon dealers west of Waynesboro.”

“What for?” Toon asks.

Curtis shrugs. “Rumor is, they want to move back into arms. New revenue stream. Idea came from Salentino’s son. Young, dumb, hungry.”

Axel glances at me. “That ain’t good.”

Curtis grins. “No shit.”

We get what we can—names, radio freqs, a rumor about a buy going down in two days—and keep moving.

The second contact’s a truck stop just off the main drag, abandoned long enough for the weeds to come up through the concrete. There’s a car parked near the sign, black, tinted, engine cold. We approach with caution. Toon swings wide, Axel circles left, I go straight in. Heart pounding.

Nothing. Empty.

But there’s a message.

A Hellions patch, old and faded, nailed to the signpost. It’s bloodstained, tattered, sun-bleached. My heart drops. Toon spits a curse, Axel checks the perimeter, but there’s no one here. No bodies. Just a message, plain as day.

They want us to know they’re coming. They want us to feel it.

“This isn’t about old grudges anymore,” I say. My voice is steady, but inside I’m seething. “This is war.”

Axel’s face is stone. Toon’s knuckles are white. None of us needs to say it, but we do anyway. “War.”

We ride hard all night. No hotels, no rest stops. Just fuel and the open road, blacktop unspooling under us like a challenge. Every curve of the mountain feels like a trap. My jaw aches from clenching. My knuckles are raw from holding the bars too tight. We stop only for gas, for piss breaks, for the kind of quiet that’s more about bracing for the next round than resting.

By morning, we’re over the border, wheels crunching gravel at the safehouse near Boone—a hunting cabin we used in the last border war. Dust everywhere, the air stale with old sweat and gun oil. Toon gets the radio up. Axel unpacks the gear. I sweep the perimeter, every sense humming.

When I come back inside, I text Rex:

Safe. Waiting.

There’s already a message waiting for me:

Sit tight. Wait for orders.

My fist tightens around the phone. I don’t want to wait. But I know better. Patience is how you live. Impulse is how you die.

At sundown, I step out for air. Axel’s on the porch, cleaning his rifle, face blank as stone.

“You ever think this shit’s gonna follow her forever?” he asks without looking up.

“It already has.”

He grunts. “She know how bad it gets in our world?”

“No.”

“Should she?”

I shake my head. “Not until I know what storm we’re bringing home.”

He nods. “She’s tougher than most of us,” he mutters, and goes back to his gun. There’s a strange comfort in that, in his belief.

The order to return comes at dawn.

Rex’s text is short:

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