“That’s the trick.” I nod toward the far fence. “Tracks.”
We follow the twin tire tracks burned into the gravel. They end at a locked gate. The chain’s fresh.
“Too new,” Dagger says, crouching. “Someone’s hiding something.”
I cut the lock with the bolt cutter and push through. The air is sharper, hotter. The stink of gasoline and something copper underneath it.
We find the first truck five yards in, blackened to a skeleton. The second’s tipped onto its side, doors open, cab empty. A third trail of rubber heads toward the ocean.
The silence that follows presses in hard, heavier than the smoke still clinging to the wreckage.
“Jesus,” Dagger whispers.
The ground’s scorched with melted asphalt and pocked with holes. A few steps closer and I see a symbol carved into the blacktop, clean and deliberate. An “L.” and half a wolf’s head burned in the edge of the soot. Split down the middle. My stomach tightens.
I crouch, my gloved fingers brushing the edge. The soot stains my skin. The heat’s long gone, but I can still feel the fire.
“Lattimer,” Dagger says quietly.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “But not just him.”
“Hellhounds,” I say.
Dagger stiffens. “You sure?”
“I’d know that mark anywhere.”
Dagger’s jaw tightens as he looks at the mark again, and he doesn’t need to say what we’re both thinking.
The air thickens as heat radiates off the burned metal, sticky and suffocating. For a moment, I swear I hear engines from the past, that same roar before everything went to hell.
“Tiny,” Dagger says, breaking through the noise in my head. “You okay?”
I blink, focus. “Fine.” It’s a lie, and we both know it.
He steps closer. “You don’t look fine.”
“I’m not the one on fire.”
He smirks faintly, then pulls out his Glock and scans the area. “Let’s make sure we don’t join them.”
We move carefully through the wreckage, guns at the ready. Seagulls circle overhead, shrieking as if the dead want to speak. Ispot a boot print near the back of the second truck, too deep for a regular biker. Combat soles, military-grade.
“Not cartel,” I mutter, studying the tread pattern again.
Dagger straightens beside me. “Mercs?” he asks, but the thought’s already forming in my head.
“Or trained ex-Hellhounds,” I say quietly, and the words taste like rust.
Before Dagger can answer, an engine roars behind us. I turn quickly, gun raised. A black pickup skids around the corner, tires spitting gravel. Two men jump out, both wearing leather with a half-torn, half-restitched Hellhound skull.
One grins, crooked teeth and sunburned skin. “Royal Bastards,” he spits. “Should’ve known you’d sniff this trail.”
“Yeah?” I step forward. “You leave it out long enough, even the dogs show up.”
His smirk falters. “You don’t belong here.”
“Neither do you,” Dagger says, sliding his blade free.