Hard Rider

Victor ignored her goading and stayed defensive, waiting for her to try to lash out again. He began circling around, and she followed suit, until they were two animals prowling a cage.

“Well, this is interesting…”

“Dammit, Grizz!” I flinched, not realizing my quiet, solemn second-in-command was at my side. “You’ve always fucking sneaking up on me like that! Give a fucker some warning…”

He ignored my complaints, his pale eyes focused straight ahead on the two sparring partners. “She’s not wrong. Her form is better. Your sister knows what she is doing.”

“You think so?” I turned forward again.

“Hannah is going to destroy him. You should call this off.”

“If she’s as good as you seem to think,” I smiled confidently, “then I have got to see this shit for myself.”

Grizz shook his head.

Victor abandoned the defensive tactics and dove forward with a quick jab. Hannah dodged effortlessly, switching to defense, and allowed him to throw a few more punches her way.

The biker hopped backwards, but Hannah matched his moves and hopped forward, launching a strong kick to his abdomen that winded him in an instant.

The Devil’s Dragons rose in a cacophony of cheering and jeering. Most of them were panning Victor, while a small vocal minority had taken up behind Hannah.

“You kicked me?”

“I said ‘sparring,’” Hannah clarified with a smile. “Didn’t say you had to keep with the punches. Next time, try listening.”

Victor staggered to a stand and steeled himself, waiting to see what she’d do next. When she relaxed, a wicked smile crossing her lips, he started breathing a little heavier to reclaim his lost oxygen.

“You can give up now, you know.”

The biker chuckled wearily. “Giving up after one solid hit? Not a chance.”

“Your loss, either way,” she chuckled.

Victor gave a shout and charged forward, taking Hannah by surprise. They crumpled down to the ground, but Hannah wound up on top, throwing a few punches to his head.

The biker brawler deflected, defended, and absorbed a few hits before taking a few solid ones. Fueled by pain-soaked anger, he drove a fist into her chest, returning the favor and separating her from his body.

“Damn!” She groaned, clutching her stomach as he slowly crawled to a stand. Hannah was one step away from curling up on the floor as the crowd descended into more cheering, although they couldn’t make their minds up.

“You still think she’s a shoo-in?” I asked Grizz.

“Watch,” he replied cautiously. “Look at her. She’s already won.”

I glanced over at my sister, although I wasn’t seeing whatever he was. If anything, I saw her in pain, and was tempted to call it all off right there and then.

Until…

“Kick me,” my sister groaned stubbornly.

“Hmm?” Victor asked, confused.

It was clear that he was still recuperating from the blows she’d delivered to his head.

“I told you to kick me,” Hannah groaned again, lifting her face from the earth.

There it was.

In her eyes, there were the flames of defiance. Whatever she had in mind, it was going to cost him if he accepted the opening…

Victor laughed, taking a step forward.

If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would have never believed it. It happened so goddamn fast: Victor swung his foot back in a long but quick arc, delivering a punishing boot to her ribs…

But that didn’t happen.

As he swung his foot back, she pushed up from the ground, and as his foot swung forward she latched her arms to his leg and carried his momentum a foot or two higher…

High enough to send him straight onto his ass.

Victor dropped as Hannah fell to the ground on top of him, rolling quickly away. Filled with anger and adrenaline, the biker propelled himself up to his feet…

…Just in time for Hannah to have already gained her footing and jump into a spin-kick, delivering a heavy, powerful blow to the side of his head.

Victor blacked out on the spot, dropping to the earth with a definitive thunk as the crowd went completely wild.

Several of the bigger bikers moved forward to pull their fallen friend from the ground as Hannah flipped her hair out of her face and cast me a quick glance.

“Told you, little brother,” she smirked victoriously. “I know how to take care of myself.”

“Jesus, Hannah, that was some Matrix bullshit…”

The bikers parted as she walked by, taking the beer from my hand. “You wondered where I’ve been for the last few years? I’ve been busy… learning to keep anyone from doing what they did to me ever again. I’ve picked up a some martial arts, marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat with and without a weapon…”

“No fucking kidding,” I smiled proudly.

She smirked again, stepping back into the bar while the others followed suit. A few of my Dragons looked almost scared of her, while most just looked impressed.

“Your sister is a bonafide badass,” Ricochet told me, clasping me on the shoulder. “No wonder you’ve been trying to find her all these years…”

I grinned a quick response as he swept into the crowd of bikers strolling inside, helping to carry Victor’s limp form, but my smile faded when I made eye contact with Grizz.

My solemn, insightful second-hand man had been quietly observing Hannah. When his pale eyes turned back my way, I didn’t like what I saw in them.

“What’s the matter?” I asked him the moment we were alone. “What do you see?”

“Bad things,” he shook his head.

I crossed my arms. “Might want you to give me a little more to go off of than that…”

Grizz sighed heavily. “I’m not sure I like this one… Kin or not. She’s keeping secrets. You need to be watching her.”

“If you were anyone else Grizz, I’d put a fist through your face for saying that,” I told him, “but I value and trust your judgment. Keep an eye on Hannah for me, but you’d better fucking respect her while you do it. She is my sister.”

“Duly noted,” Grizz replied.

I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket as my boot hit the first step back into the bar, and I paused to dig it back out.

“Hunter here,” I replied coolly.

EagleEye’s voice came down the line. “Hunter, I finally have the information that you were looking for.”

Relief washed over me. “Damn, am I happy to finally hear from you. No offense to your skills and all, but I’m honestly kind of surprised it took you this long.”

“It wasn’t as easy as you led me to believe.”

“What, cracking into the port?”

“That part was fine,” she quickly clarified. “Their infrastructure is as antiquated as any I’ve ever seen. Accessing their f

iling systems was a cakewalk. It was the container itself that represented… problems.”

I glanced up towards the open doorway to the bar, noticing the noise that was still happening. Suddenly, Grizz stepped into view. When he saw the look on my face, he merely nodded and closed the door behind himself.

“Gotta admit, your tone doesn’t exactly inspire confidence,” I responded quickly. “What kind of problems did you run into?”

“The name of the container was a forgery.”

“Figures.”

“Half the time I spent working this was determining that proof. The other half was following it up the chain.”

“Up the chain?” I asked. “What are we talking about here? Are there a lot of people on this? An organization, maybe?”

“No organization,” EagleEye calmly confirmed, “but a lot of mystery. Whoever owns that container wants nobody to find them under any circumstances.”

“What are you telling me?” I asked.

EagleEye sighed deeply. “Hunter, I haven’t seen this kind of security over a single box before. Whatever is in that thing can’t be good.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“It probably is,” she replied. “There was nothing in the records indicating that it had ever been opened. There isn’t a soul in that port that knows what’s in there, or who owns it.”

“But you know,” I pressed forward. “You followed it up the chain. You know who owns that thing.”

“I do,” she replied. “And maybe that should be the end of it. You can hang up right now and I’ll forget you ever asked about that container.”

“My girlfriend is chasing after this thing. I’ve got to know what we’re dealing with here, and how deep this shit goes.”

“Is that your final answer?”

“This isn’t a fucking game show,” I told her, starting to lose my patience. “Are you going to give me a goddamn name or not?”

The line went quiet for a moment.

“Soroka Sarkonov.”

My vision went fuzzy in an instant, and I became very, very aware of my breathing.

Oh god, no.

“I take it that you grasp the gravity of your situation now.”

“Yeah… I’ve only heard stories, but the few times that name came up were in some very dark circles,” I replied.