“Help.”

The word was so faint he almost doubted it.

Colt froze.

His heart began to beat hard enough to hurt.

“Help.”

This time there was no mistaking it.

It was a person.

A woman.

A person in pain.

Every story adults told children came rushing into Colt’s head.

Do not talk to strangers.

Do not go into the woods alone.

If something feels wrong, run.

His knees trembled.

His hands went cold despite the heat.

He thought about turning back.

He thought about Opal’s arms and the safety of the kitchen.

Then the voice came again, thinner and more desperate.

“Please.”

Colt swallowed.

His grandmother’s rule moved through him like a hand on his back.

Do not leave someone hurting if you can help it.

He stepped into the clearing.

Thorns caught his shirt.

Branches scratched his arms.

He barely felt them.

Then he saw her.

A woman slumped at the base of the oak.

Her wrists were shackled in heavy chains.

The links wrapped around the tree and locked with a padlock the size of Colt’s fist.

Her black leather vest was torn.

Her dark shirt was ripped at the shoulder.

Mud clung to her boots.

Her jeans were split at one knee, showing bruises blooming purple, yellow, and black beneath the skin.

Her face made Colt’s breath stop.

One eye was swollen nearly shut.

Dried blood marked her temple and tangled in her hair.

Her lip was split.

Her cheek was scraped raw.

She looked as if someone had hurt her for a long time and then decided the woods could finish the job.

Then Colt saw the patch on her vest.

The winged skull.

The red and white letters.

Hell’s Angels.

He had seen that patch only a few times, always from a distance, always on men who rode motorcycles so loud they made gas station windows tremble.

Adults in Sycamore Hollow lowered their voices when they talked about men like that.

Dangerous men.

Hard men.

Men you did not stare at.

Men you did not cross.

And now a woman wearing those colors was chained to a tree in front of him.

Her good eye opened.

For one terrible second, Colt could not move.

Then she saw him.

Not a deputy.

Not a biker.

Not a rescuer with a weapon.

A skinny little boy in dirty shorts, carrying a half-empty water bottle in a backpack.

“Kid,” she rasped.

Her voice sounded torn from screaming.

“Run.”

Colt stared at her.

“They might still be close,” she whispered.

“Run.”

He should have obeyed.

He should have turned around and raced back to the farmhouse, screaming for his grandmother.

Instead, he noticed the cracked dryness of her lips.

“You look thirsty,” he said.

His voice broke on the last word.

The woman blinked like she did not understand him.

Colt unzipped his backpack with shaking fingers.

He pulled out the plastic bottle Opal had made him carry.

The water inside was warm, and the bottle was dented, but it was water.

He twisted off the cap and stepped closer.

The chains clinked when the woman tried to lift her hands.

Pain flashed across her face.

Colt held the bottle to her lips.

She drank in tiny sips at first.

Then her body remembered thirst, and she drank harder.

Water spilled down her chin, cutting clean tracks through dirt and dried blood.

She coughed and winced.

Colt pulled the bottle back.

“Why are you helping me?” she whispered.

Colt shrugged.

It was the small, plain shrug of a child who did not know he was doing something extraordinary.

“Because you need it.”

The woman’s good eye filled with something Colt could not name.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Colt Whitmore.”

“Colt,” she repeated softly.

“I’m Ren.”

Colt looked at the chains.

“Did someone do this to you?”

Ren gave a broken laugh with no humor in it.

“Bad men.”

Colt did not understand motorcycle rivalries.

He did not understand territory or retaliation or the cruel language of men who wanted to make fear louder than mercy.

He understood bullies.

He understood being alone.

He understood hurt.

That was enough.

“I’m going to get help,” he said.

“No,” Ren said quickly.

Her good eye widened.

“If they come back, you run.”

“I’m going to get help,” Colt repeated.

He looked at her, trying to sound older than eight.

“Stay here.”

It was a foolish thing to say to a woman chained to a tree.

But Ren understood what he meant.

He was promising not to forget her.

He was promising not to leave her in those woods as if she were nothing.

Colt turned and ran.

The trail seemed twice as long on the way back.

Every snap of a twig sounded like someone behind him.

Every shadow looked like a man waiting between the trees.

Thorns scratched his arms.

Branches slapped his face.

His lungs burned.

He dug the prepaid phone from his pocket.

Opal had given it to him with one instruction.

Just in case.

His thumb shook as he dialed 911.

The dispatcher answered on the second ring.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“There’s a lady chained to a tree,” Colt blurted.

“She’s bleeding and she can’t get loose.”

The woman on the line stayed calm.

“Can you tell me where you are, sweetheart?”

“Behind Miller’s old logging trail,” Colt gasped.

“Near the big oak by the creek road.”

“What is your name?”

“Colt Whitmore.”

“Are you safe, Colt?”

“I think so.”

“Get to the road and stay where the deputies can see you.”

Colt burst out of the trees onto the dirt road.

Sweat ran into his eyes.

His arms stung.

His breath came in sharp pieces.

The dispatcher kept talking.

She told him help was coming.

She told him to stay put.

She told him he had done exactly right.

Then Colt heard sirens in the distance.

They were thin at first, then louder, rising through the heat.

He looked back at the woods.

Ren was still in there.

Alone.

Chained.

Bleeding.

Afraid.

The dispatcher told him to stay by the road.

But Opal’s rule would not be quiet.

Colt turned around and ran back into the trees.

The first deputies reached the clearing less than ten minutes later.

They found Colt kneeling beside Ren in the dirt.

His small hand was wrapped around her cold fingers.

He was whispering to her.

“They’re coming.”

“I promised.”

A deputy burst through the brush and stopped dead.

For one second, all his training disappeared.

He saw a child holding the hand of a woman in Hell’s Angels colors, both of them beneath that enormous oak as if the whole forest had been waiting for someone brave enough to witness it.

“Over here,” the deputy shouted.

“We need bolt cutters and medics now.”

The clearing filled with motion.

Radios crackled.

Boots crushed leaves.

Paramedics crouched beside Ren.

Bolt cutters snapped through chain.

Someone tried to lead Colt away, but Ren’s grip tightened on his fingers.

“Wait,” she rasped.

The paramedics paused.

Ren forced her good eye open.

“Tell him,” she whispered.

Colt leaned closer.