Barry ‘Bardog’'s Arc

Chapter 4 of 13

Barry was restocking bottles behind the counter when the door opened and a woman walked in carrying a weathered pack. She set it down on the floor and looked around the bar like she was checking for something specific. Barry nodded at her and waited. She pulled out a yellow sign from her pack and set it on the counter. The metal was pre-war clean, with bold letters that read REST STOP. "Found this half-buried on the road in," she said. "Figured you might want it for the place." Barry looked at the sign and then at her face. She was younger than him, maybe thirty, with the kind of tired eyes that came from moving too long without a destination. "You passing through or staying?" he asked. She shrugged. "Depends on what's here." Barry set down the bottle he was holding and leaned against the counter. "Why bring me this?" She met his eyes without hesitation. "Because I knew your brother. He pulled me out of a building collapse in the third year of the war. Told me if I ever made it to Rust Creek, I should find Bardog and tell him he kept his word." Barry went still. His brother had died in the fourth year, buried under rubble when a supply depot collapsed during a raid. He'd promised to get people out before the structure went down, and he had. Barry had heard the story from three different survivors, but never from someone who looked him in the eye like this. "He got you out," Barry said. It wasn't a question. She nodded. "He stayed inside to make sure the last of us cleared the door. I owe him my life." Barry picked up the sign and turned it over in his hands. The weight of it felt solid, real. He'd spent years after the war refusing to let anyone dictate terms to him because his brother had died following orders from people who didn't care if he lived. Barry had built his bar on the principle that no one got special treatment, that everyone paid the same, because the moment you bent for one person, you had to bend for them all. But his brother hadn't died following bad orders. He'd died keeping a promise to people who had nothing to offer him in return. Barry set the sign down and looked at the woman. "You can stay," he said. "Work the bar, help with the rooms upstairs. I'll pay you fair and you eat what I eat." She studied him for a moment, then nodded. "That works." Barry realized he'd just hired someone without checking if she could pour a drink or clean a room, and he didn't care. His brother had kept his word because it mattered more than survival. Barry had been holding the line because he refused to let anyone take from him, but that wasn't the same thing. He picked up the sign again and walked outside. The Ravens' building sat one block away, their bikes parked in a row. Barry found a post near the entrance to his bar and bolted the sign to it. REST STOP. Let them see it. Let them know what this place was for. He wasn't bending to them, but he wasn't just holding ground anymore either. He was building something his brother would have recognized.