Gary ‘Gearhead’'s Arc

Chapter 7 of 15

Gary was checking the welds on the south wall when he heard the explosion. The sound rolled across the scrapyard from somewhere beyond the perimeter—a low crack followed by metal tearing apart. He stopped and listened. The woman looked up from the cistern, her people going still. He grabbed the spyglass from his trailer and climbed onto the roof. A half-mile out, black smoke rose from the eastern strip. Gary focused the lens and found the wreck—a crumpled sedan with Raven markings, its front end accordion-folded against a concrete barrier. Cargo had spilled across the cracked asphalt. Military packs lay split open, their contents scattered. He could see rifle stocks, ammunition boxes, rolls of wire fencing. Supply run, he thought. Someone had hit them hard enough to flip the vehicle. The driver's door hung open, but Gary couldn't see bodies. He swept the spyglass across the wreckage and stopped on a canvas pack half-buried under debris. The weight of supplies sitting there unguarded made his chest tight. Those materials could finish his walls in two days instead of two weeks. But claiming Raven cargo meant painting a target on his gate, and leaving it meant someone else would take it before sundown. Gary climbed down and found the woman waiting by the trailer. "Raven wreck," he said. "Supply truck. Cargo's scattered." She glanced toward the smoke, then back at him. "You thinking about going out there?" Gary looked at his half-finished walls, then at the smoke rising in the distance. He could reinforce what he'd started, or he could watch someone else walk away with materials he needed. "Get your people inside the perimeter," he said. "Lock the gate behind me. If I'm not back in an hour, don't open it." He loaded his shotgun and walked to the tow truck. The wreck was worse up close. The sedan had rolled twice before it hit the barrier, scattering debris across fifty yards. Gary worked fast, loading wire fencing and ammunition into the truck bed. He found two rifles still strapped inside a pack and added them to the haul. The whole site felt wrong—too quiet, too clean. No blood, no bodies, just a wrecked vehicle and cargo left behind like bait. Gary was dragging the last pack toward the truck when he heard engines. Two motorcycles appeared from the south, Raven riders moving fast toward the wreck. Gary threw the pack into the bed and gunned the engine. He didn't look back until he cleared the first ridge. The riders had stopped at the wreck site, staring at the stripped cargo. Gary drove straight to his gate and honked twice. The woman pulled it open, and he rolled through. She locked it behind him while her people unloaded the truck. Gary walked to the north wall and looked out toward the smoke. The Ravens would know someone had taken their supplies. They'd come looking, and when they did, his walls would either hold or they wouldn't. He'd made his choice the moment he loaded that first pack. Now he'd find out what it cost him.