Chapter 6 - THE SILENT WARNING REVEALED
Cal’s fingers slowly lost their grip. His heavy hand slid away from Erin’s wrist, dropping limp onto the vinyl seat beside his body. His eyelids fluttered closed, his head slumping back against the dark red headrest as he lost consciousness completely.
"Cal! Stay with me, man!" Mack yelled, lunging across the spilled coffee to grab Cal’s shoulders, while two other leather-clad riders from the diner's patio rushed through the front door, crowding into the narrow aisle.
The diner descended into loud, chaotic movement. The cook shouted from behind the order window, diner patrons backed away from their tables, and Mack began barking orders at the incoming riders.
Kneeling on the linoleum floor, Erin remained motionless, her heart pounding against her ribs as Cal’s desperate words echoed continuously in her mind.
Suddenly, two small, cold hands grabbed the sleeve of her burgundy apron.
It was June.
The eight-year-old girl was leaning out of her wheelchair as far as her harness allowed. She had twisted Erin’s cloth sleeve into her tiny fists, pulling with surprising strength, refusing to let go. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she wasn't looking at her unconscious father or the gathering crowd of bikers.
June was staring directly into Erin’s eyes.
In that intense, silent moment, the complete picture clicked into place for Erin.
June hadn't been fidgeting or acting out. She hadn't been distressed by the noise or the food. From the moment Erin had stepped up to Table Four with that dinner tray, June had been frantically trying to alert her to Cal’s failing condition—and to a far darker threat closing in on them.
The girl had seen the symptoms before anyone else. She had watched the tremor, known what was coming, and tried to use the only means she had to raise the alarm.
Erin reached out, wrapping her arms around June’s small frame, pulling the weeping child close against her chest as the last orange rays of sunset vanished from the diner windows, leaving the high desert wrapped in deep, lingering shadows.
May you like
Cal lay motionlessly in the booth, surrounded by his brothers. But as Erin held the terrified child in the dimming light, Cal’s final, haunting words remained burning in her thoughts:
Who was he so afraid would take June?
