The sun beat down like a hot frying pan on the empty highway.
Marco wiped sweat from his eyes and looked back at the old gas station where his little sister Sophie lay in the shade. His heart was beating so fast it hurt. For the last 20 minutes he had been running up and down the road, waving his arms trying to make someone stop. No one did. They just drove faster like they were scared of a dirty 10-year-old boy.
“Please, my sister needs help!” Marco shouted as another car zoomed past. His throat felt raw from yelling, and the bottoms of his feet burned on the hot asphalt. He didn’t have shoes anymore. They’d been stolen last week while he was sleeping.
Marco ran back to check on Sophie. She was only seven, too little to be this sick. Her lips had a scary blue color now, and her chest moved up and down too fast, making weird whistling sounds when she tried to breathe. She clutched her stuffed rabbit, Mr. Floppy, the only toy she’d managed to keep since they started living on the streets 3 months ago.
“Hang on, Sophie,” Marco whispered, pushing her sweaty hair from her forehead. “Someone will stop. I promise.”
But no one had stopped. Not the lady in the nice car who locked her doors when she saw him. Not the truck driver who honked his horn and swerved. Not even the police car that had driven by 10 minutes ago.
Marco felt tears burn his eyes. Ever since mom went to the hospital for her “sickness”—that’s what she called it when she took the bad medicine that made her sleep for days—he had promised to take care of Sophie. Now she was turning blue, and he couldn’t help.
They’d been staying in the back room of the gas station for 4 days. It wasn’t so bad. There was a sink with water that still worked, and they’d found half a loaf of bread in the dumpster behind the mini mart down the road. But this morning, Sophie couldn’t catch her breath. Her asthma was back, worse than ever, and her inhaler had been empty for weeks.
Marco ran back to the road. The hot air smelled like tar and exhaust. His stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday, but hunger didn’t matter now. Only Sophie mattered.
In the distance, he heard a rumble. At first he thought it was thunder, but the sky was clear blue without a single cloud. The sound grew louder like angry bees getting closer. Then he saw them: motorcycles, at least seven of them, coming around the bend in the highway.
Normally Marco would hide when he saw bikers. Mom had always said to stay away from men with tattoos and leather vests, but today was different. Today, Sophie couldn’t breathe.
Marco ran to the middle of the road and waved his arms wildly.
The lead bike, a massive, gleaming black Harley, didn’t swerve. It slowed, its front brake squealing, and stopped just feet from him. The other bikes fanned out, forming a wall of leather and steel, their engines idling like a pack of growling wolves.
The lead rider, a mountain of a man with a gray-streaked beard and arms covered in ink, flipped up his visor. His eyes were hard.
“You got a death wish, kid?” he growled, his voice like gravel.
Marco was shaking, terrified, but his fear for Sophie was bigger.
“Please, sir!” he cried, tears finally breaking free. “It’s my sister! She’s… she’s blue! I think… I think she’s dying!”
The hardness in the biker’s eyes flickered, replaced by something else. The word “blue” had cut through.
“Where?” the man, “Grizz,” barked.
Marco pointed with a shaking hand. “In there. The old station. Please, she can’t… she can’t breathe.”
Grizz cut his engine. The sudden silence was heavy. He swung his leg off the bike. “Doc, you’re with me. The rest of you, stay put.”
Another biker dismounted, grabbing a small, heavy-looking tool bag from his saddle. They followed Marco as he scrambled back over the broken concrete.
They found Sophie just as he’d left her, curled on a pile of dirty rags, her small chest heaving, that awful whistling sound filling the room. Mr. Floppy was clutched in her hand.
Grizz, who looked like he could punch through the wall, stopped dead. His huge frame seemed to fill the small, dark room. He looked at the girl, at the dirty rags, at the half-eaten loaf of bread, and all the color drained from his face.
“Oh, God,” he whispered. It wasn’t a curse. It was a prayer.
“Doc” was already moving, kneeling beside Sophie. “Hey there, little bird,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. He pulled a stethoscope from his bag. “Let’s hear those lungs.”
Sophie was too weak to be scared. She just stared at him with wide, terrified eyes.
“Severe asthma attack,” Doc said to Grizz, his face grim. “She’s not getting any air. She needs a nebulizer. A hospital. Now.”
“We don’t have time for a hospital!” Marco shrieked, his voice cracking. “I… I don’t have any money!”
“We’ll handle the money, son,” Grizz said, his voice thick. He was staring at Marco, but his gaze was distant, like he was seeing a ghost.
Doc was digging in his bag. “I’ve got a rescue inhaler. It’s all I’ve got, but it might… just might… open her up enough. Hold her, kid.”
Marco knelt, pulling Sophie into his lap. “It’s okay, Soph. It’s okay. They’re helping.”
As Doc worked, Grizz knelt in front of Marco. He put a massive, calloused hand on Marco’s shoulder. “What… what’s your name, son?”
“Marco.”
“And your dad? Where’s your dad?”
Marco looked down, his small hand instinctively going to a thin, greasy leather cord around his neck, tucked under his shirt. “He’s… he’s in heaven. He died. A long time ago.”
Grizz’s eyes were fixed on that leather cord. “What’s that, around your neck?”
Marco pulled it out. It was a small, tarnished piece of silver. It wasn’t a cross. It was a single, perfect skull, with wings.
Time stopped.
Doc froze, his hand trembling. Grizz’s hand on Marco’s shoulder began to shake, his face crumbling.
“Where,” Grizz’s voice was a choked, broken whisper. “Where did you get that?”
“My dad gave it to me,” Marco said, his eyes filling with tears again. “He said… he said it was his ‘angel.’ He said if I was ever in real trouble, his ‘brothers’ would see it, and they’d… they’d know me.”
Grizz let out a sound. It was a sob, ripped from a place so deep it was terrifying. He pulled Marco’s face close.
“What was his name?” he demanded. “What was your father’s name?”
“David,” Marco wept. “David… ‘Angel’…”
The name “Angel” hit the room like a bomb.
Doc fell back, sitting hard on the concrete, his face in his hands. He was sobbing.
Grizz looked at the ceiling, tears streaming, carving clean paths through the dust on his face. 
David “Angel” Carillo. He wasn’t just a biker. He was their brother. Their prospect. The kid they’d all taken under their wing, the one who was always smiling, the one who’d been killed two years ago by a drunk driver, leaving a wife and two small kids they’d been trying to help.
They’d paid for the funeral. They’d set up a fund. But the wife, Angel’s “old lady,” had been proud, and broken by grief. She’d moved. She’d disappeared. And they’d… they’d lost track.
The “truth” wasn’t that these kids were just homeless. The truth was they were family. They were Angel’s kids. And the Hells Angels, the men who had sworn to protect their fallen brother’s blood, had failed. They had let their brother’s children end up shoeless, starving, and dying in an abandoned gas station, 20 miles from their clubhouse.
The tears weren’t just for the kids. They were for Angel. They were from a place of profound, agonizing shame.
“Oh, God, Angel,” Grizz wept, pulling Marco into his chest, “I’m sorry, brother. I’m so sorry.”
He looked at Doc. “Get her breathing. Now.”
Doc, his face a mask of grief, nodded and administered the inhaler. They all waited, the only sound Sophie’s weak whistle and the sound of grown men crying.
Then, Sophie coughed. A deep, wet, rattling cough. And then she took a huge, shuddering breath. Her eyes fluttered, and the blue faded from her lips.
Grizz was still holding Marco, rocking him. “I’ve got you. I swear on my brother’s grave, I’ve got you.”
He stood up, scooping Sophie—Mr. Floppy and all—into his other arm. She was so light. He walked out of that dark, filthy room into the bright sunlight, where his men were waiting.
They saw his face, saw the child in his arms and the boy clinging to his leg. They saw the silver skull hanging from Marco’s neck. And one by one, the toughest, most feared men in the state took off their helmets and bowed their heads, their own faces breaking.
“Get… get the truck,” Grizz ordered, his voice thick. One of the men was already running for their support vehicle.
Grizz looked at Sophie, now sleeping in his arms. He unzipped his own leather vest—his “cut,” the most sacred thing he owned—and wrapped it around her tiny body.
“It’s okay, little one,” he whispered, kissing her forehead. “You’re not homeless. You’re home. Your daddy’s angels are here.”