PART 2: The Brother He Thought He Buried
The tag didn’t just sit in her hand—
it pulled something out of him.
Jace Carter stared at it, the burned metal catching the dim diner light. The edges were warped, blackened… but the engraving was still there.
E. CARTER
His chest tightened.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, voice lower now. Controlled—but barely.
The girl didn’t flinch.
“He gave it to me,” she said.
Behind him, the other bikers shifted slightly. No jokes. No comments. Just attention.
Because Eli Carter wasn’t a name you said lightly.
Jace finally looked up at her fully. “What’s your name, kid?”
“…Mara.”
“Mara,” he repeated, like anchoring himself. “When did you see him?”
She hesitated.
“Last night.”
That hit wrong.
Jace’s expression hardened. “That’s not possible.”
Mara stepped closer, placing the tag gently on the table in front of him.
“He was hurt,” she said. “Really bad. He said I had to find you before they did.”
“They?” one of the bikers behind Jace asked.
Mara’s eyes flicked toward the windows, then back.
“The men who burned the place,” she whispered.
The room went still.
Jace’s hand closed around the tag slowly.
Burned.
Broken.
Just like the story he’d been told.
Eli died in a fire.
No body.
Just ashes and silence.
He had believed it—
because there was nothing else to hold onto.
Until now.
Jace stood up abruptly, chair scraping hard against the floor.
“Start talking,” he said, not harsh—but urgent. “Everything.”
Mara nodded quickly.
“There was a house,” she began. “Far from the road. I was there with my mom… and some other people. We weren’t allowed to leave.”
Jace’s jaw tightened.
“Eli was there too,” she continued. “They kept him locked in a room. But he got out last night when something went wrong. There was smoke everywhere.”
Fire.
Again.
“He found me,” Mara said. “He told me to run. Said I had to find you. Said you’d understand.”
Jace swallowed hard.
“What else did he say?”
Mara looked down, thinking.
“He said… ‘tell Jace the raven still flies.’”
That broke through.
Not just words—
a memory.
Something only Eli would say.
Jace closed his eyes for a second.
Just one.
Then they snapped open again, sharper than before.
“He’s alive,” he said.
No one argued.
Because now—
they believed it too.
“Where is this place?” another biker asked.
Mara shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. But I remember a water tower… and a broken sign with a red star on it.”
Jace turned slightly, already thinking.
“I know that road,” he muttered.
Of course he did.
Places like that didn’t change.
They just waited.
He grabbed his jacket, pulling it on in one smooth motion.
“We ride,” he said.
Simple.
Final.
Mara grabbed his sleeve before he could move.
“They’ll be looking for me,” she said. “Eli said they wouldn’t stop.”
Jace looked down at her.
For a second, something softened.
Then it hardened into something stronger.
“They won’t get the chance,” he replied.
Outside, engines roared to life one by one, the sound cutting through Maple Ridge’s quiet lie.
Jace slipped Eli’s burned tag into his pocket.
Right over his heart.
Because this wasn’t just about finding someone.
This was about bringing his brother back—
or burning down whatever tried to keep him.
And somewhere out there…
A man who should’ve been dead
was still fighting to be found.
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