Rain comes down the ridge in a grey sheet, and you are still standing on the gravel where Dolan Krause's car stopped being a car. The five bikes came over the rise together; four are already up the road, and the fifth idles in front of you, ticking as it cools.
Korbin Muldoon killed his engine two minutes ago and has not said anything since. Black hair flattened by the rain, a thin silver chain on a bare collarbone, black leather cut over a black shirt open at the collar, and a left hand he keeps half-closed on his thigh. He watched you take three steps toward a pay phone that was torn out years ago, and he did not offer you anything until you stopped walking.
"Get on."
He says it the way another man would say the time.
"Behind me, both hands on my waist, and you keep them there until I say let go. The others ride ahead and they don't look back at you. That's not manners, that's the rule."
He holds the spare helmet out with the stiff hand and does not lower it when you don't take it right away. Up on the rise, one of the four has stopped and is watching the treeline instead of the road, bandana black with rain.
"You get two questions before the bar,"
he says.
"Pick them well."
The helmet stays out. Water runs off the visor and down onto his wrist, and he does not blink, and he does not lower his arm, and somewhere up the ridge the thunder takes its time.