Chapter 2 - The Bear From Before Tank
Twenty-two years earlier, before the Iron Vultures and before anyone called him Tank, Marcus Kane had been nineteen years old and in love with a girl named Anna Mercer.
Anna wore red boots, wrote songs she never performed, and carried an ugly brown teddy bear everywhere because it had belonged to her little brother.
Marcus teased her about it until she stitched his initials inside one paw.
They planned to leave their dying factory town together.
Marcus saved money repairing engines.
Anna applied to a nursing program three states away.
Then Marcus’s older brother, Dean Kane, was killed during a fight between two motorcycle crews.
Marcus wanted revenge.
Anna begged him not to go.
“If you leave tonight,” she told him, “you’ll spend the rest of your life becoming someone you hate.”
He left anyway.
By sunrise, one man was hospitalized and Marcus was wanted for assault.
He disappeared across state lines with the bikers who later formed the Iron Vultures.
For several months, Anna sent letters through a mutual friend.
Marcus answered the first two.
Then the letters stopped.
A year later, he returned secretly and learned Anna had left town.
Her mother said she wanted nothing more to do with him.
Marcus believed her because shame made the story easy to accept.
He kept moving.
Years passed.
The frightened young mechanic became Tank.
He built rules around himself.
Never ask about the past.
Never trust promises.
Never let anyone see what hurts.
But he never forgot the bear.
Anna had repaired its stomach with blue thread after Marcus accidentally tore it on a fence.
He had watched her stitch it beneath a streetlamp while she told him someday their child would play with it.
Now that same seam rested beneath his thumb.
Tank stood abruptly.
“Inside.”
The bikers exchanged looks.
Daisy took one step backward.
Tank saw the fear in her face and stopped.
His voice softened with visible effort.
“You’re not in trouble.”
“My mommy said not to go inside with strangers.”
A younger biker coughed to hide a smile.
Tank looked toward the clubhouse, then pointed to a shaded table near the wall.
“We stay out here.”
Daisy nodded.
Tank sat on the concrete rather than the chair, making himself smaller.
The other bikers remained several feet away.
He turned the teddy bear over.
Beneath the left paw, faded almost beyond recognition, were two hand-sewn letters:
M.K.
Tank’s fingers began to shake.
He looked at Daisy again.
Her eyes were gray-green.
Anna’s eyes.
The same slight tilt at the outer corners.
“How old are you?”
“Seven.”
“Where is your mother now?”
Daisy looked down at her shoes.
“She was sick.”
Tank waited.
“She told me to go to Mrs. Bell’s house if she didn’t wake up.”
His grip tightened around the bear.
“And did she?”
Daisy shook her head.
The parking lot became completely silent.
Tank had faced guns without blinking.
But his next question came out broken.
“Is Anna dead?”
Daisy’s chin trembled.
“I think so.”
Tank lowered his head.
For several seconds, no one in the Iron Vultures moved.
May you like
Then Daisy pointed to the bear.
“She said the truth is inside.”
