That was all Clare Donovan had left.
It wasn’t enough for groceries or rent next month, but it was all she had.
Everyone in her neighborhood believed that the 1965 Harley-Davidson was only good for scrap, but she put everything she had into it.
The bike’s stiff chain and creaking wheels made a noise that sounded like the mocking voices around her as she pushed it down the broken sidewalk.
People started laughing in windows and on patios.
“Eight hundred for that pile.” She has lost her mind! Mrs. Whitaker yelled from her second-floor balcony and curled her lip.
Teenagers pointed their phones at her and filmed everything she did.
“Single mom, biker queen,” one of them said with a laugh. The words bounced off the street like rocks hitting a window.
Clare’s cheeks were burning, but she didn’t stop.
She held on to the handlebars as sweat ran down her back.
Her eleven-year-old son Ethan frowned at the body that wasn’t moving and pulled on her sleeve.
“Mom, it’s broken,” he said regretfully.
She bent down and pushed his hair out of his eyes with her grubby fingers.
“Things that are broken can shine again sometimes,” she murmured quietly.
Lily, who was four, climbed onto the shredded leather seat behind them and bounced up and down, giggling as if the bike was already rumbling under her.
That small touch of joy was enough to stop Clare’s hands from shaking.
She kept going.
Every step hurt. Her old shoes pained her feet. Her shoulders were hurting. But she kept driving till she reached to the back lot of the old apartment complex where the three of them lived. The night took away the last bits of doubt and the final bits of brightness.
She crouched next to the Harley with a flashlight worth $3, a rag from under the sink, and an unshakable feeling of hope. She worked without saying anything. No directions. She didn’t have any tools other for what she could find in her neighbors’ trash. But she made up for not knowing what she was doing with hard work.
Hours passed. She had blisters on her hands. Her knees became stiff. But gradually, something popped up from under the mud and lost years.
HMC is engraved into the tank, right over the engine.
She couldn’t get any air.
She blinked and brought the flashlight closer.
HMC: The Chapter of Hell’s Mercy.
A name that bikers talk about in myths and legends. One of the first unlawful gangs to break away from the original Hell’s Angels in the late 1960s. People thought they had broken up for a long time. People hadn’t seen their emblem in a long time.
But there it was, weak but unmistakable. It wasn’t a copy. It wasn’t a tribute.
A first.
Clare relaxed on her heels. The air felt cooler all of a sudden in the heat. The thing wasn’t just something I found in a junkyard.
This was a ghost.
And ghosts never stayed on the ground.
She didn’t get any sleep that night.
She sat by the window and watched the bike as if it may start moving on its own. Her kids were cuddled up on the mattress in the corner of the living room. Not fear, but curiosity made her mind race.
Where did it come from?
Why did they get rid of it?
And most importantly, what did it still mean?
By daylight, she had her response.
It started off as a low sound. A low, deep rumble that made the glass shake. Then, like battle drums, the unmistakable roar of engines—dozens of them—cut through the dawn.
Clare hurried outside without shoes on, her pulse thumping.
They came over the hill like something out of a nightmare or a dream.
There are 60 bikes. Everything is black. The chrome shines in the morning sun. Jackets that have been worn and patched up with the unique wings and skull of the Hell’s Angels.
In the front, there was a tall man with a braided beard and eyes that looked like steel. He stopped in front of her, kicked the stand down, and took off his helmet.
He turned to look at the Harley behind her. After that, he looked at Clare.
“Where did you get that bike?”
It was hard for Clare to swallow. She didn’t think her voice would sound that steady. “I bought it for $800 from a junk dealer close to the train yard.”
He looked at one of the other people, who slowly nodded.
“That’s Reaper’s bike,” the man added. When Reaper went missing in 1989, he felt it was gone.
Clare blinked. “I had no idea.”
“You cleaned it.”
“I tried,” she said. “That was all I had left.” I just needed something—something that was still alive.
For a long time, he didn’t say anything. Then, to her surprise, he chuckled. Not in a cruel way, but like someone who saw something special.
“What’s your name?”
“Clare Donovan.”
He looked at the other people on the ride.
“She has the spirit of the Reaper.”
The other people nodded and talked to each other. A few folks smiled. Some of them appeared like they were being haunted.
Then the man pulled a piece of folded paper out of his jacket. He handed it to her.
It was a check.
The check was written in pen.
It was ten thousand dollars.
He said, “To begin.” “You gave that bike a second chance.” Do you want to know how to get her back for good? You come with us. We’ll show you how.
Clare looked at the check and then back at the Harley.
She didn’t cry. Not yet. She smiled, the kind of smile that comes after a long time of bad weather.
The same neighbors who had laughed were now behind their curtains, frightened and silent.
The same kids who had made fun of her phones were now staring down, hardly even noticing their screens.
Sixty Hell’s Angels had just drove into a parking lot that was about to close to meet a single mother who had spent her last dollar on something that no one else thought was real.
And that thing turned out to be a legacy.
Not junk.
It wasn’t a mistake.
It felt like a new beginning instead.
Clare stared at the man and then at her kids.
“When are we going to ride?”
He smiled.
“Right now.”
As the engines started up again, Clare climbed back on the Harley. She rode forward into somewhere new, where she wouldn’t be broken or made fun of.
Not the end.
A beginning.