I’m sixty-two, four decades on a motorcycle, and I thought I’d seen all the cruelty this world could throw at someone. I was wrong. Nothing could have prepared me for watching a hospital administrator tell a mother that her six-year-old, dying of cancer, had to leave because her insurance had “run out.”

Discover more
casket
Silk
Television
Family games
Crash Claims
Her name was Aina. Hairless from chemotherapy, all bones under a thin blanket, curled in her mother’s arms while the hospital lobby buzzed around them as if nothing was happening. Her mother, Sarah, listened as the administrator explained why they had to go.

“Ma’am, your daughter is stable enough for home hospice. We need the bed—”

“Stable?” Sarah’s voice broke. “She’s dying. Maybe just days left. And you want me to take her home? We’re homeless. Living in our car.”

Something inside me snapped. I’d been waiting for news on a club brother after a bike accident, but what I heard made my blood boil. I stood, stepped forward in my leather vest and patches. The administrator glanced at me and swallowed hard.

“Sir, this is a private matter,” she said.

“Not when you’re throwing a dying child out,” I said. “That’s everyone’s business.”

Discover more
Television
casket
Family games
Crash Claims
Silk
Sarah looked up at me, eyes shaking. “I’m Sarah,” she whispered. “This is Aina.”

I leaned down. Aina opened her eyes and tried to smile. “You look like a giant,” she said.

“I am a giant,” I told her softly. “And giants protect brave little girls.”

Then I faced the administrator. “Here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to find Aina a bed. If you don’t, I’ll sit in this hallway every night. And I’ll call every biker I know to sit with me. We’ll be quiet. We’ll be peaceful. But we will be here. And every person who walks through these doors will know that this hospital tosses dying children onto the street.”

Discover more
Silk
Television
casket
Family games
Crash Claims
She muttered something about calling the director and hurried off.

Sarah stared at me. “Why are you doing this? You don’t know us.”

I sat beside her. “I lost my daughter to leukemia twenty-six years ago. She was seven, with the same hazel eyes as Aina. When our insurance ran out, the hospital tried the same thing. I took her home, helpless, and she died three days later in pain I couldn’t ease. I promised myself I’d never let another parent go through that. Not as long as I live.”