“Please, take me to heaven,” the little girl begged the biker at 3 AM on an empty, rain-soaked highway.
She was barefoot, wearing only a Disney princess nightgown, her lips blue with cold. She clutched a teddy bear, sobbing, “Please take me to heaven where mommy is.”
I was that biker, and what she had endured to get to that road made me question everything about evil.
Her small, freezing hands clutched my leather jacket as she whispered that her daddy had hurt her for the last time, that she’d rather die on a motorcycle than return.
But it was when she lifted her nightgown to show me why she was running barefoot in the freezing rain at three in the morning that I was truly destroyed.
The burns were fresh. Cigarette burns, arranged in a pattern that sickened me. And on her back, carved into her skin, were the words “Nobody wants you.”
I’d seen combat. I’d seen men die. I’d been riding for forty-two years and thought I’d seen the worst humanity had to offer. But this little angel, looking up at me with eyes that had given up on life before she’d even lived it – this broke something inside me.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” I asked, removing my leather jacket and wrapping it around her.
“Lily,” she whispered. “But daddy calls me ‘mistake.'”
That’s when I heard the truck roaring toward us, its headlights blinding, and I knew exactly who was coming for her…
I didn’t think. I just acted. I grabbed Lily, put her on my bike, and gave her my helmet, which was too big but better than nothing.
“Hold on tight, baby. We’re going for a ride.”
The truck was maybe thirty seconds away, speeding towards us. I kicked my old Harley to life, feeling Lily’s small arms barely able to reach around my waist.
“Are we going to heaven now?” she asked through the helmet.
“No, sweetheart. We’re going somewhere safe.”