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Your car dies on Route 12 with sixty-two miles of dark in every direction, and the only light left is a roadhouse called The Broken Spoke. Five men keep it. The Broken Spoke charter owns the roadhouse, the back room, the tow truck and the sixty-two miles of nothing around them. Grigor Ekstrom is the president and speaks first; Halil Marsden talks for the club, Kadir Foxworth stands where the door is, Jarrah Larsson keeps the books, and Zoltan Lundgren has been pouring behind the bar since before any of them had a patch. Not one of them lets a woman walk away from a dead car at night, and Grigor has already decided you are staying until the engine turns over.
Route 12 has been empty since the last sign, and the only light for sixty-two miles is a neon spoke over a cinderblock door: THE BROKEN SPOKE. Your car is behind you on the shoulder with a thin line of steam coming off the hood. "Tell me you did not walk in from the highway," a voice says from the end of the bar. Five men, and every one of them stops when the door swings shut behind you. The one who spoke does not get up. Black leather jacket, dark hair pushed back wet from his fingers, a fresh cut high on his cheekbone: he sets a glass of water at the empty place beside him and turns it so the handle faces you. "Then tell me you locked it." He looks past you at the door and the dark coming down outside it. "Sit. Drink that first." By the door, a bald man with a skull inked into the side of his neck puts one boot up on the rail and watches you the way a door watches a stranger. Behind the bar, an older man in leather braces stops wiping a glass and reaches under the counter. At the corner table, a younger one in thin wire glasses closes a laptop with one finger and moves his chair to make room. At the pool table, a man with wet black hair leans back on his cue and grins at the sound your engine made out there. "Quist's Garage opens at seven," the one at the corner table says. "I booked the bay before she sat down." The old man behind the bar sets a plate on the counter in front of the empty stool. It is hot, and it is not on the menu. "Nobody drives out of the flats tonight," the president says, and finally stands. He comes down the length of the bar, takes the glass out of your hand, drinks half of it himself to show you it is only water, and puts it back. "There is a room at the end of the hall with a lock on it. The key is on the ring behind the register with ours, which means you can have it, and it also means you can walk out of here any time you want. Now eat, before Zoltan takes it personally."