The car sped through the dark night, eating up the miles toward New Jersey.
"Where exactly are we heading?" Asher asked, looking up from the passenger seat.
"GPS shows the location is deep in a hilly area," Liam replied, his eyes fixed on the road. Ethan and Asher nodded in unison, settling back into the quiet of the drive.
The highway was nearly deserted, save for the occasional headlights of a passing car. Above them, a full moon played hide-and-seek behind heavy clouds, casting fleeting shadows across the asphalt.
Suddenly, a loud pop echoed through the cabin. The tires shredded instantly, and the steering wheel violently yanked out of Liam's grip. The car veered out of control.
"Jump!" Asher yelled.
The trio threw their doors open and dived into the night just as the car plummeted over the highway guardrail, crashing into the dark waters below.
Groaning, Ethan pushed himself up and examined the blacktop. His eyes narrowed.
"Claws," he muttered, pointing to a row of deliberate spikes embedded in the road. "They shredded the tires on purpose."
"Now what?" Ethan asked, brushing the dirt off his clothes.
Liam looked at Asher, who nodded and pulled out his phone. But before he could even dial, the roaring thrum of motorcycle engines echoed from both ends of the highway.
"Looks like we won't need to make that call," Asher said, pocketing the phone.
A dozen motorcycles swerved onto the scene, completely surrounding the trio in a ring of blinding headlights. Ethan scanned the perimeter.
"Who are you people?" Liam called out into the glare.
Silence followed, broken only by the idling engines.
Liam cracked his knuckles, a grim smile touching his lips. "Okay. Let's do it the hard way."
The bikers dismounted. There were eighteen of them in total, armed to the teeth with baseball bats, crowbars, and glinting swords—some wielding weapons in each hand.
"You shouldn't have come here!" one of them roared, spearheading the charge. The rest followed in a chaotic tidal wave.
Asher reacted first. Reaching into his coat, he whipped out a handful of specialized syringes, throwing them like darts. Several attackers were hit instantly; they dropped to the asphalt as the chemical compound disrupted their nervous systems. The remaining bikers dodged the projectiles, launching a barrage of kicks. Asher blocked the strikes with his forearms, keeping his distance as he slipped past their weapons.
Meanwhile, a man swung a baseball bat straight at Liam's head. Liam ducked under the arc, countered with a brutal punch that shattered the man's nose, and ripped the bat from his grip. Unleashing a flurry of strikes, Liam began beating back the crowd mercilessly.
Suddenly, a large biker wielding dual baseball bats intercepted him, raining down heavy, coordinated strikes that forced Liam onto his heels.
"Damn, you guys are actually trained," Liam muttered, tossing his own bat aside.
As the dual-bat wielder lunged forward, another thug armed with twin crowbars blindsided Liam from behind. Liam launched himself into the air. The bats and crowbars collided beneath him with a loud metallic clang. As he descended, Liam delivered a devastating split-kick, striking the crowbar wielder in the chest and the bat wielder in the face.
Both men went flying. Liam pursued the first man, driving a massive punch into his chest that slammed him into the asphalt, cracking the ground beneath his head.
The second man scrambled back to his feet, rushing Liam in a desperate counterattack. They charged each other, both throwing their strongest hits. Liam slipped the punch at the very last second, but his opponent wasn't as fast. Liam caught him with a textbook slam, embedding him into the road.
"You guys aren't so tough," Liam breathed, glancing over at Ethan.
Ethan had somehow acquired a crowbar in his right hand and a baseball bat in his left, and he was transforming into a one-man demolition crew.
He was utterly ruthless. Ethan drove the sharp end of the crowbar into a man's shoulder, pinning him in place. Before the thug could even scream, Ethan swung the baseball bat full-force across his jaw, putting him down for good.
Three more men rushed Ethan at once. He sidestepped the first, burying the crowbar deep into the man's thigh. When a second attacker swung at him, Ethan used the embedded crowbar like a handle, pulling the wounded man directly into the path of his partner's incoming weapon. The accidental friendly-fire blow knocked the man unconscious.
The attacker froze in shock. Before he could process his mistake, Ethan's fist arrived like a rocket. The punch sent the man crashing down in the deep waters below, accompanied by the distinct, sickening sound of cracking bone.
"Ethan is a monster," Liam muttered, shaking his head. He turned his attention to Asher.
Asher was utilizing his briefcase with lethal precision. He slammed the heavy case into an attacker's stomach, following it up with a swift knife-hand strike to the throat. As the man gasped for air, Asher brought the briefcase down hard on his head, flattening him.
Another thug charged Asher, spinning a pair of katana swords. Asher dipped his hand into his pocket and tossed a small glass vial. The swordsman instinctively slashed it in half.
It was a fatal mistake. A puff of pale green gas erupted from the shattered glass. The man gasped, collapsing instantly. Asher stepped back from the plume.
"No way you're surviving even a micro-dose of chlorine gas," Asher remarked coolly.
Suddenly, four more swordsmen rushed Asher from all sides.
"Oh, boy," Asher sighed.
He leaped into the air, hurling his briefcase directly at the lead attacker. The corner of the case struck the man squarely at the beck of his skull. The man coughed blood, his vision going dark instantly.
With a flick of Asher's wrist, the briefcase snapped right back to his hand—it was attached to a high-tensile steel wire. Whirling the briefcase in wide, lethal circles, Asher created an impenetrable barrier of steel and leather. None of the bikers could get close.
Then, with a sharp click of the remote trigger, the briefcase popped open mid-spin, spraying a shower of specialized chemicals over the remaining men. They collapsed into the dirt, groaning.
Asher caught the briefcase, smoothed down his jacket, and looked at his friends.
"Easy."