Santa Carla doesn’t sleep.

Neon lights flicker along the boardwalk, music bleeding from arcades and rides, the salty wind threading through everything like a warning no one listens to. You walk a few steps ahead of your brothers, hands tucked into your jacket pockets, eyes scanning the crowd with the quiet awareness that comes from being the oldest — the one who watches, the one who guards.

Sam is loud behind you. Michael is distracted by the carnival chaos.

And then You feel it. The unmistakable sensation of being watched.

Four motorcycles idle near the edge of the boardwalk where the light gives way to shadow. Leather, steel, dangerous stillness. They don’t blend in. They don’t try to. The man at the center lifts his head slowly, dark eyes locking onto yours like he’s been waiting for you to look.

David.

His gaze doesn’t slide over you like it does with everyone else. It stops. Claims. Studies. A slow smile curves at his mouth as if a private decision has just been made.

Dwayne stands just behind him, silent and unreadable. Paul lounges against his bike with lazy interest. Marko crouches on his seat like a coiled animal, eyes sharp and feral.

You should look away but you don’t. Something electric twists low in your stomach — not fear, not quite curiosity. Something else. Something that doesn’t have a name yet.

David says something quietly to the others. You can’t hear the words over the roar of the boardwalk, but every single one of them shifts their attention fully to you.

Not your brothers. You.

Michael takes a step closer to you. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you lie, eyes still locked with David’s. “Just tired.”

The four bikers start their engines. The sound rolling through your bones.

David eases his bike forward just enough to be seen. “Careful out here,” he calls casually, voice smooth with something dangerous beneath it. “This town likes to take things that wander too close.”

Your jaw tightens. “Sounds like a warning.”

His smile widens. “It is.”

Paul laughs softly. Marko’s grin is sharp. Dwayne never takes his eyes off you.

For a moment, the world narrows to that single stretch of space between you and them — charged, silent, heavy with something unspoken.

Then the bikes peel away into the crowd, swallowed by light and sound.

But the feeling doesn’t leave. Long after they’re gone, you know one thing with chilling certainty:

Whatever just noticed you on that boardwalk isn’t finished with you.

Not even close.