Savannah
Copyright© 2025 by Harry Carton
Chapter 4
Friday night found her crouched behind a dumpster across from Bolan Customs. Rain slicked the asphalt, muffling sound. She wore dark joggers, a hoodie, her face smudged with grease, latex gloves. Maggie’s softball bat lay across her knees. Control the burn, Max’s voice warned. But the burn was all she had now.
Bolan emerged at 10:37 PM, alone. He fumbled with his truck keys, humming off-key. Savannah counted his steps -- four, five, six -- she took a step as she crouched -- seven, eight -- as he neared the driver’s door. Her knuckles whitened on the bat grip. Now. She surged forward, silent on soaked sneakers.
He sensed her. Turned. “The fuck --?”
The bat connected with his kneecap. A wet crack echoed off brick walls. Bolan screamed, collapsing. Savannah swung again -- a short, vicious arc to his temple. He crumpled. She stood over him, bat raised, rain plastering hair to her face. His eyes rolled back, unseeing. Blood diluted pink in the puddles. She swung again, the bat connecting against the side of his face.
Savannah didn’t hesitate. She rifled his pockets. Wallet. Keys. A folded photo—Maggie’s bruised face stared back, torn from a newspaper clipping. Savannah’s breath hitched. Rage boiled hotter than the rain was cold. She stuffed the photo into the pocket of her hoodie. She readjusted her latex gloves – she knew about forensics from the TV shows. No fingerprints. She kept to the dark, and trotted back to where she’d hidden her motorcycle.
One down.
Petrie was next. She’d make him talk. Make him name the third man -- the driver who’d vanished after the plea deal. The one who’d thrown Maggie out naked.
Savannah melted into the alley, leaving Bolan breathing but broken in the dark. She wiped the bat down, sluicing the spray of his blood from the bat with a flick of her gloved hands. The bat felt lighter now. Hungrier. She ditched it near the Arlington High baseball field.
She pedaled toward Lake Arlington, rain slicing through her hoodie. Petrie’s trailer glowed like a sick beacon in the storm. Through the window, she saw him pacing—twitchy, wired. Savannah circled to the woodpile. Splintered oak. She selected a thick branch, hefting its weight. Better than the bat for close work. Quieter.
The trailer door creaked when she tested it. Unlocked. Meth-heads forgot details.
Petrie spun, eyes wide. “Who—?” The branch cracked across his jaw. He staggered, spitting blood and teeth. Savannah kicked his legs out, pinning him with a knee to his sternum. His ribs groaned. She pressed the jagged wood against his throat.
“The driver,” she hissed. “The one who threw my sister out. Name him.”
Petrie wheezed, terror dilating his pupils. “Don’t ... know...”
Savannah leaned harder. “Try.”
“Carlos!” he choked. “Carlos Mendez! Runs a chop shop off ... off Ledbetter!”
She believed him. The stench of fear was too raw. Savannah stood. Petrie curled into a whimpering ball. She took the branch and placed it across his throat. She leaned against it, watching as he stopped breathing.
Outside, the rain had stopped. Carlos Mendez. Ledbetter Street. She mounted her motorcycle, the ache in her ribs a distant echo. Maggie’s journal page burned in her pocket—the names crossed out. Two down. One to go. Savannah grinned into the wet night. The hunt wasn’t over. It had just begun.
The chop shop squatted at the dead end of Ledbetter Street like a wounded beast. Chain-link fence topped with razor wire, guard dogs barking in the shadows. Savannah crouched behind a stack of discarded tires, studying the layout. One floodlight over the roll-up door. Camera above it, lens cracked. Carlos Mendez’s black Escalade gleamed under a tarp near the back alley. Arrogant, she thought. Thinks he’s untouchable.
Her ribs throbbed where Petrie had kicked her. Bruises bloomed beneath her hoodie like storm clouds. She’d ditched the motorcycle two blocks back, walking the rest through rain-slicked puddles reflecting neon signs. Maggie’s journal page—now stained with Bolan’s blood—crunched in her pocket. Two names crossed out. One left.
Carlos Mendez. The driver. The one who’d thrown Maggie, naked and shivering, onto the highway shoulder like trash. Savannah’s knuckles whitened around the tire iron she’d lifted from Bolan’s garage. Not yet, Max’s voice echoed in her head. Patience isn’t passive. It’s coiled steel.
She noted the dogs first—two Rottweilers, chained near the Escalade. Their low growls vibrated through the wet asphalt. The cracked camera lens meant blind spots. Good. The floodlight? A problem. Its glare washed out the alley’s deeper shadows. She’d need darkness. Or distraction.
Savannah slipped Bolan’s tire iron into her waistband. Cold metal kissed her spine. Savannah dug into her hoodie pocket. Half a protein bar, gritty with lint. She crushed it between her fingers.
The Rottweilers’ chains rattled as she tossed crumbs toward the Escalade. Both dogs lunged, snarling, snapping at the meager offering. Their frenzy jerked Carlos’s cousin—a skinny kid wiping down a Camaro—toward the alley.
“¡Cabrones! Quietos!” he yelled in Mexican-Spanish, dragging one beast back by its collar. Savannah melted behind the tire stack. The floodlight’s glare now haloed the cousin’s silhouette, leaving the roll-up door’s eastern flank submerged in gloom.
She moved like frogspawn through oil – silent, deliberate – keeping to the fence’s blind spot. She slipped on the nylon gloves she’d brought again. The cracked camera lens stared blankly past her. At the door’s shadowed edge, she spotted Carlos’s weakness: a rusted air-conditioning unit dripping water onto a power strip. Cheap bastard, she thought. Savannah jammed Bolan’s tire iron into the unit’s wiring. Sparks fizzed; the floodlight died with a pop. Darkness swallowed the yard.
The cousin’s curses cut short.
“¿Qué coño—?”
Metal clanged as he stumbled. Savannah slid behind a stack of brake rotors. Carlos Mendez emerged from the office door, thick-necked and scowling. “Paco! Fix that light!”
“Fusible blew, jefe!” Paco scrambled toward the breaker box. Carlos spat on the wet concrete, scanning the darkness. Savannah froze. His gaze swept past her hiding spot twice. He doesn’t see, she realized. He expects threats to come loud.
A muffled curse echoed from the breaker box. Paco fumbled with a flashlight beam. Carlos lit a cigarette, the flare illuminating his thick fingers and the scar bisecting his eyebrow—the one Maggie described when she woke screaming three weeks after escaping. Savannah’s thumb traced the tire iron’s cold ridge. Max’s voice sliced through her rage: Rage blinds. Precision kills.
She palmed a brake rotor disk—jagged, oil-slicked—and hurled it toward the Escalade’s windshield. Glass exploded. Carlos spun, shouting. The Rottweilers erupted into frenzy, straining against chains. Paco dropped his flashlight. “¡La puta madre!”
Carlos drew a pistol from his waistband, scanning shadows. Savannah stayed low behind the rotors. Heavy footfalls, Max had taught her. Listen for the drag. Carlos lumbered toward the noise, boots scraping concrete. She slid left, silent as wet paper tearing.
“Just kids throwing rocks, jefe!” Paco yelled, retrieving his flashlight. The beam swung wildly, catching rainwater dripping from Savannah’s hood. She froze mid-crawl. Carlos turned back, too slow. She ducked behind a stack of pallets piled with catalytic converters. The stink of sulfur coated her tongue.
Carlos spat out his cigarette. “Kids don’t shatter windshields with brake rotors.” He thumbed his pistol’s safety off. The metallic click echoed in the sudden quiet of the dogs’ pause.
Savannah’s ribs screamed where Petrie had kicked her, but she breathed through it – shallow, silent. Max’s voice cut through the panic: Pain’s information. Use it.