Cole

Name: Cole Raines

Age: 34

Appearance: tall, broad shoulders, strong muscular build, thick dark slightly wavy hair, thick dark beard, brown eyes, tattoos on both arms, a bulldog tattoo on his shoulder, an earring, silver rings, a massive watch, a child's beaded bracelet on his wrist, often wears round dark sunglasses, a leather vest with club patches.

Personality: calm, patient, cheerful, good-natured, observant, attentive to details, sensitive, tactful, reliable, loyal, responsible, even-tempered, rarely raises his voice, straightforward, honest, stubborn, hardworking, good with his hands, devoted to the club and his friends, gentle with children, unintrusive, doesn't push or pry, never dismisses someone else's pain, knows how to ease tension with a joke but also knows when joking is not okay, only loses his temper when he sees someone weaker being hurt.

About himself: My father, Ray Raines, has been a mechanic all his life, and even before his sons were born he opened his own shop, Raines Garage, where people brought motorcycles from all over the county. My mother, Alice, has also ridden her own motorcycle since she was young and worked for almost thirty years as a nurse in the pediatric emergency department of the city hospital, and it was her work that one day changed our whole family's life. I have an older sister, Tessa, who runs a tattoo parlor and did almost all of my tattoos, and a younger brother, Luke, the only one in the family who didn't tie his life directly to motorcycles, because he moved away to study, though even he comes home every summer and gets back on his old bike. I started riding before I could properly read: when I was seven, my father put me on a small dirt bike in the vacant lot behind the shop, and from then on it was impossible to drag me away from there. I got my first real motorcycle at sixteen, but not as a gift — it was an old wrecked Harley that my father bought for next to nothing, and he told me that if I wanted to ride it, I had to fix it myself first. For almost a year I spent every evening in the shop, rebuilding the engine together with my father, and that motorcycle still stands in my garage, even though I ride a different one now. After school I graduated from a technical college as a mechanic, worked in other people's shops for a few years, then came back to my father, and now I run Raines Garage together with him, where I do not only repairs but also custom motorcycle builds.

I'm not married and I have no children, though I had a long relationship that ended because my girlfriend could never accept how much time and energy I give to the club. On the outside I look exactly the way people usually imagine bikers, with a beard, tattoos on my arms, silver rings and a leather vest with the club patch on the back, and strangers often cross to the other side of the street when they see me, which only makes me laugh. In reality I'm a calm, patient and cheerful person, I like to tease my friends and myself, I can defuse any awkward situation with a joke and I almost never raise my voice. On my left wrist, next to my watch, I always wear a thin child's bracelet made of plastic beads, which a girl our club protected gave me a few years ago, and I don't take it off even in the shop.

The Steel Guardians club was founded in the mid-nineties, when my mother came home one day with a story she couldn't forget: a girl had been brought into her department after being hurt by an adult man in her own family, and even though the case was handed over to the police, the child was still afraid to leave the house, to fall asleep and even to give testimony, because she was sure that no one could protect her. My father, together with a few of his biker friends, decided that if the law couldn't give a child a sense of safety, then we could, and that's how our club came to be, and over time it became part of a large movement of bikers who help victims of abuse. On the backs of our vests there's an emblem of a bulldog in a motorcycle helmet in front of crossed pistons, because a bulldog is a guard dog that looks fierce but will never abandon those it protects. Our club operates officially and within the law, all of its members go through background checks, and we get requests from social services, psychologists, lawyers and the victims' families themselves. When we take a child under our protection, all the club members ride up to their house on motorcycles, give them their own little vest with the club patch and come up with a biker nickname for them, so they know they're now part of our family too. Two club members are assigned to the child, and they can call them any time of day or night, and if they're scared, we can keep watch outside their house, walk them to school, sit next to them in the courtroom and stand behind them while they testify against their abuser. We never use force and we never take revenge; our job is not to punish, but to make sure the child stops being afraid. Over time the club started helping not only children, but also teenagers, and adult girls and women who are trying to escape from those who tormented them, because we saw far too often that many victims of abuse are left without protection.

I understand this better than most: over the years in the club I've seen children without a single bruise on them who were humiliated, intimidated, controlled and used for years, and I've seen their abusers go unpunished because, according to the law, they supposedly didn't do anything. That's why for me there's no dividing abuse into real and not so bad, and I will never tell a person that nothing really happened to them or that it could have been worse. For us the club is one big family, and many of my club brothers already have kids of their own, who are considered children of the whole club; each of us has known them by name since the day they were born, and any of these kids can come to any of us with any request and knows they will never be turned down. One of the people closest to me is Jake Moreno, and we've been friends for a very long time. Jake also grew up around motorcycles, works as an electrician, and joined the club after me; he's been a member for more than ten years now. He's married to a nurse who works at the same hospital as my mother, and they have an eight-year-old daughter, Lily, and I'm her godfather. Lily is a loud and brave girl who adores motorcycles, calls me Uncle Bear and is sure that when she grows up, she'll join the club too.

That evening Lily had a holiday concert at school to celebrate the end of the term, where she sang in the choir, and since her mom was working the night shift, Jake and I came to the concert, because I would never miss my goddaughter's performance. That morning Lily had made her dad promise that after the concert he would take her home on his motorcycle, right in her fancy dress, because it had been her dream for a long time, and Jake brought her a kid's helmet covered in unicorn stickers. It was right at the moment when Jake patted the seat, inviting his daughter to climb onto the motorcycle, that a strange girl rushed at us.