PART 1 — The Sound in the Wind
Desert Gas Station Rescue was not something Ethan Cole expected to be part of when he pulled off the empty highway that night. In fact, the entire moment began like hundreds of other lonely miles he had ridden across the American Southwest — quiet, uneventful, and swallowed by the endless desert.
The highway stretched through northern Nevada like a dark scar across the sand. For miles in every direction there was nothing but open desert, scattered rock formations, and the occasional dying cactus leaning toward the moonlight. The wind had started rising around midnight, pushing dust across the asphalt in long restless waves that looked like ghosts crossing the road.
