“Good luck,” Ivan says, backing away from Cat as my father curses, his breathing heavy and labored from the smoke. There’s a minute there where Cat has to make a choice: save me or kill Ivan and Grey.
He can’t have both.
I’m almost convinced that he’s going to choose the latter, put the club ahead of me the way he should. Instead …
“Goddamn it, girl,” he growls out finally, tucking his gun in its holster and hauling me up into his arms. He carries me in front of his chest like I’m a little girl, my head bobbing as he takes off at a jog in the direction of the barn’s rear entrance.
We’re nearly there, the smoke fading, fresh air filling my lungs. I feel a sudden, bright clarity as the oxygen tears through my chest.
And then …
There’s a screaming sound from above us, and then the world is tumbling and rolling. Or … I’m the one that’s tumbling and rolling? I’m so disoriented that it takes me a full thirty seconds to realize that Cat has fallen and thrown me forward in the process. I’ve rolled toward the open barn doors and come to a hard stop in the dirt.
I brace myself on my palms and look back.
My mind refuses to accept what I’m seeing.
“No!” The word rips from my throat like a storm, and even though I’m bloody and hurting and suffering from severe smoke inhalation, I scramble across the dirt toward my father.
He’s pinned beneath a large section of roof, his body crushed to the dirt floor. Not only that but the fallen pile of lumber is on fire. The flames haven’t quite reached Cat yet, but they’re licking their way across the wood and old roofing tiles. I do my best to stand up, stumbling a bit as I reach out and put my palms on one of the beams, shoving with all of my strength.
But I know I can’t move it.
The beam itself is massive. It’s also attached to several other large pieces of the roof. Even if Beast, Grainger, Sin, and Crown were all here … we couldn’t move it.
I drop back to my knees in front of Cat, putting my cheek to the ground beside him.
“Talk to me, Daddy,” I whisper, struggling against the violent, overwhelming urge to cough. “Talk to me.”
His fingers curl into the dirt and he groans as several fat teardrops roll down my sooty face.
“Gidge …” he whispers as I reach out and stroke some of his dark hair back. It might be streaked with gray, but there’s no doubt that it’s the same color as mine. Same hair, same eyes, same strength. Me and Cat. No, no, no. I don’t want to lose my baby and my daddy in the same day.
“You’ll be okay,” I lie, even though I know that isn’t true. He’s going to die. I can already see blood, spreading out from beneath the pile of debris that’s collapsed on top of him. The fire’s just caught on the leg of his jeans. There’s nothing I can do. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. “You’ll be okay,” I sob, curling my hand around Cat’s as his eyes flutter open.
For the last time, we lock matching gazes.
For the very last time.
“Gidge,” he repeats as I cry as freely as I ever have before. I’m completely torn open on the inside now. There’s no going back. I can never be the cold, cynical girl that I was in the past. “I love you, baby girl.”
“Not this way,” I whisper, and I can tell I’m starting to hyperventilate. “Not this way, Cat. You can’t go this way.”
“Don’t leave me like this,” Cat chokes out, and then he coughs and blood flecks his lips. His pants are on fire. They’re on fire, so he’s on fire, and I just hope that he can’t feel anything. “Do it. You always knew … it’s always been you.”
I know what he’s asking.
But I don’t want to know.
I don’t want to do this.
Don’t make me do this!
I crawl beneath the heavy beam that’s across Cat’s back, reaching down to grab his gun from the holster on his belt, and then I slide back out. I hold the weapon in my lap, staring at it like I’ve never seen a gun in my life before.
“Do it,” Cat whispers, choking on the smoke and the blood. “Please, Gidge …”
I hate him for asking me to do this. I love him too much not to.
I bend down and press my lips to Cat’s forehead, stroking his hair back with shaking fingers.
“I love you, old man,” I choke out, tasting tears and grit and ash on my lips. “I love you so much. And I forgive you. I forgive you for everything.”
He doesn’t answer me, his eyes fluttering as he groans in agony.
I can’t let him suffer. I can’t. I can’t.
I shove up to my feet and, before I can lose my nerve, I lift up the gun … and I pull the trigger.
Someone starts wailing and screaming. It’s so loud; it hurts my ears. I just wish they would shut the fuck up.
Then I realize who that person is: it’s me. I’m the one that’s screaming.
Strong hands grab onto me, hauling me up against a broad chest. It’s Beast, I think, but I don’t care. He’s dragging me away, and I’m fighting him even though I know that I shouldn’t. There’s nothing here to fight for anymore.
“Daddy!” I scream as Beast finally chucks me over his shoulder, hauling ass out of that barn as flames rain down and my hand stretches out toward the deepest and most profound love I’ve ever felt. It was coupled with an equal amount of hate. Those two things existed—and continue to exist—simultaneously. One never could cancel out the other. “Daddy!”
“Oh God,” Sin breathes when he sees me. All around, there’s fire. The whole world is burning. I can’t tear my gaze away from that barn, watching the orange glow bathe the dark woods with perversely bright light.
“I’ve got the bikes,” Grainger says, panting from somewhere on my right. I barely care. All I can think about is what I’ve just done. How … how … No.
“Cat …” Crown starts, but I know that he knows. One need only listen to my wracking sobs to understand what’s just happened, to hear me scream daddy over and over again. “Fuck. No. No. Fuck.”
“We have to go now,” Sin says firmly, keeping hold of his emotions as an explosion sounds from behind me. I shove at Beast suddenly, and he reluctantly sets me on my feet. I turn with a tear-streaked face to see that the flames have consumed the sea of black Cadillacs. Their tires are melted to the pavement, and one of them has just exploded.
“Fuck,” I whimper, blinking through the smoke as I turn toward the guys. The fire is everywhere, all around us.
“Come, wife,” Beast whispers softly, grabbing me by the hand and dragging me along behind him. I know he’ll carry me if necessary, but I want to run. I want to run and run and run and never stop. I want to collapse and scream. I want to know why there’s blood between my legs, and I want my daddy back, and I … I have to live through this first.
We move through the trees even as I notice quite a few abandoned bikes on the road to our right. Daybreakers who don’t need them to get home because they’re never coming home. Like Cat. Like Daddy.
I shove that emotion aside, sprinting along beside my men until we get to our own bikes. Someone moved them before the flames could melt the tires.
We don’t bother with helmets, climbing on and starting the engines. I curl myself around Beast, pressing myself as hard as I can into his back. I’m afraid that if I don’t, I’ll give up and let myself fall off the bike, just so I don’t have to feel this pain again.
I keep thinking I’m immune to it somehow, as if losing my sisters and losing my awful brother turned me into an emotionless lump of flesh and blood and bone.
Except that’s not true.
It’s not true, and they’re all dead, and … it’s just me.
We maneuver slowly through the woods (driving on dirt on a motorcycle is like driving on ice), making our painstaking way back to the road that leads to the highway. Once we hit that pavement, the boys pick up speed and then … we’re flying.
We’re flying, and I can feel my wings unfurling behind me.
>
I’m not sure they’ll ever be angel wings, but demon wings work, too.
I was born of a demon, and I’m okay with that.
For the first time in my life, I’m proud of it.
I love you, Cat. I love you, and I forgive you.
Forever, always a Daybreaker.
Three weeks later …
A lucky shift in the wind saved the Death by Daybreak compound from the fire. Ashbury, on the other hand, lost several outlying suburbs and nearly three dozen homes and business on the southern end of the downtown area.
The Artefact, of course, is nothing but ash. I know that because I went back later for Cat’s body. Or what was left of it. I’m sitting in the cemetery now, my elbows on my knees, hands clasped together in front of my face.
Nellie is screaming on her knees beside the open hole in the ground where the shiny black casket sits, ready to be buried beneath the soft, sweetness of the earth. I guess when I had that dream about Cat and the coffins, the empty one wasn’t for me, it was for him.
Just like my father did the day of my sisters’ funeral, I remain calm and stoic, sitting beside the new president of Death by Daybreak, his vice president on my right side. And by that, I mean Crown and Sin. Just as I predicted. Fuck, I should set up a fortune telling booth and charge for my premonitions.
After Cat died, the club needed to vote in a new president quickly to deal with the aftermath. With so many dead, with the Grey Wolfe Mafia’s new Don demanding an audience, we needed someone who could handle the stress of it all.
The position suits Calder Reid; the position of VP suits Sin much better than road captain did.
I sit up straight as the priest drones on, his words meaningless to me. I hope they bring some comfort to my mother though; I’m worried about her. She … isn’t doing well. I think I’m going to encourage her to go to rehab.
Without Cat, she feels like she’s nobody and nothing, and she’s medicating that way, too.
I know now that whatever happened between us in the past, I love and care about her. I don’t want to see her suffering like this. She needs purpose in life, but first, she needs to get clean again.
“My love,” she’s sobbing, crawling over to the hole as several of the other club wives reach out to draw her back by the shoulders. “My love. Oh, God. Please. Please, Leroy, don’t leave me.”
I can’t stand the thought of her melancholy; it’s breaking me.
“He’s the president first, and a father second when he’s in public.” Crown told me that once, when I remarked on my father’s seemingly empty expression during Queenie and Posey’s funeral. I try to embody that today. I’m the president’s old lady first, and a daughter second when in public.
Life is already complicated enough for me. As the liaison to the Grey Wolfe Mafia, I’ve got a unique position in the club, but it isn’t one that’s got full support from all of the members. A majority, yes, but I still have a lot of work to do.
I can’t let them see me cry.
Anyway, I’ve done enough of that. I’ve been crying for weeks. Ask my men. I’m sure they’re sick of it by now, even if they’ve been nothing but supportive.
Sin curves his hand around mine and squeezes it. I look over to meet his eyes, recognizing the glitter of pain buried deep in their silver depths. I’m not the only one mourning Cat. The entire club is—my men in particular.
I caught Crown crouched down in the backyard yesterday, rubbing at his forehead and squeezing his eyes so tight that his entire face was scrunched up in pain.
“Do you want to take a walk?” Sin asks quietly, but I shake my head. I’m going to get through this. Then I can break down. For now, I’m keeping it together.
The priest invites us to throw our own handfuls of dirt onto the surface of the coffin. Nellie refuses to do so, collapsing into the grass. I move forward then, dressed in all black, all leather, like a proper Daybreaker.
I kneel down next to the pile of dirt, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a few small items. Queenie’s sonogram, Posey’s hoop earrings, a toy truck that belonged to Gaz when he was little. I chuck them all into the hole before curling my fingers into the loose soil next.
Nellie doesn’t know that her son is dead. I don’t think it’s prudent to tell her with how hard she’s taking my father’s death. Eventually, I can tell her the truth. But not right now. For now, Gaz is just … off doing his own thing.
I toss the dirt in, the sound of the rocky soil hitting the lid of the coffin a musical requiem that I will never forget. It will forever stick in my mind and play on repeat when the moon is just right in the sky.
Crown tosses his handful in next followed by Sin, Grainger, and Beast. They’re standing just off to my left, never too far away. Always close. We’re always close now, the five of us. They can probably sense how close I came to falling over the edge.
I’m alright now. I’m getting better with each morning that I wake up in one of their beds.
We wait together patiently beside the hole as the rest of the club takes their own time to say goodbye to Cat. In the end, Nellie is too distraught to even stand on her own. Amber Clearwater and some of the other club wives offer to take her back to the clubhouse for the wake, and I agree.
It takes a while for everyone to finish—Cat was the president after all—and I swear, the hole is already half-filled with dirt. I can’t even see the coffin’s shiny surface anymore.
The boys escort me back to their bikes.
I climb up behind Beast as the rest of the club joins us. Not just local members either. We have guys from chapters all over the country who knew and loved my father. When those engines start up, they consume the careful quiet of the cemetery, a roar that reaches both heaven and hell, I’m sure. Wherever Cat is, I’m certain that he can hear it.
I’m fucking certain of it.
The sea of bikes moves as one, a glittering snake of chrome and leather, a funeral procession that winds from the cemetery all the way to the north end of town and then back again. We pass through the cemetery once more before heading toward the southern part of town with its burnt shells of buildings and the blackened trunks of dead trees. We even drive past what’s left of the Artefact and its collapsed barn.
I close my eyes then because I don’t want to see it. I’ve already seen it once, when we came back to retrieve all of the bodies. Now, it’s Crown who has to pay off the authorities to hide our dirty deeds. He doesn’t seem to mind. He was born to lead anyway.
We end up back at the clubhouse, parking beside the deck as the sound of music booms into the night. We don’t do quiet, cloistered wakes here on the compound. Oh no. There’ll be drinking and smoking and fucking. Basically, it’s my wedding reception all over again—kegs and cocaine included. Nobody’s worried this time. Not only do we have plenty of the antidote, just in case, but the Grey Wolfe Mafia has undergone a change of hands.
I don’t know how he did it, but Grey has stepped into his father’s expensive loafers like he was born to be there. The last time I saw him, it was over video chat and were negotiating a tentative peace.
The main road that runs through Ashbury is actually part of a major highway that cuts the state in half. It runs from the Oregon coast and into Idaho. We’ve decided that it’s a boundary line. For the time being, we’re going to continue our operations on the northern half while the mafia works in the southern half. The only exceptions are major highways that run from north to south.
The casino, which is set on reservation land, is neutral ground.
No more laundering there. Control has been relinquished back to the tribe. For now, it’s a meeting place if ever the club and the mafia need to talk in person.
I don’t know how long this is going to last, but I do know one thing: in order for this peace to break, either Grey or I will have to die. That puts a pretty big price on both of our heads.
“Wife?” Beast asks as I blink myself out of my stupor. He’s holding out a hand, offering
to help me off of the bike.
“Husband.” I take it without complaint, letting him lead me up the steps with the other four men trailing behind us.
We head into the clubhouse and into the sometimes overwhelming, sometimes welcoming, but always interesting embrace of Death by Daybreak.
I collapse onto the sofa with my arm around Fem, too tired to even bother trying to figure out which room I want to sleep in. For weeks, I’ve been switching from one room to the other in an almost mechanical sort of way. Like, if I was with Grainger last night, I’m with Sin tonight, Crown tomorrow, Beast the next day.
To be frank: we haven’t had sex the entire time. Not once. Not only was I hurting bad after that night—I actually spent the rest of it in the hospital—but my heart was broken. Still is. I can feel it now, jagged pieces shifting around like glass and cutting, making me bleed.
“Hey.” Sin sits down on the coffee table, putting his elbows on his knees and looking down at me. Fem curls his lip at the man’s presence but otherwise doesn’t move. “Do you want some orange juice?”
My mouth twitches slightly. There wasn’t any OJ at the reception. Plenty of vodka, whiskey, cheap beer, weed, and tobacco though. But no juice.
“I want a gallon of it,” I murmur, my cheek pressed into a leather pillow. “With a straw. Oh, and lots of pulp.”
Sin chuckles at me before rising to his feet and disappearing into the kitchen to get me my drink.
“Look at you,” Grainger says, kicking the leather armchair closer to the couch so he can sit next to me. He’s clingy as fuck, I’m not even gonna lie. I like it though. I’d like it a lot more if my chest didn’t ache with this desperate sadness.
I force myself to sit up and exhale, giving him the sauciest look that I’m able to manage. It’s probably lukewarm compared to the usual scalding sneers I used to feed Grainger, but hey, it’s the effort that counts. Feminist adjusts himself to curl into a ball on my left side, tail over his nose. He’s been extra clingy lately, too.
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