Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men, #6)

by Darling, Giana

  Out the window on the back door, I could make out Kodiak teaching Ransom how to pull his gun seamlessly from his holster.

  Everyone was there.

  My entire biker family.

  Except Priest.

  “Hey, sweet Bea,” Loulou called when she saw me standing silently in the middle of the chaos. She moved out of the circle of her husband’s arms and came to me, kissing me on the cheek and offering Angel the chance to do the same. “How’s my sunshine girl today?”

  Angel pulled at my hair, then pulled at her own as she giggled, obviously delighted we shared the same pale curls. I took her from Loulou so I could drag in a deep breath of her sweet-scented hair.

  Unsurprisingly, she smelled of cherries.

  “I’m okay,” I told her honestly. Even though I felt overwhelmed with emotion, it was mostly happiness tinged with a cloud of malcontent. I wondered obsessively where Priest might be and why he was absent from such a gathering again.

  If it was self-imposed isolation or deliberate on the part of the club.

  “You look tired,” Lou noticed, reaching out to cup my cheek. “I wish you’d stayed with us again last night. I feel better when I know you’re safe.”

  “I was safe.” There was nowhere safer for me than at Priest’s side. “And honestly, I loved staying with you guys, but I missed my own space.”

  Lou bit her lip but nodded. “Okay, I can understand that. Did…did Priest stay with you last night?”

  I ducked behind a sheaf of hair, ostensibly to pepper kisses all over pretty Angel’s plump cheeks, but mostly to hide from my observant sister.

  She sighed, but then her arms were around me, and all I could feel was her soft embrace. “Oh, honey, I can’t say I don’t wish you could’ve picked someone a helluva lot easier to love, but you’re a Lafayette, so I guess I should’ve been prepared.”

  I grinned at her when she pulled away. “We tend to like dangerous men.”

  Both of us looked over at Phillipa, who appeared behind Smoke’s massive back, laughing at something he said. Maja and Buck sat with them at my dining room table, the older contingent of the club shooting the shit together.

  “You think she’s finally going to agree to go out with him?” I asked Lou.

  She shook her head, absently playing with Angel’s little foot. “She’s too scared to be different.”

  “Different isn’t bad,” I declared even though I knew my sister had already learned that lesson. “Just because something is different than the norm doesn’t make it intrinsically bad. Why do people fear so much what they don’t automatically understand?”

  “People want to be prepared. If they know what’s coming, they don’t fear it. People who act outside the law and normal social mores like the club are aberrations. They don’t know what we’ll do in any given circumstance, and that’s frightening to them.”

  “I wonder if that’s why the killer is targeting people they feel are on the fringes of society. The prostitute, the First Nations’ woman, the teacher who had an affair with Kodiak…” I mused. “Maybe the killer is trying to cull chaos.”

  Loulou snorted, eyeing the mess of bodies and noise surrounding us. “Good luck to them if they want to cull all this.”

  I shivered even though she was joking. I knew the mind of a serial killer. A massive, thriving outlaw organization like The Fallen would be a big, red target for someone obsessed with conformity.

  “Don’t look so scared, little Lafayette,” Z said as he stalked up to his wife and claimed her again with a big hand at the dip in her waist. Monster scowled at me and shook his fist as if to emphasise his father’s point. “We got the club on alert, nothin’s gonna happen to ya, yeah?”

  I bit my lip because I wasn’t worried about something happening to me. I was worried about them.

  “Why did you guys all come over?” I asked, desperate to change the topic and rid myself of this persistent forbidding chill. “You know I have to leave for Church in an hour?”

  Harleigh Rose appeared beside me and slung an arm around my shoulders. “Are you kidding? You’re being obsessed over by a killer. You’re lucky we even let you out of our sight.”

  “Which is why you must be at our place for dinner tonight,” Cressida declared from her spot on the ground, snuggled up at King’s side. Prince babbled happily from her arms, and I felt something like envy tighten my womb. “I’m making apple pie for dessert.”

  “And seriously, we need to talk about my wedding,” H.R. reminded me, fanning out her left hand so I could admire her diamond. “It’s coming up quick, and there’s still a fuck load to plan for my special day.”

  “Our special day, you mean,” Lion reminded her dryly as he tugged her back into him by her belt loop and pressed a kiss to her ear. “Or do I have to remind you of that, again?”

  “Okay, gross,” Cressida teased, because Harleigh Rose was always complaining about her brother and father’s PDA. “Can you two get a room or something?”

  “Yeah, seriously, H.R., you’re going to scar your little brother and sister,” Loulou teased, trying to hide their eyes.

  H.R. stuck out her tongue at them, and we all laughed.

  I wanted to have dinner with them. I wanted to spend the entire day with this family made up of ragtag misfits with the biggest hearts I’d ever known. But I still had one foot in another world, and that fact was rearing its head now. “I’m sorry, but Phillipa and I are having dinner with the Linley’s tonight after Sunday school.”

  The Garros fell silent.

  I shifted from foot to foot, fidgeting with my hands. “I’m sorry, I would way rather have dinner with you guys, but I already told them I would.”

  “Seth Linley is nice enough,” Cress offered as an olive branch. “But his wife kinda gives me the creeps. She’s always so intense.”

  “Dr. Linley was one of my doctors,” Loulou said softly, trailing a hand over Monster’s head as if to draw comfort from him. “Tell him I said hi.”

  I beamed at my sister, loving her for trying to support me even when I made decisions she didn’t understand.

  “We’ll do something this week,” H.R. declared, shooting me a wink. “If you aren’t too busy with your Priest.”

  Everyone chuckled, even the other brothers who had been pretending not to eavesdrop.

  “Where is he?” I asked Zeus softly under the current of laughter.

  His concrete eyes softened. “Sometimes we live in a cage of our own makin’, little Bea, and sometimes, even though we got the key, we don’t wanna let ourselves out. You get me?”

  I bit my lip, thinking of the haunted look in Priest’s eyes, the panic I’d felt at odd intervals when we’d been having sex. It was a strange sensation to realize the fearless enforcer of The Fallen was afraid of little, insignificant me.

  “I’ll work on it,” I told him with a stubborn tilt of my chin.

  He chuffed it lightly with his massive fist and grinned at me all crinkly-eyed. “Got that Lafayette magic. I don’t doubt you will.”

  Bea

  Sunday Mass was a sparse affair that week, which prompted me to look back at the past few months and notice a trend in fewer and fewer folks attending Grandpa’s service. Something in the sacred space was wrong even amongst the few attendees, some edge of energy that buzzed like cheap overhead lighting.

  Shaw fidgeted beside me, swinging his short legs in the pew, looking around the church as if searching for the boogeyman.

  “You okay, little dude?” I asked him, dipping to look into his mismatched eyes, one brown, the other suffused on one side with green, an exact mirror of his twin brother.

  Shaw startled even though I’d spoken softly, then looked sheepish. “’S kinda creepy in here.”

  Steele leaned forward to look at me, and I noticed he had his little hand in Tempest’s, squeezing tight even though he was ten years old and probably too old to hold anyone’s hand in public. “Yeah, this place gives me the creeps.”

  “H
ush,” Amelia Stephens ordered from the other side of Bat, who sat beside Tempest. She eyed Steele holding her hand, and the little boy reluctantly let go and curled his hands into fists on his lap.

  Bat shot her a look of disapproval, his mouth mean with censure, but Amelia ignored them. They’d had a blowout in the parking lot when Bat refused to attend Mass with them, and obviously, Amelia had won. She’d made such a raucous, I thought he conceded just to get her to shut up.

  Tempest shot me a little look of apology as if she was used to pardoning their discord.

  “You sit still through this, and we’ll go to Honey Bear Café for brownies after, okay?” she offered the twins with a little wink.

  They instantly straightened and stilled.

  Tempest and I shared a smile.

  Most of the women in the club didn’t like her because she’d started out as one of the club sluts hanging around just to sleep with one of the brothers, but she’d been the nanny to Bat and Amelia’s children for a couple years now, and whenever I saw her, I thought she was nice.

  “‘Love prospers when fault is forgiven,’” Grandpa was preaching in that smooth, worn voice as comforting as an old blanket. “But dwelling on it separates old friends. Let us remember this when we pray for Natalie Ashley’s soul. She was a good woman, no matter her past misdeeds. There is no need to memorialize her sin. Instead, we will remember how she was always eager to help her neighbour and support our youth in her well-taught high school classes. She will be missed by her family, friends, and certainly by this parish.”

  “She was a slut,” someone muttered loudly enough to disturb the peaceful air. “Shouldn’t have been allowed through the doors.”

  Shock rippled through the pews.

  No one spoke like that in First Light. Not only because it was a heavenly place, but because Grandpa had created an atmosphere of love and tolerance.

  We were not hateful, and we were certainly not rude. Especially when the woman in question was murdered by a serial killer for the lowly sin of sleeping with a man out of wedlock.

  Grandpa’s mouth fell flat, but he continued calmly as if the man hadn’t spoken. “Natalie’s service will be held this Wednesday in the cemetery with a service at the community center. I hope I’ll see you all there ready to pay your respects to a woman who was wrenched from this life far too soon by a violent, hateful act.”

  “Won’t find me there,” someone else, a woman this time, whispered behind me.

  I cranked my neck around to attempt to find the woman, but only blank faces stared back at me, all watching Grandpa.

  A shudder rolled fiercely down my spine. My teeth were set on edge, gritted against some promise of attack.

  This wasn’t right.

  Nothing had been since we’d walked through the door, the parishioners whispering as they saw Bat with all his tattoos reluctantly dragged behind his wife, as they saw Loulou holding my hand in solidarity for the first time in church since she’d married Zeus.

  There was animosity strong in the air like the stench of booze and smoke left over from a party we hadn’t been invited to. I wondered wildly what I’d missed, what could have happened to turn the tide of the townsfolk against some of their own.

  There were no more outcries as Grandpa tidily wrapped up his sermon and dismissed everyone with a blessing, but as soon as they stood, there were rumblings of discontent in the air.

  Loulou squeezed my hand too hard and kept Phillipa close at her other side. “Is it usually like this, or do I just bring it out in them?”

  “No,” Phillipa said softly, her beautifully aged face creased further in concern. “This isn’t natural.”

  “Why do I feel like the angry villagers are ’bout to come at us with fuckin’ pitchforks and torches?” Bat muttered as we grouped together by the altar, both his hands protectively clasping his son’s shoulders.

  “You’re being ridiculous,” Amelia chastised, brushing back her strawberry blond hair. “It’s the club. After so many years of looking over your shoulder, you’re suspicious of everyone.”

  Loulou and I exchanged a look that was half-wince, but Bat took a deep breath to calm himself and just shook his head at his wife.

  “It does feel a little hostile here today,” Tempest admitted.

  Amelia looked at the redhead in her fairly form-fitting deep red cropped sweater, black skirt, and knee-high boots with critical eyes. “Yes, well, you’d know all about hostile environments, I suppose.”

  “Amy,” Bat snapped. “Do not take out your frustration on her.”

  Amelia sniffed but turned her head, pretending to catch the eye of someone in the crowd. “I’m going to go speak with Judy.”

  Bat grunted in affirmation, but the moment she was gone, he started to usher the twins down the center of the pews. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  I agreed with him even though First Light had always been a haven for me. I followed them down the center, flicking a wave at Grandpa in farewell because he was engaged in a heated conversation with Bill Huxley’s mother, Margaret.

  Bat tried the double doors, then frowned when they didn’t part. He shot a look over his shoulder at us, then took his shoulder to the door.

  It didn’t budge.

  The clamour drew the attention of the rest of our community, and soon a little half-moon of spectators surrounded us.

  The door wouldn’t move even when Bat slammed his full weight against it.

  “This isn’t right,” I muttered, my gut roiling as the atmosphere shifted and crackled like the air before a storm descended.

  “No,” Loulou agreed. “Let’s go out the side entrance.”

  We moved together as a little family unit back down the aisle when there was a sudden crack and shattering. One of the stained-glass windows on the right side of the building had broken open in the bottom left corner by the impact of a thrown bottle stuffed with a burning rag.

  “Oh, my God,” Loulou breathed, and suddenly, we were both thrown back to four years prior when a rival MC had tried to burn us out of Zeus’s cabin with Molotov cocktails.

  Bat didn’t hesitate. He was running before I could open my mouth to protest, swinging off his cut to use it to stamp out the small fire where it burned next to a set of wooden pews. It went out with a faint hiss. Seth was suddenly there too, standing in front of Bat facing the window as if he was ready to catch whatever might come next. We all waited quietly, vibrating with fear, for more to be thrown inside.

  None came.

  Bat lifted his cut and crouched to check out the bottle. He nudged it over with his boot, and growled, “There’s a fuckin’ note inside. It’s a goddamn warnin’.”

  “What does it say, Mr. Stephens?” Grandpa demanded regally as he swept down the pews to Bat’s side, chin held high without one flicker of fear in his Lafayette blue eyes.

  Bat snapped his black gaze up and over to us. “Romans 5:19 ‘For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.’”

  As if summoned by his words, the crash and shatter began again, this time from a window on the opposite side of the church.

  Seth rushed to try to extinguish the flaming bottle with his suit jacket, but it immediately caught fire. A moment later, another one was launched through the other window and landed beside Bat.

  “Get out!” he hollered as he fell over the bottle with his leather jacket to put out the flame.

  “Come on,” Loulou ordered, dragging me by the hand as she bent to pick up Shaw and fix him on her hip.

  He went willingly, Steele already up in Tempest’s arms and Amelia bringing up the rear with Cleo, who looked utterly terrified.

  Grandpa was ushering the spooked crowd down the hall to the side entrance, which was blessedly not blocked off. Ransom, of all people, was holding it open for everyone.

  “Priest made me wait outside,” he explained as we rushed past in a semi-orga
nized stampede.

  Of course, he did.

  I didn’t have time to dwell on that, though. Immediately, we got to work organizing the chaos, making sure no one was hurt. Kodiak was also there, his massive black and silver bike in the lot, his big body disappearing around the corner just as we spilled outside.

  Hunting down the arsonist, no doubt.

  I had a sinking feeling he wouldn’t find him.

  “Where is Tabby?” I asked after I tallied everyone, going to Seth, who was charred and coughing from his heroic deeds. “Where is she?”

  “She didn’t come today,” Seth croaked. “Wasn’t feeling well.”

  Something nudged at the back of my mind, but I forgot it when I saw Bat finally emerge from the smoking stone building. There was soot on his cheekbones, ash in his short, cropped black hair, and a livid burn already bubbling the skin over his right hand.

  Immediately, Tempest, Steele, and Shaw ran to him.

  Amelia fainted, but Seth reached over quickly to catch her as she did.

  I took a moment to look at Amelia swooned in his arms, wondering why a woman like that had ever been drawn to a man like Bat. It occurred to me that some people might consider Amelia and I cut from the same cloth. We were both petite and pretty, favouring feminine clothes and female companionship. But that was where the similarities ended.

  Beneath the pink and silk, I had a spine of steel that had been forged in the fires of my neglected youth, the horrific betrayal of my father, and the illness that plagued my beloved sister. I was not so easily torn, so easily defeated as Amelia gone to raptures because her husband was burned.

  I was the kind of woman who would stand in the fire with him if it meant being beside my man.

  With a last––probably judgmental––look at Amelia, I went to Bat, noting that he was already being well cared for by his little crew.

  “Fire’s out, but there is smoke and water damage,” Bat told me over the increasing roar of motorcycles.

  The Fallen was coming.

  On cue, a fleet of chrome and black Harleys rounded the corner onto Main Street and rumbled to a stop in the church parking lot. Zeus was off his bike before it was fully stopped, looping across the asphalt with eyes only for his wife. Loulou was already full sprint running toward him, hair flying, arms pumping until she could throw them around his neck as she hurtled into his open arms.