Specter's Wake

by Quinn Ryder

  That’s it? He’s going to let Riptide get away with that shit? What the actual fuck is going on with this club?

  “It’s his fucking fault,” I yelled, motioning to Riptide. “If that shithead had been paying attention and doing his job, Trigger wouldn’t have moved into the lane. He was too busy prancing around like some princess peacock, showboating for that girl.” I motioned to the dog walker, who looked away sheepishly.

  “Fuck you man, I did my job!” Riptide yelled.

  I jumped to my feet and got right in his face. “Clear the lane, make sure it’s safe for others, signal that the lane is free to your lead bike and move over to secure the lane and close the door. That’s the job of a Tail Gunner. Our lives are in your hands, and if you’re not fucking paying attention, we’re all dead. So, yeah, motherfucker, this is all your fault!”

  Riptide punched me in the jaw. I should’ve taken the punch and let it be done, but I was so angry that I lunged at him, taking him to the ground. My fists were moving before I had a chance to stop them, pummeling Riptide in the face multiple times until you could no longer see his intoxicated eyes or pretty boy smile.

  “Prospect, stand down!” Switchblade ordered.

  I felt arms come around me, but I couldn’t stop the violent rage flowing through my bones. Trigger is one of the few men that is actually decent in the club, and Riptide almost killed him. It’s just not fair.

  A second pair of hands wrapped around my arms and I’m flung off Riptide, almost sending me on my ass. I lunge at Riptide again, but Ice pushes me backward, practically sailing me clear across the road. “Your VP said to calm your shit down. Cool off, or I’m knocking your ass out and you can get in the ambulance next to Trigger.” Ice was like a brick wall and I wasn’t about to try to get around him.

  Anger broiled my insides. I was hot-headed and ready to burst at any second. My lips were moving before I had a chance to stop them. I turned toward Scythe and started screaming, “This is bullshit, Prez, and you fucking know it. Riptide should’ve been doing his job. He could’ve gotten Trigger killed.”

  Scythe remained silent.

  What a fucking coward.

  Even if I was right, he would never admit it; that would mean he’d have to challenge the men who were actually patched in and take the side of a prospect over them. That shit would never happen. Not in this mess of corruption.

  “Get the fuck out of here before the cops get here and all of you end up in jail. And you,” Scythe said turning to me, “Riptide is an officer in this club and you’re a prospect, you have to respect him even if there is a reason not to. That’s what being in the Armada is all about. Brotherhood, loyalty, and trust.”

  “It’s kinda hard to want to be a part of a brotherhood where everyone is corrupt as fuck and only out for themselves,” I mumbled under my breath. I was close enough for Scythe to hear me and I swear he nodded his head in agreement, but maybe my eyes were just playing tricks on me.

  Finally, Scythe said something. “Everyone just get the hell out of here; the cops and ambulance will be here any minute.” The club scrambled to get Riptide to his feet. They had Jagger and Rex load him and his bike in the cage, leaving me, Scythe, and Cipher to stay behind.

  As they were leaving, Switchblade came up from behind me and whispered in my ear. “You’re going to pay for your insubordination, Prospect. Tomorrow you’re gonna be working in the fucking boneyard, and I’m gonna make you pay for ever wanting to be part of my Armada.”

  Trigger ended up taking an ambulance to the hospital. His leg had a clear break in two places and they had to artificially replace parts of it and bolt it together with screws. It was a mess, and he wouldn’t be walking anytime soon.

  I stayed with him in the hospital the entire time. Fuck the rest of those assholes who don’t give a shit about their fellow brothers, this is what you do when a man went down. I needed the time to cool off anyway, and by the time the doctors and nurses had transferred him to a room, I was relatively less likely to kill someone than I was when I first got there.

  “Thanks for staying with me, Prospect. I know Scythe didn’t put you on babysitting detail, so why did you stay?” Trigger was one of the few people I remembered from when I was in the club before. He was a prospect at the time, but it was nice to see him moving through the ranks so easily. I liked him back then, and he seemed to be just as level-headed as he was before. He was a great choice for Road Captain. Riptide, on the other hand, definitely did not earn his title.

  I stared at my prospective brother for a few minutes, leaning against the doorway for support. I hated to see him in such bad shape. Besides the broken leg, he had also cracked his collar bone, and fractured two ribs. The doctors wanted to keep him in the hospital for a few weeks so he could recover and start learning how to walk again.

  I’ll kill Riptide for doing this shit to him.

  “You’re a good man, Trigger. Most of the club seems like a bunch of fucking hot-headed drug addicts that only care about themselves, but you, you bleed brotherhood like it’s supposed to be bled. Besides Scythe and Cipher, I don’t see many of the other brothers having that same mentality.”

  Trigger shook his head and groaned. “Shit went south when Dutch got sick. He stepped down and it was like the cockroaches came out of the shadows. Scythe does his best to keep shit in line, but it’s really Guerrilla and Switchblade running the show. The only reason I’ve stuck around this long is because I promised Scythe that I would always stay by his side. We are in this fight together, brothers until the end.” He tried to hold up his fist but groaned when it hurt his collar bone. “I think I’m gonna go to sleep, but you should head out. I don’t want you to get in any more trouble than you already are.”

  “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

  Trigger smiled. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I want to. We are in this fight together, brothers until the end. Get to feeling better, we need you back on your bike as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll probably end up driving the cage from now on, my leg is fucked. Cipher will probably take my place. He’s a good man, too.”

  I nodded. “There’s so few of us left.” I started to walk out the door when Trigger called out for me.

  “Hey, Specter?” The fact that he was calling me Specter and not Prospect meant that I had gained some sort of trust or respect from him in the last few hours we spent together.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for beating the shit out of Riptide, that jackass had no business being out on the ride today. I saw him snorting some coke earlier with one of the sweetbutts. He was coked out of his mind.”

  “Fuck, I thought he looked high.”

  “Yeah, he was; now get the fuck out of here. I can’t get better if I’m talking to your ass all night.”

  I chuckled and left his room, closing the door behind me.

  Shit at the clubhouse was definitely not okay. Whatever Scythe was allowing the club to get into was leaving everyone vulnerable. Having to stand by and keep my mouth shut while Scythe allowed the club to go to rat shit, killed me. I was more loyal to the club than half the guys who’d been in it for years.

  The Devil’s Armada needed some new blood, and their Tail Gunner needed to be stripped of his rank and replaced. Riptide knew jack shit about protecting his fellow brothers. He was too busy scanning the road for his next piece of ass. He almost got us killed out there today and if he had been watching the road instead of the chick walking her dog, Trigger wouldn’t have ended up in the hospital and still riding down the road with us tomorrow.

  Speaking of tomorrow, I was dreading it. I knew whatever Switchblade had in store for me was going to be bad, probably even hazardous. He didn’t give two shits if something was safe or should be cautiously done. That asshole only thought about himself and didn’t care who he had to step on to get there. I definitely was in for a shit storm tomorrow, but if I wanted to stay in this club, I was going to have to bite my tongue and do what
ever he asked. It was the only way I was going to stay in the Armada and protect Faith at the same time.

  Switchblade came up behind me and gave me a hard push. “Get to work, Prospect, we got a boneyard you need to clean.”

  If I showed any resistance, he’d fucking get me kicked out of the club, especially after what happened last night, so I reluctantly got up and followed Switchblade outside. The boneyard was the club’s chop shop. They bought spare bike parts and used them to fix up their choppers when they started to go wonky. A few guys I didn’t recognize were working on a car inside the garage.

  “Riptide, Goonie, let me introduce you to your new shop bitch. Have him clean up whatever you want around here. Hell, have him lick your boots if you want. He’s a prospect. I expect you to give him extra shit for fucking up your face, Riptide.”

  Riptide glared at me. His right eye was massively swollen shut and a dark purple-black color. His bottom lip was busted, and I swear I made his nose turn ten degrees to the left. He flipped me off, and I blew him a kiss in return.

  Fucker

  Switchblade turned toward me. “You can start by moving all those engines to the other side of the yard.” He pointed to a pile of junk chopper engines that has been there for as long as I can remember. He then pointed to a corner on the opposite side of the boneyard with his bony middle finger. I noticed he had the word “fuck” tattooed on one side of his finger, and “you” on the other.

  Classy.

  The engine pile had only gotten bigger over time, and there’d never been any reason to move it. Each engine weighed at least thirty-five pounds. This was definitely a shit punishment for any prospect, but I guess I deserved it.

  “It will take me all day to move that much metal by myself,” I grumbled.

  “You better get started then,” Switchblade laughed. “You have until the sun goes down, otherwise, you get to scrub the toilets with a toothbrush and then brush your teeth with it. I’ll have you know that Ice has been known to splatter the sides of those things with his massive dumps. I bet his shit won’t taste much different from what you’re used to, you seem to be fluent in shit-talking.

  I rolled my eyes and Switchblade caught me. He immediately charged towards me and got up in my face, pressing his forehead against mine in a threatening way. He wouldn’t get away with that shit in the real world, but here, I was the prospect and he was the VP. I couldn’t touch him without repercussions. I was lucky they didn’t kick me out for kicking the shit out of Riptide last night.

  “Did you just roll your eyes at me, Prospect?”

  “Yes, I did. I rolled my eyes because you’re threatening me with grunt work that fraternities punish college pledges with.”

  Switchblade sneered, his top lip curling in an unflattering way. “Keep it up and I’ll figure out more shit for you to do. You won’t last another day if you keep feeding me that defiant attitude.”

  Switchblade walked off, leaving me alone with the pile of metal sitting against the side of the building.

  Riptide walked over to me, spitting at the ground near my feet. “You better watch your back, Prospect, because the first time I get you alone, you’re dead.”

  I turned toward him, unfazed. “You can’t kill someone who’s already dead inside, asshole. So fuck off.”

  Riptide walked off, leaving me alone to move the engines.

  One by one, I lugged the heavy metal off of the pile and moved it to the opposite side of the boneyard. Riptide and Goonie watched me from the garage doors, snickering when I ended up struggling with a particularly heavy engine and dropped it in the middle of the yard.

  “That motherfucker is gonna kill himself,” Riptide yelled loud enough for me to hear. “And when he does, I’m gonna tap dance on his mother-fucking entrails.”

  “Nah, I think he’ll be fine,” the guy introduced to me as Goonie said. I didn’t know much about him other than he wasn’t part of the club. He’s slightly round with dark mocha colored skin that had blotches of a darker color ink weaved over him like an intricate quilt. It was hard to see what kind of tattoos he had because his arms were so dark that the ink blended into his skin color. Upon closer inspection, I realized it wasn’t ink at all, it was grease and oil from working on vehicles.

  I think I need glasses.

  Goonie looked to be about twenty-two. I think he was hired as a mechanic and helped Riptide around the shop. He didn’t look like he had any interest in the club other than working on vehicles.

  Wiping my brow, I stared at my babysitters and glared at them through my sunglasses, wishing I could fuck Switchblade up for giving me such a labor-intensive job. I underestimated how heavy engines actually were and carrying them all by myself had my muscles and forearms burning after only a few minutes.

  By noon, I was dragging ass, barely able to walk a few steps across the yard without stopping. Switchblade would come outside every few minutes to see his dirty work firsthand. I hadn’t made a very big dent in the pile since he gave me the task this morning. Every time he came out, he would smirk and comment about how weak I was, and how I would never be a part of the Armada under his watch. When he came out for the fifteenth time, I lost it.

  “Why don’t you take a picture? It will last longer,” I yelled, struggling to get a heavier engine across the yard. I threw it on the pile and made the long trek back to the pile of engine parts.

  “Why the fuck would I want a picture of your ugly mug, Prospect? Move faster, if you keep this pace up, you’ll never finish.”

  I was about to argue with him more when Faith and her beat-up Buick pulled through the gates of the boneyard. There was a high-pitch screech coming from under the hood, and I bet my left nut that it had something to do with a belt being loose. The left rear tire was a bit off kilter so as she drove across the gravel, there was a strange thunk sound coming from the rear of her car.

  My eyes trailed after her, watching as she parked her car near the clubhouse and exited the vehicle. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was wearing a black tank top and dark acid wash jeans that clung to her ass in all the right places.

  Damn, she looked good today.

  She waved at me, and I waved back, smiling even bigger when I noticed Switchblade glaring at us both.

  Switchblade punched my arm, leaning in so his lips were close to my ear. “She’s fucking mine, Prospect. Don’t get any stupid ideas.”

  I looked over at him and allowed a coy smile to slither across my face. “Feeling threatened, are we?”

  Switchblade invaded my bubble again. “Watch it, Prospect.” He was about to swing on me, when Scythe stepped outside.

  “Prospect, stop dancing with Switchblade and come here, I have a task for you.”

  I knocked my shoulder into Switchblade and walked over to Scythe.

  “What’s up, Prez?”

  “I need you to run an errand for me. Faith’s busy with shit at the bar, and I’ve got some club business to tend to, so I need you to take this lunch over to the assisted living center and give it to my dad.” He handed me a paper bag and then shoved a leather cut at me. The title Prospect was proudly displayed underneath the familiar logo of a skeleton head with horns, flanked by two choppers, and surrounded by flames. I missed my cut—I missed it fucking bad. “Even after what went down last night, you’re still a part of the Armada, Specter. You need to make sure you wear your colors, that way everyone knows what club you belong to. There may be times that I’ll ask you to take it off and go incognito, but this is a simple assignment and I want people to take you seriously out there.”

  I take the familiar leather out of Scythe’s hands and almost shed a tear. Seven years I’ve gone without displaying any colors on my back, and the weight of that realization feels like a hundred pounds, or it could be the fifty or so engines I just got finished carrying across the boneyard that have made my arms feel like jelly.

  This was the one time I was thankful that I had on sunglasses and no one could see t
he tears pooling in my eyes.

  “I’ll wear it with pride.” Deep down, I was glaring at the demeaning prospect patch sewn into the cut. I wasn’t a fucking prospect; I was a Tail Gunner, and I earned that title.

  Scythe nodded, shooting off some quick directions to the assisted living center his dad was staying at. “Once they see your cut, they’ll know you’re supposed to be there. Don’t stay too long, Prospect; you still got engines to move for Switchblade.”

  “Is moving engines really a task that needed to be done?”

  Scythe laughed. “No, but with what happened yesterday between you and Riptide, and what you said to Switchblade about his cock size a few months back, I think he needed this one. If he gets too out of hand, I’ll get on to him, but until then, just do as your told.” He placed a twenty in my hand. “Go get yourself something to eat while you’re at it.”

  “Do you want me to take my sled or ride in a cage?”

  Scythe looked at me strangely

  Fuck. I did it again. It’s hard to stop talking about something that you’ve spent your whole life perfecting.

  “Take a cage. That way his food stays warm, and you can give those arms a rest.” He throws me a set of keys and points to a brown 1968 Toyota Crown parked next to Faith’s car. I remember the car well; it used to belong to Dutch before he passed it down to Scythe when he turned eighteen. Scythe absolutely loved that car like it was his own kid. When we weren’t riding, we would ride around town in Louise like we were driving a Maserati. “Go ahead and take my car, but make sure you take care of it. It’s a classic.”

  I gave him a quick nod and headed to the vehicle, only looking back when I heard the door to the club open and shut behind me. Faith was standing there glaring at Scythe. “I told you to take him his lunch.”

  Scythe turned toward her and shrugged his shoulders. “That’s what I have prospects for.” He didn’t wait for her to answer; instead, he pushed past her and reentered the compound without saying another word.