Sherlock was close enough to see what Ronin had exposed. Lakota’s face was a bloody horror, and his neck and chest were soaked a deep crimson. His hair looked wrong; Sherlock couldn’t make sense of that.
But Ronin could. “They scalped him,” he muttered. Then he sank his hand into his back pocket and pulled out a neatly folded red bandana.
When he reached toward Lakota’s face with it, the Chief said, “Don’t—” but he stopped when Ronin ignored him.
As a group, through some communication beyond word, all of the Horde stepped forward until they had surrounded Lakota, the stretcher, the bearers, the Chief of Police, Hoosier, and Ronin.
With steady, careful, gentle strokes, Ronin wiped Lakota’s face.
Whoever had killed him had carved a symbol into his forehead. A trident with a Latin cross for a handle.
“The Immortal Sinners,” Sherlock muttered.
“The Leandros,” Hoosier snarled at the same time.
The Chief’s head swiveled between Sherlock and Hoosier. “You know that mark?”
As one, Sherlock and Hoosier said, “No.”
And the Chief sighed and gave Hoosier a long look. “Whoever did this killed your brother hard and slow. Maybe the boy, too—I don’t think he’ll make it to the bus.”
“Jerry’s still alive?”
“Barely. The paramedics are working on him, trying to get him stable enough for the ride. But it looks like Mr. West here had their attackers’ devoted attention. I could really use your help. If you know anything—”
“Lakota,” Ronin said and raised his eyes to fix on the Chief. “He is Oglala. A warrior from Pine Ridge. He was supposed to be home tonight to see his family. They expect him.”
Lakota had planned to break off from the rest of the Horde and take a few extra days because Sturgis was only two hours from the reservation he’d grown up on and where his family still lived. Ronin was meant to ride with him.
The Chief turned his attention back to Ronin. “He keeps tradition?”
Ronin nodded. “His family will want him home. He would want to be home.” He turned to Hoosier and gave their President a long, poignant look.
Sherlock knew what was being said between them: Ronin was asking that Lakota be buried with his blood family on the reservation, not in a club burial in California.
Hoosier dipped his chin in a somber agreement.
Connor stepped up. “I’m going back for Jerry.”
Trick went with him, and they headed toward the woods. They were still in view when a uniformed woman came out of the woods and met them. They talked for a few seconds, and then all three headed back toward the Horde.
As Connor approached his father, his expression was weary. “She needs another body bag.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Hi, I’m Clark.”
With everyone else, Sadie said, “Hi, Clark,” and then settled in to listen to what Clark had to say. She herself didn’t speak often at meetings—in fact, she hadn’t spoken once since she’d gotten her one-year chip, which was more than two months ago and a new record for her reticence—but she always tried to listen to what other people had to say. She knew what it felt like to be speaking when no one was listening, and she never wanted to be part of a reason anybody else felt like that.
Gordon sat at her side, dressed in a snappy navy blue, three-piece suit and a grey silk tie. He always dressed well, but tonight he had dressed up. And with good reason. On this night, he celebrated twenty years clean.
Gordon no longer had a sponsor of his own. His sponsor—his one and only—had died a few years before. After a long-lived bond like that, Gordon hadn’t felt that he could replace it. And so, instead, he’d eventually sought out someone to sponsor. He often told Sadie that being there for her kept his own head clear.
He’d asked Sadie to present his chip. So she was, in fact, going to speak at this meeting.
Clark finished his story of relapsing with coke the weekend before and sat down. Then Sadie squeezed Gordon’s hand and stood. As it had for her one-year anniversary, the chairs had been arranged facing a lectern. She went up and stood behind it.
“Hi, I’m Sadie.”
“Hi, Sadie.”
“You all know I don’t speak up too much, but today I have a very good reason to. I want to tell you about the night I first talked to the man who became my sponsor. The first time I ever talked here, I’d only been out of rehab a couple of weeks. I was scared all the time. I felt like I was walking on a barely-frozen lake, like every step could make me fall through this clean thing and land me back sticking a needle between my toes. That’s the only way I ever shot up—between my toes. It hurts like a fu—it hurts a lot. But I did everything I could not to let anybody know what was going on with me. So I didn’t leave track marks.
“Anyway, the weirdest thing about being out of rehab was that suddenly everybody knew about me. I’d been using for years without anybody knowing, and now everybody did. They all looked at me weird, even if they weren’t being judgey. But almost none of the people in my life had ever known me except while I was using. They didn’t know it, but it was true. After I got out of rehab, all of my relationships changed, like, overnight. So weird.”
She looked out at the heads nodding in empathy.
“I felt like a scared little bunny, like I’d been dropped into a world that I barely recognized. But I was determined to keep my shit together. I think mainly I was just embarrassed. At least at first, I think embarrassment kept me clean. But also, this was the only place I could go where people didn’t look at me like I was Imposter Sadie who’d been fooling everybody for so long.
“I talked about that that first night. I’d had a bad time with my dad, who is still really struggling with all this, and I had my phone in my hand, thinking about calling my friend who could hook me up with some Oxy. I’d gotten to the place where I was telling myself that a couple of Oxy couldn’t hurt, that that wouldn’t really be relapsing, that I just needed the edge off, just a little.
“I got so far as leaving a voice mail for my ‘friend.’ I was sitting in my car, waiting for him to hit me back, and then I decided to come here instead. I was still feeling really…well, I call it fizzy, when I really need some help. And I talked for the first time.
“After the meeting, this skinny old guy in a houndstooth jacket, black slacks, and a black silk shirt came up to me and asked if he could buy me a meal. I don’t know why I did it, because I more than half thought he was hitting on me, but I said yes right away. He took me to the Blue Lotus and got me to talk. We sat there for hours. It was the first time since I’d left rehab—no, that’s not right; it was the first time in my life—that I felt like somebody really heard me.
“Most of you know that the skinny old guy I’m talking about is my sponsor, Gordon. Tonight Gordon is celebrating twenty years clean. His own sponsor passed a few years ago, and he’s asked me to do the honors tonight. Gordon, you’ve kept me strong these past four hundred and thirty-nine days. You’ve been my sponsor and my friend. You’ve been more a father to me than my own flesh and blood. You inspire me. You are an inspiration and a role model.” Sadie sought Clark out and met his eyes. “You prove to those of us who are struggling to stay strong, who falter and then force ourselves to stand back up, that it’s worth it. That we can do it, too. I’m so honored and proud that you asked me to present you with your twenty-year chip. Congratulations.”
The group applauded. Standing off to the side, Gordon wiped his eyes with a neat white square of handkerchief, tucked it back in his jacket pocket, and stepped to the lectern to take the black-and-gold enameled chip and gave Sadie a long, hard hug.
He turned and faced the group. “Hello. My name is Gordon.”
“Hi, Gordon.” And then, almost as one, everyone stood and applauded again. Gordon bent his head.
It wasn’t her moment, but she felt proud nonetheless.
When he could speak again, the first thing Gordon did was
laugh. “Thank you, Sadie, for your sweet words. Couldn’t help but notice that you called me ‘old’ every chance you got, but I’ll let that slide tonight, smarty.”
While the group chuckled, Gordon looked over his shoulder and gave Sadie a wink.
~oOo~
The honk of the horn startled Sadie from her runner’s reverie. She had The Stooges blaring in her ears, but the driver of the car was leaning on the horn, and it got through. She stopped and turned, tapping the receiver in her ear to silence the music.
Fred Blake had pulled up alongside her. Leaning across the seat and smiling through the open window of his car, he said. “Sadie! I thought that was you.”
“Hey, Blake.”
She was sweating and breathing heavily—not struggling, but definitely not in a place to have a friendly chat—and she didn’t want to talk to Blake, anyway. She hadn’t seen him since that day at his place, right after the protest, weeks and weeks ago, and she didn’t want to see him now. After she’d left, she’d done some research of her own and decided that the odds were, in fact, pretty darn good that he had orchestrated, or at the very least exploited, the chaos at the courthouse. That wasn’t the way to change the world. Not the right way, at least.
Sherlock had been talking to her about ways to use her tech skills to make a bigger impact without putting people in harm’s way. She wasn’t nearly as good—yet—at writing or breaking code as he was, but she was a quick study, and his ideas made sense. He’d shown her examples of some real black hat stuff, though. She wasn’t sure if he did stuff like that, but if he did, then he was deeper than she thought she’d ever want to go.
Still, the thought of getting the big guys by their hanging gonads had some definite appeal. She’d been noodling around with writing a bot for a DDoS attack. Just a little one, just to see if she could do it. She was a ‘little outlaw,’ after all.
Since her conference at the FBI office, though, and the fallout from that, she’d been more nervous about trying it out. Maybe she in fact wasn’t such an outlaw.
What Sadie knew for certain was that she didn’t want to work with Blake anymore. She’d figured out that he was an ‘ends justify the means’ kind of person. She didn’t always disagree with that philosophy, but she certainly disagreed when it put people at risk. Gunfire at a supposedly peaceful protest? In a public square? On a weekday afternoon? Blake had to have known that people could and would be hurt. His reaction after he’d been released made it clear that he’d counted on it.
So she’d quit the group and ignored Blake’s continuing calls and texts.
But now he was smiling up at her like finding her had given his life meaning. “I’ve been trying to reach you. Hop on in. I’ll give you a ride back to your place.”
“That’s okay. I’ve still got a couple of miles to do.”
“It’s over a hundred degrees today. You’re gonna hurt yourself running in this heat.”
“I’m good, Blake. Take care.” She turned her music back on and picked up her run again. After a few seconds, Blake pulled away and sped down the road.
Sadie didn’t know why, but her heart beat extra hard for the rest of her run.
When she got back to her place, she understood her heartbeat. Her subconscious must have known that Blake wasn’t finished with her. Because he was sitting on the step in the sidewalk to her building, his arms hanging between his legs, the ragged hems of his green cargo pants dangling loose threads over his Birkenstocks.
She pulled up at the intersection of that sidewalk with the public walk parallel to the street. His Leaf was parked a few cars up. The street was mostly empty; Sadie spared a second to entertain the stray thought that the semester would be starting in a few days, and soon this street would be packed solid on both sides with parked cars.
“Hi, Sadie.” He smiled that oily smile again.
“What do you want, Blake?” She sighed and stayed where she was; it felt important to keep some distance between them. Another stray thought went through Sadie’s head. It had only been a matter of weeks since Sherlock had shown up here uninvited in similar fashion. The difference, however, was that Sherlock had not been unwanted.
But Blake didn’t want distance. He stood and sauntered over to her in his lanky, loose-limbed way. He walked like a marionette. She’d found it amusing before.
“You’ve been ducking me. I don’t know why. Like to talk about it.”
She shook her head. “I quit the group. No need to talk to you anymore.”
“Aren’t we friends?” He’d reached her; now he reached out and put his hand around her left arm. When his thumb rubbed over her scar, she wrenched her arm free.
“No, Blake. I don’t think we are. I don’t like what happened at the courthouse, and I think you had a lot to do with it.”
“Why would you think that?” He crossed his arms over his chest and gave her an earnest, almost innocent look, tinged with offense. But she’d learned what she’d learned, and she didn’t buy it. As Gordon had said, he was no Martin Luther King, Jr.
And Gordon had only googled. Using skills Sherlock had taught her, Sadie had dug a little deeper.
“I have my reasons. Look, Blake. No hard feelings. I just need to follow a different path.”
He grinned again. That grin had started to make Sadie feel deeply uneasy. “You know, I have my court date next month. Disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, unlawful assembly—the usual shtick. But my lawyer says they’re getting tired of me popping up all the time, and I could be looking at time. Right now, they don’t know you were part of anything. Somehow, they don’t even have a clear photo of you. I didn’t give you up. I could, though. I have lots of evidence that says you were an organizer. Wouldn’t take much to make it out you were a lot more than that. Maybe I could make my own situation a little easier.”
Sadie could feel her eyes widen as she stared at him, but she couldn’t make words come out of her mouth.
“All I need to keep my mouth shut is a little friendship. I like you, Sadie. I miss you.” He didn’t say more, but he moved in quite close, too close, and Sadie understood with clarity that he was making a move on her.
She stepped back. “You told me to run. You wanted me out of there. Why would you give me up now? And embellish on top of that?”
“You repaid that kindness with contempt. So I guess I’m not feeling so charitable anymore. C’mon, Sadie.” He stepped close again. “Don’t be like this.”
Again, she moved back, reclaiming her personal space. “Do what you have to do.” Her heart slammed against her throat. “But since that day I’ve made some new friends. The Night Horde. You know them?”
He frowned. “The biker gang?”
“They call it a motorcycle club. But yes. Exactly. I’m with one of them. And they’re all my friends. They look out for their friends. I don’t think they’d like to find out that you’re making threats.” It felt incredibly good to be able to say that. A whole crowd of outlaw bikers interested in keeping her safe.
“You’re with a biker?”
“Yes.”
“Sadie.” He said it the way Sherlock sometimes said her name: with exasperated disappointment. She hated it.
“Like I said, Blake. You can’t threaten me into being your friend. Or anything else. Do what you want. Just know that I have people watching my back now.”
He took several steps back, toward his car. “You’re not the person I thought you were.”
“And you’re not the person I thought you were. So we’re even. Have a nice life, Fred.”
She stood on the sidewalk until he was in his car and had driven out of sight.
Her heart was pounding again, but this time it was different. This time she felt like she’d just done something powerful. And she wasn’t alone. She kind of wanted to roar.
~oOo~
That afternoon, Sherlock called—much earlier than usual. Since he’d been gone, his habit had been to text an occasional note, nothing of much substa
nce, just a snip of what he was up to, and then call her late, after she was in bed, or around the time she’d started thinking about it. He liked to hear her voice at the end of the day. She liked that, too.
She hadn’t called him at all, though she’d texted regularly, replying to his, or telling him about her own day.
But it was midafternoon when his name showed up on her screen, and she answered with her heart thumping again, already guessing that something was wrong. Bike Week was over; he was headed home today. She hoped he hadn’t been in an accident.
“Everything okay?” was the first thing out of her mouth as she answered the phone.
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