by Snow, Nicole
Meg called after me, but I wasn't stopping.
I'd lost sight of the real mission for too long. Kissing Summer and sending her packing only reminded me of that, and I'd be damned before I let it fuck me over any longer.
* * *
“Joker, for fuck's sake!” Dust grabbed his pipe, blowing smoke in my face. “Knock it off. You're gonna fuck up the new silestone if you keep that shit up.”
Looking up at the Prez, I finally stopped slamming the blade between my fingers, faster and harder than I usually did. I sat at the bar with the brothers in our clubhouse, a little while after I'd gotten back and put Bingo down for a nap.
“Cut him some slack, Prez,” Firefly said, knocking back a whiskey shot. “It's too fuckin' dark for him to hit the range. He's gotta blow off steam somehow.”
We locked eyes. I had a weird understanding lately with the big vet who served as our Enforcer.
Wasn't so long ago I'd tried to tell him he was making a big fat mistake getting in so deep with that Cora girl. Fuckin' ship had sailed on that months ago, with him marrying her and knocking her up, the whole club taking out the Torches MC in the process.
Too damned bad the Torches were just one more distraction.
Our old friends fucked us over, coming after his girl for some shit debt her dead daddy ran up. They'd been the only thing keeping Atlanta outta the Deads' grip, and now the fuckers owned it about as hard as they had Seddon locked down.
“No honor in staying sober night, Veep,” Skin said, sitting on my other side. He passed me the bottle of Jack he'd been swigging. “Go ahead. This shit'll wash away the stick up your ass.”
I held the bottle, staring at the amber liquid, already feeling the sweet numbing fire before I raised it to my lips.
“No.” I pushed it back into the brother's hands, shaking my head. “Ain't the right time for Jack.”
“Aw, shit, Veep. What's the matter? Don't tell me you gotta be fuckin' sober to walk the dog!” Sixty's goatee twitched as he looked at me with a shit-eating grin, one man over from Skin. He slapped Crawl on the back like he'd just cut the best joke in the world.
I gave him that look. Shut the fuck up, Mister Comedian.
Took my sweet time folding up my knife. It never took more than a crazy look to shut these boys up when they threw their shit, and Sixty was back to nervously talking to the brothers, soon as I stood up.
I headed for my room, too fucked in the head to stir the pot tonight, much as I wanted answers from Dust about facing down the Deads. Fuck, I needed those answers soon, before I decided to suck face again with an old flame I needed to smother.
I only got to the hall before I smelled the Prez's tobacco trailing after me. “Hold it, boy. Where the fuck you think you're going? We barely get the whole crew together anymore with half of 'em running their asses off, and the other half fuckin' around with their girls.”
He grabbed me by the shoulder and swung me around. I looked into his cold gray eyes, trying to hold in my rage. Trying, and fucking failing.
“I know that look,” Dust growled. “You've got some serious shit on your mind. More than just the usual venom gnawing at your bones. Let's talk.”
Reluctantly, I let the Prez push me a little further, guiding me toward his office.
A minute later, we sat down and shut the door. My back pressed tight into the beat up chair across from his desk.
“Better start talking, Veep. This club don't need any more shit running under the surface with the big op coming together.”
“That's what's pissing me off, Prez. All this talk about taking down the Deads, doing deals with the Grizzlies and the Devils, and you haven't said shit about your promise.”
“The fuck?” Dust straightened up, blew out his pipe, and slammed it down on his worn desk. “What do you think I'm pulling, brother? Taking the fuckers down in their home state does everyone a solid. Club gets its money and flexes its nuts. Wrecks its biggest threat. I get Hatch's fuckin' head on a pike, and you get the bastards who murdered Piece and put Don in a fuckin' nursing home. What's missing here? Nothing!”
His fist came down. I stood up, rage flashing in my eyes.
Crazy as I was, I wasn't about to accuse the Prez of dragging his feet, fucking me over because his eyes were purely on the cash 'til now.
Prez's rage caught me by the throat and squeezed. He wasn't wrong – wiping out the Georgia Deads technically fulfilled his promise. The op missed the spirit of what he'd sworn to me that night, when I came in, ready to ride off alone, straight to certain death.
“You promised me peace, Prez. That's the word you used that fucked up night. Peace.”
It still smelled like bullshit coming outta my mouth. Had I been a fuckin' chump? How the hell was I ever supposed to have peace, really?
Even tearing the throats outta those sick bastards wouldn't put Piece back together again.
He was gone. Lost to Heaven or Hell. Forever.
“Yeah, I promised, all right,” he said quietly, standing up. “You know I keep 'em, too.”
Prez stepped out from behind his desk, walked straight past me, and flopped down on the torn leather couch in the corner. Our gaze never wavered.
He was about ten years older than me and still a fuckin' mystery. He'd survived more death than any other brother, had his damned throat slashed just a couple months ago, and walked away from it alive.
And that was probably nothing when he'd been born in this club's blood.
The prince who was always meant to lead it when his old man's gavel fell. Nothing on the pirates he'd said he fought overseas, an ex-captain in the U.S. merchant fleet.
“Boy, you're looking at me like I fucked you over, but you know it ain't right. Every brother here respects you, Joker. Every brother loves you. You're walking around town every damned day with a chip on your shoulder the size of fuckin' Jupiter. You do that shit with the knife every damned day. And every fuckin' day I'm watching, waiting for you to slip, carve off a perfectly good finger.”
My jaw clenched. Dust's voice came steady, cool, and calm. He leaned forward, folding his hands.
“You need to pull your head outta your ass, VP. You wouldn't be wearing the patch if I didn't trust you to have some reason mixed with the psycho killer bullshit. You were smart enough to listen to me that night you showed up, asking for blood, telling me you'd go for it yourself. That would've been suicide – we both know it. You were patient. You were fuckin' smart. And now, it's almost time to get what I told you. Everything I promised.”
“I ain't getting shit, Prez. Let's face it. Even if we kill some fuckin' animals, yeah, I'll feel better for a few hours, maybe a week. But once the party's over and I finally sober up, cleaning their blood off my knife...Freddy's gone. Grandpa's fucked. My hometown's a goddamned shithole that won't ever welcome anybody with a patch again – not after the dirty shit the Deads have been pushing there. Putting the motherfuckers down won't un-fuck anything.”
“That's why you gotta reach inside and feel your own guts. Don't fuckin' wait for the final battle, Joker. Do it sooner. Now. 'Cause if you wait, we'll win like we always do, and you'll still walk away empty fucking handed.” He leaned forward a little more, his steely eyes boring into me. “Bullets and knives only kill the demons outside you, Joker. The shit underneath your skin – that's where you gotta use your brain, your heart. You're the only one who can.”
“Prez –“
“Shut up and listen for a second, brother. You think you're the only one who misses Piece?” He paused, just long enough for the anger to burn hot in my eyes, trying to ignite the gray ice in his. “Fuck, Joker, you miss him most. Fuck yeah, you do. But goddamn if the rest of us don't. You were both hell on wheels. Both of you made this club stronger. Shit, both of you were there when my old man bit it. Your votes gave me the gavel, helped keep this club in one piece when it'd been rocked to its fuckin' core.”
What the fuck was he saying? Trying to pretend he understood? Trying to tell
me he could even fuckin' fathom one tenth of the deep, hellish loss ripping me to shreds every goddamned day I opened my eyes?
No, no, hell no.
“He was my brother!” I roared, standing up, halfway to hallucinating Freddy sitting next to him, smiling on that damned beat up sofa. “By blood, by patch...maybe by fuckin' soul. They took him, Dust. Tore his fuckin' head off, ripped his eyes out. I walked in and saw my grandpa on the floor. His poor heart snapped like a twig when he saw those holes where Piece's eyes used to be. I gotta watch him flinch a little every fuckin' time I see him, and he looks me in the eye, knowing he's still seeing Freddy when he looks at me.”
Big goddamned mistake, spewing the poison like this.
It flashed before my eyes, a hundred times more intense than most days.
Even now, it was all a sadistic blur.
My hands on grandpa's chest, pumping furiously, fighting the molten tears in my eyes.
Freddy's fuckin' severed head sitting on the bed, taunting both of us, worse than seeing my own dead face looking back at me.
Summer walking in, freezing up on the spot, horror in her eyes. Didn't take me two fuckin' seconds to tell her to leave.
And Summer...fuck.
Fucking goddamn it to hell! That's what this was all about, wasn't it?
I couldn't lose anyone else. I couldn't lose her again.
Fucking couldn't! I'd pushed her away because I had to, get her the fuck away forever.
“Joker,” Dust said, sitting up straight in his seat, his pipe in one hand. “Look at me.”
Took forever to finally do it. I fucking hated how well he knew me, knew every man in this club, like the father most of us never had.
“Time to be straight. It ain't just Freddy or the war with the Deads eating you like a case of fuckin' termites.”
“No!” I growled, still denying it, even when it caused my damned heart to beat a million miles an hour.
“Yeah, fuck yeah. I know about the girl,” he said. My head jerked up, and I looked at him like hot death given a human face. “Skin told me the other day. So did Lion. Said she worked you over good, got you madder than a fuckin' hornet, so pissed off you covered the bitch in mud.”
Goddamned Skin. Fucking Lion.
I'd put our Treasurer into a coma for ratting me out, and that scruffy motherfucker, Lion, back in one.
“Honestly, makes me wanna crack your jaw for fuckin' with a lady like that,” Dust snarled, holding the flame on his skull-tipped lighter to his pipe. “Especially when she's the only one who's been able to get shit outta you for three years, only one besides that damned dog.”
“She's nobody,” I said coldly.
Yeah, another lie.
“Bullshit,” Dust said, taking a long pull on his pipe. “She's somebody you fucked and didn't wanna walk away from, or somebody who fucked you over. Maybe both. Point is, she's pulled your pin like a damned grenade, and that's dangerous as a knife to the throat when this club's about to swing its nuts harder than we did in a generation.”
“So, what, Prez?” I growled, shaking my head. “What the fuck are you telling me to do?”
“Ain't telling you shit, brother. You're a grown man. That's for you to figure out. You can put two and two together. You know what you've gotta do already. That's not coming from me. It can't, and it won't.” He held the pipe, tipped his face up, and blew a strong string of thick smoke toward the ceiling, where it hung like a thunderhead.
“Straighten your shit out,” he growled. “Clear your head as much as you can before we ride into Georgia, guns blazing. Do whatever the fuck it takes so that when we return to Knoxville with bags of bloody Deads colors in our saddlebags, you can live with the brothers. Live with yourself. Live with us again, Joker, without acting like you're three goddamned seconds away from ramming your blade into some poor bastard's throat.”
Sage advice. Wise, ruthless, and completely fuckin' infuriating.
“We done here yet?” I said, standing up.
“Yeah. Don't let the door hit you in the ass,” Dust growled, clearly disappointed.
I headed out, and went straight for my room. Last thing I wanted was rejoining the brothers drinking and laughing at the bar.
A couple girlie voices cut through their chatter. Somebody's old lady must've shown up. Or maybe a couple bubbly sluts for the single guys, bitches who'd just as soon as ride a brother's cock for a jolt to their pussy and a hopeless stab at being a club wife.
One big, happy ass biker family.
Turned my stomach.
I couldn't relate. I couldn't fuckin' have it.
The last three years, I'd drank and fucked and joined in the big roasts with all my boys. But I didn't fuckin' smile. Didn't feel it when the men I'd sworn my life to sat around me, didn't even feel it when I was buried in some bitch to my balls, hate fucking her in between swigs of booze.
Riding helped. So did the dog at my feet, who came over when I dropped on my ass, rocking the shitty bed. Bingo whined, forcing me to scratch his head.
Aw, fuck it. Today, I sat up, leaned down, and hugged the greedy bastard.
He licked my face once before I pulled away.
I loved him because he didn't ask stupid fucking questions, or bust my balls over the past. He loved my sorry ass because he didn't know any better. Didn't understand how permanently fucked up I'd gotten three summers ago.
Damned dog knew too much about me. Only one person walking this planet really did.
I'd pushed her away. Fuckin' flung her outta my life like she'd burn me down.
Just like I swore I always would if I ever saw her face again. Summer had the only face in my memory as cruel and unforgettable as Freddy's.
I couldn't get her killed, letting her back, and I'd make her hate my evil ass more than she already did.
But fuck, why had she come back? Nothing made sense about it.
Why the hell had she tracked me down after three damned years of nothing?
Bingo whined again, licking my hand, just like he could sense the hell roiling my mind. I looked down into his sad, dark eyes, smoothing his fur 'til I saw that tail wag.
“Don't worry about it, boy. I'm just flushing some shit.”
Some shit. Yeah, fuck me.
If only it were as easy as pulling a damned lever.
No, ever since she'd come to me, not once but fuckin' twice, pushing deeper into my world at Grandpa's home...I'd been the one who walked away covered in shit.
Five more minutes, I sat with my dog, the same nightmares stewing in my brain. Decided I only had two choices.
I could throw the dog a bone, walk out to the bar, and steal a bitch from Lion, Tin, or Sixty for the night. I could try for the millionth time to bury my ruined life and wake up with another hangover and an awkward little girl hanging around my neck.
Fuck that. It hadn't worked before, and it damned sure wasn't gonna start.
Option B was even more fucked up, but at least it'd be a stab at something different, instead of the same old shit that never worked.
Right about now, Option B sounded pretty fuckin' good, because it meant answers.
Standing, I patted the big dog's head, then walked him over to the cushion in the corner, laying him down for the night. “I'll be back in a few hours,” I said, reaching into the cabinet and pulling out a treat.
A couple minutes later, I had my helmet locked on my head. My bike droned steadily on the open road.
Normally, the purr comforted me, no different than every other brother wearing this patch.
Didn't do a damned thing for me today except ratchet up the tension, add to all the bitter questions sticking like gum in my throat.
I had to find Summer. Had to ask her why the fuck she'd come back. Had to know why she still wanted these lips on hers when it was totally obvious she'd kissed a dead man who wanted nothing to do with her.
Something about all this didn't add up. And if I couldn't figure out my own shit, like the Prez wanted, t
hen at least I'd take a crack at hers.
* * *
Seddon never paid anybody shit. Knowing how harsh our old hometown could be, plus seeing the rusted out shitbox she drove, I knew she had about two places she could be staying with her money, if she hadn't blown town already.
I came up empty handed at the first place, a run down dump just a few blocks from the Heel. The ratty looking bastard at the front desk told me nobody named Summer Olivers ever checked in.
Second motel, a strong runner up for cheapest shit stack in town, turned up the same damned thing. An old, middle aged woman with a thick European accent told me there wasn't anybody with Summer's name staying there, even when I asked her twice.
What the fuck? She'd either changed her legal name – not too fuckin' likely – or somebody else had brought her here on their dime, under their name.
The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up.
If she was here, then I definitely wasn't leaving empty handed.
I'd walk the whole damned lot, crawl up on that cracked balcony, and look through every fuckin' window if I had to, just to find her.
Figuring out what the fuck was going on here wasn't just about me anymore. It might easily be club biz, too, and I never defaulted on the patch.
I'd parked my bike next to the front door. Decided to take it down the next street, put it out of sight, in case there was anybody here waiting for the Pistols with a bullet. I was rounding the corner, pulling out toward the road, when I saw the shit in the bushes.
A greasy looking sonofabitch crouched down. Hiding. A rifle in his hands, perched on his shoulder, one eye on the sights.
The laser cut straight through somebody's window. How bad did I want to bet that was Summer's?
Revving my engine told me. I didn't stop, didn't think, didn't second guess as I plowed my bike straight into the shitty crop of trees.
Fucker never saw me coming. He screamed when my front tire rolled over him. I punched the brakes, stopping me from skidding into the wall.
I jumped off, holding my arm over my mouth, fighting smoke and dirt kicked up in the air while I went for my nine. Had to kick a couple branches aside before I felt the gun on the ground.