A Brother’s Salvation: The Sacred Brotherhood Book VII

by A. J. Downey

  “I’m a doctor,” he reminded me, and I rolled my eyes. That was pretty much the end of that conversation and we returned to the original topic at hand.

  “I ain’t lookin’ to hook up,” I told him and he sighed.

  “Then don’t hook up,” he said with a shrug. “But don’t expect me to handle this one for you. God love you, you’re on your fuckin’ own this time. You found her, and finders’ keepers, motherfucker.”

  I scowled. “I just told you, I ain’t lookin’ to hook up.”

  “So you ain’t,” he agreed. “I’m lookin’ for less than even that. Now leave this old man alone with his memories,” he said softly, and the hurt was apparent enough in his tone that all I could do was heave a heavy sigh.

  “Never wanted you, of all people, to know what that felt like,” I muttered and he gave a stiff nod.

  “I know, and I know it ain’t your fault, or the club’s fault, or any of that shit. We didn’t go lookin’ for trouble…”

  “Yeah, but trouble found us anyway.” I heaved a sigh. “I miss her, too, Doc.”

  “We all do,” he agreed with a battered sigh.

  A long silence ensued, comfortable despite how broken we both were. I sighed finally, one sorry son of a bitch. Sorry didn’t fix nothin’ though. Didn’t serve a purpose. Only action fixed this kind of hurt; my deal was, I didn’t want it to be fixed.

  “I tell you somethin’ without you thinkin’ I’ve gone crazy?” I asked.

  He lowered Chandra’s battered old paperback to his knee and balanced it on the fraying denim there.

  “What’s up?” he asked, scowling, about as serious as I felt.

  “You heard how I came upon this one, right?”

  “Data said she was at the cemetery, caterwaulin’ over Cell’s grave.” I gave a short nod. “I assume you were there for Tilly,” he added softly and I nodded again.

  “It’s been a while,” I said, “but sometimes, I catch the smell of roses, you know? Other times it’s like I can almost hear her.”

  “And this morning?” he asked.

  “Both, and I do mean it’s been a long time since I’ve had either.”

  “What, you think Tilly was tellin’ you something?” he asked.

  I nodded, “Still had to see if you might be interested in putting this one to rights.”

  Doc shook his head, “All you, José.”

  I reared back and looked at him hard. “Been a lot of years since you called me by my given name.”

  He sniffed and gave a shrug. “Seemed like the situation called for it.”

  I nodded and got up, rotating my shoulders to loosen them up a bit.

  “Where you goin’?” he asked with mild interest.

  “Guess I’m goin’ to get a haircut,” I said, and he snorted a laugh like he couldn’t quite believe me.

  “You’re serious,” he said incredulously.

  I nodded. “Only sure thing in life is that it’s always changing,” I said with a heavy sigh.

  “Really? I thought sure it was something about death and taxes.”

  I laughed, coming up short.

  “That too.”

  2

  Marcie…

  I froze. Which was funny, because he froze too, just inside my little one-woman-show of a salon door. Except, where adrenaline and a little fear coursed through me, he had a cock-sure attitude painted on his face; one eyebrow slightly raised, lips curved in an amused smile. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to be intimidating or not, but he was.

  Well, when it came to the attitude, two could play at that game and I did. Raising an eyebrow of my own and standing a little straighter, I asked in my sweetest retail voice, “Can I help you?”

  “Lookin’ fer a haircut if yer available,” he said.

  Right.

  “I’m available,” I said, my curiosity winning out. He ducked his head in a nod and came around the counter back to my work area. He took off his coat with the faded and dirty patches all over it, the smell of burnt tobacco wafting over. I wrinkled my nose at the offending smell of old cigarettes and was glad it was behind his back. I still wasn’t sure why exactly he was here and it felt awfully like I’d invited a venomous snake into my home – even though I didn’t live here.

  Still, I had to figure if he knew where I worked that quickly, he knew where I lived. It wasn’t exactly a stretch. I watched him hang his coat on the hook by the mirror of my station and met his dark eyes in that mirror. He stepped over and settled into my chair.

  I licked dry lips and said, “I’m going to tuck your collar, if you don’t mind.”

  “I ain’t here to make your job harder, you just do what you do, Sweetheart.”

  Okay…

  “Why exactly are you here?” I asked, rolling the collar of his black-and-red checkered flannel shirt under. I made sure it was tucked securely over the back of the faded black tee shirt he had on underneath it and pulled a fresh drape off the neat stack of them I had on a shelf between my station and the next. My salon had three chairs to it, but I worked alone. I didn’t need another stylist to make my bills or the rent on this old place, but I still had a “Help Wanted” sign in the window anyways. It wasn’t a struggle, but it was still a bit tighter financially around here than I liked, some months.

  “I told you, lookin’ fer a haircut,” he said and I braced my fists on my hips and arched a brow at him over his head. He chuckled and settled in.

  “Now, I know you aren’t trying to bullshit me none,” I told him, my Kentucky accent thickening.

  “Nope,” he said, grinning.

  “Good, ‘cause y’ can’t. I’ve raised two daughters as ornery as me and y’ can’t bullshit a bullshitter. I’ve seen and done it all.”

  He laughed at me and waved me down with a hand saying, “Wouldn’t dream of tryin’ to get one over on you, Mrs. Lanham. Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “It’s ‘Ms.’, thank you very much. I ain’t been ‘Mrs.’ anything going on three years now. Ever since I caught my girl’s daddy cheating.”

  “Good to know,” he said gently.

  “So what’s your name?”

  “They call me Dragon,” he stated, carefully looking me up and down in the mirror in front of us.

  “Folks call me Marcie,” I said. “You can, too. Now, what d’you think you want to do here?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Marcie,” he said and let out a gusty sigh. “Kept my hair long like this since I was a teenager.”

  “Uh-huh.” I sounded doubtful because I was. “Are you sure you want a drastic change?” I asked.

  His eyes met mine and the weight, the seriousness in them, struck me to my core. He said to me, “Life is full of changes, Darlin’. It’s most definitely time for a change in mine.” I felt my mouth go a little dry and nodded carefully.

  “Well,” I said calmly, even though my pulse raced. “This particular change won’t take much at all. What do you normally do for your hair?”

  It was a little bit of business as usual after that while we settled on what to do for him. He was a no-fuss-no-muss kind of a man, as was evidenced by the state of his hair. It was healthy for the most part, but he used a harsh shampoo and forget about conditioner. Who knew how long it had been since it had last been cut. I mean, he was a handsome man, but I was sure he would be much more… Well. I didn’t need to be thinking along those lines, now did I? Not when I’d first encountered him only this morning in the cemetery.

  “So, you mind telling me what you were doing this morning?” he asked, breaking the ice, so to speak.

  “Nothing I’d right like to talk about,” I said, and finished combing out his long hair, putting it back into a loose ponytail.

  “Well, then, what would you like to talk about, Marcie? Seems to me I’m going to be here a while.”

  “How about what were you doing there this morning?”

  “Visiting my wife,” he said succinctly. I gave one long, slow blink, both taken aback and in
a bid to buy myself some time to properly react. I mean, I didn’t know how to react.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, automatically, and scraping my bottom lip between my teeth asked, “You sure you’re ready for this?”

  “No,” he said softly, shaking his head slightly, his gaze locked on my face in the mirror. I got the impression he wasn’t talking about his hair and the look he gave me was so intense, so full of a silent disquiet, I had to suppress a shudder.

  “No?” I echoed.

  “No, so now’s as good a time as any to do it. Go on now, pull that trigger,” he said.

  I squeezed the handles of my shears together and cut crisply through all that thick hair. He grinned at me and said softly, “Attagirl.”

  “I’m not a horse or a dog,” I said tersely, but with a smile on my lips.

  He flashed a grin at me through his salt-and-pepper beard and I shook my head chuckling softly, wondering why in the world I was feeling so giddy all of a sudden, trying to remember how long it had been, when I’d last felt anything like it.

  “Better behave or I’ll shave you right down the middle,” I teased as I ran my fingers through his thick hair and shook it out. That garnered a laugh.

  “I believe you’d do it, too. I promise, I’ll be a good boy.” He winked at me and I felt myself blush furiously. I couldn’t remember the last time that had happened either.

  “Why don’t you come on over to the bowl,” I said. “Get you washed up so I can give you a proper cut.”

  He stood up and stretched, and wandered over with a slow and easy roll to his gait. I set a towel down to cushion his neck from the hard porcelain rim of the sink and had him sit and lean all the way back.

  There was a certain kind of intimacy when you washed another person’s hair for them. But in a salon setting, there was also a sort of an impersonal business-like divide between stylist and customer. With our light and teasing banter just a moment before, even though my hands went through the motions and did the job at hand, starting the water, checking the temperature, this felt different. Probably it was because I was so far left of center from where I usually was. It wasn't just over the heartache and grief I still carried over killing his man, but also because of the way he looked up at me now. Eyes were dark and glittering with calculation, slightly hooded as I worked above him.

  I wet his hair and asked if the temperature was all right. He gave a slight nod and murmured, “It’s good,” and I was relieved when he closed his eyes, and his expression became almost meditative, like so many people when they had their hair washed. I was sure I was no different when I had my hair done.

  Who knows, I thought dryly, if I do a good job, he might not kill me.

  My thoughts drifted to a fantasy movie I had watched with my two girls all while they were growing up and the line: “Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.” Except while it was a cute and kitschy line in a movie, the man whose hair I shampooed right now most likely could and would kill me for what I’d done a year ago.

  I’d gone to make my turn and had run smack into one of his club members on his motorcycle. He’d lain broken and bleeding on the pavement, had looked into my eyes and his final words would forever haunt me…

  “Should have looked twice. I had people to go home to.”

  “Marcie?”

  I took in a sharp breath and came back to myself. Inquisitive dark eyes, glittering cold and calculating, looked up at me and I shook my head.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Got a bit lost for a moment.”

  “You done getting that shit out of my hair?” he asked.

  “What? Oh, yeah.”

  “Good.” He sat up and I sprung to action, turning off the sink and scrambling for a towel.

  “Stop,” he said, and though he wasn’t loud, his voice was firm.

  I stilled instantly, and frowned at that. I wasn’t used to letting anybody boss me around, usually I was the bossy one.

  “It’s just a little water, and water never hurt nothin’. Now, let’s stop with the bullshittin’ and get down to business. Why were you at the cemetery this morning?”

  I licked my suddenly-dry lips and answered him truthfully, “Guilt, fear, heartache ‒ take your pick, Mr. Dragon.”

  He searched my face and said, “Most citizens wouldn’t feel that over killin’ the likes of one o’ us.”

  I recoiled in horror at first, but I could see his point. He wasn’t talking about me necessarily, though I was definitely ‘other’ as compared to whatever world they lived in because their world was most definitely not the same as ours. From what I knew, their world was a place of violence and blood. The stories of shootouts, madness, and mayhem painted the evening news in flashes of blue and red as policemen milled about shaking their heads over yellow-draped piles that used to be men.

  He stood in front of me, his hair dripping; streams of water slipped down the black hairdresser’s drape and his expression was softened with something akin to pity. I swallowed hard and he said, “Ain’t nothin’ bad gonna happen to you, Marcie. You got my word on that. I’m just curious is all.”

  “Curious about why I was in the cemetery,” I said, and he nodded.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, now you know,” I said, pursing my lips.

  God, I felt like I was having another full on melt-down like I had that morning. It was too much. One minute I was doing all right and the next I was swinging the opposite way. You’d think a woman in her fifties would have her shit together.

  He searched my face, his expression failing at ‘neutral’, curiosity apparent as he tried to decide one way or the other about me. Finally, he asked me, “You want I should go?”

  I blinked in surprise, and said, “Well, not like that, you don’t! Sit down and let me finish your hair. I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. I don’t know what my problem is. I sure don’t plan on charging you for being subjected to this hot mess.” I fussed over him and finally got a bit bossy when he wouldn’t budge. “Will you sit down?”

  He cracked a crooked grin at that, and with a single nod, went back to my cutting chair and sat down. I toweled off the worst of the wet and got myself together enough to focus on giving him a decent cut. I wouldn’t, I couldn't, send him out of my shop looking half-assed. That wasn’t what I was about and it never would be.

  “My son-in-law was in a bad accident last night,” I said, finally. “My girl, Devon, called me up out of the blue at two this morning to tell me he was going into surgery.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, and he sounded it.

  “I don’t know,” I murmured, heaving a heavy sigh. “Maybe it’s Karma.”

  “Don’t believe in it,” he said with a shrug.

  “Y’don’t?”

  “Well,” he hedged, “maybe I do, but not for people like you. Just for men like me.”

  “People like me?” I put my hands on my hips and demanded, “Now, just what is that supposed to mean?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. I arched an eyebrow and had some second thoughts on sending him out onto the street with his hair half-done lookin’ like a jackass.

  “Means it doesn’t happen to people like you, you know, nice and what society considers normal.”

  “Pretty sure society doesn’t have much to do with Karma, don’t you think? It’s what you done put out into the world, coming back at you.”

  “Then wouldn’t that mean your son-in-law done put something out into the world Karma disagreed with?”

  I’d resumed cutting his hair but hesitated, thinking about what he’d said.

  “I suppose that makes sense,” I murmured, finally.

  “You don’t mind me askin’, what makes you think you didn’t do the world a favor and that Cell’s Karma wasn’t comin’ back to pay a visit through you that day?”

  “That’s a horrible thought!” I cried and he met my eyes in the mirror; his were cold, hard, an
d glittering with intelligence that was downright frightening. I swallowed hard and blinked and asked, “What would even make you say something like that about your own man?”

  “I knew him; you didn’t. And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “I- I don’t know,” I stammered, at a loss for words.

  I closed my mouth, and focused on cutting, letting the conversation die for the time being. I was surprised to find that the silence we lapsed into wasn’t at all an uncomfortable one. I hadn’t expected that.

  To be honest, given what I knew about the club from the evening news and the swathe of mayhem and destruction they’d dragged through this town back in the day, him coming here like this, quiet and working very hard at not being intimidating? Well, he wasn’t at all what I expected from one of the likes of him.

  That turned the rest of my day into one full of deep thoughts and introspection.

  3

  Dragon…

  “Woah-ho-ho! What the fuck is this shit?” Reaver crowed as I walked through the front door of the club later that night.

  “I’ll be damned,” Trigger echoed in disbelief.

  “That’s so not right,” my son said over both their heads. He was standing by the table both Trig and Reave were sittin’ at, and had his boy flopped against his shoulder. Little man was out like a fuckin’ traffic light, drooling on his daddy’s cut. I smiled at the sight and remembered when it was Dray droolin’ against mine when he was a wee tyke.

  “Figured it was time for a change,” I said. “Don’t it make me look more distinguished?”

  “Makes you look like a fuckin’ citizen,” my boy groused and I chuckled.

  “Goddamnit, Dray! What did we talk about when it came to language in front of Stephen?” Evy walked out from behind the bar and smiled at me. “It looks good, Papa D,” she said affectionately, using my name we used for the kid. I honestly didn’t feel like a ‘grandpa’, but feel like one or not, I was one. Honestly never thought I’d live to see the day, always figured it’d be Tilly here and me long gone. Not the other way around.

  The pang of lonesome misery was sharp and immediate, but as each year went by, dulled off quicker and quicker. I didn’t know what to make of that, honestly; wasn’t sure I liked it. Just like I wasn’t sure about Dray and Everett naming their boy after her daddy, who was long gone… but, I had to admit, the name was growing on me quicker than the pain was fading. I was just glad they hadn’t named him after me.