Feeling self-conscious, and also just plain wiped out, Markus let himself fall slightly behind Brock. His brother’s solid bulk mostly hid him from sight, shielding him from those prying eyes, if only for the time being.
When he was close enough to speak without having to shout, Brock announced, “We’ll get started in ten minutes. No one bother Markus. He has had an extremely rough time. You’ll learn why when the meeting starts.”
A few impatient grumbles spread through the gathered crowd, rapidly turning into sighs of consent. Eyes filled with hungry curiosity honed in on Markus, spearing through him even as he tried to hide. He was a sheep amongst wolves, and they wanted to know what he was all about.
Brock turned, ignoring all the stares, the shouts of greeting from bikers who were still arriving on the scene. He reached out one hand to Markus, where it hesitated in the air like a bird frozen to death in mid-flight. “There’s a bench nearby. You can sit there.”
“And miss the meeting?” Markus protested. He knew he would still be able to hear. He could see the damn bench from here. He didn’t want to just hear, however. He wanted to see, to be part of this. There were three people in all of this chaos who had been the most involved and he was one of them. He deserved to be included.
“I’ll arrange it so you’re still in the mix,” Brock promised. His eyes glistened with a rare moment of understanding. “I promise.”
Even though he didn’t really want to agree to this, Markus was nevertheless aware of the fact he had no choice. Standing while waiting for the meeting to start, much less standing during the entire meeting itself, wasn’t an option right now. He could feel it, an uncertainty deep in his bones, weakening his limbs, his strength, his resolve.
“Fine,” he huffed. “I’ll go to the bench. But I don’t need you to walk me there like I’m an old lady crossing the street.”
He started off without waiting for a response. He wasn’t moving particularly fast, and Brock could have easily replied or caught up to him. The pack leader did nothing of the sort, for which Markus was thankful. He didn’t want to have to deal with any of this. The less things that happened to bother him, the better.
The bench Brock pointed out was located on the path that wove past the sculpture, about 30 feet away. Setting his sights on his destination, Markus lurched towards it. Wolves who stood in his way stepped back the moment he came near, like they thought his injuries might be catching. He ignored them and focused grimly on putting one foot in front of the other. His head throbbed. Black specks, much too familiar by now, fluttered around at the corners of his vision.
Just as he was nearing his limit, on the verge of sitting down in the grass and refusing to move another inch, he finally reached the bench. Grabbing onto the back of it with both hands, he steadied himself. Still holding on, he worked his way around to the front of it and then dropped down hard on the seat.
The dull pain in the back of his head spiked up to an ungodly, horrifying level as he thudded down on his ass. His teeth clicked together and he lurched forward, grabbing at his face with both hands. A low, wounded sound pulled up from his throat.
Let me die. Let this have killed me. Please. For fuck’s sake. I don’t want to deal with this for even another second.
The seconds passed, because seconds always did. Time staggered onward in leaps and jerks. The abominable pain in the back of his head finally faded away, enough for him to pick his head up from his hands and look around.
No one paid any attention to him at all. They weren’t even looking at him now. He was invisible to them.
He had been having quite a few intrusive thoughts lately, thoughts which lurched up out of nowhere as if summoned by a brain malfunction. He had one of these thoughts again while sitting miserably on that bench, waiting for the meeting to start.
He thought that Destiny would have come over to check on him. Destiny would have made sure he was okay.
The low murmur of curious wolves ended suddenly as Brock raised his voice to be heard. Markus tuned in for a moment, long enough to realize Brock wasn’t saying the usual meeting words, before tuning out again as a result of sheer embarrassment. To have accommodations be made for him like this felt awful. He should have been better, more capable.
He should have tried harder. He should have fought better.
He should have killed that huge wolf bastard.
As per Brock’s instructions, the gathered bikers made their way over to the bench where Markus sat. The first few who arrived sat down beside him, squeezing their bulky bodies together. Once the length of the bench was taken up, the rest of the wolves started to line up.
The usual meeting formation was a ring, formed around Brock or whoever was speaking. This ring would be big enough to fit as many wolves as possible in the first layer, while also being small enough so Brock could speak at a normal volume. Other rings would form around the first, with wolves alternating their spacing so everyone could see their pack leader without difficulty.
This whole process took less than two minutes. At the end of it, the rings around Brock were the same as always, just in a different location and with a bench to break up the pattern.
At least there were other wolves sitting with him. That detail helped Markus not to feel too terrible. If he had been isolated, all alone, part of an enormous gap, he didn’t know how he would have handled that.
Brock stood in the middle of the rings, looking incredibly natural and at ease. He was a solid man, a firm man, bothered by very little. Sometimes, Markus got the impression his older brother was nothing but a moving statue.
“You’re all wondering why we’re having this meeting so suddenly,” Brock began. His voice was firm and steady, almost a monotone. Its level, unbroken cadence swept across the gathered bikers, silencing the few random snippets of conversation that had still been going on.
When Brock spoke, everyone listened.
“You want to know the reason. I’ll tell you the reason. This is a matter of security and emergency. I couldn’t just wait to see how bad it was going to get. I didn’t stop to see if there were going to be more incidents. There might not be. But logic tells me that there damn sure will be. I hope to hell that I’m wrong, but if I’m not, all of you need to be prepared.”
Brock occasionally turned as he spoke, making sure no one was having to look at his back for too long. When his gaze swept across the crowd, it never really landed on anyone in particular. Yet, everyone always felt as if they were being personally addressed.
“There has been another attack on us.”
He went on to recount the events as he knew them, as he had learned from Reuben and the doctors and police officers he had undoubtedly already spoken to while Markus was sleeping the fitful sleep of the concussed. Listening to his brother speak of the things that had happened with such cold, impassive clarity, Markus once again had to struggle with feeling disconnected. He could be listening to someone discussing the plot of a movie right now, sharing the facts of an interesting article they read in the newspaper.
As Brock shared what had happened, the surrounding bikers let out occasional murmurs of sympathy or rage or disgust. Some of them looked at Markus with renewed interest. He wasn’t sure if this was preferable to being ignored or not.
“The only people who could possibly be doing this are the members of Shadow Claws. They are either acting under the direction of their leader, or without his knowledge but in his stead. There can be no other culprit.”
The wolves snarled in response. The name of the enemy, combined with such a declaration, had their blood up in an instant. Whether or not what Brock said was true, they believed him.
“These attacks are too personal. They are too violent, too brutal. As you can recall, a knife belonging to none other than Destiny North was found at the location where Pockets was ambushed. This time, the attacker had a message he shared. ‘This is a message from Shadow Claws. Ralphie is ours, and so are you.’”
Markus
sat up a little. Those words were familiar, but they were also incorrect.
“That’s not what he said.”
He spoke the words before he even realized he’d opened his mouth to do so. Dozens of pairs of fierce eyes slashed through the air in his direction, pinning him to the bench.
No one was looking at Brock. For just a moment, the stony certainty of his face cracked in half to allow a core of pure doubt and confusion to shine through. Then the fissure was gone.
But Markus had seen it, and now he knew the truth. His confident brother, his steady leader, knew as little about this as everyone else.
“Of course it is,” Brock said. His voice wavered just the slightest. Markus heard it quite distinctly. Maybe a handful of others did, though they dismissed it immediately as a trick of the wind or something like that. Only a person who had spent endless years around Brock with the steady exposure of a family member could possibly have known how serious that little tremble was. “Reuben said as much. He swore to me that those were the exact words used by the attacker. You’re just confused, Markus.”
It was the exact message, just not the right words. There was a world of difference between those two things, filling Markus with an influx of doubt he felt might be just as big—or perhaps even bigger—than the quantity Brock struggled to hide.
If he had felt better, he would have kept speaking, insisting upon the fact that he was right. Except, maybe that wouldn’t have mattered a single bit. Maybe no one would have believed his word over the word of their strong, beloved leader.
“This is a declaration of war, as far as I’m concerned. Shadow Claws has always had it out for us. They’ve always skulked in the dark. It’s in their goddamn name. They want to sink their claws into what’s ours, drag it right out from underneath our noses. They have Ralphie. They have the baby. Who knows what else they’ll take from us?”
More snarling, more growling. Wolves, whipped into a fury, feeding off each other’s angers and emotions. The air was thick with a foul brew of emotions which all those in attendance felt as if it was their very own feelings.
“I’ll tell you what they’ll take from us! Everything! Our bikes. Our territory. Our members. Our freedom! They will enslave us!” Saliva sprayed from Brock’s lips with this last exclamation, blurring the words together in a drunken slur. Even if it was difficult to understand him, the intention was still clear. “We are two packs for a reason. We will never be one again, not as long as they think they can rule us. So, if they want a war, we’ll give it to them!”
Snarls burst out into howls, a crescendo of sound. The wolves sounded now like they were on the trail of some limping, bleeding morsel that would soon be theirs to destroy as they saw fit.
“We won’t attack back. Not yet. That’s exactly what they want, to wear down our numbers until we’re too weak to resist. No, we won’t give them that satisfaction. We’re going to bide our time, let them wear themselves down in their efforts. You can expect more gatherings in the future as I make plans.”
“Until then, we need some new rules. We will have daily patrols along the border between our territories. Our scent will obliterate theirs, a sign of what’s to come.
“Anyone who works or lives on the west end must make new plans or else be at risk of being cast out of our pack. If you’re going to be loyal, you’re going to be loyal all the way. We are east end wolves, from now until the day that this is all over.”
No one was possibly going to agree to that, were they? It was just absurd to think that people were going to uproot their entire lives just because one person told them to do it. Bikers they might be, but there was more to a biker’s existence than motorcycles.
Brock couldn’t honestly expect so many of his people to move to new houses, new apartments, just because he said so. They weren’t going to drag their children and spouses with them. They weren’t going to quit their jobs, steady and temporary alike, and re enter into the job market.
Were they?
Right now, that seemed like a very real possibility. Everyone was yelling, crying out some sort of phrase over and over that Markus couldn’t exactly make sense of. They pumped their fists in the air, stomped their feet, declared brutal war on Shadow Claws.
When they went home and calmed down, shedding the mob mindset of the crowd, they would see sense. When they started to make plans, they would realize how stupid this all was.
Wouldn’t they?
“Stop.”
For the second time this meeting, Markus found himself speaking without meaning to. His voice was thin and small compared to the chaos of the angry bikers and they didn’t notice him.
Reaching behind himself, he pushed against the back of the bench and tried to stand. His head gave an enormous throb, leeching some of the strength away from his legs so he just sat back down again. He contemplated giving up and staying down, since he was clearly in no condition to be doing much of anything. He should do exactly what Brock wanted of him, which was for him to sit quiet and look pathetic so people would feel sorry for him and be more likely to listen to the ludicrous plans being tossed in their direction. Then, he would go to the police and say what Brock wanted him to say.
For once in his fucking life, he needed to listen to someone who knew better.
Anger sparked inside him, and he shoved hard against the bench, lurching up to his feet. A snarl of frustration curved on his lips. He could feel how ugly the expression he made was, how it didn’t sit right on his face.
“Stop,” he said again, staring hard across the grass at Brock.
Brock just looked at him, his lips pressing together into a thin, harsh line. Warning glistened behind his eyes. “Are you okay, Mark? Do you need to lie down?”
“No, bro. I don’t need to lie down. And I don’t need to leave. You’re the one who needs to do something. You need to listen to me! This didn’t happen because of Shadow Claws. Reuben got the message wrong.”
Reuben wasn’t in attendance, for which Markus was thankful. The surfer had an ego, and his insistence that he was right wouldn’t help right now.
Then again, it probably wouldn’t have mattered. The mob mindset didn’t allow for much in the way of free thinking. The gathered bikers were feeding off each other, whether they knew it or not. It was a conga line of anger, circling endlessly on itself.
“You’re confused.” Brock repeated the same thing as before, this time stressing each syllable.
Markus ignored the message his brother was trying to send him. The others were paying attention to their conversation now, listening in. If he was going to convince them to reconsider, he would have to be very careful about it. “I don’t think this is something the Shadow Claws would do. It’s not like them. And I was there. I was attacked, too. Don’t you think I might know what I’m talking about?”
A few seconds of silence passed, during which no one spoke at all. Then, out of nowhere, a voice rose up like a sharp gunshot through the quiet.
“I believe him.”
Everyone turned to look in the direction of the speaker. No one could have been more astonished than Markus himself. He hadn’t expected much in the way of support at all, much less from this person specifically.
The wolf who had spoken was an incredibly opinionated, stubborn, and unpopular alpha named Isaac Reed. No one knew exactly what made Isaac tick, or what sent him into a fury. He was a timebomb, set to a countdown schedule no one had ever managed to figure out. He mostly kept to himself and said that he only stayed with the pack so he wouldn’t be on his own if trouble ever came his way; he said “if” but most people knew this was really a factor of “when”, so they kept their distance from him. If anyone could be a lone wolf while still being part of a group, it was Isaac.
Markus hadn’t ever spoken to the alpha before. Like everyone else, he went out of his way to avoid contact with the guy. And now, Isaac was voicing in favor of him.
Brock looked and sounded absolutely stunned, like he’d been brutal
ly shoved off his pedestal by an opponent he hadn’t seem coming.
And maybe that’s exactly what happened.
“What are you saying, Isaac? You can’t possibly believe him. He has no proof!” Brock abruptly placed his fist to his heart, an awkward sort of salute, the beginning of a coming declaration. “All of you know that he’s my brother. And I love him to death. But he was there. He was attacked. He hit his head. He has a concussion. He’s in shock. There’s no way we can trust what he’s saying until more time has gone by.”
At which point, Markus’ testimony still wouldn’t matter because everyone else would already be so deep into Brock’s plans they wouldn’t be able to walk out. They would be like all the animals who had wandered into tar pits in the distant past, fleeing from predators only to find themselves in an even worse place than before. Perhaps it was prophetic that so many of those animals that had been uncovered were none other than a species of wolf. Stubborn, determined creatures, all the way to the end.
Isaac shrugged. He looked like a shaking volcano, about to blow its lid. “Maybe listen to what he has to say before you decide that.”
Brock looked back and forth from alpha and omega, his eyes narrowing. He stopped and stood stock-still, glaring hard at Markus. “Then, get on with it, brother. You and I have other places to be today.”
His words invited honesty, but his eyes warned for Markus to be careful of what he said, telling him not to cause more of a stir than he already had.
Clenching his fists down by his side, Markus took comfort from the sharp sting of his nails digging into his palms. It was nice to know he still had a whole entire body, what with all his attention being focused upon his head these past hours. “When we were attacked, it was only by one wolf. It wasn’t this chaotic ambush where everything all blurred together. It was just one guy. I swear to you that I didn’t recognize him by sight or scent. He didn’t belong to Shadow Claws.”
“If Reuben swears to me and you discount his testimony, how am I supposed to believe you when you do the same?” Brock’s voice was incredibly, impossibly gentle.
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