by Evelyn Glass
Jules gritted his teeth, nearly dumping his own bike as he slid and scrabbled through a turn. He was riding suicidally fast, but he would be damned before Todd got away. As he skidded through another turn, he popped out of Todd’s dust cloud, seeing Todd’s bike in the ditch as he did so. He slammed on the brakes and nearly crash again as the front tire locked up on the loose ground. As he dismounted he could hear the roar of Marsh’s bike rise and fall as he battled his way along the dirt road.
Todd was lying under his bike in the ditch. He was conscious but unmoving. He looked unharmed, but then Jules saw the leg trapped under the bike, the bone sticking through the skin as he bled profusely.
“Help me Jules. My leg, it’s broken bad,” Todd begged.
“Like you helped Fish, Bell, Will, and Wade? Like you helped Boggs? That the kind of help you want?”
“I’m sorry, Jules. I messed up. I see that now. I’m really sorry.”
“Why? Tell me why, Todd.”
“Money. I’m almost sixty years old and I’m broke. I’ve got nothing. I just was trying to cash out before it was too late,” Todd gasped.
“You sold the club out for money?” Jules raged. “For fucking money?”
Marsh rolled to a stop. He dismounted a little slowly, but seemed to be moving okay.
“Damn, Todd,” Marsh drawled as he stepped up beside Jules. “That looks like it hurts. A lot.”
“Marsh help me. Please, won’t you help me? You and I, we were part of the founding fifteen. Remember?”
“Yeah. I remember. But that was before you fucked the club Todd. Before you started killing brothers. Now, you’re nothing but a pile of shit I need to scrape off my boot.”
“You’re finished Todd,” Jules said as he pulled his weapon. “You’re out of the club.”
“So just like that, you’re going to shoot me?” Todd sneered. “Then you’re no better than I am.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Todd.” Jules emptied the nine shot magazine of his Glock into the engine on Todd’s Harley. “I’m not going to kill you. I don’t have to. You’re dead already.”
Todd went even paler. “Wait! You’re going to leave me here? You can’t do that! There are cougars!”
“Yeah. And I bet you smell good the way you’re bleeding.”
“Marsh! Don’t let him do that! Better to shoot me!”
Jules pointed his gun at Todd’s head and pulled the trigger. Click. “Sorry, Todd. All out of bullets. But if you can get that bike off of you, and drag yourself out into the road, maybe someone will come by before you’re cat food. Or maybe not.”
“You mother-fuckers! You don’t deserve to wear the colors! I swear to god I will fucking kill you both! You will have to watch your backs for the rest of your fucking lives!”
“Meow,” Marsh said with cruel smile before he and Jules turned their backs on him and strolled to their bikes.
“I’ll fucking kill you!” Todd screamed, then screamed in pain, probably from trying to get the bike off of himself.
“You okay to ride?” Jules asked.
“Brother, I feel better right now than I have in a long, long time.” Marsh slapped Jules on the shoulder, grinning as the dust puffed from the impact. “Come on. We’re missing a party.”
EPILOGUE
Sunday afternoon, Rachel was standing beside Jules in the shell of the new clubhouse with a grin so big her face hurt. Everyone was in a festive mood. Todd and Gigolo had gone missing. Nina had gone to the cops, and even though there were a lot of questions, the four men that had given chase had sworn they had been unable to catch them.
While Todd and Gigolo were dealt with, the rest of Todd’s men were quietly stripped of their colors and sent on their way with the warning that if any member saw their face, or the face of their old ladies, anywhere in Forsaken 99 territory, they too would go missing. They had until midnight Monday to get their affairs in order and get out. Forsaken 99 had put a detail on each of the seven men to make sure they understood their guarantee of safe passage was a limited time offer.
“Considering that all the current officers are either missing or busy, as the highest ranking former member of the board, I present these colors to you, Julian Franklin Rivera. Wear them with honor,” Marsh concluded after Jules had taken the club oath. “Welcome back to Forsaken 99.”
Jules took the colors and slipped them on. They fit perfectly, as they should, since they were the colors he had been wearing for three years when they had been taken from him. “Thank you. It’s damn good to be back. Look, it even fits!”
“I think the first order of business is to elect officers. I need a second,” Marsh said.
“Second,” Spence called.
“For the office of President I nominate, Jules Rivera,” Marsh continued.
“Second.” Spence said almost before Marsh had finished.
“All in favor?” Marsh asked before the echo of the second had died.
“Aye!” the entire room roared.
“Motion is carried.” Marsh said formally, then handed Jules the President patch he had hidden in his hand. The entire process was done in less than five seconds.
Jules was floored by the outpouring of goodwill and didn’t know what to say.
“This is where you say thank you and tell us how you will do your best to serve the club,” Marsh suggested.
“I… uh… Thanks. I will do my best to do what is right by the club,” Jules stammered, still in shock at what was happening. “I need a second. I would like to nominate Clay Marshall.”
“Second!”
“All in favor?” Jules called.
Once again the walls shook with confirmation.
Spence was nominated for Sergeant at Arms, but declined, so that duty was passed to Eric, and Spence resumed his duties as the club’s treasurer.
“One more thing,” Jules said after Spence had been confirmed. “As my first action as President of Forsaken 99, I am dissolving the board. Never again will this club be held hostage to a few men. We are all brothers, and as brothers, we all should have a say in how this club is run. All in favor?” The room was quiet for a moment, the members caught by surprise and unsure of how to respond to the radical change in how the club is structured. “I said, all in favor?” Jules roared.
“Aye!” the brothers called back.
“Motion is carried. From this moment forward, every member of this club has an equal say in how it is run.”
“You realize that the board was put into place as a way to cut down on the petty squabbling?” Marsh said quietly.
“Better that than what we just went though.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
“Hey! Does anyone know what time it is?” Rachel asked as she stepped up in a chair.
Everyone looked to her. They knew the drill, but they didn’t know the surprise that she and Jules had worked up last night. Rachel looked back at them in mock disgust. “What are you, deaf? I said, ‘Hey! Does anyone know what time it is?’”
“It’s time to—” Jules began.
“Party!” the rest said, completing the ritual, but without the enthusiasm they normally showed for the line.
“In that case, I declare this bar… open!”
She hopped down from the chair and strode over to a table sitting with a black cloth draped over it where the bar would be. She and Jules had wrestled a keg system from her bar last night after she closed and brought it to the clubhouse. It was a lot of hassle, but today was worth it. She reached under the table and pulled out a tap and flipped a cold mug from a cooler onto the table.
“Who wants a beer?”
There was a moment of stunned silence before the cheers began.
***
“Do you think we can ever regain the trust of Vallecito de Grande?” Jules ask as he and Rachel shared a beer. They hadn’t brought enough mugs to go around so a few had to share. He didn’t mind. He would share all he had, all he would ever have, with Rachel.
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am. Just give the town a little time to see that Forsaken 99 is once again our gallant knights.”
Jules smiled. “Thank you, Rachel. Thank you for all you have done for the club. And for me.”
Rachel smiled then sat the mug on the floor. She pulls him down for a soft kiss. “I think it’s a pretty good trade. All women want to win the heart of her knight. Speaking of which.”
Rachel rose and walked to the table where the keg was set up and pulled her purse out. She smiled at Jules as he watched her dig in her purse. She then sat the purse back on the floor and sauntered over to him.
“I have something for you. I picked it up when I went to El Paso the last time.” She opened her hand to show him a stylized knight on horseback with a jousting pole. The silver pin sparkled in the light. “A little something to help you remember who you are and what you mean to me… and to Vallecito.”
Jules picked up the exquisitely-styled pin. He wasn’t given to wearing jewelry, but for some reason this pin spoke to him. “It’s stunning,” he whispered. “Thank you.” He pinned it to the breast of his colors. “I will wear it proudly.” He kissed her again, softly, slowly, then pulled back and stared into the infinite depths of her eyes. “I love you,” he mouthed.
“I love you,” she replied in kind.
She leaned into his side as his arm went around her, holding her snug as he tipped his head over and laid it against hers. The first order of business when the club met again would be to vote on making that pin the symbol of their club, to remind them all of who they were.
THE END
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LOGAN: The Fallen Thorns MC
By Evelyn Glass
I’m finally on the straight and narrow. But this girl makes me want to start sinning all over again.
It’s hard to make an honest living in a dishonest world.
But I’ve finally found my way out.
I’m not going back into the shadows, not for anything…
Well, anything except for her.
I’m not denying that I’ve done bad things.
Plenty of them.
Enough to keep my nightmares stocked ‘til the day I die.
But that was the old me.
I’ve turned over a new leaf.
Blank slate, fresh start, as they say.
Selena is the perfect new girl for the perfect new life.
But the things I want to do to her are far from wholesome.
I want to strip away that librarian façade and find the bad girl underneath.
Yank her hair back, make her beg, hear her moan.
The problem is, she wants a goody two shoes, not a criminal like me.
Oh well.
So be it.
I’ll just have to show her how fun the dark side can be.
Chapter 1
Selena
Working in a library is the best kind of a job a writer can ask for. It's always quiet, I'm surrounded by books - their adventures and mysteries and fantasies all wrapped up in the smells that hang between the pages - and it's hardly ever busy, which means I can put all that inspiration to good use.
I studied a degree in Language and Literature and I added Teaching by extending a year. A lot of my classmates had all gone on to become copy editors, linguists, people who believed their titles made them. I ended up in Branciforte Library in the triangle park in Santa Cruz. Of course, this place has internet access and wireless and printing options but that wasn't what drew me.
Sometimes I turned my back to all the modern technology and pretended it was still 1950 when the word 'library' was still what it defined and books were the key to life and the escape from it.
"How are things going, Selena?" Alicia's voice snapped me back to reality.
"Quiet, as usual, but I'm on top of things," I smiled. Alicia was one of those women who always looked immaculate. She only ate salad to maintain her waistline, wore two piece suits and went for a manicure at two o'clock every last Wednesday of the month during business hours. She didn't belong in a library - I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd never cracked a book in her life.
Her hair was an auburn this time with too much red in it - her hair dresser had probably convinced her it was all the rage now - and her lips were a shade redder than the hair was willing to tolerate.
"Of course, you're on top of it," she said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I can always count on you."
I smiled back at her and liked to think I managed to make it more genuine than hers. I wasn't loyal because of Alicia. I was loyal because I loved my job.
Alicia turned and teetered back to her office on her high heels. I watched her until the door closed behind her and the blinds turned so no one could see what she was doing in there. I liked to think she dropped her perfect mask and a failure showed its face.
I minimized the window with the book lists and opened up my manuscript. I was the perfect nerd. Behind the scenes, when no one was looking at the shy librarian, I was working on a book I dreamed would one day make the big screen. Of course, it was all wishful thinking, but it was a fantasy I could lose myself in, day in day out.
My book was about a murder, a mystery, a man who was worth dying for. Thrillers were hard to write but I was sure I could do it. I'd read enough in my life. I'd titled it The Coroner's Wife and I was stuck with the climax. This was where everything was supposed to come together.
Instead, my main character, Kylee, was cornered in a morgue with a gun pointed at her head and only dead bodies as witnesses and I had no way out for her.
Go figure. Writer's block was a bitch. It had been a quiet day, it was almost closing time, and I still hadn't come up with any kind of resolution for Kylee's dilemma. There were times in my life where I asked myself What Would Kylee do? I imagined how she would react. Kylee was everything I wasn't, after all. Sexy, seductive, clever, hard to get, and good with a gun. Her intuition was beyond comparison. Her flaws were that of a woman who searched for love and found a murderer instead - trust, loyalty.
I couldn't ask Kylee what she would do next because I didn't know. That meant Kylee wouldn't know, and if I didn't think of something soon the only thing Kylee would know was a premature ending to her story.
I sighed and rubbed my face with my hands.
The door to Alicia's office opened again and she popped her head out.
"Jenny can't make it to her shift tonight. Are you all right to fill in?"
I nodded. Why not? I didn't have anything to go home to and I could work on my climax some more. Overtime never hurt, either.
"You're a star." She disappeared back inside.
"One day I will be," I muttered in response. I read over the action scene again. It felt tacky. I stuck my hands into my hair. I wanted to make it big one day but if my writing looked like this? I groaned.
The sun was starting to set and I got up to switch on the library lights. We were open until eleven. After eight very few people came in unless it was raining and then it was only to wait out the weather. This was the best time for me.
I sat down again, huddled in the yellow dim light of the library, surrounded by books and my imagination. It was perfect. I started typing. I felt the cold metal of the gun against Kylee's head, the shivers that ran down her spine. I could taste her heart in her throat. She'd been running after this guy for weeks and she knew what he was capable of, but having a gun to your head felt like nothing she'd been able to anticipate. Her mind had gone blank, perfect for a do-or-die situation. Not.
I took a deep breath and I
wasn't in the warm library anymore but in the cold morgue with the drawers of human bodies all around me, the autopsy bodies solidifying under their plastic sheets. There was a scalpel to the side of the autopsy worktop I hadn't seen before. If Kylee could just reach out and curl her fingers around it before her brains were blown out maybe she could slice her way out of it.