by Tillie Cole
I fought the lump in my throat as I stared at them. Sia murmured in her sleep and turned, her arms searching for Cowboy. He brought her closer, sensing even in sleep that she was his. As they rolled to face each other, I saw the identical carvings on their backs. Every muscle within me tensed. Black and white. They’d been punished because of me. Because they were with me. Knives permanently scarring their skin, because they dared to love me. I’d known from the minute I met Sia, the moment I fucking fell hard for the bitch, that this would never have worked.
I was weak. Let my heart rule my head. I wasn’t being smart. I was being selfish. And now it had hurt them.
And it could have been so much fucking worse.
Indoors, where no one could judge, we worked. But outside, in the real world, we weren’t accepted. There would always be fuckers looking down on us. And it would be their words that wounded. That would stick like tar and feathers, suffocating us one by one until there was no air left for us to breathe.
They belonged together. It was time to free Aubin. Protect Sia . . . and learn to fucking walk alone.
They’re not mine.
“Au revoir,” I whispered and snuck out the door. I got my bike and rolled it down the road until the sound of the engine wouldn’t be heard from the apartment.
Climbing on the saddle, I ran my hand over the place that held my picture. As I pulled out onto the open road, I let my bike take me to a place I hadn’t been for too long. With glassy eyes, and hands shaking, I rode hard.
To confront the demons from my past.
And join them in hell, if that was the way it had to go.
Chapter Thirteen
Hush
The lights of New Orleans passed by in a blur. My knuckles were white as I gripped the handlebars. I’d barely stopped. My pounding heart kept me going. It was amazing—acceptance. Freeing everything from your mind. Freeing the people you loved from carrying you as their burden. The weight I’d carried for so long had lifted, leaving only a determined numbness.
Without Sia, without Cowboy, I had no family left, no one close to me that mattered. The club had suspended us. Even after I went into Mexico, I was under no illusion—after taking Sia as ours, we’d still be forbidden from club life by Ky. Mexico wasn’t gonna help us keep our patch.
The picture of my parents burned in my pocket. Every fucking memory I had of the small-town hicks came rushing to the surface. Of cunt after cunt hitting me, calling me, throwing shit at my parents as they held their heads high and defiantly walked through that bigoted town hand in hand.
I turned down country roads until a building came into view. Taking a back way that I knew wouldn’t be manned, I killed my lights and followed the path to the clubhouse that had once been my sanctuary.
My eyes lost focus as I walked through the door and marched down the hallway to the bar. It was late, the middle of the night, but I knew these fuckers. They’d all still be here, drinking and fucking. Titus had this place like a fucking frat house. Ox would never have tolerated that shit.
I threw open the door. The room was a cloud of smoke and whores. I searched the faces of my old brothers, until I heard a loud laugh and fixed my gaze on the one I was looking for.
“Hush?” I heard echoing around me. “Hush? What the fuck?” others spat as I pushed through the dancing sluts and made a beeline for the motherfucker I wanted to see. My hands clenched. My skin looked pale. I hadn’t checked a mirror, but I knew I would look like shit. I’d barely slept. Barely eaten... and I’d left my meds behind.
I didn’t fucking care. Only rage and an addictive numbness controlled me now.
It felt fucking good to let go. To let twenty-six years’ worth of anger fuel my every move. Knight’s move thinking—no direct path, just doing whatever the fuck my soul told me to do.
Right now it was screaming at me to do this. To feel this.
Grinding to a halt at Titus’s table, I didn’t wait for him to see me. I threw my fist into his smug fucking face, feeling my knuckles split as they slammed into his jaw. His head snapped back and he launched to his feet.
Brothers, some I knew, some I didn’t, gathered around. Metal music, the kind that blasted through your heart, pounding your pulse, echoed around the room. The minute Titus saw it was me, a slow fucking grin pulled on his lips. I threw my jacket on the floor, my “Austin, Mother Chapter” patch showing on my cut. I knew his gaze would find it.
“Back, traitor?” he spat. My simmering blood began to boil. I narrowed my eyes. He was a lying sack of shit. I knew it. He knew it. But as I caught the savage eyes of my gathering former brothers, I knew they all thought me the sack of shit who’d thieved right under their noses.
The black brother. Of course it had to be me responsible for the missing money.
Titus’s lip curled. He threw the slut that was pawing at his arm back by her head. He was a big fucker. And when his fist flew out, smacking straight into my cheek, I let the pain travel through me. I let that shit settle in my bones . . . and I let it take hold.
Let the fucker burn.
It felt real fucking good.
Turning my head back to my old prez, I smiled, tasting the blood he’d spilled when the edge of his fist had clipped my lip. But I didn’t lash out. I wasn’t here for that.
I was here to be ground down. Here to be torn apart. Here to forget who the fuck I was.
I was here to be fucking destroyed.
I wanted to take it. I wanted to welcome everything this asshole could give. I wanted his fists, his punches, his kicks . . . I’d even welcome his blade.
I longed for his gun.
Another iron fist came barreling my way. Fist after fist flew at me, until I could no longer feel my face. Until my eyes blurred with sweat, or blood, or both. And all the time I kept smiling. Not saying shit, as Titus’s face grew redder and redder. As the prick got a hard-on for beating the mix-breed he chased out of his den with lies and racist bullshit.
Another blow took me from my feet and down to the floor, but I didn’t cage my ribs with my arms. Instead I lay on the floor, open and fucking waiting. The noise of the bar became muted as Titus’s steel-capped toes kicked into my ribs. Fists and kicks rained down.
“Hush!” a distant voice called. I closed my eyes, encouraging the blood that was being spilled to seep onto the floor. My eyes rolled. My body became so numb that I didn’t even know which part of me was being beaten anymore.
But I felt two hands grab the shoulders of my cut and drag me from the room. This time I fought. I didn’t wanna be fucking saved. I wanted to feel this. Physically feel everything that had haunted me for the past nine years. “No!” I tried to protest, choking on the blood that flowed down my throat.
The sound of the bar faded to a distant hum. Somebody lifted me and put me into a truck. I slipped in and out of consciousness as we drove somewhere. I wanted to go back. Wanted to let Titus finish what he started.
The vehicle came to a halt. Suddenly, I was on a couch. My eyes tried to open when water splashed down my face. “What the fuck, Hush?” a voice snapped. “What the fuck were you thinking? Why you back? You got a fucking death wish, brother?”
My eyes closed again. I prayed that Titus had achieved what I’d bargained with Hades for—that I’d never wake up.
*****
The smell of coffee hit my nose first. I tried to breathe, but a slash of pain sliced through my head as I did, feeling like a crowbar scraping along my skull. I cracked open my eyelids, one at a time. The bright light from the window stung my eyes. I groaned when I tried to move. My hand moved to cradle my ribs.
I tasted blood in my mouth. I looked around the room. “Good. You’re awake,” a voice said, a heavy Louisiana accent lacing the words.
A face I hadn’t seen in a real fucking long time came into view: jet-black messy hair, tan skin and brown eyes. Eyes that, for many, had been the last fucking thing they’d seen—the eyes that delivered death.
“Crow,” I mutte
red, seeing my old VP, and hacked up what had to be a gallon of blood. He shoved some paper towels into my hands. I wiped my mouth, and Crow dragged me to sit upright. “Fuck,” I hissed, breathing through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, fucker. That’s what happens when you start a fight with a mean motherfucker like the prez and then stand there and let him kick your ass.”
Disappointment cut through me. I was still here.
I didn’t wanna be fucking here.
“I’ll say it again.” He handed me a whiskey. I didn’t usually drink much because of my epilepsy. Now, I didn’t give a fuck. I knocked the liquor back and held my glass out for another. “You got a death wish, brother?” Crow finished, refilling my glass. He sighed and shook his head, taking a drink directly from the bottle. “No idea what the fuck you were thinking. The asshole hates you. Said he’d kill you if you ever came back.”
“I banked on it.”
Crow took back my glass and passed me a glass of water. “Yeah well, this Good Samaritan here dragged you out from under his death blows before you ended up ground beef on the club floor.” He paused as I drained the glass of water. “Where’s Cowboy?”
“Texas.”
He frowned. “He stayed behind while you decided to come back and have a Manson-style reunion?” He shook his head. “Don’t believe that for a second. He doesn’t know you’re here, does he?”
I clenched my jaw, putting the empty glass on the table before I smashed the fucker in my hands. “He’s better off without me.” I looked around Crow’s place. I didn’t recognize shit. “You moved?”
Crow ran his hands through his hair. On his bicep, the massive tattoo of a crow with red eyes moved with his arms, appearing like it was taking flight. “Got a place no one knows about.”
My eyebrows tried to pull down, but my bruised face wouldn’t let them. “Right,” I said. I didn’t really care.
Crow abruptly got to his feet. My mind drifted off to Austin. Cowboy and Sia would know I’d gone by now. My chest was a fucking iron cage. It was the first thing I’d felt in hours. I quickly blocked it from my mind. Erased their faces so I wouldn’t have to think.
I was fucking sick and tired of thinking.
“When all that shit went down with you and Titus, it just wasn’t sitting right.” I stared at the empty glass, letting Crow’s words sink into my ears. “I started looking into your background.” I tensed, my eyes slamming to his. He glared at me. I heard blood rushing through the veins in my ears. “I’d only been at the club two years before you and Cowboy. You know we were always tight. But in reality, I knew fuck all about you. You never mentioned your past. Fuck, you hardly spoke at all.” He sat on the end of the table.
He pulled out the dice he kept in his pocket and rolled them in his hands. Crow was famed for rolling the dice. Helped him decide whether to let whoever he was intent on killing live or die. “Hades’ choice,” he would mutter, just before he plucked out their eyes with his hunting knife, or whatever other fucked-up punishment he had planned in his fucked-up head.
“When Titus accused you of stealing, I knew by your reaction it wasn’t you.” A small part of the wall I’d built around me crumbled as those words left his mouth. “I started keeping an eye on the money we were getting for guns.” He handed me the bottle of whiskey and a few pills. “Take ’em. They’ll take away the burn in your ribs.” I didn’t hesitate. I took more of the liquor, my head starting to feel a good fucking buzz. “We had less money than we should have. You were long gone, and I trusted every fucker else in the chapter. That only left one person.”
“Titus,” I said.
“Titus,” Crow agreed. “I got this place when it kept happening every fucking run. I needed a place he didn’t know about. A place where I could get a shit-ton of evidence on him. Enough shit that I could go to Styx.” He pulled on his hair, and then growled loudly. “I know it’s him, but I can’t get the evidence. And if I start asking questions, he’ll start sniffing around. If he finds out I’m onto him, he’ll find a way to get rid of me, like he did you.”
I nodded. He would. It was how Titus operated. Crow went to a dresser and came back with a folder. His fucking dark eyes fixed on me. His face filled with something that looked like sympathy. Then my fucking dead heart started lobbing into some kind of erratic beat in my chest, when he said, “I ain’t no hacker. But I know some people that can get a few things for me.” I wasn’t breathing, like I somehow knew that whatever the fuck he was going to say was gonna fucking change my life for good. “When I was looking into your past . . .” He threw the folder down in front of me. I stared at the brown card folder like it was a fucking atomic bomb.
His voice got quieter. Raspier . . . sympathetic. “I didn’t know about your folks.” Every cell in my body froze. Crow folded his arms across his chest. He pointed at my eyes. “I assumed from your eyes that you had some white in you. You’re too light to be fully black.” He ran his hand down his face. “I wanted to get this to you. But I didn’t know where you’d landed until recently. You’re here now, so I thought you’d wanna know.” My mouth got real fucking dry as the folder glared back up at me from the table.
“If it helps,” Crow said, “I ain’t got the best background either.” I stared at him blankly. He shrugged. “Way I see it, none of us in this life do. You’re in the Hangmen for one of three reasons: One, you’re a biker brat, born into the life of a cut. Two, like us, something real fucked up brought you here. And three . . .” He laughed and skirted his hand over his crow tattoo. “You’re just an out-and-out fucking psycho who loves killing, and fucking a different slut every night.” He grinned. “Or like me, I suppose you could be a messed-up mix of two and three.”
He pointed to a closed door. “I’m gonna catch some sleep. Was watching your ass all night, in case you decided to hitch an early ride across the River Styx. Decided I didn’t want that on my watch. As laid-back as the brother is, I didn’t wanna face Cowboy if his other half kicked it on my couch.” Crow walked to the door, stopping only to say, “There’s some fucked-up pictures in there. Assholes documented the whole thing for their newsletter or some shit. If you’re gonna look, just be prepared . . . It’s some fucked-up shit.”
“Crow,” I whispered as he turned the knob. He looked over his shoulder. “Thanks . . .” I didn’t say what for. He nodded, then walked through to the bedroom. When I heard the bed creak, I reached for the folder.
My hands shook as I brought it to my lap. I ran my fingers over the surface, leaving bloody streaks over the blank front. I swallowed, reaching for the whiskey that stood half full on the table. I downed a shit-ton then threw open the folder.
I choked on the liquor’s residual burn, hellfire surging through my veins as my eyes landed on a picture. Hoods. People wearing hoods of all colors, standing around a house . . . my house. My home. My heart beat faster as I looked at the window on the porch.
My teeth scraped over my split bottom lip. I held back a pained groan when I saw who was watching the Klan from inside the house.
“Mamma.” I dusted my thumb over her terrified face, leaving a bloody mark. Frantically, I rubbed the blood from her face with my shirt. It mostly disappeared, but I couldn’t erase it all.
Just like the memory of that night in my brain.
Red blurred the finer points of her face. Features that had started fading from my memory as time went on. Features I couldn’t hold on to no matter how hard I tried.
Men in white hoods held flaming torches in their hands. Some had signs. My eyes squeezed shut when I saw what was on them . . . 23/2 . . . pictures of a white woman and a black man with a red cross through them. I turned the picture over, only to read what had happened . . .
Tears fell from my swollen eyes and stung my cut cheeks. I turned my head away, staring blankly at the bare kitchen in front of me. A fucking scream lodged in my throat.
My mamma was meant to be out of the house . . . the fire was meant for me and my daddy, “the coon
and his mongrel.” They were there to “save the white sister from the voodoo snare of her black husband and abomination of a son.”
The next picture showed the fire. The faces of those igniting the wooden porch were unclear. Then the blood drained from my face. The next page showed all the perpetrators. I ran my finger over the faces of all who had been there that fucking night. Men I knew from the town. The mechanic. The diner owner. Even the police . . . the list went on.
White-hot fury settled over me like a blanket when I saw who had been initiated that night: Jase, Pierre, Stan, and Davide.
Jase had lit the fire. We’d seen them at the rodeo. A realization dawned. He’d known what he was about to do that night, as he looked me straight in the eye. As he’d fought me until I’d had a seizure. He’d known that, that very night, he was going to kill me.
I wasn’t sure I could keep going, but there was one page left. I took another swig of whiskey and read on. My grandfather’s face peered up at me from the paper. Betrayal like nothing I’d ever felt fucking took over every part of me. That prick. That motherfucking cunt. My hands shook. My body fucking vibrated as the words jumped off the page. He had ordered the fire. My grandfather. My mamma’s daddy had ordered the fucking attack on her home . . . on us. He paid the local Grand Wizard to kill me and my daddy. Aubin’s daddy had called him away that night to meet his mama, so he’d have been out of the house . . . I choked on fucking air. How could he do that to his daughter? To his fucking family?
And, fuck! Aubin’s folks had known too.
But it’d all gone wrong.
Because of me . . . because I’d had the seizure.