…
Remy
I killed the headlights as we drove into the ghost town.
The Channingstone Company was an old brick manufacturing plant that died in the early twentieth century. It was around long enough for a small town to spring up around it. Looked like the Knights had set up in the old post office, one of the few brick buildings left with a roof that hadn’t collapsed. A few bikes were parked out front.
We pulled through to scout the area then double backed to a nearby gas station. Star dialed Nachomama’s for me, and I told Santiago to let Bones know there was a present waiting for him in Channingstone. My rough estimate was that we had about an hour before the Lobos showed up.
When we got back, I parked us about a mile away, so we could walk in silently. We’d set up in the saloon across the street and waited for the Lobos to show up, then we’d take the doxa lab down with them. That was if they didn’t shoot us on sight. It was risky, but that was the only real play we had.
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.” I wasn’t too fond of the idea of storming the place with just the two of us, but I’d at least have to check it out to make sure there wouldn’t be any surprises in store.
“You’re not going in there alone, are you? I thought we were waiting for the Lobos first.” Star’s eyes went wide with concern.
“I’ll need to tell Bones what they’re up against when they get here, or they might think we set them up.”
Star frowned, begrudgingly nodding as I started turning away.
Then I stopped. Something was eating at me. “If something happens, I’ll need you to take down anyone who goes for his bike. Are you up for that?” I couldn’t leave without knowing for sure.
“What do you mean, if something happens? What could happen? You’re just going to look, right?” Star worried.
“Answer the question.” I let my tone diffuse. “Please.”
“I think so,” her words were drenched with doubt.
“Not good enough. This is it, Star. You’re fully in it now. There’s no going back. Sometimes that means you’ll be the one to pull the trigger. I need to know that you have my back, no hesitation, no doubt. Can you do that?” I repeated the question.
Star breathed out, letting the heaviness of the decision rest fully on her shoulders. She nodded, confirming her determination by the glint in her eyes. “Yes. I can.”
I kissed her on the forehead and jogged across the street. I was asking a lot of her, but that was the only way I was walking out of there alive if I was spotted. It was hard to trust someone you cared about when that trust revolved around the person you needed most in this world putting him - or herself in a dangerous situation. One misstep and that person was gone. That kind of trust was extremely difficult.
I was a hypocrite through and through. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her ability or her constitution. I couldn’t bear putting her in that much danger. I didn’t trust myself enough to let her go. It was what I struggled with the most throughout all this. I didn’t want her here at all. I’d keep her locked away in a safety deposit box until everything with the Lobos and Veins were over... if I could. I put Star behind cover across the street because, for now, it was safer.
Had she been an MC brother, I would’ve had her come with me to watch my back without a second thought because as hard as it would be to bury them, I knew I could do it. I didn’t have it in me to ever put Star in the ground.
I just didn’t.
I peered in through a window when I got alongside the building. Two Mexican girls were doing the cooking. I frowned at the collateral. When the Lobos got here, they'd kill everyone to send a message, including the women. No one cooks on their turf without them sanctioning it. Period.
Through the next window, I saw two guys playing cards on a small table in another room. Their AK forty-sevens leaned against the wall next to them. They were from a Veins support club. I didn’t know them personally, but if they volunteered for this gig, then they deserved whatever they got.
I hated the doxa business, the fallout was always messy. People always got hurt. In the end it wasn’t ever worth it, that’s why the Veins always stayed away from it. Until now…apparently. I shook my head at how far we’d fallen.
There were four bikes out front, so where the hell were the other two guys?
The sound of giggling hit me like a fucking freight train.
Dread washed over me, and my heart sank. I didn’t need to look in the window to confirm my fears, but I did anyway. Kids. Four of them.
Shit! That complicated things immensely. I slumped back against the wall and glanced over at Star, but it was too dark in the saloon to see her. This was a good thing because she’d be safer that way. I selfishly still wished I could see her face as I figured out how I was going to handle this.
Was she my moral compass now? I hadn’t realized how much I had begun relying on her for emotional support. I wasn’t used to needing help, but knowing she was there warmed me regardless. I felt even more confident in walking the razor’s edge, knowing she was beside me.
Maybe I could talk Bones into leaving at least the kids alive. Yeah, and maybe their fairy godmother would send a pumpkin carriage to pick them up. It was a nonstarter. I knew how that would shake out. They’d be witnesses to murder.
And there was only one thing that happened to witnesses.
I forced myself to think of the bigger picture. This wasn’t my problem. I was here to save my club, that’s it. I wasn’t a saint, and I’d be lying to myself if I thought otherwise. No, I decided, slowly backtracking my way to Star.
Stick to the plan. This isn’t on you. I’d wait till the Lobos arrived, and we’d deal with it as it came.
I’d always had trouble with kids. They always struck the loudest chords in me. It always killed me when I’d hear about the twisted shit that happened to them. Whenever possible, I always stayed away from kids, altogether.
I didn’t mind kids. I even liked doing the Christmas charity runs and giving out presents to them. I just understood that the longer I spent around them, the higher their chance was of getting hurt. Doing what we did with the Veins wasn’t something you punched out of at the end of the workshift. No one turned off his phone. It just didn’t happen. Didn’t matter that you took off your colors to eat dinner, fuck your girl, walk your dog, whatever.
When that call came in, you answered it. And sometimes the shit you had to do followed you home afterwards.
Of all the shit that burned away at my conscience and the dark horrors that kept me up at night, having the blood of some innocent kid on my hands fortunately wasn’t one of them. I did that by staying the hell away from them. That’s why I was so torn to go inside that house. If I did—I couldn’t predict what would happen. There were so many variables.
One of the bikers stepped out of the post office to piss.
Light scuffling and childish yelps and laughter ate away at me. No women, no kids, no innocents if it could be avoided. Goddammit, we had rules! My resolve to not get involved eroded. If nothing else, I needed to find out why these sick fucks had kids here.
“Hands up, asshole,” I whispered to the pissing biker. In a flash, I had a hand over his mouth and my knife to his throat. His dick hanging out, he pissed all over himself as I led him around the corner to a spot that was a little more concealed. “You say anything that’s not an answer to my question, and I’ll bleed you. Answer slowly and quietly now. Why are there kids in there?” I took my hand away from his mouth, but pulled my knife tighter against his neck.
“Don’t do this, you mother—”
I covered his mouth to muffle his scream, then rammed my knife hilt-deep into his shoulder. The biker lurched from the pain, but I held him in place. “I thought I was pretty clear about the rules,” I hissed, extracting the blade and touching the sharp, wet edge to his throat again.
“Insurance,” he choked. “Keeps the girls working and gives us a bargaining chip if the cops can’t be bribed.”
Smart plan. Evil, but smart. Any empathy or loyalty I might’ve had for these guys just doing what their club asked of them just evaporated, replaced with cold certainty.
I covered his mouth and stabbed him in the side of the neck then jerked the blade across, turning his throat into a blood Pez dispenser. He flailed, but I had him. There were several ways I could have done it, but I couldn’t find it in me to make it less bloody and painful. These men were rabid dogs that needed to be put down. I held him for a few minutes till the writhing stopped, and shoved the body forward to keep myself from getting shat on when the rest of his bowels released. I dragged the dead Knight a little further away so it wouldn’t be accidentally stumbled upon. Blood stained my hands and shirt. It was inevitable.
It was always so goddamned inevitable…
A dot of light blinked on over the horizon, followed by several others. Headlights. Lobos would be here soon. I immediately knew what I had to do. How could I look Tee and the others in the eye and tell them I wanted a better club if I let a room full of kids get gunned down?
Star would have to understand.
I slowly opened the back door and entered what would’ve been a package-sorting area converted into a cooking station. Long tables were cluttered with partially-filled, five-gallon water jugs and hoses going in every direction. The shelves were covered in metal alcohol, paint thinner, and acetone containers; plastic bleach and drain cleaner bottles; bags of rock salt, lye, and coffee filters; plus a shitload of incidentals like batteries and matches. There was also a gas generator noisily whirring away to power the lights, burners and blenders in the building.
The two women that were cooking probably thought I was just another Knight and didn’t dare to look over at me. They wore gas masks, frantically measuring and adjusting things.
As I passed them, they startled at the blood on my clothes. I put a finger to my lips then motioned for them to leave the way I came in. Fear gripped them, but they stopped what they were doing and headed for the adjacent room thick with the laughter of their children. I waited patiently for the women to grab their children. The guy I’d killed was probably the one that was tasked with watching them as they worked. One of them stopped me and spoke quickly, but I couldn’t understand her. She looked like she was from a Central American country, but wasn’t speaking English or Spanish. Maybe Portuguese? Either way, despite her frantic warnings, I didn’t have time to linger. The Lobos would be here soon, and I needed to make sure there were no other kids kicking around anywhere.
I took out my gun and advanced slowly.
Old floorboards creaked with each step toward the room with the card players. The further away from the generator I walked, the more I heard country music from someone’s phones being played in one of the several rooms up ahead.
The door swung shut as the women and kids left behind me. The resulting slam from the heavy swinging door stopped me in place. I cursed under my breath knowing someone must’ve heard that.
“Hey!” another man called from a room past the card players.
I crouched against the wall and raised my gun for when he rushed out to see what was going on. No one came.
“Grab me a beer on the way in.”
I exhaled, slightly lowering my piece. Okay, that was one man up ahead and one in the card room plus the dead man outside made three. There were still four bikes out front.
Where the hell was the last Knight?
Realizing there was no backdoor way into the card room, I holstered my pistol and strolled in like I belonged there.
“Hey,” I said, walking up and taking a seat across from him at the table.
The one biker in the room sat in the chair next to the small room’s window, facing the door, and was shuffling cards when he saw me. There was a look of uncertainty on his face as to who the hell I was. He knew I wasn’t a Knight because I wasn’t wearing my vest, but I looked like one of them and moved with such easy confidence that there was probably no cause for alarm yet.
Had the Steel Veins sent the Knights backup and nobody told him?
“What are we playing?” I asked stretching my arms then cracking my neck. I sighed at the long day we’d all had and motioned for him to deal me in.
“Texas hold ‘em,” the Knight began cautiously. As he started dealing to me his eyes slowly trailed down to the fresh blood on my shirt. He abruptly tried to stand and go for one of the assault rifles leaning against the wall a few feet away. I shoved the card table into him as hard as I could, catching him in the stomach and knocking the wind out of him. I leaned in and drove the table further, pinning him against the back wall before he could reach the AK. Chairs fell over and cards flew everywhere.
There was no hiding the noise now.
We both went for our pistols, but I beat him by a hair. He dropped it and put his hands up in surrender. The look of recognition dawned on him as I flipped the table on its end to act as a shield between us and the room’s only door.
“Poet—” the Knight began, but I punched him in the face, cutting the word off. He knew who I was or had heard about me enough to guess. When his bloodied head snapped back, I put up a finger and made the shhhh sound.
“What the fuck’s going on back there?” called the biker in the front-most room. His foot falls grew louder as he reluctantly walked toward us.
I recognized his voice as the man who’d asked for a beer earlier.
“You assholes better not be fucking any of these bitches. If we don’t hit our deadline—” The biker stepped into the threshold wearing the smirk of a man hopeful to see a little action despite his warning.
I put a round through his forehead, dropping him immediately.
Two other kids in a nearby room screamed at the sound of the gunshot. They'd need counseling after this, but they'd survive. As long as I got to the last biker in time before Bones showed up.
“Two of you pricks playing cards and one dead asshole on the floor there. Where’s the last one?” I pushed my hostage out of the card room, then scanned the area. No one behind us. We crept toward the front room which was originally a retail counter where people paid for stamps and dropped off their packages.
“It’s just the two of us. I swear!” the Knight lied.
I had no time for subtlety. I put a bullet through the back of his knee. Bone fragments and ligaments ripped through the front of his jeans. He screamed, his body threatened to collapse, but I jerked him back up.
Not yet, I thought. You don’t fall until I say so.
“You’ve only got one knee left. I don’t recommend fucking around.” The faint, yet ever growing rumble in the distance reminded me that I was running out of time. “WHERE IS HE?”
“I don’t fucking know! I swear! I fucking swear! Last I saw him he was in the kitchen with the girls, I swear! Don’t fucking kill me.”
I stripped him of his gun, then put another round through his other knee. This time I let him fall. He screamed and writhed on the ground, but he’d survive. He was of no more use to me, but I didn’t want him running off either. I stepped in and kicked him in the face, knocking him out cold in case he any ideas of grabbing those AKs.
I’d keep this asshole alive for Bones to deal with. I was sure the Lobos Prez was going to have some questions as to why they were cooking on their turf. Being from a sister club, this Knight wouldn’t know any more about the ins and outs of the Veins’ operations than the Lobos mole already did.
I had to get the kids out now, or they weren’t going to make it. Everyone recoiled as I barged into their room. There was a kid, probably six or seven, and a two-year-old. They were both crying, huddled against their mothers, terrified of what was going to happen next.
What a shitty situation. It made me even more furious at the assholes that ran this place. I wished I had more time to torture those fucks, but getting the innocents out before the Lobos showed up was more important.
“Anyone speak English?” I asked, drawing only blank stares. Shit. “Espanol?”
One of the ladies nodded hesitantly.
Thank fuck!
“Toma, estoy estacionado a una milla al este de aquí.” I tossed one of the girls my key and told them where the car was. I’d wanted to get the car back to the church, but it wasn’t in the cards. I’m sure Father Jameson would understand. God’s plan and all that. “¡Anda!”
I had just started walking them out toward the back exit, which was a straight shot down the short hallway through the cook room where I came from. Just before we all reached the exit, the door was suddenly kicked open, and a figure frantically rushed in.
“We got company! Strap up—” It was the last biker, and he was visibly shaken by the arrival of the Lobos. His words cut off when he saw us.
That’s why I couldn’t find him because he was outside! I berated myself for the oversight. That was a fucking newbie prospect kind of mistake.
You’re getting rusty, Remy.
From where he was standing, the last Knight could see the bodies in both the card room and at the end of the hallway. His eyes narrowed at me as he snapped the AK he had slung over his shoulder.
“¡Abajo!” I yelled. I was half-a-second faster and got a round off just before he opened up on us, but I missed the mark.
A half-second more to aim, and the biker would’ve had a hole drilled into his face. My pistol was no match for an assault rifle, so I threw myself into the girl and her kid, and we tumbled behind some cabinets out of the Knight’s sight line.
The cover didn’t matter.
Bottles shattered, cans fell, burners fizzled and popped as a dozen rounds blasted through the thin wood like it was made of paper. If I had to put money on it, I’d bet those bullets punched through every wall in the building. The sound of screaming buzzed all around me.
I slid out of cover enough to lick off several more shots at him. I clipped him, but it was nothing but a flesh wound. With no reason to stick around, the last biker slipped back out the door he’d just came in through and headed around the side to get to his bike.
It was up to Star to stop him from leaving now. If he got away, word would get out that not only was I alive, but that I was helping the Lobos. The whole plan would be fucked.
I had to trust in Star, in the woman that she’d become. It wasn’t the first time I had to place my fate in her hands, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be the last. I fought the binding feeling in my gut and trusted her to pull my sorry ass out of the fire.
The kids were sobbing in a pile. When I got to my feet, I saw why. The woman I hadn’t pushed to the ground had taken three assault rifle rounds and didn’t look like she was going to make it.
I did what I could.
It was hard to look at. I shook my head and told myself that it was unavoidable in a war. I felt for them, but sometimes really bad shit happens. If the rest were going to have any chance of making it out alive, then they needed to leave right now.
That’s when bad became worse.
The dying woman was rolled over by her friend. The woman had tried to shelter the small boy she was holding when she was hit. The bullets tore right through the both of them. Half of the poor kid’s head was gone.
“Jesus... Fuck!” A crushing feeling descended on me with weight I’d never felt before. It staggered me against the wall like someone kicked me. I struggled to stay on my feet. Of all the terrible things I’d witnessed, I’d never seen a kid die. I turned away and closed my eyes, but that horrible sight wouldn’t leave my mind. A vicious wave of despair rolled over, punching holes in all my justifications.
My life felt like a carnival house of mirrors, everything was so familiar but suddenly so wrong on every level. Past and present events played in my head like a tattered, poorly edited film reel. The sound of bikes closing in should have been Veins, not Lobos. This doxa lab in New Mexico should have been our guns warehouse in Oklahoma. The illegal labor should have been paid and alone, not enslaved with their fucking kids present.
What the fuck was I doing here? How did everything get so fucked up? This wasn't part of the plan.
I didn’t kill him directly, but I might as well have. I couldn’t shake how damn responsible I felt for it. I’d heard about kids killed in drive-bys, and even seen a few crime photos. Being that removed from it, I could rationalize it all. I could weigh the cost of collateral damage against the gain of the bigger picture, but being here in person when it all went down was something else.
That kid’s lifeless body trembling, his brains splattered across the floor... There was no defense for that.
It was all too much.
I set this up, called in the big guns, leveraged their lives in this chess match against the Lobos. I was no better than the fucks that brought them here. I slid down the wall. The last remaining little girl was inconsolable as her mother hugged her.
They needed to leave this place. I weakly told them to go. Then begged them. Finally, I screamed it, shoving the woman and her daughter roughly toward the door.
The woman recoiled. Her frightened gaze peered through the mask I wore to see the demon I really was hiding beneath. In their faces, I could read the terror plainly. To them, I was no different than anyone else who’s taken advantage of them, seen them as an expendable workforce, subhuman. The honesty of it shook me.
“Por favor, vete,” I asked them as calmly as I could. I swallowed ebbs of rising nausea and heartache. Just go... Please.
The woman looked down, refusing to meet my eyes. She pulled off a ratty, stained sheet that was on one of the doxa cooking stations and covered the dead boy to conceal all the horror. All that was visible now was the dying woman’s head and legs. The fabric around the boy’s head quickly stained red. An image so horrible, I’d only be able to remove it from my brain with a sharp knife.
The woman’s strength of will was enough to usher her daughter out through the back door. They disappeared into the safety of the all-enveloping darkness. I prayed to any bastard gods that might be listening to let them escape unscathed.
If they wouldn’t give me peace, at least let them have some.
The gun in my hand became a lead weight. It was so much harder to hold than it had ever been before. The woman beside me was fixed with terror as she struggled for air. She had a sucking chest wound so there was no hope for her. She was alone out in the middle of the desert, surrounded by monsters. It was a horrible way to die.
I sat next to her and took her hand in mine. I wanted to tell her it would be all right, but my lips betrayed me. I couldn’t get the words out. It was too much of a lie even for me.
A motorcycle engine in front of the post office turned over and revved. I could tell by the sound of the bike it was the fleeing Knight. Gunshots rang out right afterward. My heart froze as I listened for retaliatory assault rifle fire. Fortunately, none came. Star was all right. I breathed a little easier, at least for the moment.
Star had done what I asked her. She’d killed someone for me.
So much death surrounded me...
The dying woman squeezed my hand with all the strength she’d had left.
“Lo agarramos. Matamos a los hijos de puta que te hicieron esto,” I told the woman that justice had been dealt.
She looked at me, gasping. Her eyes were puffy with sorrow and fear. She was in so much pain. Streams of blood-tinged tears ran down her sun-worn cheeks. It was written plainly across her face she didn’t care about vengeance. Vengeance wasn’t going to keep her alive. And the killing of some guy didn’t save her son.
Through sobbing, hyperventilating fits, the woman whispered two words to me that shook me to my very core. The last few threads of goodness within me snapped away. I was a man free-falling through the infinite blackness of a cold, uncaring void.
I closed her brownish-green eyes, apologized, and kissed her forehead.
Then I shot her in the heart.
When her hand went limp, the grief crushed me like the big metal cylinder of a street paver. My eyes welled with tears. I wanted to cry. Near-indiscriminate death was the only thing I was ever good at. What had I been forced to do?
What had I done?
“I am cancer. I am death’s handshake. In my wake, I leave only ruin.” The words I’d told Star so long ago echoed in whatever was left in of my blackened heart. Everyone around me died sooner or later.
“In my wake, I leave only ruin,” I repeated the words over and over, each time they cut unimaginably deeper. The deafening echoes in my soul eclipsed everything else, the sounds of Star coming in the front door quietly calling my name, the bikes pulling in, all of it.
All I heard was the thunderous sound of my defeat and only one thing made any sense in the maelstrom of despair.
I pressed the barrel of the gun into the bottom of my chin and squeezed the trigger.
*click!*
I was out of bullets. I exhaled, and all the screaming in my head mercifully ceased. The gun slipped from my hand to rap sharply against the wood planking between my legs. I hadn’t realized it, but I’d used my last bullet on the dying woman.
God, I wish I had at least known her name. Or her son’s name.
The tears dried up. The grief drained into the vast caverns of my charred heart which beat strictly out of habit. It was too stupid to give up the ghost and relax into oblivion. Blankly, but with shaking hands, I reached for a cigarette and lit it.
I was again, just an empty cup. Hollow, fragile, yet somehow not shattered.
Star’s pace was fast and reckless as she ran through the building looking for me. I couldn’t call out to her at all. The cascading trauma of my whole life had finally caught up with me. I was paralyzed and couldn’t make any noise at all.
“Ohmygod!” Star gasped, taking in the horror when she saw the dead woman under the filthy sheet. Star cautiously leaned a little farther behind the shredded cabinetry we’d all been hiding behind.
“Remy!” She rushed up to hug me. “What happened? Is there anyone else alive? Are you okay?”
Her warmth brought me back from the brink, but even still, I couldn’t find the strength to answer her. I couldn’t even look at her. At that moment, everything was fuzzy. I only loosely remembered where I was and why I was here.
Star was the only reason to continue on. In the briefest moment of absolute weakness, I’d somehow forgotten that. A nauseating cocktail of relief—that the gun was empty, duty to my brothers, and even more so to the woman I’d held above all else, and finally shame that I’d have left her alone at the mercy of the Lobos had all replaced the grief.
Now I felt shitty for all new reasons.
The more smoke I pulled into my lungs, the more dissipated the haze in my head became, but it wasn’t nearly fast enough. The front door slammed open loudly. Heavy, rubber-clad footfalls fanned out as they searched the building. The Lobos tried to question the only man I’d left alive but quickly gave up when he didn’t wake up right away.
“Remy! Snap out of it! The Lobos are here! Please! I don’t know what to say to them!” Star’s voice was urgent, fear creeping into her hushed pleas.
The Lobos were relaying calls back and forth, from and to Bones, as the men came across the bodies I’d left inside and out. They had us surrounded, coming in multiple exits.
She shouldn’t have come in here. It was too late for her to escape now. My mouth and throat were cast in lead as I looked at her. It felt like I was wading through a muddy, waist-high marsh to get back to her. Still…no words came to my lips.
The first Lobo who walked within eyeshot of the dead woman, looking extremely out of place against the aged browns and dusty grays of the post offices antiquity, was Spyder who walked tentatively toward the chaos of exploded cooking equipment and violent shocks of vibrant red spray.
“Jesus fucking Christ, gringo! You! You are a difficult man to kill.” Spyder lowered his gun in awe, fully taking in all the carnage. His tone took on a ragged edge as if his words were fragile slips of paper torn out of a much larger book. “Damn, you killed the girl, too? Shit... you know how to fuckin’ party.”
My eyes flashed to him, hardening.
Spyder didn’t raise his gun or step back in fear, but the discomfort he felt around me was apparent in how much firmer he grasped his gun.
That won’t save you. My eyes twitched at him.
“Bones, I found our Santa Claus!” Spyder turned and hollered for everyone else to come over.
I closed my eyes, feeling all the boot steps approach through the thin wooden flooring.
“Poet?” I could hear the surprise in Bones’ voice. No one would’ve expected to see me alive after what he’d done to me. “I’ll be damned…”
That made two of us.
“How was death, amigo?” he asked with an air of skepticism as if not fully believing what he was seeing.
My eyes opened, slowly drifting up to Bones. The man who’d killed me. He was still bald but had shaved off his pencil thin mustache, and of course, was well dressed in a fine button-down and slacks beneath his leather vest.
“Unfulfilling.” I just barely managed to growl out the word.
My shaking had stopped just before Spyder arrived, and now my body and intent were stone still. A sense of purpose trickled into the cup of my soul, mixing with the flood of bloody, savage rage that had filled me to bursting. All the hate and hurt that radiated through me like a ruptured nuclear plant was forced down, was pushed down, and buried beneath a mountain of single-mindedness. I released the murdered mother’s hand and stood up to face them all. There would be a time to grieve and pour out my weakness…
But this wasn’t it. There were more people to kill first.
“I sent the reaper your regards.” my words came a little easier.
“Why did you call me, Poet? What is all this?” Bones asked, holstering his two guns and crossing his arms. He felt comfortable enough now that the last of his men had filtered into the room and surrounded Star and me.
“Unsanctioned doxa lab on Lobos turf,” I said slowly, testing his knowledge of what was happening in his own backyard.
“I have fucking eyes, gringo.” Bones’ scowl told me that this wasn’t something he’d been told until I gave Spyder’s brother the tip.
“Meet the Knights.” I motioned to the corpse behind them. “Veins support club. I wasn’t bluffing when I said they’d stepped up their game. Figured the only way you’d take me seriously was if I showed you. Hell, I even left stumpy out there alive for you to verify everything.”
“Well, Poet, you certainly have my attention now. I’m all ears.” Bones was genuinely curious as to why a dead man would come back to life to help his killer. “What do you got to say?”
Couldn’t blame his skepticism, but if I didn’t sell this story, both Star and I would be headed back to the grave. This time, it would be permanent. “Your plan is going to fail without my help. The Veins know you’re going to attack during the annual. They’ll plan to draw you in further, overcommit, and make you walk into a slaughterhouse,” I said evenly without any hint of hesitance or nervousness in my voice or posture. It was an easy sell now that I’d talked to Tee. In essence, I was telling Bones the truth.
“So you know we got a mole inside. Who’s to say we don’t know exactly what’s in store for us?” Bones was good at this. By giving a little, he was hoping to see how much I knew. “Why do we need you?”
“It’s being hosted in Leslie this year, my old clubhouse. Your mole may be connected, may even be in Deadeye’s crew, but he’s not in my chapter.” I knew and could vouch for every single person in my chapter of the Veins. Bren was the only person to officially become a member in years. The rest of the club might be compromised, but our ship had no leaks. “Your mole doesn’t know anything about my chapter, how much firepower we have there, our defenses, anything. If you knew the horror show your guys were walking into, you’d be a hell of a lot more worried about the guys watching your back, not recruiting every scumbag that could rob a convenience store in broad daylight.”
I was referring to the hang around that I took out at Moretti’s butcher shop.
“You’re raising an army because you’re flying blind,” I concluded, scanning the hard faces of Bones’ men and slowly watching the apprehension seep in. “What’s your strategy? Hoping that at the end of the day, some of your guys might survive?”
It was a bluff – an educated guess, but a good one.
Bones regarded me carefully, weighing what I said against everything he knew. No-nonsense and calculating, he wasn’t the kind of man that made rash decisions. He was a mathematician at heart, and this was just another chess game. Whatever the outcome, he would never allow himself to lose face or show weakness. I had to tread lightly, balance the appropriate amount of anger, fear, and respect.
“Why do you want to hurt your family so badly?” he finally asked with genuine curiosity. “How can I possibly trust a Vein, one whom I already put in the ground once but was too stubborn to stay there?”
“Because I need you.” I swallowed hard and dipped my eyes for a moment, showing a little vulnerability. “They have all the money I’ve ever made with the club, and I want it back plus interest.”
“Greed. Turns out the great Poet toils in the dirt with the rest of us after all.” Bones smiled, shaking his head. “I knew that asylum story you were spinnin’ last time was bullshit. But money... Money, I can understand.”
“If I go back there alone, they’ll kill me.” My frown deepened. “But with you, I’ll have a chance.”
“Then what?” Bones cocked his chin into the air, exuding superiority now that he thought we were having a real conversation. “You patch in with us and become a Lobo?”
“Fuck, no. You know that wouldn’t work for either of us.” I let some of my resolve show. The Lobos would never accept me. Once a Vein always a Vein. “I can get you in at the right time to do the most damage. Once your guys kill Deadeye and his crew, the mother chapter will be gone and the Steel Veins will fall apart.”
“And you?” Bones asked.
“Me and my girl disappear to a tropical beach somewhere far away from…” I looked down at the mostly covered woman and her child at my feet.
Bones frowned at the mess. He was a ruthless pragmatist, not a sadistic psychopath. Just because he would’ve had the woman and child killed didn’t mean he would’ve wanted to.
On some level, Bones could understand me wanting to distance myself from all this.
“¿En verdad se puede confiar en este gringo?” Spyder expressed his doubts about my sincerity to Bones.
“Verifica todo. Vamos con cuidado. Una vez que él deje de sernos útil, no hay razón para quedarnos con él o la mujer. No vamos a dejar cabos sueltos,” Bones confirmed what I thought.
Star and I wouldn’t be walking away after all this was over.
They were too proud and confident of their bilingual advantage that they didn’t even bother to whisper. I still had yet to let on that I knew Spanish, not even to my own club. It was the only weapon that could never be taken away from me.
“Well?” I asked, playing dumb and extending my hand to shake. “We have a deal?”
“Si.” Bones took my hand then had one of his lieutenants toss me a burner phone. “But know this, if you double-cross me?”
“You’ll what? Shoot me again?” I flipped it open and looked through the contacts. There was only one number. His. “Yeah. I got it.”
For better or worse, the deal with the Devil was finally struck.
I was emotionally exhausted and desperately needed to go lie down. With our car now gone, there was one last thing I needed to take care of before we left.
Bones whistled, whirling one finger in the air which told his guys to start wrapping things up here. They probably would search any bodies left for anything of value then set the place to burn. As far as the locals would be concerned, it would be just another doxa-cooking explosion.
On the way out, I rifled through the pocket of the biker I let live and grabbed his keys. He wouldn’t be riding anywhere ever again.
“One last thing, Bones,” I called back to him while standing over the groaning Knight lying at my feet who was only now starting to regain consciousness.
Bones and Spyder walked into the front room where we were. Bones jerked his head up in a go-ahead-and-speak motion.
I thought of what the Knights had done here. All the collateral damage and how it could’ve been so much worse. These assholes were the ones who brought those families here. “When you’re done with this prick…” I ground my heel into the front of biker’s blown-out knee. The bones and cartilage popped beneath my thick, rubber boot. The dry, cracked, wood floor drank up the pool of blood around his legs like a famished sponge. The biker howled with a face contorted by pain and tears. “…you kill him slowly.”
Bones gravely nodded to me then turned his attention to the wounded Knight.
I took Star’s hand, and we walked out.
The key slid nicely into the bike I was hoping for – a new burnt orange Harley Sportster. I checked it for bullet holes, finding only one in the leather seat probably from some time ago. We both got on. The engine turned over like a dream. I revved it a few times, listening for anything that sounded off, but the bike only roared and purred.
God damn, it had been too long since I had two wheels under me.
I missed my Kawasaki...
I couldn’t shake the devastation that rattled me with the way everything went down, even if it was successful in the end. The cost of that success chipped away a large part of my soul that was lost forever.
Then as we rode off, the vibration under me and Star crushing me in a warm hug, I felt a shred of home return, whatever the fuck home was, and there was a small measure of peace that came with it.
I just worried it might not be enough. I had been drowning in thick, black oil. What I had seen and done tonight dragged me down into a darker place than I’d ever been before.
I couldn’t shake the wish I had for one last bullet.