Killian
As autumn turns to early winter, I work hard. I throw my mind and my body into my work. I think: if I can work hard enough, if I can end each day so tired that I can barely stand, if I can make my body ache with the pain of it and my eyelids heavy, then I will not think about her.
The main bulk of our work over this period is protection and gun running. These are the most dangerous gigs, but they’re also the most profitable. As the streets of the Cove turn to ice and snow coats the roof of the club, the Satan’s Martyrs make more money than ever before. Money practically pours in through the doors. And at the end of each day I collapse into the office bed and close my eyes and will myself to think of nothing.
And each time, I think of her, her, her. She leaps into my mind and she won’t leave.
During the days, it’s easier. I’m riding, fighting, shooting, working. But during the nights, no matter how tired I am, I can’t help but think of Hope. At first, the thoughts are longing. I long to hold her in my arms again. I long to kiss her. I long to take her. I long to be with her in every way. I can almost imagine that I am with her. I smile and roll onto my side, hugging a pillow.
But then I grip the pillow with angry hands, digging my fingers in, and my breathing comes labored and quick. I remember how she looked, high out of her mind, like some kind of sedated animal. My Hope, so full of life, so sarcastic and biting and kind and lively, lolling there like nothing more than a sack of skin and bones. Eventually, I have to jump out of bed and take three quick shots of whiskey to calm myself. Then I return to bed and the specter of Hope chases me into my dreams—
My dreams, hell. My dreams are part of the problem.
Sometimes, I’m rolling around in bed with Hope. Her perfect body is open to my hands. In the dream, whatever I want to touch is where my hand rests. If I reach for her face but I suddenly want to touch her pussy, she is magically moved so that her pussy is what I am reaching for. I lose myself in her body. I come inside her sweet tight warm hole over and over. She moans in my ears, sweet moans which tell me she is coming just as much as I am. Those big breasts, that curvy ass, those gorgeous legs. I wake up rock-hard. I can’t make it go away. So I have to sort myself out, closing my eyes tight-shut and thinking of Hope.
Other times, we aren’t fucking, but laughing. The dream never lasts long enough for me to know what we’re laughing about. All I know is we’re laughing at something we find very, very funny. We sit in the box of the ferris wheel at the amusement park, giggling into the night. Hope looks achingly beautiful when she laughs, elfin face thrown back, dark eyes black in the night, and yet somehow still twinkling. When I wake from those dreams, I have a goofy-ass grin on my face and I’m still laughing. Then I remember her, the way she was and what she threw away, and the laughter dies.
The last dream comes the most often, and when I wake from this one, I’m sweating through my sheets. Once, I woke from this dream screaming into the night.
When I enter the dream, I’m standing at the foot of a long, wide staircase. The land around the staircase changes each time, as does the material of the staircase, but it is always long and wide. Sometimes the land is rolling sand, sometimes rainforest, sometimes jungle and sometimes cityscapes. And sometimes the stairs are wooden, marble, stone.
Whatever they are, I walk up the stairs, my legs burning, sweating, panting, struggling to get to the top as fast as I can, struggling to reach something. I have no clue what it is. Though I have dreamed it before, in the dream I never remember. Only afterwards.
Each time I reach the top, I see a double bed, the sheets bright white, emitting their own light. Atop the bed lies Hope, naked, one leg folded seductively over the other, her head propped up with her hand. She’s lying on her side, giving me fuck-me eyes that are impossible to ignore. I’m yanking my clothes away before I can give it any thought. No man could resist Hope when she’s lying there like that, ready to explode in pleasure. No man could even try. As I undress, I look down, not wanting anything to snag, to delay the pleasure.
When I’m finally as naked as she is, I look back up at her.
Blood pours from hundreds and hundreds of track marks, covering every inch of her. Blood pours from her forehead, her eyes, her mouth. Blood pours from her arms and breasts and legs and belly. Blood pours from her pussy and her ass. Blood oozes from the track marks.
When she talks, her voice is muffled with blood: “Don’t you want it?”
With bloody hands, she lifts up two needles, brandishing them at me.
“It’s fun.”
Her words are too clear. It’s as though the blood is not muffling her at all, although it sounds muffled.
Aiming the needles, she springs from the bed like a javelin, ready to pierce me.
Tonight, I wake from this dream, sweat coating me, chest heaving.
I rub my eyes and rise to my feet, walk across the room, and scoop up the whiskey bottle from the desk.
I think I’ll need more than three shots tonight.
I’m sitting at my desk, sorting out the men’s pay, when Patrick knocks at the door. Two swift knocks, and it’s like he’s pounding me in the head with a hammer and a nail. I overdid it on the whiskey, that’s for sure.
“Come in,” I groan.
Patrick enters. He’s like a man reborn, now that I’m around more, and now that we have more jobs. He’s lost a few pounds from all the work and it’s been replaced with muscle. When he smiles, his face looks ten years younger. Lately, mine has been looking ten years older. At the moment, he could be the younger brother and I the older. He swaggers into the office and sits in the chair opposite me.
“Hey, brother,” he smiles. “Declan was just explaining to me what a Golden Age is. Ever heard of it?”
“Can’t say I have,” I answer, massaging my temples.
“Apparently it’s when a country goes through a big boom, when they make a shitload of cash and have enough money and free time to do a shitload of cool stuff. He was telling me that he thinks the Satan’s Martyrs are going through a Golden Age right now.”
“Can’t deny that,” I mutter. “Don’t have any aspirin on you, do you?”
Patrick tilts his head at me, and then jumps to his feet and goes to the door. He pokes his head out and shouts: “Somebody get the Boss some goddamn aspirin!” Half a minute later, one of the pledges comes scuttling down with a bottle, creeps into the office, places it on the desk, and creeps out again.
I dry-mouth three tablets and lean back in the office chair, stretching my neck from side to side. Rain falls outside, a light pat-pat-pat, but to my whiskey-aching head it’s like a series of engines exploding.
“Rough night?” Patrick asks, smirking.
I think Patrick imagines that I’m completely over Hope, that all the men imagine it. They all think I let her go just as I let every other woman go I’ve ever been with. Just pushed her out of my life and out of my mind, just forgot about her the second she was gone. But then, they must know something or suspect something, because I haven’t had another woman since Hope. Not even a quick fuck. Nothing. Even now, as I look across the desk at my brother, I’m sure I can see Hope standing beside the door, smiling softly at me.
“Huh?” I grunt, snapping back to reality when Patrick barks something at me.
“I said, are you alright, brother?”
“I’m fine,” I murmur. “You here for a reason?”
Patrick holds his hands up. “Have I done something to offend you?” he asks.
“No.” I shake my head, and even that causes it to pound. “No, I’m just hungover, is all.”
A silence stretches between us, but it’s a silence only confined to my office. Elsewhere in the clubhouse, the men shout and laugh, glasses clink. I hear Declan, voice raspy, singing karaoke into a microphone as some of the men clap and cheer. Farther down, at the back of the clubhouse, the ring has been set up and two of the men pommel each other, their fists making slap noises on the other’s flesh. Then there’s a loud bang as someone goes down, and a cheer is thrown up.
Finally, Patrick says, “It’s her, isn’t it?”
I squint at him. “Her? Who’s her?”
Patrick rolls his eyes. “Killian, I’ve spent more time with you these past few weeks than I have at any other point in our lives.”
“Shit,” I say, realizing it’s true. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“Exactly. So do you really think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been acting? Don’t get me wrong. You haven’t dropped the slack on the jobs. You’ve been doing a hell of a job. But you’re tired. You’re not sleeping.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“No, not on its own. But what about the fact that you haven’t been with a woman since—you know?”
“Yeah, and what about you? When all the men went to the—”
“I’m seeing a woman. You know that.”
Ah yes, Dawn.
“Don’t tell me it’s a coincidence you’ve started to act weird since that night. Don’t tell me it’s a coincidence that you’ve started to act weird since you left Hope.”
“Maybe it is a fucking coincidence,” I growl, leaning forward. I’m not even angry at Patrick. I’m not even angry at myself or Hope, not right now. I’m just angry at the whole damn world. “Maybe that’s exactly what it is and you’re reading into shit that isn’t there. Maybe you’ve forgotten that I’m the damn boss and it isn’t your goddamn place to question me, eh? Maybe that’s what’s happening here.”
Patrick backs away a little, fear flickering across his face, but he doesn’t get up and leave the room. He watches me for a few moments, and then he says quietly, “I could check on her, if you wanted. Just to make sure she’s okay.”
“She’s not my concern anymore.”
“Maybe not, but she’s definitely concerning you.”
“I didn’t take you for a fucking pun artist, Patrick.”
“You’re angry,” Patrick states flatly.
“Well-fucking-done!” I snap, smashing my fist on the table.
Patrick pushes his chair back, so that he’s out of my range, but still he doesn’t stand up.
“You’re my brother. My younger brother. I can still see the little kid, sad and terrified ’cause Dad died. Let me help you. Let me check on her. I won’t even let her see me.”
“I thought you didn’t run my errands,” I spit bitterly.
“This isn’t an errand. This is a favor.”
I stretch my arms out and open and close my fingers, feel the ache in the hand which hit the table. Maybe it would be good to at least know how she’s doing. Maybe it would be help with the dreams. Maybe I’d be able to get some sleep.
“Fine,” I say. “But don’t let her see you.”
“I won’t.” Patrick reaches into his pocket and takes out a wad of bills. “Onto business,” he goes on. “Here’s your share from last night’s job.”
He tosses it across the desk and then leaves the office. I leave the bills untouched and watch him leave, already wishing he was back with news of Hope.
Declan and I sit in the corner booth. The other men stay at the far end of the bar, drinking quietly and shooting some pool. More of them are out, either in the Cove or in neighboring towns, spending their dough. I should be out with them, picking up women and grazing my fists, but I’m not in the mood. Lately, I’m never in the mood.
“You loved this woman,” Declan says, keeping his voice quiet. The old man knows how important it is to never show weakness. The only reason I can talk to Declan about it is because he’s the most loyal man in the club. “You loved her and she hurt you.”
“Maybe I did love her,” I reply, my voice just as low as his, if not as raspy. I sip my whiskey and he sips his. “Maybe I did, yeah, but I have a code, Declan. A goddamn code. And what’s a code worth if it isn’t unbreakable? What’s a code worth if you can just shrug and say, fuck it, oh well, let’s move on? No, a code is a code because you live and die by it. No drugs. None. Zero. If you want to do drugs, fine, but not near me, nowhere fucking near me.”
“I know how much you hate drugs,” the old man says. “We all do. You’ve never taken a job that involved drugs, not once you became the leader, despite how much cash it might make.”
“Exactly. So you see. I shouldn’t even be thinking about her.”
“I had a wife once, Killian,” Declan whispers, his voice thick with whiskey and old age and pain.
“You did?” I ask.
“Yes, back in Ireland. I was a twenty-year-old kid and I fell deep in love with a woman five years older than me. She was a nurse and I wasn’t much of anything.” His eyes water, glass over, and I know he’s seeing her right now. “Siobhan, her name was, and she was like an angel to me. I worshipped her. I kissed her feet and I kissed her calves and I kissed her legs.” He coughs out a grim laugh. He goes to sip his whiskey, but it’s empty. I take his glass and pour him another. He nods his thanks and takes a long sip before going on.
“I started getting work outlawing, helping some of the lads who weren’t too happy about the English getting a foothold. Guns, explosives, that sort of thing. Siobhan had a code, too, you know. She begged me to stop. She begged me to become a normal man, a hardworking man. But I wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t. There was too much money in it.
“One day, one of the explosives I was carrying went off. I managed to throw it away from me, but it still scarred me bad.” He lifts up his leather and his shirt and shows me his belly, which I’ve never seen before. The skin is scaly and bubbly, a thick burn scar. “That was it for her. Siobhan couldn’t take it. I came home one day and she wasn’t there.”
He pauses, and I think. But I can’t make sense of it. “What’s the point, old man, or are you just talking?”
“No, because four years later, Siobhan sent me a letter. She missed me, the letter said, and she wanted to see me. So we met in a hotel, had the best two nights you can imagine. Afterward, she asked me if I was still an outlaw. Yes, I told her, I was. I asked if she could be with me. And, just like that, she said that, yes, being with me was more important than her code. Do you see? There was no big moment where she changed her mind. She just did. Over time. What I’m trying to tell you, son, is that maybe in time you’ll learn to change your code. Maybe you’ll be able to forgive—”
“It’s a nice story,” I interrupt, “but it might as well be a fairytale. Time won’t make me let this go. I’m sorry, Declan, but your wife’s code wasn’t as strong as mine. I won’t be with a goddamn druggie. I won’t.”
Declan shrugs and drains his whiskey in one gulp.
I stand up and make to leave. I stop when I’m at the edge of the table. “Declan, what happened to Siobhan?”
His eye twinkles, and then he lets out choking guffaw. When he’s done, he wipes a tear from his wrinkled cheek. “She left me six months later. The outlaw life was too much for her. I didn’t think that would help my point, though.”
I smile and leave him, his chuckling resounding through the clubhouse, following me to my office.
As I walk, dozens of men nod and murmur, “Boss, boss, boss.”
When I’m back in the office, Declan’s story gets me thinking, but not in the way he intended. It only solidifies what I’ve always thought: marriage and outlawing don’t mix. How can you have a wife, or even a girlfriend, when bullets are whizzing past your head and your life is always two steps from hell? How can you stay as hard as you need to when you’ve been made soft by a woman’s touch?
But even with these thoughts, even with my certainty, when I sleep that night, I dream of Hope.
“I’ve checked on her,” Patrick says, poking his head around my office door. “You should see the car she’s driving, man. A beat-up old thing, barely looks like it can move.”
“Yeah?” I say, trying to sound as disinterested as I can, like I haven’t been thinking about this for the last three days.
Patrick sits in his usual seat in the office, opposite me. It’s mid-afternoon; the clubhouse is empty apart from me, Patrick, Declan, and a few of the pledges. Everyone else is busy with minor jobs, small protection jobs that don’t require my presence.
He looks me directly in the eyes, his eyes mirror images of mine. In the blue of them I can see myself, miniature, and I look lost. I look how I imagine Declan looked when he came home one night to find that his wife was gone. I look like a man on the brink of madness. I look like hell. Or maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see in my brother’s eyes.
“Well?” I say, when Patrick doesn’t talk.
He chews his cheek, and then lets out a long sigh. “It isn’t good,” he mutters. “I went by the restaurant, and she was—”
“Wait, what?” I interject. “What the hell? Why is she working there?”
“Debt?” Patrick offers. “But I don’t get it. You paid her well for those paintings, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” I mutter, thinking. “Damn well.”
Then it hits me, just as it hits Patrick; I see it in his face. We both say, at the same time: “Rehab.”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “She had to pay off Dawn’s rehab, and then there were her bills; she mentioned them in passing to me once. She must still have some left over, but after all that—”
“She’s playing it safe?”
“Yeah.” I nod.
“Well, I went by there, and she was there, and that bastard Lucca was screaming at her—right in her face in front of everybody. She didn’t do anything, Killian. Just stood there and let the fat fuck scream at her. So then I went to the art gallery, and the woman behind the desk told me Hope hasn’t submitted any new pieces, even though you bought all the ones she had there already.”
Hearing this is like being punched repeatedly in the face. I’ve made her miserable, I think. But then: No, she made herself miserable.
“There’s something else, too,” Patrick says.
“What?” I demand, my voice rising as image upon image of Hope in pain stacks high in my mind.
“I saw Lindsey hanging around the restaurant. I’m sure it was her, even though she’s looking pretty weird these days. She’s shaved the sides of her head. She has this one long braid starting at her forehead and going all the way down her back, and it’s dyed pink. But she’s as thin and crazy-looking as ever. She was wearing a goddamn suit.”
“It was her?” I breathe, my voice weak. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” Patrick says. “And I think I saw her outside the art gallery, too. That’s weird, isn’t it? Hanging around places where she might see Hope?”
“It’s more than weird, brother,” I growl. “It’s absolutely insane.”
Then Patrick says what we’re both thinking: “What if Lindsey is stalking Hope?”