Luke Cinders had never considered himself a cat person. He’d never had a cat before, but he’d never wanted one either. What kind of motorcycle club leader had a soft spot for fluffy animals?
Well, now he knew of at least one.
The little white kitten slept in his lap, purring to his heart’s content. Luke gave him a stroke on the head with his finger, and the kitten absentmindedly nipped at the errant digit.
“Behold, the rage of Achilles,” Luke murmured, chuckling.
The kitten turned away and went back to sleep.
Naming a kitten after an ancient Greek warrior amused him, but not as much as the young animal’s antics. He’d spent the last hour running around the room, pouncing on Luke, and in general being a brat. It was like Achilles had no idea how close to death he’d come.
But both the kitten and his namesake were hard to kill.
Luke looked up from the pile of fluff in his lap to the screen in front of him. The evening news had just started. Luke didn’t usually watch the local news. He learned all he needed to about rival gangs from his own guys, and anyway, local news was always just a bunch of filler with maybe one or two stories. But the remote was on the coffee table in front of him, and he didn’t want to wake Achilles again. The kitten had had a rough day.
A thump from the other room caused Luke to crane his head and listen, but there were no follow up sounds. Good. He couldn’t remember the name of the girl in his bed, so it was better for everyone if she stayed there for the time being. The last thing he needed was another clingy broad climbing all over him when he was just trying to wind down a little. And, after the show she’d put on a couple hours ago, he’d rather hang out with the cat.
Bringing home an endless parade of hot chicks went with the territory of being the president of Trojans MC. Getting ones that had just as much substance in their heads as their tits was another story entirely. One girl had once asked if he’d named his club after the condom brand. She’d never even heard of The Iliad, or of the Trojan war.
Hadn’t everyone learned it in high school? That’s where Luke had first read about the Greeks and their great struggle, about the ten years of siege that was destroyed by the hubris of a king. He’d named his club after it because he sympathized with the warriors on both sides. Proud, noble Hector, and ruthless, angry Achilles. Men whose fates were sealed the moment they were born, and who took action even when they knew it would lead to their downfall.
Luke hoped that his destiny to lead would not conflict with his will to live, but he would embrace whatever fate he’d been dealt when the time came. No man could hide from death. Though it seemed to him, as the main stories of the night began to cycle through the broadcast, that he’d suffer death by boredom.
The male news anchor was a dick named Anthony Blake, who had always gotten on Luke’s nerves. He had a cocky attitude that Luke could feel through the screen. He didn’t think anything would be quite as satisfying as punching Anthony Blake in the face. Normally his co-anchor was a woman named Natalya or Naomi or something. She was pretty for someone who was overly done up, even for Luke’s tastes. It helped that she had a great rack and they were always putting her in shirts with plunging necklines.
Today there was a different girl sitting beside Anthony’s too-tanned glow. She looked quite young, mid-twenties at most. She had a round little face, big blue eyes, and sinfully full lips, all framed by long blonde tresses.
Luke leaned closer to the screen. Things had just gotten interesting.
Anthony introduced the girl as Shayla Queene and said that she was standing in for Naomi tonight. Naomi. That’s what the other woman’s name was. Naomi and her great rack were essentially all but forgotten though, in the face of Shayla’s angelic face and promising curves. She looked a bit nervous at first, but she soon warmed up to the cameras.
She and Anthony pinged off each other, detailing the top stories affecting their city. The first was about a local bike thief, who’d stolen again. Luke snorted. He knew exactly who the thief was—a junkie teenager who’d tried to steal off of one his member’s kids. He was surprised to see the twerp had continued going after bikes. They’d have to have another talk with him.
He stroked Achilles’ head, and the kitten shifted in his sleep. Luke looked down, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile.
He looked back up and Shayla was speaking now, her eyes full of fire as she eloquently described the municipality of Ritchfield’s struggle to rezone an old quarry into a housing development. Luke had never been so interested in banal shit like that before. Now here he was eating it up like she was covering a goddamn riot.
That story ended, and Luke frowned when the camera turned back to Anthony. The next story seemed all too familiar though. Luke sat up just as a grainy video popped up on the screen. It was a traffic cam for a bridge on the I5. There were three figures on screen: two snarling dogs and a blurry white blob. He watched as a tall, burly man in a leather jacket pulled up on a Harley, darted into the middle of the street and chased the dogs away, then leaning down to scoop the blob up into his arms. He secured it inside his jacket and hopped back on the bike, peeling off into the night.
Luke looked down at the kitten in his lap. “Looks like we’re on Candid Camera, little Myrmidon.”