Chapter One

Tattooing was Danielle’s second passion. She’d picked it up while she was doing fifteen years for her first passion, which was burglary.

She hummed quietly while she worked, looming over Seth’s back like a big sweaty thundercloud who smelled vaguely of teenage boy body spray. From this vantage point, you couldn’t see the faded black stick-and-poke tattoos that got progressively better as they went from her elbow to her wrist. You couldn’t tell she was humming either, over the rattle of the tattoo gun. Seth just knew from experience she kind of went into a musical trance while she worked.

That was fine with him. He didn’t have anything he wanted to talk about today. She hadn’t asked him about the wheelchair folded up against the shop wall, or the long red-purple scar that stretched from his belt line to his shoulder blades. Or the jagged row of stitches where he’d hit the guardrail.

She just asked him what he wanted this time, and she’d hummed quietly while she’d drawn it up, and now she was humming quietly while she was inking it on his back. This one was going to take a few sessions: It was an angel riding bitch, topless with a Double Eagle tramp stamp, raising her middle finger, with a banner that read “not today” while the bike left a dust cloud behind it.

With all the nerve damage from the wreck, he could barely tell he was getting tattooed.

He heard his phone vibrate on the table. Someone was sending him four texts in a row, meaning it was probably Jessica bothering him about going book shopping.

“You wanna grab that?” Danielle said, raising the tattoo gun from his back.

“Sure,” Seth said. He reached over and opened the texts. Sure enough, they were from his sister.

Wanna meet up at Watty’s at noon?

I gotta run to the bank and then drop Kaylie off with Nadia...I can’t be there until 1 actually sorry lol

Do you want something from Nadia’s??? Let me know k

You remember we’re meeting up today right?

Seth sighed and typed his reply. I’m at Danielle’s, he said. See u at 1-1:30, k?

He put the phone back on the counter and shut his eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “My sister’s making me go buy textbooks.”

“Textbooks?” Danielle sounded almost offended. “You going to school?”

“Yeah,” Seth said. “I’m gonna be off my bike for a while with some medical stuff, so my dad wants me to go learn some accounting and make myself useful.”

“Oh, right on,” Danielle said. “Learn tax laws and all that.”

“Yeah.” Seth nodded. “Come in real handy one of these days.”

“Man, I gotta find someone to do my taxes,” Danielle said. “I get so nervous doing that stuff myself.”

“You should talk to our guy,” Seth said. “He’ll give you a discount since you know my dad.”

“Yeah?” Danielle started the gun again. “I haven’t seen your dad in a while. What’s he up to?”

“The usual,” Seth said. “He’s around here and there.”

***

Today, “here and there” meant he was playing pool with his Enforcers down at Watty’s on South Comanche. Seth’s dad was about six foot three, a little on the slender side. His hair and beard had gone completely white in the years since he’d taken over the Brotherhood.

“Afternoon, sir,” Seth said as he pushed his wheelchair up to the pool table.

“Son.” His dad looked up at him and nodded. “Jessica said to wait for her here. She’s dropping the kid off with her mother-in-law.”

“Yep.” Seth wheeled himself over closer to the bar. Parts of his fresh linework stung under his shirt, and parts of it were completely numb. “Guess we’re going book shopping.”

His father nodded. He seldom smiled, but he still looked at Seth like he was a whole man. “Good hustle,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” Seth said. Sandy brought him a beer without his asking for it. He reached into his back pocket for his wallet and pulled out a five.

Slowly, carefully, like a man much older than his father, Seth managed to get up out of his wheelchair and drop Sandy’s tip into the pitcher on the bar top.

A small round of applause came up from the people drinking inside Watty’s. Sandy herself whistled and clapped with her hands over her head.

“Hell yeah!” she said. “Get it, Junior!”

Seth couldn’t help but smile at the achievement. Six months ago, he never would have dreamed he’d be this proud just to stand up out of his wheelchair.

A little less than six months ago though, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to move under his own power again.

Sitting down was almost as hard as standing up. Seth had to be careful, lest he aggravate the parts of him that were still trying to heal from that night. With the whole bar watching, he had to make it look like it was no big deal. His younger brother might be limping a little and he might be half-paralyzed, but Seth Novak wasn’t going anywhere. It took more than three Scorpions and a half-assed ambush plan to do that.

His brother Cody took his shot at the pool table and drained his beer. “You go see Danielle this morning?” he said.

“Yeah, for the linework,” Seth said. “Don’t look like much right now.”

Cody nodded. The oldest of the Novak boys, he took after their mother with dark hair and a permanent scowl on his face. The scowl had gotten a little more intense since that night on the highway. Cody had been down south, supervising a drop-off. Maybe if he’d been there things would have turned out differently.

“I gotta get in to see her myself,” Cody said. “Marcie’s settling down on names.”

“Oh yeah?” Seth said.

“Jackson or Nash for a boy,” he said. “Definitely Rebeccah for a girl.”

“You gettin’ hyped?”

“Hell yeah,” Cody said. “You better be ready for a fuckin’ party when we get home.”

“When you get home?” their father said.

“Yeah, they got a one Novak limit down at the hospital now,” Seth said. “I heard someone threatened a doctor.”

Their father still didn’t smile, but you could see pride glittering in his eyes as he lined up his shot. Seth hadn’t exactly been lucid while he was in the ICU, but his brothers had made sure he knew exactly what had gone down when the surgeons told their father that Seth wouldn’t walk again.

“How’s Marcie’s heart doing?” Seth said.

“She says she’s doing fine,” Cody said. “I keep bugging her to…”

The bells on the door handle jingled as it opened. Sunlight flooded into the barroom for a second as Jessica came in, her arms laden with takeout bags.

“Hey, guys!” she said. “Who wants some lo mein?”

“That better be lo mein,” Cody said. “Todd’s been hitting the bong in the back room, gives me someone else’s order every other time I go in there.”

“Yeah?” Jessica had their father’s height, and with the help of the girls at the salon, she had their father’s blond hair as well. “Well, Todd wasn’t working today, so maybe David got tired of his act too.”

Seth wheeled himself over to the end of the bar where Jessica was sorting out everyone’s orders. She handed him a bag, and he started taking boxes out and checking the contents before setting them on the bar.

“Sesame chicken,” he said. “General Tso’s...right on, here’s the lo mein.” He held up one of the takeout boxes as his brother made his way over.

“You about ready to go?” Jessica said.

“Yeah,” Seth said. “You wanna eat first?”

“I can’t do Chinese on my diet,” she said. “I was gonna stop at the Shake Shack on my way and get a smoothie.”

“Oh, man, now I want Shake Shack fries,” Cody said through a mouthful of lo mein. “I got business, though.”

Seth laughed. “You don’t want to help us make a one Novak rule at the bookstore, bro?”

“I think you and Jess have that covered.” Cody brought their father’s order back to the pool table. “You oughta come up to the gulch when you’re done, though. JJ says he’s got some new toys for us to try out.”

Seth grinned. “Surplus?”

“Yeah, very good toys from Old Country,” Cody said. “I think he might have finally gotten his hands on a rocket launcher.”

“You be careful with that shit,” Sandy said, nudging the bar gate open with her hips as she took a tray of glasses over to the pool table. “You start a fire in those hills, we are all fucked.”

“We’ll keep it low-key,” Cody said. “We gotta find a better spot, anyway. The park rangers come give us crap as soon as they hear us shooting.”

“Don’t you guys own that land?” Sandy said.

Their father’s face darkened, but before he could go off on the Park Service and the Federal Government and the rights of American landowners, Jessica grabbed the handles of Seth’s wheelchair and waved.

“We gotta go get the brainiac his books,” she said. “I’ll bring him back to you after his PT appointment.”

Seth winced at the mention of PT. It was definitely helping, and he was by no means unappreciative of his newfound ability to stand. But goddamn if that little old lady didn’t put him through some pain while she was working her miracles.

Whatever. At least he could feel parts of his legs.

***

“So you’re telling me we have to buy the brand new edition,” Jess said, setting the tips of her acrylic nails on the counter, “which the professor wrote, specifically for this class, for three hundred…”

“I can scan you in a coupon!” The girl behind the counter held up a booklet of “Bronco Bucks” like she was trying to ward off a vampire with a Bible. “I’m really sorry, ma’am…”

“Honey, do I look old enough to be a ma’am to you?” Jessica stood well over six feet in her high-heeled boots, and she managed to get taller still to hover over the shop girl.

“Jessica…”

“Girl, my brother almost lost his life serving our country, and you are gonna make him spend half his pension on this little disc so that this nerd can make an extra…”

“Jessica, just buy the damn CD,” Seth said. “She said she’ll give us a coupon.” He wasn’t sure how illegal Jessica’s disabled veteran story was, but he was one hundred percent sure it was gonna get somebody’s ass kicked if she told it too many times.

“Thank you, sir,” the girl said. She couldn’t keep her eyes focused on one spot as she worked the register. “Okay, so, uh, the final total, uh, oh! I gotta scan your coupon.”

“Take your time,” Seth said.

Jessica rolled her eyes and dug in her bag until she found a stick of nicotine gum (she wasn’t trying to quit; her personality was just incompatible with modern indoor smoking laws). She stared the girl down and snapped her gum while she rang up Seth’s coupon.

“Okay, your total is, uh, nine hundred twenty-eight dollars and fifty-seven cents,” the girl said, “with the coupon.” She hunched her shoulders as Seth and Jessica took in that mighty sum.

“Holy shit,” Jessica said.

“It’s an investment.” Seth sighed and got his wallet out of his back pocket. “I got cash.”

“Thank you,” the girl said. She handed Jessica the bag, and Jessica snapped her gum while she took it.

“No problem,” Seth said. He managed to get his wheelchair turned around without knocking over the display of Canyon Bluffs Community College mugs, and he started wheeling himself toward the door with his sister behind him.

“Fuckin’ criminals,” Jessica sighed as she opened the door for Seth.

At that, Seth had to laugh. “Good one, Jess.”

***

His physical therapist’s office was in her house, and her house was on the east end of town. Nobody had warned him about how much of his recovery would be spent waiting for the world’s longest freight train to creep past the stockyards.

At least this one was carrying something interesting.

“That’s gotta be, like, ten planes’ worth of shit,” Jessica said, watching a car laden with propellers pass by. “Maybe it’s going to the Base?”

“Those don’t look military,” Seth said. “Cool, though.”

“Yeah.” Jessica nodded. “Speaking of, did that Air Force guy wind up calling you back?”

“Nah,” Seth said. “I mean, now that you’re walking around telling everybody I got my legs messed up in Iraq…”

“Whatever, like that girl could tell the difference.” Jessica smiled and pulled a cigarette from the pack jammed in the center console. “He seemed cool.”

“He was cool,” Seth said. “He can probably do a lot better than a Double Eagle.”

“You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“Don’t really need to,” Seth said. “They had my face all over the news after what happened.”

Jessica lit her cigarette. “You never know, though,” she said. “He could be into the whole bad boy biker thing.”

“Yeah?” Seth let out a bitter laugh. “Too bad I’m not much of a biker right now.”

“Shut up,” Jessica said. “Kevin’s alive today because of what you did. You don’t have a damn thing to prove to the Club anymore.”

Seth didn’t want to have this conversation again. “Sure,” he said.

“Anyway.” Jessica took a long drag and flicked her cigarette out the window. “Have you tried online dating?”

“Yeah, but I can’t settle on a profile pic,” Seth said. “All my mug shots make me look fat.”

“Whatever,” Jessica said. “You gotta get out there, man. It’ll be good for you. Look how much better Kevin’s doing since he got himself an old lady.”

“I guess,” Seth said. “I dunno. I can’t see myself getting serious with a guy like that.”

“I’m not saying you have to settle down and get married,” Jessica said. “Just, you know, you’re kind of getting isolated. Dad’s starting to worry.”

Seth chuckled. “Oh, did he put you up to this conversation?” he said.

“More or less,” Jessica said. “Says he doesn’t see what the point of turning out queer was if you’re gonna be so damn lonely all the time.”

“If it’s meant to be, it’ll be,” Seth said. “I’m just trying to get better, you know?”

“Hard to get better when you’re stuck in the house all day,” Jessica said.

“I know, sis,” Seth said, patting the sack of books on his lap. “That’s why I just blew a grand at the damn bookstore.”