Chapter 21
Choices Made
For a while, Oliver couldn’t move. He sat in the parking spot outside the police station, hands on the wheel.
He could just let Rune go. Arrange to have his things returned. Avoid further confrontation. Oliver could move on with his life. He still had Jackson.
He could do it.
But he kept looking in the direction Rune had walked. He was long gone now, but his ghost remained, taunting.
“He’s gonna fucking get himself killed. He doesn’t even…” Oliver punched the steering wheel with a closed fist, as hard as he could. He growled, then yelled. Then screamed as loud as he could, until his chest ached. It was the futility of it all that hurt the most. Gasping, head fallen back, he finished, “He doesn’t even care.”
What the hell was Oliver supposed to do?
Let Rune kill himself? Not give a fuck?
He’d given the ultimatum. Rune had chosen. He chose more pain and revenge over Oliver. It was done.
“Fuck. Fuck!”
He blew out a breath through his nose, closed his eyes, tried to calm down.
“Let him go. Let it be. He’ll come back.”
But he wouldn’t. Rune was stubborn as hell. He’d probably blame Oliver for the pain he felt, then use it on some suicide mission to take out a bunch of drunken, backwoods morons, or die trying.
Oliver had tried to out-stubborn people before. He’d always been successful. His will was iron-strong.
It wouldn’t work this time. Not with Rune.
Oliver could see it all taking shape—how Rune might not even care about getting his stuff back. How he might be stalking the neo-Nazis right now, no waiting, just get it done and go down, guns blazing.
It made Oliver feel shaky and nauseous.
He was losing. Losing everything.
Not only would he be back to square one, with that empty pit in his chest eating him alive, but he’d miss Rune forever. He wouldn’t get past it. The guilt would consume him.
This was his fault.
His balls still ached. Same with his shoulder. He was sick, the urge to vomit stronger by the moment as he imagined Rune tied up and dragging behind a beat-up blue Ford truck, the road acting as a meat grinder on the man Oliver loved.
Oliver fumbled for his phone. It almost slipped out of his shaking hands.
He dialed and it was picked up after three rings.
“Hello?” said a confused, gravelly voice.
“It’s Oliver. I don’t know what to do. I think he’s going after those shitheads. Or he’s gonna kill himself trying. I don’t know how to find him, or stop him, or—”
“Come by the clubhouse,” Max cut in. “I’ll send some guys out looking for ‘im. He’ll come by sooner or later, trust me.”
“I, um, I have a license plate number for the truck.”
“The truck? The truck? Are you shitting me?”
“No, but Rune has it too.”
“All right. Give it to me.”
The first thing Oliver did when he got to the back to the bar was have a drink. He figured he’d be there a while and needed something strong to kick him in the ass.
“We’re looking for him,” Max assured Oliver. “Got eyes on The Watering Hole. Got guys doing a sweep of places Rune likes to ride, but his bike is still hidden over where he left it. He won’t get to it without us seeing.”
“Thanks. That’s good. I’ve got people at home looking for him there too,” Oliver admitted. Jackson was holding down the fort for the time being. Adam was driving around town looking for any sign of Rune traveling on foot on the miles-long route to the clubhouse.
“Well, sit. Relax. Ya look like hell. Ya need something to eat?” Max asked.
Clutching his stomach, which was still in revolt, his sense of impending doom not lessened one bit, Oliver shook his head and did another shot of scotch.
“He won’t do anything suicidal. Trust me. He’s emotional, sure, but he ain’t dumb. Am I wrong?” Max challenged.
“No, you’re not,” Oliver allowed.
“What happened, anyway?”
Oliver groaned, rubbed his eyes. He sat on a nearby stool and leaned on the bar. “After we saw the truck, I told him if he didn’t file a police report, we were done. I can’t keep watching him act like a fucking vigilante with a death wish.”
“Oh,” Max said heavily, leaning against the bar top beside Oliver. “Huh. Well, I can see why he’d run off. Never been a fan of the law, ‘specially since they dropped the ball with finding these guys and haven’t been able to keep the hate crime attacks under control either. Thinks he can do it all himself. Hates asking for help. All of that. Same reason he wound up living out of the storage closet for so damned long. Stupid kid.”
He gave Oliver a heavy-handed pat on the shoulder. “He’ll turn up. I know it.”
Now and then, Jackson texted Oliver for updates or to say there’d been no sign of Rune. It was the same case with Adam, who offered to come wait with Oliver, but Oliver waved him off. He wasn’t in the mood for company or talk. He also wasn’t in a rush for Adam to see how miserable Oliver felt, with his heart bleeding on his sleeve. There was no excuse for it. He’d fallen too hard, too fast. It was his own fault.
A few hours passed with no change. A football game played on the TV screens around the clubhouse, which was less than half empty.
When Oliver’s phone rang, he checked the caller ID, and answered for maybe the only person he was ready to talk to.
“Hey,” Oliver said. “Has he caught you up?”
“Sure has,” Josefina told him. “How are you?”
“How do you think?”
“Hmm. So, what’s the issue here?”
Oliver sighed, knowing how much Josefina knew about him both from personal experience and from what she’d heard for years from Jackson. She likely knew Oliver had been actively avoiding talking to Jackson and Adam, that he was sulking and acting totally unlike himself.
“How do I let him go?”
A yell went up from the few guys glued to the screens. No one was paying Oliver any attention, though Max was hanging out somewhere nearby. Oliver had lost track of him after a while.
“Let him go?” Josefina echoed with incredulity. “Of course you’re not letting him go. You? You are going to let him go? It’s just as likely Jackson would ever let you go.”
“Then what the hell do I do?” Oliver asked, getting upset, wanting to hit or drink something again out of sheer frustration.
“Just wait. Wait, sweetie. Once he sees you, he’ll understand. Trust me.”
Oh, how he wanted her to be right, but he couldn’t go there, or hope that much.
“Now is not the time for pride, Olly.”
“Mm. Thanks, Jo.”
“Hang in there.”
He hung up, felt a little better.
And waited.
Rune built a wall in his mind. He fought to keep Oliver on the other side of it.
Oliver had made him choose, and there was no choice. Rune knew he was being a rotten little shit, but he just couldn’t let it go. He couldn’t let the bad guys win. Not when people were actively being hurt. Not when they’d taken his whole life away with no consequences.
That’s what he focused on.
Even when his chest got tight and his vision blurred. Even when he felt a magnetic pull drawing him toward Oliver’s apartment, where he suspected Jackson still waited for his return.
Rune had started on this road a while ago. For most of his life he’d been selfish, shallow. But he got it now, how important it was to get your head out of your ass and try to improve the state of the world rather than sitting by to watch it burn. They were all responsible for knowing when to stand up and say enough was enough to the hateful and the damned. Before, he’d been failing on all counts. Karma caught up with him. Taught him one hell of a lesson. Now, Rune knew he had a chance to do something important. If he let it pass him by, he’d feel personally responsible for anything else the drivers of that blue truck did from here on out. He had to keep his head down, ignore Oliver’s distractions, and see it out to the end. He had to do what he knew in the core of his being was the right thing.
He was capable of letting Oliver go. He would. He’d just do it. He’d stay active, go for the people he knew he could find now. And figure out the rest later.
If there was a later.
It was for the best.
That’s what he told himself every time he remembered coming upon Oliver just as he was about to walk up to the lair of a bunch of corrupt shitheads to do god-knows-what like some big suit-wearing hero. Over Rune’s dead body would he let Oliver waltz right into the firing line of these guys. They’d taken enough. They wouldn’t get any more. Not if Rune had a say about it.
He was doing the right thing. He was protecting everyone who needed protecting—other kids who were as oblivious as Rune had been, Oliver, Jackson, Adam, and any current or future targets of the hate of The White Lions. This was his fight. No one else’s. No one would miss him if he fucked it up, not in any way that mattered. Maybe on some level Oliver would, but Oliver had also been the one to make the ultimatum. He’d made the call, not Rune. Oliver would get over it in time if there were consequences. He’d still have Jackson and Adam.
Unlike Rune, Oliver had people who would miss him. Who counted on him. He wasn’t disposable in the same way.
There was a pain in Rune’s chest every time he thought of himself as disposable, but he ignored that too, pushed it behind the wall to be ignored along with everything associated with Oliver.
Rune kept walking, burning off the frazzled energy and self-doubt that kept grabbing at him.
He didn’t even know where he was headed, he just walked.
And when he got tired, he got an Uber and was ready with his directions pre-typed into his phone.
He got in the car, let the phone dictate his instructions to the driver, who looked confused but drove on anyway.
Fifteen minutes later, Rune was pulling up to the clubhouse of The Born Soldiers.
After getting out of the car, Rune sat down on the curb, letting the growing chill of the waning day sink into his bones.
He wasn’t ready to go inside yet, or explain anything to anybody. He just wanted to be left alone with his impossible situation. It was going to keep hurting until he solved it, eating away at the inside of his chest like a monster he’d swallowed. But he was going to have to get through the bar before reaching the sanctuary of his room. He waited for courage to show itself before trying.
A hand shoved his shoulder.
Jason stood there, cigarette in hand, gesturing widely with a confused expression.
Rune shrugged.
Jason jabbed a finger at the club, his eyebrows raised, his mouth set in a tight line. He looked ready to drag Rune’s ass inside if need be.
Rune flipped him off.
Jason mumbled something, stuck the cig in his mouth and started to come at Rune, who dodged away, scrambled to his feet and raised his hands in surrender.
Then he flipped Jason off again, this time with both hands, and headed toward the front entrance of the club, whether he was ready or not.
He punched the door to open it, letting it swing violently away from him as he stalked through the doorway.
Eyes on the ground, posture hunched, trying to exude a powerful don’t-fuck-with-me vibe, he stalked three steps forward.
And stopped short.
He saw perfectly shined shoes. Tailored pants. A crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. And Oliver’s expression, a wreck.
It was all there—right there on the surface—in his shining-wet, wide, bloodshot eyes, the twist of his lips, the furrow of his brow, the hopelessness in the set of his shoulders, his hands held palms out as if he was just waiting for a tidal wave to carry him away, like he needed it to take him.
Seeing him like that felt like a punch to the chest.
Stunned, Rune fought to breathe, his gaze darting around to the others in the bar who watched them, and those that didn’t. He saw Max a few feet away, looking displeased.
As much as it hurt to do it, Rune looked back up at Oliver, and knew.
He was so screwed.
Royally.
There was no conscious decision. There was no choice.
He just dropped it all. The pretense. The belief in how things were going to go. The things he had told himself he needed. The plans.
It rolled off of his back and vanished like smoke.
Oliver moved his flattened right hand in a circle over the center of his chest—the sign for please.
Rune felt a hand squeezing his heart, crushing his lungs. He cleared his throat, brushed his thumb over his bottom lip as he hid behind the curled hand.
A force moved him, silent and unbeatable. It pushed him the few steps forward until he was being folded into Oliver’s embrace. Rune’s mouth pressed against the warm, smooth skin of Oliver’s neck. Wrapping an arm around, he held on, closed his eyes. A hand clasped the back of his head and he sighed.
He knew what it meant; that in a way, he was losing.
But next to what he was gaining?
Well, there was no comparison.