“I don’t like that you’re buying my clothes,” Jess muttered as they moved through TJ Maxx.

 

“If you want to wear the same clothes all the time, be my guest,” Scott replied. “Me, I prefer to not have my clothes stand up by themselves, but it’s up to you.”

 

“I’ll pay you back, okay?”

 

He waved his hand in dismissal. They were only buying a few items each and the prices were relatively low. They were getting just what they needed to tide them over until they got themselves sorted out. “If it makes you feel better.”

 

Jess looked down at the three shirts in her hands. “No, not really. I just hate this out of control feeling that I have, like the world is spinning away from me. Everything I knew, and loved, is crashing down around me, and the only person that seems to understand is a guy I just met.”

 

“And Ron,” Scott suggested softly.

 

Jess smiled slightly. “And Ron.” Before she could say anything else, she started slightly as her phone vibrated against her ass in her back pocket. She pulled the phone, looked at the screen a moment and then pressed the button. “Hello Mom.”

 

“Jess! Are you okay? I heard what happened!”

 

“Which part? The part where your brother’s goons were shooting at me or the part where they shot Angela?”

 

“Jess, this has all been a terrible misunderstanding! You need to come home, now, so we can sort this out. Please.”

 

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Jess hissed into her phone, bending over while covering the mouthpiece with her hand so prying ears couldn’t hear. “Why would I do that, especially now? Val sent men to kill either me, or Scott, or both of us! They didn’t even try to bring us in alive! They were shooting as they drove up!”

 

“Scott killed two men, Jess!”

 

“To protect me! You don’t get it, Mother! When we heard them coming, we tried to run, but we couldn’t. The two guys in the SUV were blazing away at us the whole time. Angela tried to stop them, so they shot her. Was it on purpose? I don’t know, but they shot her nevertheless. How were we supposed to know that they weren’t going to shoot us, too?” Jess looked around. Nobody was looking at her yet. “What were we supposed to do? Huh? Answer me that.”

 

“Jess, look, I know it looks bad right now. Hell, it is bad. But the longer you stay out, the longer you and Scott defy the club, the worse it will be. You have to see that!”

 

“What I see, Mother, is that you care more about the Angels than you do me. Aren’t you the least bit worried what will happen to me?”

 

“No! Nothing is going to happen to you, Jessica. Val would never hurt you, and he won’t let anyone else hurt you either!”

 

“No? You could have fooled me by the way people were shooting at me!”

 

“That was a mistake! There’s no way Val would have ordered that!”

 

“Even if you are right, he’s just going to lock me up in that fucking café for the rest of my life. I’d rather die first than go back to that.”

 

“You don’t mean that,” Kat said, her voice completely devoid of emotion.

 

“I do mean it. I had forgotten what it was like to be wanted, to get up in the morning and not dread every moment of the day. Is that what you want for me, Mom?”

 

“Jess, I just worry about you, baby. You’re my little girl and I love you. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

 

“I’m not a little girl anymore Mom. I’m—”

 

“You’ll always be my little girl,” Kat said softly.

 

“—a grown woman,” Jess continued as if her mother hadn’t spoken. “I want to have a life, my own life. I want to choose what I do with my life, who I want be with. Is that asking too much?”

 

“No. But, Jess—”

 

“But, what?” Jess asked, cutting Kat off. “But I’m not old enough to know what I want? I’m not smart enough? What?”

 

“Why are you being like this?”

 

“Like what, Mom? Trying to be free to live my own life and not have it controlled by my mother and uncle?”

 

“What are you going to do?”

 

“I don’t know,” Jess said. “It’s clear that we can’t stay here. Maybe Scott and I will leave and never come back.”

 

“You just met him!”

 

“Yeah. And it may not last out the month. But as least I will be free of you, Val, and the Grim Angels. I’ll be free to make my own way, or fail trying.”

 

“Jess. Don’t go, okay? Just give me a day or two to talk some sense into Val. I warned him that we couldn’t protect you forever. Surely he must see that now. And if he doesn’t, I’ll make him see. Can you give me just until the weekend? Please, Jess. Just give me until Saturday morning. That’s only two days away. You can wait that long, right?”

 

Jess heard Kat stifle a sob and she thought it over. It was a risk, but she really didn’t want to abandon the life and leave the only family she knew. “I want something first.”

 

“Anything!”

 

“I want Scott’s bike back.”

 

“What? What are you talking about?”

 

“The Angels took Scott’s hog. I want it back.”

 

“I don’t know anything about that!”

 

“Then I guess you better figure something out. That’s the deal. I want his bike back, tomorrow, and I’ll give you until Saturday. Otherwise, we’re gone.”

 

“How will you leave?”

 

“We’ve got wheels.” She thought a moment. “We found a pile of crap car for sale and bought it. It may not get us far, but it will get us out of Detroit,” she continued to try to deflect any retribution toward Ron.

 

“I’ll try to find out about Scott’s hog. But, Jess, don’t do anything you’ll regret later, okay?”

 

“Just find his bike. Call me when you have it and we’ll tell you where to leave it.” Jess punched the button on her phone ending the call as she seemed to sag a little.

 

“You okay?” Scott asked softly.

 

“No. This is so messed up.”

 

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, Jess.”

 

“It’s not your fault. It’s my fucking family’s fault. I just don’t know what I’m going to do about it.”

 

“We should leave. Forget the bike. I’ll report it stolen. We can go back to Atlanta, pack my shit, and go somewhere to get away from all this.”

 

Jess tugged on Scott’s arm to start him walking toward the cash registers. She didn’t like him buying her clothes before, but any mood she may have been in to shop had been ruined by her mother’s call. “You’d do that? You’d just walk away from the Grim Angels?”

 

“Yes. This backstabbing isn’t what I signed up for. It isn’t supposed to be like this. It didn’t used to be like this.”

 

They held their conversation while they stood in line to check out. What they were talking about was not for outsiders. Once their purchases were bagged and they were out of the store, Jess picked up the thread again.

 

“Where would we go?” she asked. She didn’t want to depend on Scott, but she had never done anything other than flip burgers, and the thought of having to make ends meet on minimum wage scared her a little.

 

“I don’t know,” he said, tugging the door open on the Toyota so Jess could slip inside. “Not Atlanta, for sure. Somewhere there are no Grim Angels, that much is certain.” Scott nursed the wheezy Toyota to life, grimacing as a belt squealed when he revved the engine to keep it running. “This car is a piece of shit. We’ll be lucky to make it out of Michigan in this thing.”

 

Jess grinned at Scott’s obvious embarrassment. Ron had been driving heaps like this for so long she didn’t think twice about them anymore. “Why do you think I demanded your bike back?”

 

“How’s that going to work? The moment we arrive to pick up the bike, they’ve got us.”

 

“I don’t know. I just wanted Mom to know she can’t push me around anymore. I wanted something from her, and getting your bike back seemed like a good idea. Look at it as a test of her resolve. We’ll see how much she really wants me come home.”

 

Jess and Scott rode back to her stepfather’s house, speaking little, partially because they were lost in their own thoughts and partially because they had to shout to be heard over the wind and laboring engine.

 

Scott wheeled the Toyota into the drive and stopped, but didn’t open his door. Jess could tell he was thinking so she kept her seat, as well, letting him sort it out.

 

“We should just go,” he said suddenly. “You and me. Take your dad’s car and just get the hell out of Dodge. The longer we stay here, the more danger we’re in. If the Angels come here looking for us, your dad could get hurt.”

 

“Do you care?”

 

“Of course I care! He hasn’t done anything to me. He’s gone out of his way to help us when he could have left us twisting in the wind. Why would I want to see him hurt?”

 

Jess smiled slightly. “Just checking. You’re not like most of the Angels. They don’t go out of their way to hurt someone, but they don’t exactly go out of their way to prevent it either.”

 

“Didn’t you know that already?”

 

“That you’re different? Yeah, but I’m still learning just how different. How did you get mixed up in this anyway?”

 

“The club?”

 

“Yeah. To be honest, you look like an Angel, sort of, but you don’t act like one at all.”

 

“Nothing to tell. I like bikes and I hung around the Angels clubhouse. The President, the president before that asshole Jason, I should say, kind of took me under his wing. I worked around the clubhouse, sweeping, washing bikes, mowing the grass, whatever, for spending money. Mom did okay working for Delta, but there wasn’t a lot of extra money. I wanted a bike so bad I couldn’t stand it, so I did whatever I could to earn money toward that. Then I kind of became the mascot, and the rest, as they say, is history. I showed up one day with a barely running pile of junk, kind of like this car actually, and the guys all pitched in and helped me fix it up. It was funny how all these new parts kept being found in the back of the clubhouse, parts that just happened to fit my bike. For every part I bought, four or five more would get found.”

 

Jess smiled at Scott’s jab at her dad’s car, but also at the slight smile and faraway look on his face. “You liked it back then?”

 

“Yeah. A lot. But then things began to change. Jason, he’s a hard charger. Sergeant at Arms, then Vice-President, then, finally President. He was never satisfied, always pushing to grow the club, to make more money, to have more power and influence. It stopped being about enjoying the company of brothers and dealing a few guns on the side for spending money and more about the next score.”

 

“But you stayed? Why?”

 

“I don’t know. Stupid? Loyalty? I’ve known some of those guys for more than fifteen years. Even though I’m part of the,” Scott made tic marks in the air with his finger, “‘new generation,’ I feel closer to the old guys, the ones who have been around a long time.”

 

“You would really give up the Angels for me?”

 

“Yes. I can find another club. I can’t find another you.”

 

“Aren’t you just the sweetheart,” Jess said jovially as she quickly opened the door and got out of the car so Scott wouldn’t see her eyes fill with tears.