Levi was sick to death of long nights on the porch of that old fucking house and the smell of chemicals as the cooks created batch after batch of meth…or crystal poison, as Levi liked to call it. He and Grant spent most of their nights playing cards or telling wild stories that were only half true. Occasionally, a vagrant would wander up and they’d have to chase him off. There was only one night that they had a close call with the police. Levi had noticed more cops in the area on his way to take his shift that night, so as soon as he and Grant had gotten the report of events from the day crew, he left Grant to guard the house and rode his bike to the end of Victory Street. He sat there in the shadows for over an hour, watching the traffic. He saw several police cars pass by, but none of them seemed interested in the vacant street. He was about to go back to the house when he saw two cop cars approaching, one right behind the other. He started his bike and as soon as the lead car threw on his turn signal, Levi went flying around the corner, cutting off a Mercedes and causing a flurry of honking horns. The cops bypassed Victory Street; both of the cars sped after Levi.

They were on a main road and Levi got the bike up close to ninety at one point as he wove in and out of traffic. He was pissing people off and he even caused one fender bender. It was the most fun he’d had in a while. It was a relatively cool summer night and the wind felt good on his face. He took the cops on a five-mile run before finally coming to a dirt road that led up into the State Park. He opened the throttle wide, and the bike was flying up the hill at over 100 miles an hour as Levi maneuvered around potholes and the shining eyes of furry, four-legged creatures on the road. The cops surprised him by continuing to give chase for another three miles or so, until the road narrowed too much for their cars to make it through the thick trees and foliage. When he heard the screech of their tires and brakes, he pulled off into a thicket of trees and waited. He wasn’t surprised to hear them leaving not long after. If they had gotten out of their cars to look for him, that would have been surprising. In Levi’s mind, cops were lazy by nature and much preferred a car chase and a shoot-out to any kind of foot pursuit. He sat there in the woods for another half-hour or so before leaving out the opposite direction he’d entered. By the time he got back to the meth lab over three hours had passed and Grant had been blowing up his phone. In person he said:

“Fuck, man, I heard your bike and those sirens hours ago. I thought your ass was in jail or dead by now.”

“Aw, you were worried about me?”

“Hell no, just pissed because you were having all the fun and I was stuck in this boring-ass place. Next time, it’s my turn.”

“Good luck outrunning them on that piece-of-shit Softail.”

Grant laughed. “That Softail would kick your bitch ass Sportster’s ass in a hot minute.”

Levi chuckled. His father had built his bike almost from the ground up. Nobody could beat him in a race, and Grant knew it. He just liked to talk a lot of shit. He was about to grab one of the cold beers out of the ice chest Grant had brought when his phone buzzed in his pocket. “Is that you again? I’m really okay,” he said, looking at Grant.

“Shut the fuck up. Maybe I was hoping they had your big, stupid ass in jail.”

Levi chuckled as he pulled the phone out. The smile disappeared when he saw that it was Cheney. “Hey, Prez, what’s up?”

“I need you to leave Grant on watch there and come back to the house.”

“Okay…can I ask why?”

“We have a visitor coming and hopefully a new venture in the works. I want you in on it.”

Levi wasn’t sure whether to be happy about that or not, but in reality, he didn’t think whatever it was could be any worse than standing guard on a meth lab. He’d been doing that for almost three weeks already and other than the police chase, he’d left every morning wanting to blow his brains out. Of course, nothing really made him happy any longer without Krissy…other than the dreams.

“Okay. I’ll be there soon.”

Grant wasn’t happy about Levi’s being called in and his being left behind, but he and Levi both knew that when Cheney hand-selected a guy for a job, there was always a reason behind it. It took Levi half an hour to get to the clubhouse. When he walked in the door and looked around, it looked like any other Saturday night. The guys that didn’t have a job to do that night were sitting around drinking or playing cards. Football was on the big-screen television over the bar and the prospects were serving up cold beer and whiskey. A few of the club girls milled around, or rubbed up against one or the other of the guys. The girls had taken to leaving Levi alone a long time ago. When he first hit puberty, he’d changed his bedmate as often as he did his underwear, learning everything he could from the experienced, older women. But the second he lay eyes on Krissy that night at the party, he’d started rebuffing all their advances. Eventually, when he started bringing her around the clubhouse and introducing her as his old lady, they backed off…at least, most of them. Once she died however, it was like he’d sprayed himself with insect repellant and they were a bunch of mosquitos. They buzzed around him in a circle, but didn’t approach. They were not so subtly waiting for the insect repellant…or in his case the grief…to go away. It had been almost two months now, and Levi still couldn’t imagine it ever happening.

He checked in with Cheney, who told him to have a drink and he’d be out in a few. He sat down at the bar next to one of the sergeants at arms, a guy he only knew as “Evil,” and gave his order to one of the prospects tending bar. He’d barely taken a sip of his whiskey as he took in the score of the Titans game on the TV when he heard the sound of a group of Harleys approach out front. Cheney came out of his office with Jackie D in tow and stepped to the front door like some kind of fucking diplomat. Levi rolled his eyes and downed his drink as he turned toward the door to see who their mystery visitor was.

The door opened and a tall man entered. He had long, blond hair held back in a ponytail and blue eyes that seemed to take in the scene around him all at once. Next to him was a guy about thirty-five with dark hair and eyes and a small, jagged scar along one side of his mouth. A tall, lanky-looking guy with short, kinky black hair who looked part Asian and part black stood next to a huge, buff white guy with a buzz cut. Behind him, trailing the crew, was a dark-skinned guy with black dreadlocks and eyes the same color blue as the blond guy. They were all wearing jeans and leather kuttes, but Levi couldn’t see the patch on the back from where he sat. The room fell silent as Cheney said:

“Welcome! I’m glad you made it. Everyone, this is Dax Marshall. He’s the president of a club up in Massachusetts called the Southside Skulls. I’ll let the rest of you introduce yourselves,” Cheney said as he shook hands with the guy named Dax and then each one of the others. After he’d greeted them all and introduced Jackie, he told one of the prospects to bring each one of them a cold beer and a shot, and he led them to the meeting room. Jackie stopped as they passed Levi and said, “Come on. This involves you too.”

Levi got up and followed them all into the meeting room. He took a seat at the end of the table and watched as the rest of them all sat down. The dark-haired guy’s kutte said “Handsome.” Levi wasn’t sure that was the name he would have picked for that particular guy. “Scary” or “Hard-Ass” seemed to fit better. The Asian guy was “Jimmy,” the buff guy was “Cody,” and the Mexican-looking guy with the weird blue eyes was “Gunner.” Levi was as curious as hell about what kind of business they could have with a club all the way up in Massachusetts, but he didn’t have to wait long to find out. He even figured out quickly why Cheney wanted him on this job. Cheney started out by saying:

“This is Jackie D, our V.P. Next to him is my road captain, Mikey, and on his right, my treasurer, Big Sam. That guy at the end of the table there is Levi.” All the men turned to look at him and Levi felt even more at a loss, not knowing why the hell he was there. “He’s the best we have, better than any I’ve ever seen.” As soon as Cheney said that, Levi knew what he was talking about.

Levi was fifteen years old the first time his old man taught him how to hotwire a bike. They were just messing around one day, working on the bike Levi’s dad was fixing up for him, and the old man said, “What do you do if you need your bike and can’t find the key?” “Spare key?” Levi had answered. His dad rolled his eyes and said, “Yeah, knowing your mother she’d probably keep one handy for you just in case. Let me put it this way. What if you needed to start a bike you didn’t have any keys to?” Levi smiled and said, “Hotwire it and then drive like hell before they catch up to you.” His dad had laughed and pulled a piece of silver wire about six inches long out of his pocket. “Never leave home without one of these,” he said. He reached under the chrome cover on the bike and pulled out a red, black, yellow, and blue wire. He held them in order between his fingers, stripped off the colored plastic tips, and used the wire in his other hand to connect wire number two and four. There was a little spark and he pulled them apart and did it again…two more times…before the bike roared to life. He grinned at Levi and said, “There’s another wire on my tool-box. Grab it and you give it a try with my bike.” Levi did as he was told and his dad’s bike fired up on the first touch. Over the years, Levi got so good at it that the whole process only took him a matter of seconds and he never came across a bike he couldn’t start.

Dax looked at Levi and said, “Any qualms about taking from another club?” Levi noted that Dax said “taking” and not “stealing.” He wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly but he quickly said:

“Nope.”

“Good. Any problems taking a trip to Texas?”

Levi didn’t have to think about that either. Since Krissy died, his mom and papa were all that was really holding him to Memphis. A change of scenery might do him a world of good. “Not at all,” he said.

Dax stood up then and his men followed suit. Levi could almost feel the camaraderie there; it was the kind of camaraderie he’d been looking for when he was a prospect for the Defenders as an eighteen-year-old. He had yet to feel that with his own club, and even less so now that his father was gone. Levi got a feeling that this might just be his most interesting job yet.