GRIFFIN

by Paula Cox

  The weight of this on Griffin felt almost crushing, and yet, deep inside somewhere, he knew it was right. If Damon won, everything would go straight to hell, and more people would probably die. He finished the last of his beer and accepted a new bottle from Natasha, staring into the fire in front of them as he thought of what to do next.

  “So we tell people, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Natasha replied. “I think that’s the best way to go about it, and soon, too, before Damon settles down too much.”

  It made a certain amount of sense.

  “That won’t end in a discussion, I’ll tell you that much,” Griffin replied, looking over at Zachariah as he said it. “Damon is going to fight, probably even harder now that he knows that he didn’t kill me the first time.”

  “Sounds like Damon should be scared,” Zachariah replied. “Especially if we get the other charters to back us up.”

  Natasha stared into the fire, lost in her own thoughts. It was the best plan, she knew that. They would have to visit the other charters, the ones spread across West Texas, and try to get them on Griffin’s side. She didn’t know anything about the other charters; she didn’t know what they had to do with the charter that operated in Brazos. Yet, what little she did know, it made it sound as though this was probably going to be one of the most important coups to ever happen to them.

  She knew that if the Disciples were a snake, Brazos was the head. While the other charters operated pretty much on their own, any big decisions they made went to the president of the Lost Disciples, given the fact that they were founded first. The other charters had their own presidents, but every president was beholden to the one that currently ran in Brazos, and that person at the moment was the asshole Damon Stokes. The same man who wanted her dead. She knew it was a long shot, but maybe they could get enough guys to actually stand up and do something. The thought of it excited her in a way that she didn’t expect. She could imagine going from charter to charter, acting as a diplomat, helping Griffin as he did this.

  “Clear me for active duty, sir?” Griffin asked Zachariah, grinning a grin that still held a little pain but not enough pain to slow him down. Zachariah gave a deep chuckle.

  “Griffin, I know that I couldn’t stop you if I tried, so I’m not going to stop you. Yeah, you still have that wound, but just keep it clean and it shouldn’t give you much trouble. You were a lucky man with that bullet.”

  “I know.”

  “Just don’t get shot again.”

  “I’m not planning on it,” Griffin replied.

  Natasha smiled at him. “You better not,” she said.

  “And what about you?” Griffin replied, those blue eyes darting up to look into hers. It was as though they were staring into the very heart of her, desperately trying to figure out where she was finally landing. Natasha’s stomach turned. She knew that it was coming up on that time, so she put her empty beer bottle down and stood up.

  “I need to take a walk,” she said.

  “Alright, just watch out for coyotes around these parts, and don’t go too far.”

  Griffin moved to stand, but she shook her head slightly, trying to convey without saying it aloud that she needed to do this on her own. He took the hint and relaxed in his chair, understanding what she had to do.

  With the gun tucked down the front of her jeans, Natasha walked out of the comforting glow of the fire and into the darkness.

  The darkness would help her think.

  Chapter 30

  Natasha had never really appreciated the desert when she lived in Brazos. It had seemed to be some vast, dangerous thing that got dust everywhere and was full of coyotes, snakes, and who knew what else. Every time she had gone out to play as a little girl, she could remember the dust that would stay in her hair and stain her skin. When her mother found her, she would insist that she take a bath right away, lest she infect the entire house with the dust.

  Now, in the darkness of the night and far enough away from the campfire that she felt as though she was alone, she realized that there was a beauty to the desert she never realized. It was serene, and the moonlight cast the dirt in a silvery glow. It seemed almost enchanted, and for the first time for as long as she could remember, she felt as though this were a place worth fighting for.

  Wasn’t that what it was all about? The fight? She knew that Griffin wanted her to make a decision, to come down firmly and either join the Disciples or go back to her old life. It was strange how old that life felt now. It was as though her college days were something that happened to her years ago instead of weeks ago. It was as if the life she had been living was a distant dream and now she was finally waking up.

  Wasn’t that what this was? An awakening? Natasha couldn’t help but feel that way, as much as that scared her. She felt for the first time a blossoming within her, an understanding that this was what she was meant for. What did that mean though? How could that remotely be okay? She had wanted to be a social worker, and now what was she doing? Advising during club wars and helping those who trafficked across the border? What kind of person did that make her if she actually embraced it?

  What kind of person was she that this stuff came naturally?

  She knew enough from her urban anthropology classes that this sort of thing was bound to arrive in a far-flung place like Brazos. Yet, she also knew that she was definitely the kind of person that should rise above it. Her mother had given her the opportunity, hadn’t she? Her mother had sacrificed so much for Natasha to have a fair shot, and what did it say if she was throwing it away?

  Natasha thought back to a time when she was sixteen; her mother hadn’t yet been diagnosed with the breast cancer that would eventually take her. While Natasha had definitely stuck to the straight and narrow as often as she could, she wasn’t immune to the typical flare-ups of teenage life—something that always seemed to upset her mother.

  One night, she had snuck out of the house to meet up with some friends and drink down by the local bowling alley. It had been a pretty stupid thing to do, given the fact that not only were they all underage, but the bowling alley wasn’t even open. All they had done was linger in the parking lot, wondering if they were cool yet for sneaking out. Natasha had allowed one of her friends, Dallas Pope, to kiss her for a little while, but the thrill of the illicit wasn’t really doing it for her. She had actually cut out early—at around two in the morning—in order to go home and get some rest before school.

  Her mother had been waiting for her when she got home, tired and wrapped up in her bathrobe, her long blonde hair that Natasha had inherited down and lank over her shoulders. She looked up at Natasha with tired eyes, eyes that had seen their fair share of betrayal in the past, stuff that Natasha never knew. Instead of feeling sorry for what she had done, Natasha just felt angry at the idea of being caught. The one rebellious thing she did as a true teenager and she was met with disappointment? She glared at her mother and moved to walk by.

  “Where are you going?” her mother asked. Her voice always had that particular Texas twang that Natasha never seemed to master. It had bothered her while she was growing up and was even worse when she eventually got to college. So many people thought she was from out of town, and even worse were the wide eyes and the complete surprise when they realized that Natasha was a native.

  “Bed,” Natasha replied, unable to keep the acid from coloring her words. Her mother sighed.

  “No, you are not. Come here and sit down.”

  Natasha had injected as much youthful arrogance as she could and walked over to sit down, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at her mother.

  “What?” she asked, full of young rage. “I just went out with some friends.”

  “What friends?”

  Natasha had listed them off, but it didn’t really matter. They had all been ghosts drifting through Natasha’s life, friends by proximity and not much else. She had always had a hard time making friends because there was always something so prickly about her, al
most cold. She was never afraid to tell people what she wanted and why she wanted it. Even at the young of age of sixteen, the others could sense that sort of burning in her and knew not to hold her close. Even Dallas Pope, the boy who had kissed her on her big night out, really meant nothing.

  “Listen, Natasha, you’re a good girl. I know you like testing the waters of rebellion…”

  For some reason, the heartwarming, motherly speech she had prepared wasn’t going to cut it, and Natasha could feel the young rage rise in her gullet, threatening to spill out in the form of nasty, regrettable words.

  “Oh my god, can the lecture, Mom!” Natasha cried. “It’s not like I’m going off and getting pregnant down by the football field or anything.”

  “No, you’re a good girl. I just want you to… stay good.”

  Natasha could tell that her mother was desperately trying to convey an idea that Natasha could not stand. Who was this woman, this woman, who Natasha had seen splayed out on motorcycles as if they were in her own boudoir, to say anything valuable?

  “Oh give me a break,” Natasha muttered.

  “Excuse me?” her mother asked.

  In her teenaged cruelty, Natasha knew exactly what to say. “Just because you couldn’t cut it running with Dad anymore doesn’t mean you have to ruin everything for everyone.”

  Her mother’s face fell, and Natasha hadn’t really noticed how deeply it had impacted her. Later, when Natasha had grown older, she knew exactly what she had said to break her mother’s heart. The woman who had stood in the kitchen when thirteen-year-old Natasha had tried to run away was now the women splayed out on her father’s bike, and her mother now sat alone in a kitchen, in an apartment in another town, looking at her own ignorant daughter.

  “Excuse me?” her mother had said.

  “I’m just saying, I’ve been good. I’ve mostly been good my entire life, and now when I try something new, when I try to find myself, or at least figure out what’s good for me without having to deal with everyone else’s standards, you immediately try to crush me. I mean, come on! I didn’t even stay out the entire time! I came home! How lame is that, and yet, I’m still getting in trouble.”

  Her mother closed her eyes, and she had looked so frail then. Of course, in her memories, Natasha couldn’t help but wonder if the first signs of the cancer were there, if the angst her mother had had over her miniature, teenage rebellion had pushed her health to that limit. For a long time Natasha had wondered if the cancer had been her fault, if the stress from everything had been what did it. Of course, as she got older, she realized that wasn’t the case. It was something she had just used to hurt herself.

  “Being good isn’t being good unless you’re actively doing it against the bad,” her mother had said after a moment of thought. “You aren’t good because you walk the straight and narrow, and definitely not if you immediately jump on whatever bad thing you can find the second the opportunity presents itself. Natasha, you’re smarter than that. Goodness is always a choice, and I just want you to make the right choice.”

  The reason in her tone made Natasha feel ashamed for immediately going on the defensive, and yet, it couldn’t quench the angry fire that still burned in her stomach.

  “Yeah, but how will I know what’s good if I don’t try everything?” she had replied, all passion and fire.

  Her mother closed her eyes and smiled in spite of the tenseness of the situation.

  “You are your father’s daughter,” she had said.

  Natasha was tired of being that boring girl who got all straight A’s and never dated anyone because she was too busy studying. She knew how to ride a motorcycle better than even some of her father’s friends in the motorcycle club, and yet, she was just supposed to hide that? She was just supposed to keep her head down, look forward to college… and then what?

  Natasha couldn’t remember how that particular fight had ended with her mother, but she knew that they eventually had made up. She looked back at her teenage self and wondered if she didn’t have the right idea. She still remembered how it had felt to be called her father’s daughter, how she had pushed it all down inside of her. She had never bothered to ask what that had meant.

  Sure, her father was incredibly passionate, he was a good listener, and he always held his cards close to the chest. Natasha hadn’t known the extent of his work until much later. He had been inscrutable during her visits, often taking time away from the club. She had thought he just had a good hobby; she had thought he was retired. Never did she think that he was a kingpin.

  There was actually no way that a younger version of Natasha would have been able to handle that news. After that fight, after that brush with rebellion, Natasha had slowly become more and more concerned with making her mother happy. She had begun to realize, however slowly, that maybe the things her mother was running from weren’t necessarily harmless.

  Her mother had been right, if this last week was any indication. She had been shot at, practically abducted, hidden away, and almost murdered in cold blood. She had been forced to take someone’s life—over what, a fear that she would walk in her father’s footsteps? She had gone through so much, and she barely was in it. What would happen if she were in things for real? Would this be her life?

  That was the problem she was facing though. The startling conclusion that she came to was the sheer unavoidable fact that not only could she survive those circumstances, but she could thrive in them.

  Her mother hadn’t had the disposition to be by her father’s side while he ran the Disciples, but that didn’t make her a weak person. She had been strong enough to walk away, strong enough to end a marriage when she realized that it wasn’t for her. Yet, what hadn’t occurred to her was that this was the world in which Natasha belonged.

  She stopped her pacing as that came to mind. The more she thought of it, the more she turned it over and over in her thoughts, the more solid it became. That was it.

  She was her father’s daughter.

  The idea of it was scary, and terrible, and yet, it felt so right. She turned to look at the two people still sitting by the fire. She watched as the light of the flames played across Griffin’s face. Yes, she knew that she would basically belong to him if she decided to do this, but the thought of that wasn’t terrible. Even if he did decide to toss her away some day, years later, just like she always thought her father had done to her mother, she knew she would be okay. No, she knew she would still thrive in the community, because no one was ever going to keep Natasha Morrison down.

  Most importantly, the blood was already on her hands. There was no turning back from this now, was there? She had liked pretending that she had a choice, but she knew all along that she didn’t. This was her fate, her destiny, and all of a sudden that destiny didn’t look so terrible.

  Before she knew it, she was marching back to the campfire, startling both Zachariah and Griffin as she marched up to them with purpose. She looked Griffin dead in the eyes.

  At first Griffin wasn’t sure of what was about to happen, she had walked with such anger, such determination, and the firelight had given her amber eyes an almost devilish cast as she stared the two of them down. Griffin knew that this could go in any direction. As much as he believed that she was in, it wouldn’t mean a damn thing if she didn’t agree.

  “Do you think that the others will listen even better if you have the daughter of Emanuel Morrison on your side?”

  A triumphant glee ripped across Griffin’s face, and for a moment it looked as though he was going to stand up right then and there, throw Natasha over his shoulder, and take her back into the trailer for a celebration of his own even before she had officially said anything. The idea was tempting, but now wasn’t the time for such things. She had a plan to put together, and charter presidents to learn about. Zachariah smiled, as though he always knew that this was going to be the conclusion, and Griffin waited for her to finally say those two little words that he didn’t even realize that he wanted to he
ar since he had first laid eyes on her at Emanuel Morrison’s funeral.

  She grinned, and it was a cocky grin. It suited her. Reaching over and grabbing another beer from the cooler, she took her seat by the fire. “I’m in,” she said. “Now it’s time to make a plan.”

  Chapter 31

  The next morning, they called Julian. He answered with a hurried voice, eager to get back out there and figure out what to do next. Luckily, his ambitions weren’t as grand as theirs were, and he sounded almost relieved when they informed him that the plan had already been made. Arriving at Zachariah’, Griffin had been relieved to see that any cuts or bruises Julian had received were already patched up. That was good; it saved time.

  Natasha shrugged into the bloodied vest of the Disciple she had killed. She knew that it was probably the most macabre thing she had ever done, but the idea behind it was sound. She knew that traditionally women who spent time around any sort of biker club were usually shunted to the side, but if she wore not only the vest, but the vest of the Disciple she killed, she knew that it would at least get some of the guys to look at her. Natasha wasn’t interested in being eye candy.