by Lena Bourne
My father’s upper lip rises in what looks very much like a rabid dog’s snarl.
“You came here to dangle this in front of me?” he says. “Boy, you are stupid. We don’t need any outside help. Least of all from a bunch of cold-blooded killers. We handle our own. We handle our own!”
Spittle flies across my face as he yells that twice, and the cold blade of his knife against my throat grows colder.
“I will talk to him now, before you do anything else stupid, Slash,” my grandmother’s voice floats to me from behind my back. She’s speaking quietly in a croaky, old-woman voice, but it sounds like a yell in the silence that’s now fallen across the yard.
Her shuffling footsteps echo as she walks into my field of vision. She’s bent down almost halfway, leaning heavily on a wooden cane, dragging more than lifting her left foot. But her light blue eyes are as piercing and alert as they ever were. I don’t remember the last time I was this happy to see anyone.
“It’s good to see you, Gran,” I tell her as I grin at her.
She chuckles. “You didn’t think I’d still be alive, but I am.”
I chuckle because as always, she’s right.
“Let him go, Slash,” she tells my father. “We should hear what he’s come here to ask and we should think long and hard about it. You can figure out his punishment later, when you’ve cooled off.”
Pa shoots her a look and if looks could kill, my grandma would be on the ground breathing her last breath. He grumbles something incomprehensible and takes the knife off my throat. Death avoided for now. But I have no doubt that it isn’t for long. My father doesn’t make idle threats.
But that’s a problem for later. I stride towards Gran with a big old smile on my face to say a proper hello. I missed her more than I knew. With her on my side in this, it might just work out for the best.
Dinner is on the table in the small, dim kitchen of my childhood home. Dirt and dust are so thick on the ground, even the boot prints all over it no longer reveal the hardwood floor beneath it. The leg my grandmother can’t lift anymore and just drags behind her has created the largest, most pronounced traces. Kinda like she herself does in our family. She’s the voice of reason. Always was. That’s not to say she’s merciful or isn’t as out for the blood of our enemies as the rest.
“Sit,” she says, pointing at the one chair in front of which there isn’t already a plate of half-eaten food.
The room smells of mashed potatoes, and roasted meat, neither fresh.
“I’m glad you’re still alive, Gran,” I tell her as she shuffles off to the sink to get me a clean plate.
She snorts and makes a lot of noise picking up a clean plate and dumping a fork and knife on it before shuffling back to the table, leaning heavily on her cane and breathing heavily.
“You won’t be for long,” she snaps. “What did you think just walking back in here? Did you expect a warm welcome? Why did you come back?”
She cursed me along with the rest of them when I said I was leaving, but I thought I saw understanding in her eyes then. There’s none in them now.
“Like I told Pa, I made a mistake,” I tell her and take the plate from her hands. I’m as not hungry as anyone can be, but I don’t stop her from ladling two heaping spoonfuls of mashed potatoes onto my plate.
“I’m back now and I’m staying whether we join with the Devils for this or not,” I say, stick a fork into one of the charred steaks on a platter in the middle of the table and dump it on my plate.
“You’re a fool, Blaze,” she says sharply. “A worse fool than your daddy or your uncle. You left. You got out. Why did you come back?”
Her hand is shaking so bad that peas on the spoon she was bringing to my plate are spilling all over the table. I take her hand and stand, guiding her into the chair I just vacated. Her bottom lip is shaking, and her eyes are cloudy. She’s as frail as a piece of dry wood in my hands and shivering. She might be the strongest of us all, but she’s still very weak.
“I’ll end this shit, once and for all,” I say. “No more killing, no more fear, no more grief.”
“Oh, will you now?” my father says from the doorway. “My last son, our savior.”
He strides into the room and sits in his chair at the head of the table. My two cousins follow him in and sit down too. One of them in the chair that was once mine, at my father’s left hand.
“Don’t you want to end it?” I ask. “After all these years, don’t you want the killing to stop?”
His black eyes are burning with hate. And they’re answering me loud and clear. No! That’s what they’re saying.
I understand where he’s coming from.
We’re all too far down the rabbit hole of revenge to ever climb out again.
“Out there, they all want your blood,” Pa says. “None of them want your help.”
“Help’s coming either way,” I say, cutting a large piece of my steak, but not bringing it to my mouth. Somehow, I feel like I’ll never be hungry again. “I’ll play my part with or without you. I’d prefer to do it with you, but I hope you’ll at least let me live long enough to try. You can always kill me if the Snakes don’t.”
I chuckle at my dark joke. Not because it’s funny.
“You should hear him out, Slash,” my grandma says. “An eagle flew over us this morning and circled twice. Now your son is here with this offer. It’s a good omen.”
“Your eyes are shit, Ma. You can’t fucking see the sky,” my father snaps. “And your omens ain’t worth shit either.”
He always had the least patience for her superstitions out of all of us. At least on the outside. But his eyes aren’t as crazy and full of hate anymore as he fixes them on me.
“I’ll let you talk,” he says. “But make it quick.”
I clear my throat and push my plate away. This is as good as I’m gonna get from him, so I better make it count. Or I’ll be calling Cross to tell him I failed. If Pa lets me do that much before he makes good on his threat.
“I’ll make it short,” I say and lean back in my chair. “As you know, Colt and me joined Devil’s Nightmare MC a couple of years ago. And about a week ago, the Snakes used the two of us to get close enough to them so they could set some bombs, killing eight of the brothers and injuring more. Now, my president has asked me to get them close enough to the Snakes to get revenge. They want to set up camp behind our walls and use us to draw the bastards out.”
There’s much more to Cross’ plan, but the way my father grimaces every time I mention the Devils, or my new president, I’m gonna let him explain it all. If my father says yes.
“And they’re gonna kill them all?” Cousin Brady asks. “The way they always do?”
I nod. “Yes. Except the women and children. They don’t want to harm them. That’s why they want our help.”
My father snorts derisively. “They’re a bunch of weaklings, by the sound of things.”
“Killing women and children was never our way either,” I counter.
“Neither was abandoning the family,” he snaps back. “Or looking for outside help.”
“But we kinda needed it,” I say, a little unwisely. His face turns a dark red, his eyes bulging out again.
“How many fucking deaths could’ve been prevented if you were more interested in trying to make peace with the Snakes the way Reggie did?” I say, preventing him from exploding at me with the hateful rage that’s clearly boiling inside him. “Little Josh, for sure. Reggie too. My mother?”
My grandmother grabs my arm with her bony, frail fingers. She’s probably warning me to stop talking. But we’re past that point. My father gives the sense that steam is about to start whooshing from his ears and nose. He looks like an enraged bull from cartoons.
“He’s right, Slash,” Gran says quietly, but as before, her voice echoes. “We lost too many men and women in the last three years, while the Snakes just keep getting stronger and stronger. Accept the boy’s help. Please. It makes sense.”
<
br /> He shot her a deadly look when she started talking, but started visibly deflating as she continued.
“We don’t take handouts,” he says. “And we don’t need help.”
“Except we kinda do,” Brady says, quietly like he’s afraid of the sound of his own voice. “You know it’s true, Uncle.”
My father glares at him but doesn’t speak. The red color on his face is starting to fade. He looks at my other cousin, then at Gran, and finally at me.
“The Devils are already here?” he asks.
I nod. “Just about. I’m supposed to call them when I have your answer.”
“I’ll speak to this president of yours, see what’s what,” he says. “But I make no promises.”
It’s as good as I’m gonna get, so I don’t push him harder. Instead, I get up, take my phone from my pocket and wander out of the kitchen towards the bedroom I shared with my big brother.
The door creaks so bad it sounds like it’ll break right off the hinges as I open it, and inside, everything is covered with dust almost an inch deep. But otherwise, everything looks just like it always did. Two unmade twin beds. A table under the window, two rickety dressers with drawers that never closed right and still don’t. I sure as fuck didn’t leave much behind when I left. But I’m glad Misti didn’t come here to see it. I bet she’d regret ever meeting me the moment she walked in here. Yet I wish she was here.
I knew I’d miss her, I just didn’t know it’d be this bad. Seeing my room makes me miss my brother and my mother too, with a sharp physical pain in my chest. Add to that never seeing Misti again and I’m not sure how I’m even able to dial Cross’s number.
But I have a job to do. As long as I focus on only that, I’ll be fine. Don’t look back, only forward. That’s how me and mine have always lived. And that soul-killing mantra is loud and clear in my head too. And strangely comforting.
23
Misti
The drive to Nebraska was tense. For the most part, Stormi kept her eyes on the road and drove too fast. I tried to not think of the discomfort I was causing her, and just enjoy the vistas that opened before us as we entered prairie land. The soft ballads that Stormi likes so much playing on the radio provided the perfect background to the calm, perfect, peaceful emptiness.
Bright green grass shines in the last rays of the sun, the sky above it all so vast and so welcoming I feel like it could go on forever and ever until eternity. The few clouds that hang in it are white and fluffy, and ever-changing. The rest is just bright blue sky and sunlight.
I didn’t speak, because I didn’t want Stormi to start questioning her decision to bring me here. I think she didn’t speak for the same reason.
“We’re almost there, right?” she asks, not looking at me. The map on my phone says we’re about five miles out of the town of Two Forks and I tell her that.
“You’re still sure about this?” she asks, speaking so softly I could actually just pretend I didn’t hear her.
“Yes,” I say and hope she’ll leave it at that.
“How did we get to this?” she asks in a soft, faraway look. “It’s feels like just yesterday that I took you for a night out in Vegas and now I’m driving you to some scary place in the middle of nowhere.”
“You’re helping me follow my heart,” I say. “Not my actual, sick heart like you’ve always done, but you know, my actual heart.”
She inhales sharply and looks at me for the first time in hours, her eyes so full of so many emotions I can’t tell which one is clearest. Pity, frustration, love, anger…they’re all there.
She doesn’t say anything, just makes a sharp right turn into a gas station that we were almost past. She brakes so hard the tires slip as she stops by the pumps.
“Sorry, are you OK?” she asks looking at me with very frightened eyes.
I nod, feeling a little shell-shocked and wobbly and not at all steady.
“We need gas,” she says and gets out of the car, then opens the back and grabs her purse before slamming it shut.
I just sit there. We’re the only ones at the gas station and I can see the saleswoman behind the counter clearly. She’s wearing a yellow shirt, a matching yellow cap, and black pants as she leans on the counter and stares straight ahead with unfocused eyes. I don’t think she knows we’re here.
Stormi pumps the gas, but it doesn’t take very long at all. A couple of minutes later she’s already walking towards the shop to pay. The sales lady still hasn’t seen her.
I don’t want to think too much, because every time I do, the idea that I’m making the world’s biggest fool of myself starts washing over me in rolling waves, each higher than the last. The only thing that quiets that line of thinking is my absolute inability to do anything else. No part of me wants to go back home and not do this.
It takes Stormi much longer in the store than it took her to pump the gas and she’s walking towards me now, carrying a bulging white bag in one hand and her phone in the other.
She opens her door and climbs in, handing me the bag.
“I called Ace,” she says, wedging her phone in one of the two cupholders between the seats. “He wants us to find a motel room and stay put. He says going to the compound or whatever the hell they call that place where Blaze lives, is out of the question.”
She’s talking fast and edgily, not even looking at me as she starts the car.
My mind is reeling with all the things I could say to argue, to talk her out of it, to convince her to disregard what Ace said and take me to Blaze anyway.
But I have no right to ask for more from her than she can give me. We’ve reached that point here. And besides, I must do this last part alone.
“There’s a motel about two miles ahead on this road,” I say as she pulls out of the gas station. “We can stop there.”
She looks at me like she can’t believe she heard me right, swallows hard then fixes her eyes back on the road.
“I’m sorry, Misti,” she says. “But I tried to tell you before we came here. It’s pointless for you to be here. They’re on a job. At least we’re near. You’ll see him as soon as all this is over.”
I nod. On the face of it, she’s making perfect sense, but in my heart, I know there won’t be a later for Blaze and me. All we have is now.
“Hand me one of those sodas from the bag, will you?” she asks, and I do, opening it for her helpfully first.
“It’ll be good to lie down for a bit,” she says. “If I’m this tired, you must be exhausted.”
I shrug. The truth is, I’ve never felt more alive.
“It’ll be good to get out of this car,” I say.
I don’t want to lie to her, that’s why I better not say anything at all. But the satellite images of this area that go along with the map on my phone are showing me Blaze’s home very clearly. It’s only about three miles from the motel we’re stopping at—the Prairie Rose, as opposed to the Desert Rose in which me and Blaze started this adventure. That’s fitting, and I suppose portentous.
I can walk three miles. And I mean to.
As soon as we arrived at the motel, I lay down beside Stormi in the big double bed, figuring it’ll only be for a little while. She kept saying she was going to take a shower over and over again, because she was nervous, and I don’t think my reticence was doing much to help.
I fell asleep though.
It’s completely dark outside now, and Stormi isn’t in the room. She must’ve taken that shower though, because the room smells of a citrusy shampoo and steam still hangs in the air. I slept right through it.
I turn on the bedside light and walk over to the table by the TV where Stormi has arranged the sandwiches, candy bars, and sodas that she got at the gas station. She also left a note, hastily scribbled and rife with spelling errors. Her dyslexia has gotten better over the years, but she still makes lots and lots of mistakes when she tries to write fast. The note just tells me she’s gone to see Ace and will be back soon, and that I should eat something.<
br />
The clock on the wall above the TV says it’s almost nine PM. She hasn’t been gone long and if she’s with Ace, then whatever job the MC is here to do, isn’t happening tonight. This is what I hoped for. What I wished for. And I don’t think about it too long. Or at all.
I just put on my shoes, zip up my jacket, grab my purse and some pills, which I never leave the house without, and scribble a fast note for Stormi, telling her I’m sorry, but I have to go. That I have to do this and can’t force her to do it with me. Telling her I’ll call.
Then I let myself out of the motel room and start walking. The little blue dot on the map of my phone is guiding me, even though the night is pitch dark. But I don’t need light and I don’t even need the little blue dot. Something in my heart is guiding my feet exactly where they need to go. Something bright and happy, but also incredibly heavy. And I know that heaviness will not lift until I reach my destination. And I’m afraid it won’t lift even after I do. But I’ll worry about that when I get there.
My legs grow heavy and my breathing soon becomes ineffective at getting enough oxygen into my blood, before I even reach the dirt road that will take me across the prairie and to the wall behind which Blaze shouldn’t be.
But it’s not enough to make me stop. Or even slow. When it becomes too much, I’ll rest. But I will reach my destination.
24
Blaze
The sky above our family compound was covered in glowing stars, so many they illuminated the ground as Cross, Tank, Hawk, and Ice rode in. The vast sky, stretching to the horizon, unbroken by anything is the only beautiful thing around here. But the air is thick with the dust and dirt the arriving choppers kicked up now and I trained myself not to think of beauty at all a long time ago. Trained myself not to seek it, not to want it.
That changed when I met Misti. But thoughts of her, above all others, have no place in my mind tonight.
As he greets Cross, my father’s face is grim and dark, the shadows accentuated by the bright floodlight illuminating the yard.
