In for a penny, Bones thought, laying his hand palm-down on the table. Shades paused, and Bones spoke into the quiet that followed. “We all know who is behind the recent events. None of us fear to call his name. He is not a boogie man set to frighten children. Deacon is a canker in the mouth of all clubs he has ever associated with, just ask the Florida club he betrayed.” He took a breath, looking around at the faces he knew well, seeing fear he didn’t expect there.
“Justice Morgan is another who is proof that blood can run true in the veins of children. Shooter is a wildcard we do not need, even jailed as he is.” He repeated his words, using grave emphasis to make sure none mistook his intent. “We all know who is behind the recent events. The newsmakers do not, so they look to vilify any who ride. It is up to us to police our own. That has long been the way of the code.”
He paused for breath, making certain he had the right words. “The first part is known by all who ride, leave no one behind. The second is known by the chiefs who deal out the justice, leave no opening. Because as certain as you do, there will be those who do not honor the first and try to wedge in and make a mockery of everything we stand for. If Shades needs a vote to put together a task force—” There were snickering laughs at his use of that phrase, and he answered those with a grin. “—to hunt these two men, then I vote yes. I will shout it if needed. I would ink it, but that phrase is already on my chest.” Real laughter then, and he knew the vote would swing their way. “Shall we discuss more, or can we put this to vote now?”
“Vote,” Mason growled, and the anger in his voice surprised Bones. “I vote yes, too. I don’t like it, but I see the need.”
After the meeting had concluded, Bones sought out Mason, to find out the reason for his emotion. Mason didn’t keep him waiting, turning from half-a-dozen men who were talking to or at him, and walked to where Bones waited patiently, two beers in hand. “Don’t start your mind tricks. I can already see you working at how to pick my brain. Stop it.” Mason didn’t smile, and Bones felt off stride with this opening. Then Mason grinned, and proved he was playing with Bones, “Jesus, your fuckin’ face is priceless, Bones. Gotcha.”
“Fuck you.” Bones huffed out an insulted breath, then flipped him off, pulling a chuckle from Mason. “Why does the idea of hunting them cause you angst?”
Mason’s expression sobered and his lips twisted to the side. In anger or guilt, Bones couldn’t decide. “Shoulda killed Deacon when I took the club.” Mason’s words were blunt, but they were something Bones had thought a thousand times in the years since Mason turned the man out of his own club, patchless, but alive. That was when the Rebel Wayfarers was birthed, rising from the ashes of the Rebel Fiends, brought to life by Mason’s determination to make a better life. We all have a calling, Bones thought and shook his head. That is Mason’s.
“You disagree?” Mason asked in surprise, and Bones shook his head again.
“No. I told Slate the same not long ago, that it was one of your greatest regrets. You well know if it were me, I would have killed the man without qualm or hesitation. But, that is who I am.” Mason turned, facing him squarely, waiting for what he clearly expected to be a personal hit. “You want better, and you work tirelessly for that to happen. Weaving people in and out of the paths you choose for them, making them better as you go along. You praise loudly and blame softly, favoring the carrot over the whip, every time. You wanted better from Deacon, for years, and he failed to deliver. You letting him walk out of that clubhouse and mount his bike to ride away, that was you giving him a last chance to want better for himself. Unfortunately,”—Bones shrugged—“that is not who he is. So, in his ignorance, he has tainted more people. You cannot dish that to your own plate, Mason. He was granted mercy, and chose to respond to that mercy with poison, making himself a mockery in the process.”
Mason opened his mouth, but Bones kept talking, knowing if he allowed Mason’s self-doubt to rise to the surface, it would be a mistake. “Morgan is not someone I can speak about in a profound way. I know the man by reputation more than personal experience. But I have had great experience with his son, and you and I both know the kind of man Shooter is. The kind of man he molded his son to be.” Only months ago, Mason had killed his own nephew, son of his half-brother. “Judge chose his own path. The man had every chance to change. We have only to look to Eddie to see that.” Judge had been Shooter’s son, Eddie was his daughter, and the two had grown up to be as different as any siblings could be. Judge had enjoyed acts of torture as if he had invented them, and Eddie was happiest when working with disadvantaged children, helping them make the most of the world in which they had been born into. Would that Ester could have had an Eddie at her back. “This is overdue, Mason. Long overdue. Shades is methodical, and with the resources of the club, and the brains of Myron and Gunny, I expect he will be successful in sorting things out.”
“I hope so,” Mason said. “Ready to put this behind us, move on to better things.”
“Your wife is well? Willa happy with her found life?”
Mason nodded, his face relaxing and that told Bones far more than a smile would have. She was his peace. “Yeah.” He sighed, muscles loosening as his shoulders dropped. “We’re good. I’m leaving in an hour to ride back to the Fort. She likes our doc there, so we’re settled there for the duration.”
“Blessings, my friend. They come when we need them, not when we ask.” Bones remembered Mason’s face at Mica’s wedding, and mentally compared the two expressions. When Willa had been in danger, Mica was too, but Willa was all Mason saw. Two women in nearly the same situation, and he’d had only had eyes for Willa. “It’s up to us to hold on.”
“Agreed.” Eyes crinkling at the corners, Mason cut him a glance, and Bones braced, not knowing what was coming next. “Heard you got a gal, too. Am I gonna meet her anytime soon? This Ester that’s got Myron so worked up he’s putting in eighty-hour weeks?”
Bones winced. “I did not know it taxed him so to look into things for me. I will talk to him, put a pause on the process.” He very carefully didn’t answer Mason’s question, expecting Mason to call him on it, and he wasn’t wrong.
“Myron does what he wants, regardless. If he didn’t think it worth pursuing, he’d drop it like a hot potato and tell you so. He’s got his teeth in this, and all I hear are mutters for justice. You ain’t gonna get him to back off now. But my question is”—he leaned over, grinning as he bumped Bones shoulder with his own—“when do I meet Ester?”
“You do not.” With a slow shake of his head, Bones rebuffed Mason’s attempt to lighten his mood, standing firm in the face of another jostling shoulder bump. “Do you remember the words you spoke to me when I first met Willa?”
Mason would; it had been a turning point in his pursuit of the woman. Though living in Fort Wayne, she’d been in Chicago at Jackson’s, looking for Mason without saying so. Bones, not knowing her, had seen a pretty woman confident enough to brave a biker bar, but smart enough to befriend the bartender, and intelligent enough to use mirrors and other tactics to watch her own back. Intrigued, he had been making an approach, in the process of being rebuffed when Mason called him from behind the one-way mirror that spanned the back of the bar.
Mason recoiled, then repeated his caution of more than a year ago, word for word, “Back. Off. You leave her the fuck alone. She’s mine.”
Bones nodded, knowing those for the exact words. “Consider yourself similarly warned.”
The coat
Ester
I followed Bones often, trailing after him here or there, using jumps and shortcuts through alleys and buildings and stores that allowed me to keep him in sight as he rode his motorcycle through the streets with his friends. I noticed the symbol on the back of his vest had changed about three seasons ago, and knew his territory had moved, shifting, expanding like a deep sigh upon waking, when you pulled in a fresh breath to make fresh memories and greet a fresh day.
He looked more like my Bone
s these days, less the bound and gagged version of himself he’d become for a time. That was when things hadn’t been working in his favor, when I’d overheard him tell someone there was strength in numbers, and strength in joined purpose and he was right. The sun alone couldn’t make the world a habitable place, because on its own it would kill all life, scorch the earth, and nothing beautiful would be found. Not even a sigh, if you could believe a sigh beautiful.
Bones’ sighs were beautiful, the inrushing breath that coasted over his lips. He would look at the sunrise over the lake or the sunset over the skyline and exhale a sigh filled with such deep longing I wondered if his soul needed something it wasn’t getting from air alone. I wondered if he needed something that could be found close to hand. So I tried to stay close to hand to help him find it.
We talked and talked, sitting for hours wherever I found him. Or if he found me. Him buying me coffee, and water, and tea, and milk, and shakes, and those were good, but I had lactose intolerance, so the aftereffects were not so good. But, when I told him, he laughed and found a place that had special ones, and he got me vanilla shakes from there every time he saw me for two weeks. Which meant I had nine vanilla shakes in fourteen days, a good ratio.
He fed me, and told me I was too thin, and brought me a coat but it was too nice, so I couldn’t accept it.
There was a fine line about nice things where I lived. Too nice earned you attention, and I didn’t like attention. I liked to fade away, become background noise, that kind of quiet, white noise no one noticed so I could stay safe while I did my favorite things. Watching people, listening to their stories, learning from their lives. Leaning on their strengths to bolster me, dividing my fears by cracking a nut of wisdom. That knowledge given to me by people not me, who had earned it at the gristmill of experience. This meant I could be a student and learn, without having to brave those tides myself.
So, the coat was too nice, and he’d frowned when I’d told him, but he took it back. Bundling it into a bag, he’d shoved it into the locking box on one side of his motorcycle. Every bit of his bridled actions and movements told me he was hurt, even as his voice soothed me, so I tried to soothe him in return.
“I could take one that was less nice.”
At my words, his head had come up and he speared me with a look. I would never have thought a person could be speared by something that wasn’t tactile in nature, but speared I was. Pinned in place. “You would accept such a gift from me?”
I tried on a smile, something I didn’t often do—I’d lost control of those muscles for the longest time. Only recently had I practiced again, wanting to earn another smile from him in return, so I tried on a smile, and it worked. His lips tugged sideways in a clear invitation to give him more, so I did, hoping my smile was as wide as my joy at knowing he was pleased with what I’d offered.
His lips had tugged the other direction, and he’d said, “Beauty.”
That single word never failed to make my heart stutter, never failed to make it skip in my chest like a little girl playing hopscotch on the front walk of a home where her mother and father watched out the windows, keeping her safe even as they let her test her limits. Wants and needs, lost on the wind.
The sun needed a balance, needed the moon to keep things in sync so the earth could live. Things had their place, and as long as they stayed in their place, everything would be okay. No scorched earth threat, just a requirement that things remained as they were.
My heart wanted me to try more, to push more, to explore the feelings of happiness that radiated from Bones each time I saw him. Instead of telling him any of this, I’d nodded. Then he gave me the best gift of all and I didn’t know if it was real mind reading or if my lips had betrayed me again, but whatever. I’d take it. “Ester, you make me happy.”
I saw him the next day, and he had a different coat. This one was perfect, not new, not too warm, not too much of anything that anyone would want to steal. It was right in the middle of everything, like a bed, a chair, and a bowl. Fairy tales could be real.
I wore that coat for a year.
Ruined
Bones
When he’d reacted badly to Ester’s rejection of his gift, the way her face filled with fear haunted Bones. He’d felt driven to make it right, and not just by gifting her with a coat of enough quality to keep her warm and healthy through the coming winter. He’d needed, and this feeling had boiled through his blood, to keep her safe. Safe, as no one had done throughout her entire life. That fear she felt and carelessly exposed said she wanted him in her life. Wanted him enough that she gave an option immediately, one he had leaped on, and that very speed revealed his own need for her.
Something she’d welcomed, if the pleasure that had shone from her eyes were real. Their friendship had grown strong, and she never turned him away when he sought her out, never claimed exhaustion or more pressing business. Something he wouldn’t have considered part of the life of a homeless person, but in the cold months, time held meaning even for the displaced. One that was hammered home for him when he spent the afternoon with her weeks later.
He’d seen her in between, of course, visits here and there as their paths glanced across the other, or he’d looked for her, or she’d looked for him. They’d shared meals, when he would stuff her with as many calories as she could eat every time. Coffee, snacks, candy and protein bars shoved into the multitude of pockets she’d crafted into the coat, stocking her up for the times he wasn’t around.
Everything culminating in their meandering trip through the zoo today, where she brought laughing tears to his eyes with a recitation of what she thought the animals were thinking. Her recounting of their trials while hilarious were made more so by her patent joy at his enjoyment of her pandering play. The harder he laughed, the more farfetched her stories became. Bones didn’t know when he had spent more pleasant hours.
So, when the clock over the gates chimed and she looked up to see the time, the disappointment that rushed across her features was jarring, and her sigh of distress shook him to his boots. “Well, shoot a monkey. I’m late.”
“What are you late for, beauty?” He looked at the clock, seeing it was half past six. “Where did you have an appointment today?”
Eyes to the sidewalk, she stepped sideways, avoiding a crack that zigzagged across the block of cement. With a cry of delight, she squatted, picking something up from the ground, and he squatted beside her to see she’d found a peacock’s feather. Tattered, with the vanes clumped together in more than one spot, she lifted it and waved it through the air like a wand, cheering on her own antics with peals of giggles. Wafting it left, then right, she conducted a symphony only she could hear, then told him, “The shelter. They stop intake at six.”
That meant she would be on the street tonight. He eyed the sky, remembering Shades had mentioned snow was expected. It had held off so far, but the clouds were pregnant with it, the wind biting as it slipped underneath the waistband of his jacket.
Standing, he held out his hand, waiting for her trust. She gave it, clasping her palm to his as she always did, and he pulled her to her feet. “Come,” he told her, turning to the parking lot. She’d ridden with him before, enjoying the moments of free movement in a way that made him appreciate it even more, bending backwards at the waist, head tipped to laugh at the trees and clouds moving overhead, fingers woven into the belt at his waist. She would ride with him tonight. “Let us go.”
“Where?” Her laughing question came with a tug, and he stopped, looking back at her, surprised she balked.
“My house. You will be warm, and safe, and I can finally cook for you.” He tipped his chin down, telling her, “I have wanted to do that for a long time. See you in my home.”
“No!” Nothing could have prepared him for her reaction when, with a scarcely stifled scream, she jerked her hand free of his, features twisting as she shouted, “You’ll ruin everything.”
“Ester,” he called, and stepped towards her, stop
ping when she took two matching steps backwards. Panic gripped him, something was breaking between them, and he didn’t know how to make it better. He took a breath, tried to read her face, but she had turned half away, hiding from him. Her posture shouted as loud as her mouth had that she was terrified. Of him. Of me. Heart in his throat, he pleaded the only argument he knew, “Ester, please. It is cold out. If you have no shelter, you will freeze. Please.”
She took another step backwards, rejecting him and his offer with her movements. Bones didn’t understand. He struggled with his instincts to reach out and pull her into him, hold her in place until he could argue sense with her. Make her safe, keep her with him.
I did that
Ester
“Ester, please.” Bones’ tone was sweetly cajoling, and I laughed.
Laughed aloud, but only for a moment before I clamped my lips on the braying sound, backing away. I whirled, preparing to run and I would have, because he had just asked the impossible and I couldn’t imagine anything other than terrible things, so I needed to escape. Saliva evaporated from my mouth; dry and thick, my tongue lay mute in its fleshy cave. No sounds to drive him forwards, no arguments to bring me back. Nothing good comes of trust, I reminded myself of the hims who taught me that. All the hes that came before. The thems who tore my belief asunder. Shredded, I needed to escape. Before I could do anything, however, the tips of his fingers brushed my shoulder.
He didn’t grasp, didn’t clamp down, and didn’t do anything to feed the fear gnawing at my gut. He simply touched me.
Touched me as if he thought I was a ghost, something ethereal and gossamer, like the woman’s scarf I found once in the gutter. It was wrapped around a stick and had gotten stuck on a grate, or I’d have never noticed it. Dirty and dingy, I could still see the glorious colors embedded in the fabric when I’d picked it up.
Unwinding it carefully, gingerly, tenderly, until I held the length of it in my hands. I’d taken it with me, taken it home, and carried it with me for days, touching it lovingly. When I’d showered, I’d draped it over my body, letting the water wash over it as it washed over me, hoping the scarf would imbue me with the smallest iota of the beauty it had inside it, woven into it, always to be there, never lost because it entirely belonged in that article, that thing, the created beauty.
Bones (Rebel Wayfarers MC Book 10) Page 9
