by April Lust
Emma followed Joe’s broad back to the elevator and down the maze of halls lit with the hum of fluorescent bulbs. The sound of her feet on off-white flooring was too loud in her ears. This wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be happening.
There was a piece of blue paper hanging on her father’s door, she didn’t know the words on it, she couldn’t read them, but she didn’t think it was a good thing. The rest of the club was spilling out of her father’s room, a small army of men wearing the biker uniform. When she approached they all stopped chatting. They moved aside, letting her pass. Her stomach surged from the ground and into her throat.
One look at her father lying in bed and she knew it was even worse than she had imagined.
He wasn’t just pale anymore. The sheet beneath him was white, he wasn’t. His skin had taken on the particular gray sheen, constantly shinning with sweat, of someone who was spiraling. The age spots on his brow stood out like brown stars. His eyes were hazy and sunken.
He barely turned his head when she walked in. She could tell the movement hurt.
“Dad,” she whispered. “Oh no.”
“Hey, little girl.” He coughed hard enough to make the bed beneath him shake. He brought a cloth she hadn’t noticed to his mouth, when it came away there was a blotch of dark blood on it.
“Oh god.”
“Come here.” He lifted one hand; there wasn’t even an IV in it. The hospital wasn’t wasting it on him.
The protective railing had been lowered, making it easy for her to ease her hip next to him. His body was so wasted that there was plenty of space. He wrapped an arm around her. She bent and laid her head on his chest. His lips, waxy yet rough, pressed to her brow.
Joe was talking; she could hear his practiced voice passing on information. She was only half listening; she didn’t need to hear the science to know her father was going to die. It wouldn’t comfort her. That thought brought tears to her eyes. Science had always brought her comfort.
“You can’t,” she whispered, unable to bring herself to say the word die, but it hung in the air anyway. “I just got back.”
He kissed her forehead again. “You did. At least this way we can’t screw it up again.”
Sad tears, she realized, were cold. Drops of ice and wet that filled the corner of her vision. They dripped out of her eyes to roll down her nose and puddle on the thin hospital gown he wore.
“But I wanna be able to screw it up again. I want to yell at you and tell you you’re wrong. I just want you here. I feel like we just met.”
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. His arm wrapped tighter around her. “I’m going to disappoint you.”
A shadow fell across the bed. She knew it was Kellan before she looked up. His presence had a certain weight that she had grown attuned to. Their gazes met over the span of her father’s form. His hazel eyes were red with unshed tears.
Silently, Mac reached out. He took one of Kellan’s strong hands in his gnarled one and pulled him closer. Kellan didn’t resist.
“The club will make you president. You’ve earned it.”
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the gathered crowd. She had almost forgotten they were there. Kellan just nodded, his cheeks went red.
“You promise me you’ll take care of her. No matter what. Just take care of her. Keep her safe for me.”
“Yeah.” Kellan’s voice cracked. “I promise.”
Mac took one of their hands in either one of his and pushed them together. “I know neither one of you wanted this, that it isn’t how you two would have gone about it. But thank you. Thank you for doing it, and thank you for letting me walk her down the aisle.”
His voice was weak, and getting weaker.
“You don’t need to talk, Dad.”
“If not now, when?”
She had nothing to say to that. She just curled closer, hearing the heartbeat beneath her ear. It wasn’t steady. He was struggling to breathe. She couldn’t find any words. She couldn’t say anything.
“No,” she whispered. “Please, no.”
He kissed her brow, and his heartbeat grew softer.
“Daddy,” she whispered. “No.”
Chapter 8
The Saloon was, according to taxes, a bar. The liquor license had a layer of dust on it, and the bar was so well worn that it shined. The jukebox, several decades out of date, was silent tonight. Each bar stool, worn to perfection, was occupied by one of the men of The Beasts.
Each one, save for the center stool. That stool’s lone occupant was a leather vest, worn to crackling, with the full set of patches across the back, and the front. The topmost one read President.
Joe poured out drinks, Phantom at his side. They passed them out without the normal banter that came with slinging whiskey and beer. Not that Phantom was ever much for banter, but even his silence had a sadness to it.
The first few moments were nothing but twenty some-odd men sharing a drink and the memories of a dear friend. It was too damn much, and every quiet moment that fed into the next made Kellan feel itchy.
“Shit,” Kellan snorted, dragging a hand down his face. “Just shit.”
“I ever tell you how I met Mac Ketchum?” Leon asked. He shifted in his seat and took a long drink.
“Tell it again,” a voice called.
“You gonna buy me a drink, Vinny? You want a story, you gotta buy me a drink.”
“You ain’t a woman.” Vinny chuckled. “But you got a pretty ass. All right, get him a whiskey, maybe I’ll take him home.”
Everyone laughed. Suddenly the mood was lighter. More drinks were passed out, some conversation sprung up, but most of the eyes were on old Leon.
“We were nineteen,” he started. “Young, dumb, and full of…well.” He waggled his brows.
There was more laughter and a lot of lewd innuendos.
“Shut up! Shut up if you want to hear the rest. We were nineteen and graduated and didn’t have anything to do with our lives. So, like any stupid kid we signed up for the military.”
“Damn right!” Vinny snorted, slapping his chest. Beneath his leather vest he wore a Semper Fi shirt.
“Shut up Vinny, or I’ll make you take Michelin home instead.” He took a long drink and leaned back against the bar. “So here I was, from nowhere California, and there he was, from nowhere Oregon, and we were shaved and scrubbed and getting yelled at. It was like being a freshman all over again, with a lot less women. I’d like to say we were friends from day one, but that’d be a lie. See, there was this one girl, a military secretary, with tits all the way out to here.”
He held his hands out far from his chest and gave a great big smile.
“We were both desperate to get under that uniform, turned into a fight on more than one occasion. Well, one of those times we disrupted the entire mess hall, and our drill sergeant did not much like it. It’s bad enough that we were fighting, but to disrupt the steak day, well, that was a sin that the sergeant, who had been born in Texas, could not forgive.”
“Your sergeant was right.” Joe tossed a rag on the bar and gave it a wipe. “No one should interrupt red meat.”
Leon lifted his glass in salute. “That’s the goddamn truth, ain’t it? Still, that’s exactly what we did. We had bloodied one another’s lips, blackened one another’s eyes and got tore into by our Texan sergeant. Then we were put on cleaning duty for weeks. I can’t tell you how many dishes we washed, how many toilets we scrubbed, but somewhere between it all we looked at each other. He gave me this goofy damn grin and starts laughing at me. Laughing! Can you believe it?”
There was a riot of enthusiastic yeahs.
“Yeah, yeah,” Leon continued, shaking his graying head. “Like I was saying, he gives me this goofy grin and starts giggling like a girl at her first boy band concert and he asks me if any tits are worth cleaning up this much shit.”
Wild masculine laughter echoed off the worn walls. Someone moved over to the jukebox and put on an old Skynard album. A mixture of d
ixie and rock-n-roll joined the voices of other men, each telling their own story about Mac Ketchum, and The Beasts Motorcycle Club.
Kellan listened to it all. It felt good to hear all of the guys talking through their memories, and their grief. Silently he wished it would work on Emma. He had left her with Hannah and some of the other old ladies.
“Mac Ketchum was a good man, and a good president. He’s gone to the great garage in the sky!” There was a chorus of cheers as Rudy lifted his glass and took a drink for the memory of the man who was. Twenty others, all wearing the patches of The Beasts, drank with him. When he had finished his glass, he let out a loud belch and shouted, “Long will he be remembered!”
“Long will he be remembered!” they parroted back, Kellan along with them.
His own beer was ice cold, but he couldn’t taste anything but the temperature on his lips as he drank it down. Mac was dead, well and truly so. It was two days ago, but that didn’t stop it from hitting him in the chest every time the realization popped up.
Still, he was taking it better than Emma was.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and sent her a text asking if she was doing all right. It was a habit now, to check in with her, check on her really. And why not? That was what Mac asked him to do.
“And now we gotta get ourselves a new president!” Vinny shouted.
The cheers were louder this time. Kellan felt his stomach go cold and dark. He knew what was coming next. He had wanted this, for years he had thought of putting on the president’s patch. It had always been a daydream, a hope, and fantasy. Now it was reality. Now it meant Mac was dead.
“My dad was an asshole,” he said suddenly. “I dunno if it was the alcohol or just him. But he liked to use his fists.”
The room went quiet again, but it wasn’t mournful. There was a subtle shifting as the attention fell on him.
“Mac hired me at the shop when I was eighteen, I guess he didn’t want me getting my face bashed in over a set of tits. I was good with fixing things; machines always made more sense than people. I didn’t have a lick of experience outside of fiddling on my own and he just…I dunno. He gave me a chance. My dad started getting angry about how much time I was spending at the shop. He said it was turning me into a criminal.”
There was laughter and a few shouts of agreement.
“Oh no,” Kellan said. “It totally did. Not gonna lie. But my dad was sure his position at the pizza place was better than mine at the shop and started getting angrier and angrier, showed up at the shop to tell my boss I was quitting. But Mac was there doing some paperwork. He just stood there, arms crossed, listening to my father rant at him. He was like this big damn statue, just looking at my dad, letting my dad call him all these names, and accuse him of everything from selling drugs to killing kings and Mac just took it.
“When my dad just ran out of air or anger Mac looked down at him and then looked over at me. I was standing there trying to apologize and Mac just asks me if I want his spare room. I must have just looked at him for a whole minute before I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ My dad flipped; he didn’t go after Mac, nope, he went after me. He does this dive thing right at me and I am fully expecting to get hit. But Mac has just scooped him up and tossed him out. Like a goddamned sack. My dad looked so shocked, like, hit in the face with a pan shocked. He starts to get up and Mac shakes his head. He tells him to crawl away, that any man who strikes his son for making a decision he doesn’t like doesn’t deserve to have a son.”
There was a long moment of silence. Kellan wondered what the other men were thinking. Were they remembering their sons, their fathers?
“Mac was my father,” Kellan continued. “And if y’all want me to take his place, I’d be honored.”
It didn’t take long. There was a cheer, and a vote from any man who could ride his bike. It was unanimous. He was handed a president patch, and suddenly the club was his. He thought he should have felt something, intimidated or unsure. He didn’t. It felt right, good even.
“First thing we gotta do is pick a VP,” Kellan said. “I need someone I can trust, who I can count on. I nominate Rudy. He was born into this life, and the club has always been able to count on him.”
Rudy looked shocked, but pleased. His cheerful face lit up and he raised his glass and nodded. “I can accept that nomination.”
Leon slapped his son on the shoulder, “I second it!”
The voting for the vice president was even faster. Everyone liked Rudy, hell, Kellan thought, even Emma liked Rudy. Kellan couldn’t blame her, not really. The two of them had grown up together, and it was well known that Leon had taken a large part of raising Emma. They were nearly brother and sister. A brother and sister, he thought, who aren’t related, who had gone to prom together. He ignored the small surge of jealousy that welled up.
Rudy was married to Han, and they had kids, and Emma didn’t belong to Kellan. He didn’t want a wife. He didn’t want a family. He was good.
He embraced Rudy and slapped him hard on the back. “I’m counting on you, man.”
“I’m all yours.” Rudy slapped him back.
There was another round of celebratory beers and then Kellan brought them back to business. There were things that needed to get done.
“Our biggest concern is Gabriel and his people. It isn’t just that they are going after Emma, it’s that they are showing up at personal residences and trying to intimidate. They need to learn that The Beasts cannot be intimidated. They want to come on our turf, fine, let’s go see theirs. Phantom, Rudy, I want you to hunt down where Gabriel and Michael kick up their feet. Scout it out and let’s put together a plan.”
The two men nodded.
“Leon, you need to handle the businesses with Vinny and Joe; we want to keep clean money coming in, pay our taxes, be good little boys, for at least the next few weeks. We take no new contracts, we run guns to no one. We don’t take anything stolen, and we do no stealing. Just for the next few weeks.”
“I’m all for a vacation,” Vinny said. “But why?”
“Oh!” Joe smirked. “I think I get it, oh captain, my captain. May I?”
“Go for it, Shakespeare.”
“If we keep things on the up and up, the local law enforcement is going to ignore us, they are going to focus their attention on Gabriel’s people. We want their spotlights on Gabriel, get him riled.”
Kellan nodded. “That’s the truth right there.”
Leon nodded and finished the last of his beer. “All right, we scrub ourselves up for a couple of weeks. Take the heat off. Maybe they’ll think Mac’s death shook us up.”
Kellan nodded. “Put that out there, go to your favorite bar or strip joint and mourn openly. Bury yourselves in beer and women. Gabriel may even get a whiff of it; he might back off a little. But let’s find out. That’s it, let’s get out of here.”
“All right. President.” Rudy slapped his hand on the counter. “Come on, Phantom. Let’s go infiltrate the enemy.
Phantom followed like a pale shadow.
# # #
“I know I keep saying this,” Emma said into her cell phone, “but I honestly have no idea.”
Emma hated to admit when she didn’t know something. It was normal, she knew that. No one was born knowing everything. It was perfectly all right to not know the digestive cycle of a Labrador. It was different entirely when she wasn’t sure if her father wanted to be cremated or buried. She didn’t know if he wanted a traditional coffin or something modern. She didn’t know anything.
She only knew there were a lot of questions and she couldn’t answer any of them.
“Mrs. Mathers, I know this is a difficult time for you.”
The voice was so soothing, gentle. It was a voice of someone used to talking to people who were on their way to breaking down and bawling their eyes out. Even so it struck her to hear him call her Mrs. Mathers. It was her name, according to the state of Oregon, but it didn’t feel like it belonged to her.
Fo
r some reason that made her want to cry even more. She felt her shoulders sag forward and her eyes close.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said, cutting the soothing voice off. “I just don’t know anything. My father and I weren’t…close until very recently. We didn’t talk about this.”
“I understand, Mrs. Mathers. Perhaps he talked with someone else?”
The voice cracked with just the smallest bit of frustration for the first time. Emma couldn’t blame him, no one was infinitely patient. She felt herself sag a little more. “I’m sorry, I—”
Hannah’s hand touched her shoulder. Emma reached back and grasped the other woman’s fingers.
