by A. J. Downey
I tell you what, though. Leaving her to sleep there by herself last night was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. She had a whole mess to sort through when it came to not just the house, but her divorce, and fighting off her husband who was literally going after everything she held dear as though she were somehow the asshole in this situation.
I wanted to hurt him physically as much as he’d devastated her emotionally, but that wasn’t my little leaf’s way. She was tossed and pulled in every which direction, almost seemingly along for the ride in a lot of ways, but through it all and just like a little leaf on the wind, cast adrift, she drifted in elegance. So damn graceful, pretty to look at, and I couldn’t wait to see where she settled on certain things.
“Your little lady is in for a rude awakening tonight,” Tic-Tac declared and chuckled.
“Don’t be a dick,” Dump Truck warned him.
“Or did you forget who the fuck you’re talking to?” I demanded and glared at Tic. He was like the angry little cocksucker brother that nobody could really fucking stand sometimes. Like we all just let him fuckin’ hang because we all knew he ain’t got no place else to go. He could be a real asshole for no reason sometimes, though and I wasn’t about to let him start in on Aspen.
She was too fuckin’ pure. Too good. He’d better watch himself around her. I would kick his ass.
“Shit, she’s got you wrapped around her little finger, don’t she?” Tic-Tac grinned like my love for my woman was something to be ashamed of. A weakness. He really didn’t have a fuckin’ clue.
“Sorta like Dahlia has your dick in knots?” Major asked, laughing. That shut Tic down real hard, his brow dropping into a deep scowl. He didn’t say anything after that.
“Tic, ain’t no one ever told you not to yank an angry dog’s chain?” Maverick asked, laughing. “Since you wanna sit here trying to start shit, you can be the one to give Sauly a ride back to the club.”
“Aw, fuck no, man! I don’t do none of that nut to butt shit!” Tic cried.
“Too fuckin’ bad! Prospect, you’re sittin’ bitch with Tic for the ride home.”
“Whatever you want, P.” Sauly didn’t look happy when he said it, but he was a team player and knew how this shit went.
“Oh! Here he comes!” Deacon called and we turned as the grating buzz of the gate sounded out over the parking lot.
It got rowdy really quick; Mace, a little thinner than he’d gone in, come waltzing out in the clothes we brought him. Making strides in our direction and pressing on through the gauntlet of us hugging and pounding on his back to where Maverick stood, holding open his colors. Mace grinned at our president, turned around and shrugged into his cut over his jacket, Mav grabbing his shoulders and gripping them hard, shaking our boy back and forth.
“Welcome home, Mace.”
“Ain’t home yet,” he declared. “I need a cold beer and a warm pussy. I say goddamn, it’s good to be free!”
We all cheered, and Mav gave the order, “Mount up! Let’s get the fuck out of here and get our boy a decent fucking meal!”
Another burst of rowdy cheers and Mace was guided on up to his bike, at a place of honor in our pack at Glass Jaw’s usual position – Mav’s right hand.
Mav had an exchange with Mace up at the front. He turned around after a minute and called down the line, “The man want’s a steak!”
Whoops went up, and we started up the bikes as soon as Mav started his, revving engines and peeling out, getting our boy far the fuck away from this forsaken fucking box of concrete and steel.
We rode back to the club. There wasn’t any point in going out for a steak when the club had the outdoor grill in the back on 15th and we had some gourmet ass motherfuckers in our ranks, myself included when it came to meat and fire. Still, I left that shit to Blackjack. He knew his way around steaks, specifically, like nobody’s fuckin’ business even if he was being a princess over having to cook with gas over the charcoal grill that he fuckin’ preferred.
There was a Sarr’s one block over on 16th, but while the meat was cheap and plentiful and pretty much butchered on site, this wasn’t an ‘it’ll do in a pinch’ situation. This was a time for some serious celebration. That meant we took our asses further up Ambaum out of White Center and into Burien for B&E Meats. An actual fuckin’ butcher shop worth something.
I preferred Green Valley Meats out in my neck of the woods. Quality was better and the prices more reasonable, but right now the club was sittin’ flush again. We’d replenished the coffers since Little Bird and business at the boneyard was good. Our side hustle, sadly, was booming too, but we didn’t take more than we needed to keep the supply run going. People needed those meds, and the fastest way to get busted was to get fuckin’ greedy.
We were still on pins and fuckin’ needles thanks to the Eastern Washington chapter’s bullshit, waiting to see if any of those fuckers were going to narc that were chillin’ out that way. They used to be club, out bad for killing that family. That made them somewhat unpredictable, but by the same token – they fuckin’ knew what was comin’ should they open their fuckin’ mouths.
Yeah, I thought to myself. You.
Scarier than any fuckin’ boogeyman the PNW had ever seen. Hell, that this club had ever seen except for that psycho motherfucker out in the mother chapter – Reaver.
He and I had gone up against each other at the last National Lake Run out to Lake Eversong and he’d won. I had the scars to prove it. Of course, I was probably a little crazier than that bastard, because given a second chance? I’d for sure go up against him again. He was a worthy fuckin’ opponent. I didn’t come across too many of those anymore.
When we’d gotten into the club, I’d gotten myself a bottle of IPA and headed across to the boneyard with Dump Truck. He wanted to put some work in on his latest rebuild, but honestly, I was pretty sure he just wanted to see his woman; even if it was just briefly. I knew what that was like now, and it was an odd little thorn… meaning it was really nice to have someone to feel that way over but by the same token, it was a new kind of suck. Still, I would see her real soon. It was just a new thing for me: missing someone who was still here.
“Baby, how about you run around the corner to the Saars and get us some shit to go with these steaks?” Dump Truck asked, and Little Bird smiled across the counters at him.
“Fen, you mind gettin’ the phones?” he asked.
“Sure thing,” I said. I went over to take Little Bird’s spot behind the cash wrap and she went to her man to take the wad of cash he held out.
“Mav’s sendin’ Marisol over this way, meet her out front,” DT said.
“Okay, love you.” She leaned over and kissed her man who sat near his latest rebuild. He gave her a slap on the ass as she headed out the front door.
For the time being, the boneyard was quiet, and it was just me and him, sitting it out for a minute while things were just starting to pick up across the street in the club.
“Tic sure had a mouth on him, today didn’t he?” Dump Truck said casually.
“Knock his fucking lights out he keeps it up,” I said and took a pull off my beer, emptying half of the fresh bottle in one giant swallow.
DT nodded. “Got attached to this girl awful damn quick, didn’t you?” he asked.
I raised an eyebrow at him and fixed him with an otherwise flat look, staring at him hard. He chuckled and tossed down one of his socket wrenches with a clink.
“I’m not the one who dropped literally fuckin’ everything and went haring off to fuckin’ Vegas after a woman I only fucked once as a one-night-stand.”
“Touché, motherfucker. Touché,” he said chuckling. “I just wanna know, you thinkin’ about the long term with her?”
“I am,” I said carefully.
“Think she’s cut out for this life?” he asked evenly, tone a little too neutral for my tastes.
“She’s different,” I admitted. “A citizen, sure,” I said. “But there’s more than that undern
eath. She’s got spirit. A soul trapped in there yearning for something else, wanting to be free. It’s like I just gotta show her the way without letting her get too… I don’t know, overwhelmed? She’s been burned in the worst way. The rug pulled out from under her. Everyone she’s loved either dying or straight up abandoning her when she needed them the most.”
Dump Truck nodded slowly. “Club would be a good fit for her in that regard,” he said slowly. I nodded. “You sure she can hang, though?”
“Worried about her citizen morals?” I asked.
“Ah, yeah. Would be lyin’ if I said I wasn’t. You know the rest of the guys’ll be thinkin’ it, too. She’s awful fuckin’ white bread for the lot of us.”
Again, I fixed him with a hard look. Motherfucker was one to talk. Little Bird’s ass had started out as a spoiled little rich girl.
The shiny had been taken off of her real quick, though. Baptism by fuckin’ fire when DT had blown her husband’s head off for her. Right in front of her, too. Not that she would miss that abusive rapist pig. I wished I’d been there to carve that son of a bitch up myself; slow.
I closed my eyes briefly against the blood on my hands, slick. The stench of death, the sound the organs made as I’d dropped them into the toilet, the flush, watching them spool out of the SOB’s body cavity as they went down the fuckin’ john.
It’d taken several attempts and cutting his insides up into smaller pieces to get it all down the fuckin’ toilet. It’d been worth the time and effort.
I got ‘em Lacy. Every last fuckin’ one of those assholes.
The first kill was the hardest and had stuck with me the longest. The one I still flashed back to. The one where I saw red, every time, and wanted to do it all over again. The one I’d done on my own. The rest, my pops had joined me on.
While there was guilt, it was misplaced. I didn’t feel guilty for killing any of them. I felt guilty that I’d done each and every one of ‘em too quickly for what they’d done to my sister.
“How many times I got to tell you not to fuckin’ go there, boy?” I heard my dad demand in my head.
He was right. Those ghosts were dead and buried. A worthy sacrifice to the gods.
“She is,” I agreed. There wasn’t any denying it. “I guess you all are going to have to trust me that there’s more to her than meets the eye.”
Dump Truck eyed me critically and then said, “I believe you. She and Little Bird are two peas in a pod.”
“Nobody except Tic had shit else to say about LB,” I mused and Dump Truck nodded.
“She was bruised to shit with a wild fear in her eyes. Not many men can get around the desire to fix that shit. Your girl hides her hurt a lot better in mixed company,” he said. “She’s reserved. Watchful. The rest of our brothers are going to find that unsettling, except for maybe Mav.”
“You think?” I asked, turning over his observations about my woman in my head.
“I know. She’s smart, and Mav’ll see right through her. It’s what he does.”
I nodded slowly and the front door of the boneyard burst open, Mace coming right on through with Glass and Cipher with him.
“Was wondering where you two fucks were hiding!”
“Not hiding, just chillin’,” I declared.
“Alright, alright, so what’s knew with you? Other than I hear Dump Truck’s got a woman?” Mace asked, hoisting himself up onto the countertop.
“Little Bird’s legit,” Glass Jaw said. “I’m more interested in meeting the citizen chick Fenris has supposedly picked up.”
“Yeah, man. You been scarce the last few weeks,” Cipher agreed and Dump Truck and I traded a look.
Tic-Tac, I thought. Or Dahlia. I couldn’t really imagine Dahlia having much to say, though. She wasn’t like that. Dollars to doughnuts, Tic had already had some shit to say and was bitchin’ about my little leaf being too outsider, too other, too normal.
“Yeah?” Mace asked. “What’s the deal, man?” He gave me a punch in the shoulder and I grunted. He may be skinnier, but he hadn’t lost any of his strength in there. If anything, maybe he’d leaned out some. Maybe ‘skinny’ wasn’t the right word.
“She’s a good woman,” I grunted, and left it at that.
“Cipher?” Glass Jaw asked as a joke.
“Don’t look at me, man. When it comes to Fen and DT, there ain’t no decoding these two assholes and their way.”
“So, when do we get to judge for ourselves?” Mace asked.
“In just a bit,” I said, looking at the time. “She’s coming up this way after she gets off work.”
“What’s she do?” Glass asked, dropping onto one of the two old bench seats from an old 60s era pickup that were against the low wall that served as the boneyard’s waiting area.
“Owns her own business,” I said.
“Doing what?” Cipher asked, when I didn’t volunteer any additional information.
“Stuff,” I said with a shrug.
“Wow,” Mace said with an incredulous laugh. “You’re serious about this one.”
I scowled.
“He’s right, man,” Cipher declared. “The less you talk about something the more you’re into it. That’s always been your way.”
“It’s like a tell at poker,” Glass Jaw grunted.
“Fuck you guys,” I growled, my mood beginning to sour. “Maybe I just don’t like to be interrogated.”
They all busted up laughing at my expense at that and my mood darkened further. I was gettin’ fuckin’ irritated. The door opened up, and I looked over, my pops comin’ through.
“Well, there you are,” he grunted, but he wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to Mace.
“Hey! Vyking!” Mace and my dad embraced heartily, pounding each other on the back.
“How’s life on the outside?” my dad asked him.
“So far so good,” Mace said grinning. “We were just trying to talk to Fen about his girl.”
“Closed-mouthed bastard,” Glass Jaw said with a laugh.
“Aw, yeah? I like her. Aspen’s a nice girl.”
A chorus of “Oh?” and “Ooo!” went up around us followed by a song of laughter.
I shook my head, a passage from the Havamal, specifically Odin’s Rune Poem.
I know, if a modest maiden’s favor and affection I desire to possess, the soul I change of the white-armed damsel, and wholly turn her mind.
Looking at the pack of assholes in front of me at the moment, I had my work cut out for me on that last part – not that it had been wholly difficult to turn Aspen’s mind thus far. Maybe I worried about it too much. I don’t know.
What I did know, was that in order for the rest of my boys to see in Aspen what I did, they need to see Aspen. They needed to talk with her and learn for themselves what I had.
I tuned back in to the conversation in time to hear my pops say, “I’ve always been proud of my boy, but the way he is with her? Proudest papa I’ve ever been. Quit giving him a hard time, boys. I think she’s the one.”
I met my dad’s eyes, and he met mine. We were alike in that it was just like staring into the future in some ways. Wanted to know what I was gonna look like? Just look at my pops. Twenty or thirty more years and I’d be there.
I could see it. The pride shining in his gaze. For all that we could be a pain in each other’s ass and butt heads, pretty spectacularly I might add, we had an accord on some things. This was definitely one of those things. He knew. I knew.
Aspen was the one for me.
Chapter Twenty-One
Aspen…
It was dark by the time I pulled up outside the address in White Center that Fenris had given me. It wasn’t precisely what I’d expected. There weren’t any fences. No razor wired gates. There were no loud dogs, and though it was set back from the road with a parking lot out front, it wasn’t desolate by any means. There was an O’Reilly’s auto parts store closer to the main drag and to the right of the building, a Subway even closer to the roa
d sharing the same parking lot.
Across the narrow street behind the O’Reilly’s was a grocery store, and on the other side of the Subway, a tropical fish and aquarium supply store.
The club was a two-story building and looked as though its prior incarnation had been some kind of a bar. The building was black in front, a riot of spray-painted mural on the long, cinderblock wall down the side. There were no bikes parked out front, but there were picnic tables occupying three of the four spaces out front. Poles cemented into old tire rims with heavy old chain strung between them suitably roped the picnic tables off from the rest of the parking lot. I parked off to the side, in one of the vacant spaces in front of the large, spray-painted mural of the club’s logo, the only artistic license taken was a motorcycle bursting from the sacred heart.
I turned off my headlights and with a sigh of trepidation got out of my car.
Loud music was blaring from inside the club. Classic rock. Bob Seger, I think. Vyking detached himself from the front corner of the building, cherry of his cigarette flaring in the dark as he came over to me.
Relief washed through me, because even though I didn’t know Vyking well, I at least knew him enough that he was familiar in this looming wave of unfamiliarity I was about to be washed away by.
“Hey, darlin’,” he said and stopped in front of me, opening his arms.
I laughed, caught slightly off guard and gave him the hug he asked for.
“Boy’s in a mood,” he warned me. “They’ve been pickin’ on him all day over you.”
“Oh, no…” I said, heart sinking.
“It’s nothin’ on you, girl. They don’t know you yet,” he said, taking a step back and holding me by the elbows to look me over. “Word to the wise, don’t take nothin’ personal, and whatever you do, don’t take nobody’s shit.”
“I’ll do my best,” I promised, but his words left a knot of dread in the pit of my stomach.
“You’ll do fine,” he said. “Let’s take you in to see Fen. I guarantee just the sight of you will put him in a better mood.”
“Okay,” I said pasting on a brave smile.
