The sound of distant sirens pulls me out of my reverie. It spurs Pip to step forward. Until two months back, he was our prez, now he’s just a consultant. But he’s as sharp as a tack. When he speaks, we listen.
“Snatch,” he puts his hand on Prez’s arm, “buy us some time. He’s got ID, go with that. No one needs to know he’s back until we know what we’re dealing with.”
“And if he dies?” Snatcher asks, turning to stare at the man whose place he’d taken. “You know there’s a good chance Drummer will take away our charter if Stormy doesn’t come back. He doesn’t believe that with all our technical skills we can’t find him.”
Pip stares, his eyes narrowing. “Just asking for some time, Prez.” There’s no irony in the way he gives Snatcher the title. “Fuck knows where Stormy’s been or what he’s been up to, but if he’s bringing trouble on the club, it will buy us time to decide how to deal with it.”
Time’s running out for Snatcher to make a decision. On my part, I think coming clean is best—send Stormy to the hospital, then contact Drummer and tell him he’s come back. But Pip’s spent his life shrouded in the shadows. Mistrust and suspicion taints the air that he breathes, and he still holds sway with the prez.
Snatcher heaves a reluctant sigh. “We’ll play it your way for now, Pip.”
An engine cuts out next to us and the siren is switched off. As brothers step back, clearing the way to the injured man, we let the paramedics do their work.
“I’ve got a weak pulse,” one says.
“He’s bradycardic.”
I could have told you that.
The first one gets a line in and starts a drip going. “Let’s load him up.” His eyes take in all us bystanders. “I’m not sure we can save him, but we’ll get him in fast.”
“We’ll follow you. You taking him to Memorial?”
The paramedic confirms to Snatcher that they are. Once the doors of the ambulance close, the sirens restart, and it disappears away from the clubhouse.
Christ. I lean into Road. If we were ever to see Stormy again, I’d imagined him coming back, striding in nonchalantly in his arrogant way. He’d have taken his punishment like a man. I had personal experience that he wasn’t afraid of pain. I was convinced he’d have walked back in under his own steam. Or not, in which case we’d have never seen him again.
What I didn’t dream of was seeing him back like this, a man so close to death it’s hard to see how he manages to keep breathing.
I don’t know what to think or how to feel. From the looks around me, I’m not the only one. He’s one of our own, but he’s not. He chose to leave us, leave his precious cut behind. It’s he who’d abandoned us. But as Snatcher steps toward his bike, something draws us all to mount up as well and to follow to where Stormy’s been taken.
Maybe it’s just because we live on information and data, and right now, we’ve got none. The burning questions are why he came back in the way that he has, and who has beaten him? On my part, I want him to live so that I can get answers. Once I know, I’ll happily kill him myself.
Thor, as VP, rides beside Snatcher. As enforcer, I take my place right behind them and alongside Preacher. The other brothers sort themselves out with Road, as road captain, taking his place at the end of the column.
When we arrive, we pull up and park, taking over half a dozen parking slots.
It’s a Thursday, but the emergency room is busy. Thor tilts his head toward Prez. When he gets a chin lift in return, he takes the lead. I watch him disappear through the glass doors and step up to the reception desk. After a moment, he comes back.
“He made it here, still breathing. They’re working on him now. There’s a family room they said we could use.”
As we walk in I glance around noticing that quite a few chairs have been quickly vacated, with injured people and their friends shifting themselves up to make space, everyone eyeing us suspiciously. I’m not surprised, we’re all wearing our cuts, and no one wants to mess with the Satan’s Devils. I almost hear the collective sigh of relief as we’re directed to the room the receptionist had mentioned.
“They’re not going to tell us shit,” Duty points out. “We’re not fuckin’ relatives.”
“He hasn’t got any.” Friends and relatives were the first people we’d checked out when trying to locate him. It had been a dead end. Stormy, it seemed, had none of either.
“Er…” Thor shifts guiltily with a sideways glance toward me. “He has.”
Honor takes a seat and stretches out his long legs. “So who’s playing his brother. Or is Pip gonna be his dad?”
“Neither.” Thor gives a quick grin. “I told them Swift’s his wife.”
“Jeez.” I roll my eyes. “Go for the fuckin’ obvious, why don’t you?” I might not have a dick, but I’m a brother just like any one of them.
“Let’s hope he doesn’t have amnesia,” Piston snorts. When curious eyes go to him, he elaborates, “If he has and he’s told Swift’s his woman, he might want to make good on that.”
“He’ll be fuckin’ dead for certain if he puts his hands near her,” Road growls, a possessive arm wrapping around me. I place my hand onto my man’s chest. When he looks down, I just level a stare at him, making him hastily backtrack. “Or Swift will just take care of him herself.”
“You bet, lover,” I say softly.
The door to the room opens. Snatcher, who’d been waiting outside for Pip to park his cage, now enters with him. Prez takes a deep breath, then asks, “He still in the land of the living?”
“For now,” his VP tells him.
The next few minutes are taken up with different conversations, all trying to make sense of what’s happened tonight. It’s futile as we go around in circles. All anyone knows is that Stormy appeared out of nowhere and crashed into the front of the clubhouse.
“Well, at least he’s back,” Pip says quietly.
“It will take the heat off, that’s for sure, when I update Drummer.” Prez seems uncertain whether we’re taking the correct action by not coming clean immediately.
Pip shrugs. “And who’s to say he’s not been beaten by another chapter?”
Pip had been our prez for ten years, though has shit going against him that prevents him legitimately wearing a Satan’s Devils’ cut. Not in our eyes, but in the view of the other chapters. The regulations are strict—if a member can’t ride, he has to turn in his patch. We’d known that, of course, which was why Snatcher had always been the outward face of the Utah club, something Drummer had seen as betrayal and another reason to mistrust us. One thing though, Pip should find that easy to understand, as he himself doesn’t trust easily. He doesn’t even trust the other Satan’s Devils chapters.
“If he’s dead, it won’t matter,” Thor says reasonably. “If he lives, well, we’ll be able to find shit out. Fuck it…” He pauses and looks around at everyone. “He may have left behind his cut, but he’s ours to punish, it’s up to no one else. I’m kind of with Pip here.”