A door opens, a waft of hotter air entering the cool room I’m in. I’d rather not hear the loud thuds of boots on floorboards, growing louder as their owner approaches. But I recognize the sound and even the gait of the man coming towards the bed I’m lying in—the bed I used to share with him.
“Good, you’re awake, princess,” Monarch says, the bed tilting downwards on the right, making me nauseous.
I keep my eyes closed and try not to moan. Maybe he’ll figure out he’s wrong and leave again.
“Come on, open your eyes,” he coaxes. “We need to talk.”
“The light,” I croak, not immediately recognizing my voice as my own. He’s not leaving and the last thing I need is him shaking me awake. I kinda, sorta remember him trying that before now too.
The bed levels again as he gets up, and a moment later I can hear curtains being drawn. I know exactly what they look like without having to open my eyes—dark blue, thick velvet with golden trim. Gaudy and pretentious, as most things to do with Monarch are.
I open my eyes just as he comes back to hover over me. He turns on the bedside lamp, diffuse white light showing me more than I want to see. I’m lying in his pretentious, hardwood four-poster bed—the bed I hoped never to see again. The vision in my left eye is blurry, like I’m looking at the world through the water I’ve been drowning in since my head hit the pavement during my botched escape attempt. But I can see clearly through my right. Monarch has taken the time to trim his beard while I’ve been sleeping. It’s a circle of grey speckled with white around his mouth, designed to hide his hanging jowls. It works, for what that’s worth. His hair is longer than it was when I left him and he’s wearing it slicked back, revealing the neat widow’s peak in the middle of his forehead. The point of it is as sharp as the look in his big brown eyes.
“Where’s Josh?” he asks.
“I told you,” I croak. “He left me with those nasty Sinners and rode on without me. Can I have some water?”
The lightning in his eyes tells me he’s gonna refuse my request, but to my surprise, he takes a glass off the nightstand and brings it to my lips.
“I have no desire to destroy you, Brenda,” he says as I take a slow, cautious sip. “You’re a precious sort. Impossible to tame, and I always knew that about you. I’ll give you another chance. I’ve missed you. But first I gotta find Josh. His mother is worried sick about him. He hasn’t been in touch in more than six months.”
I take another little sip of waters, trying to get my thoughts into some sort of order inside my aching, throbbing head. Not for a minute do I believe him. He’s never gonna forgive me for running off, and with another man on top of it. By the sound of things, others know what I did, and that’s another thing Monarch will never forgive—being made to look like a fool. He’s also clearly desperate to find Josh, and if I could just spin him a tale he’ll believe…but I can’t even come up with the beginnings of it. All that’s filling my head is a hammer banging at the inside of my skull right above my left eye and the incredible need to close my eyes again and sink to the bottom of the muddy waters.
The last thought that pops into my head before I give into the need is that Monarch would probably kill Josh too if he found him. So he might not even be that upset to learn he’s already dead.
“Bitch, tell me,” he says, shaking me roughly. But not roughly enough to make me want to wake up.
“A week with the truck stop whores should loosen your tongue,” he warns, and I can feel a bubble of fear somewhere very far on the very edges of my awareness. So much for him not wanting to destroy me. I better come up with a good story. And I way to get out of here. But first I need the banging in my head to stop.
Colt
The sun was already almost right above our hiding place between the two boulders overlooking the small town before Tank and Cross, their faces covered by bandanas, led Snake down the hill behind the big house. They were followed by Ace, Ice, and Rook, also masked, leading the other three we took last night. A line of twenty of our guys stayed up on the ridge, the blinding sun glinting off the rifles in their hands.
“Listen to me!” Snake shouted. “I have something to tell you all!”
He had to repeat himself three more times before the Sinners, their wives and children, and the club girls finally assembled in the dry field separating the big house from the rest of the town.
“We’re to pack up and leave by tomorrow morning,” Snake yelled once they were all silently waiting for him to speak. “Anyone who stays will be killed. That’s the bargain I struck. I expect you all to follow me.”
There was a lot of grumbling, a lot of complaining.
“Where are we going?” one of the men in the field finally shouting.
“Texas,” Snake says. “My brother has a ranch near the Alamo. We’ll regroup and figure things out there. We can’t stay here. Griff and his snitching ways made sure of that.”
More complaints, more grumbling, and more than a few women shouting that they can’t just leave, that their kids have school here, that they have families here.
“Everyone leaves by dawn!” Cross shouts. “Or dies here!”
He doesn’t mean it. We don’t kill women and children, only scumbags who would kill us just as fast. But they don’t know that, and the silence that falls over the field is so absolute I can hear a bee buzzing very far away.
“Griff fucked us over and it’s on me to fix it,” Snake shouts. “Go pack! Be ready by this evening.”
Cross and the rest of my brothers retreat into the big house with their targets. The men with the rifles on the ridge stay put. The frenzy of voices, yells, even crying in the field, soon becomes a packing frenzy.
I watch Cross and the rest leave by the back entrance to the house and disappear over the ridge. The men with the guns stay. They’re joined by at least a hundred more, lining the hills surrounding the town. I turn my head to see a few on the crest of the hill where me and Blaze are hiding. I don’t recognize all of them, and they’re not wearing bandanas. It must be the Knights and I’m glad to see some of my own brothers among them. Hopefully, enough of them to stop the Knights veering off what was agreed upon and shooting all those people scurrying about down there.
By the time the scorching hot sun finally sets behind the hills to our left, the town below is once more deserted. The dust kicked up by over fifty bikes, and many more cars—everything from pickups, to vans and station wagons—as the Sinners left it is still settling.
By the time twilight deepens to night, the wind is once again howling through a ghost town. Most of the men with the guns have left, but some remain.
A text comes for the two of us to return to the bunker, and we do. Nothing, absolutely nothing will keep me from visiting Brenda tonight. I gotta know where we stand, or I’ll lose my mind.
23
Colt
Cross had already started dismissing us to return home a couple of hours before Blaze, Ace, Eagle, and myself returned. He told us to leave in small groups and not all at once. Standard stuff. He had no problem with me visiting Brenda before I left, but did strongly suggest I don’t stick around these parts for too long. I don’t plan on it.