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  I began to suspect that he thought I had motives beyond just making sure we got a nurse roped into the club’s services.

  I began to have a gnawing feeling that he wasn’t exactly wrong.

  “Was I supposed to work over anyone else, man?” I said as Lane hopped off his bike. “I showed up, there she was, and that was that. Wasn’t like there was anyone else I could have talked to.”

  “Yeah, because walking in and pulling some nurses aside for a private talk would have been so hard.”

  I just rolled my eyes and playfully punched him in the shoulder as I opened the door to Brewskis.

  “Worth noting, she didn’t immediately say no,” I said.

  “So, she didn’t say yes.”

  “Well, true, but... look, man, you want me to use my soft approach on her, or do you want me to turn into a younger Axle and demand she works for me? These things take time, I’m not gonna win her over in one night.”

  Lane chuckled.

  “Let’s get some Yuenglings in us, and we can figure it out from there. I think I’d rather have you flirting with her than begging her.”

  Most of the things that Lane said would have made me laugh, or at least generated a short chuckle or two. But this one, though, just made my face go stone-cold. I didn’t like the reminder that while Lane might have found a wonderful woman in Angela, I wasn’t even in a position to try for such a thing.

  Nor will I ever be.

  “You know that’s not my style,” I said, staring straight ahead at the TV.

  “Doesn’t mean you can’t flirt or court her,” Lane said as he motioned to the bartender, Jess, for our usual order of Yuenglings. “No one’s asking you to get serious with her.”

  “Good, because if you want my honest opinion, not my optimistic one, but my realistic one?”

  The very notion of Kaitlyn slowly coming around to us, working with us, and perhaps even fully investing herself into us?

  “That girl will not bend.”

  Lane seemed utterly nonplussed by my assessment. He took his Yuengling, held it out for a clink with mine, and then casually sipped. Despite being in the equivalent of the demarcation zone between the Koreas, he seemed quite self-assured and relaxed. Maybe it was because he believed the Saints would think we had more men than we really did thanks to Cole.

  Or, maybe, being with Angela was just making him a calmer, happier man. Nice if you’re in a spot to get it.

  “I thought the same about Angela, but she eventually turned,” Lane said. “You just have to give it some time.”

  “We’ll see, man,” I said. “If anything, she’s made me bend.”

  Lane looked like he wanted to respond with a savage comeback, but he bit his tongue at the last second, choosing to wash down his words with another sip of his Yuengling. I took the silent moment to take a closer look around the bar.

  As of right now, there were no Fallen Saints here tonight. The bar and its staff still had a hell of a way of maintaining peace, but after the attack two weeks ago, I wasn’t exactly willing to risk anything. Lane might have believed a temporary peace had come, but I suspected it was only going to intensify the frequency and strength of future attacks. A wounded enemy was not a compliant enemy.

  “Anyways,” Lane said.

  The lowering of his voice, the way he moved closer to me, the way his eyes darted told me we were about to finally get to the reason for our presence—the most extraordinary accusation that anyone in the club could make. If he was right, Lane would be immortalized in the same way his father was.

  If he was wrong, the best Lane could hope for was permanent excommunication. The most likely scenario was execution.

  “You remember what I told you back at the shop, right?”

  “About there being a certain type of rodent around us?”

  Lane nodded, but even with us being alone, he looked hastily around, as if someone might suddenly appear out of nowhere. I kept an eye on Jess, but the bartender had long ago learned the good sense to only approach us when requested. She knew better than to so much as risk the appearance of being in earshot.

  “I really think it’s one of the officers, and I know you said you hated the idea that Angela helped solidify the idea, but if anything, I’m more inclined to believe it because of her.”

  “The fuck, man?”

  “Just, hear me out, okay?” Lane said. “Let me explain, man. Listen to me as your best friend. Not as a club member.”

  I was actually on Lane’s side on this one. My hesitance had less to do with my disagreement with him or my disapproval of him and more of my enormous fear that if he was wrong, he would die.

  Unfortunately, I had prior experience in that to know how horrible such an outcome would be. I knew what it looked like when someone who had fallen for the enemy’s ways had not been apprehended in time. I knew betrayal held unaccounted led to unnecessary deaths.

  “Obviously, the fact that I’m telling you means you’re not the spy. So that leaves Red Raven, Father Marcellus, Butch, or Axle. What do they all have in common? They’re older. We’re the young guys, the hotshots in the club, the two brothers of sorts who have worked our way up the ranks. They probably...”

  Lane shook his head.

  “The problem in telling you all of this is I’m not even sure I believe some of my own conjecture. But on a high level, given everything that’s happened, I worry that the possibility is far too great.”

  I understood Lane’s concern, but I feared I was not getting my point across.

  “Listen, man,” I said. “Whatever you say between us stays between us. Tell me everything you’re saying, but don’t you dare repeat it to anyone else. When you come forward with this to anyone else—anyone you mentioned, a club member, hell, even Angela—you better have a case so airtight, no one could argue it. If you have any ‘probably’ or ‘maybe’ statements in there, man… You. Are. Fucking. Dead. I don’t think I can say that strongly enough. Even if you’re right, but you don’t make the case strong enough, you’re dead. And then, guess what? The spy wreaks havoc, and we’re all dead.”

  I didn’t lose my cool often, at least not on the outside, but this was definitely a moment that left me exasperated. At least here, though, I had chosen to lose my cool for the sake of making a point, not for... well, other reasons.

  “I know all of this,” Lane said. “I just... fuck, man. I don’t want to see more people killed. I don’t...”

  Shannon.

  He may be at peace with having moved on to Angela, but he’s not at peace with having lost someone like Shannon. I don’t think Angela is either. Neither of them should be.

  Hell, I’m not really either. There’s too much in the way of young death in my life.

  “Between her death,” Lane said, refusing to say her name out loud. “The club meeting on the ambush, getting attacked at the shop, then getting preempted at the last encounter with Lucius and the Fallen Saints... bro, fuck.”

  “I know, man, trust me, I know,” I said.

  Lane took a long, long swig of his drink. Outside, the sound of motorcycles could be heard. We both tensed, prepared either for the possibility of a Black Reaper and a friendly face... or something that would be a lot more threatening.

  But just as soon as the motorcycles sounded like they were about to park by the bar, they picked back up and carried away. It was not some great mystery that needed to be solved, but it did make me curious, which was it—perhaps the Fallen Saints, thinking better of coming in with us there? Or perhaps one of the Black Reapers who decided they’d rather be alone?

  Or, perhaps, it’s the spy, checking to see where we are?

  “Just do me a favor,” Lane said. “You’re a smart cat. Way smarter than me. Keep your eyes and ears peeled and see what you can pick up. You may find out that I’m full of shit and just a terrible leader. But whatever you learn, let me know, will ya?”

  “You got it, man.”

  “And don’t sugarcoat it,” he sa
id. “I’m not looking to join my father any time soon.”

  Maybe he is finally getting it.

  I smiled as I sipped on my beer. But with every passing second, I couldn’t shake the feeling that whoever had driven by had done so to get a sense of where we were. While our bikes were not necessarily distinguishable by someone driving by and making a quick pass, they were definitely distinct from the Fallen Saints. Their black color and the bloody scythe, though not necessarily visible in the darkness of night, were pretty distinguishable to an attentive eye.

  “We should get going,” I said.

  “Already?” Lane said.

  “You didn’t hear the bikes outside sound like they were approaching and then drive off?”

  Lane bit his lip, as sure a sign as any that he had gotten so far in his own head that he had not heard anything.

  “Maybe I’m paranoid, but if you’re right about there being a spy, the worst place for us to be would be right here. They could do whatever they wanted at the clubhouse, and they would know we’ve been drinking.”

  “Fair enough,” Lane said. “Jess! We’ll be back later. Thanks as always for the drinks.”

  Lane threw down a twenty, more than enough to cover both drinks and tip, as we headed outside, our heads on a swivel and our hands by our hips, ready to draw our guns if needed. Our bikes were untouched, and, thankfully, the outside area seemed devoid of any Saints.

  “I have an idea,” Lane said. “Follow me.”

  He was the club President, of course, I was going to follow him.

  “I’m not entirely convinced you have the right idea about those bikes driving by,” Lane said. “But this is as good a chance as any to prove your point.”

  Lane turned on his bike, and I mine, the two engines of the choppers roaring to life. In most situations, the sound of a motorcycle gearing up and screaming to life could pierce just about anything. In this town, and most especially in this little patch of land that housed Brewskis, it was as much common background noise as birds chirping, cars accelerating on a nearby road, or bells dinging as business doors opened.

  Lane turned left as if heading back toward the Black Reapers clubhouse. But barely a tenth of a mile in, he swerved right, going off-road and behind a building that was under construction. The project had only had its skeleton completed, with no filling yet, but at this late hour in the night, the night sky would serve as a better cover than almost any other materials in the building.

  “And now,” Lane said as he cut off his chopper and walked to the side of the building closest to the street. “We wait.”

  Just like the old days, I thought. Patrol and wait. At least here, the enemy doesn’t know where we are.

  Back in Iraq, when we walked the streets, we had to make our faces known. It created something of an awful situation for us, where not only did the enemy see us at all times, they knew our patterns. Sometimes, the politics of appearance made the practice of war an incredibly dangerous game, even more so than war already was.

  But here, Lane and I had the enormous advantage of remaining in the darkness and not having to play by some government official’s decree. For once, thinking about the similarity to Iraq did not evoke a strongly negative, horrifying image.

  The two of us sat on the dirt ground, looking out in both directions. I looked toward our side of town, Lane toward the Fallen Saints’. A vehicle here and there passed, but none of them were motorcycles. A part of me had my suspicions that the Fallen Saints, if they had wanted to strike, would not use motorcycles. They could have been heard from a mile away.

  But, then again, when the Fallen Saints had killed Lane’s first love, they hadn’t exactly bothered to roll up in Teslas. They’d brought the full, obnoxious force of their motorcycles. Subtlety did not seem to be the name of their game.

  Really, intelligence did not seem to be the name of their game, but war was never chess when guns were fired.

  “I’ll take the blame on this one,” I said after what felt like half an hour had passed. “My paranoia may have gotten the best of me.”

  “Your paranoia?” Lane said with a bemused smile. “You’re talking to the guy that just levied the biggest accusation in the history of the Black Reapers, and you’re apologizing for paranoia?”

  If you knew my thoughts, yeah, you’d understand.

  “Yeah, man,” I sheepishly admitted.

  “Damn, Patriot,” Lane said with a smile, still letting a chuckle emit every few seconds. “Damnit, you’re a good friend. I don’t think you’re wrong to think someone might have come.”

  But just because Lane had let me off the hook didn’t mean I had acted in a manner that hurt us. Tonight, the hurt was minimal—we had only delayed ourselves from a return home, perhaps from a decent night’s sleep. At worst, people at the headquarters might wonder if we were getting plastered at Brewskis on a weeknight.

  That didn’t mean it didn’t foretell of some reckless behavior down the road, though, if we weren’t careful. That didn’t mean people wouldn’t die if I didn’t do shit right.

  “Just remember, man, as soon as we start acting different, the spy—if there is a spy—is going to know something is up, man,” I said. “We have to carry on like normal in the presence of the rest of the club, no matter what.”

  “Especially since I may be wrong,” Lane said.

  Let’s hope so and you bury this idea before you say anything. Because I don’t want to see what happens when you’re wrong and you speak.

  The two of us stood up, dusted ourselves, and walked back to our bikes. We moved slowly, perhaps naively holding on to the dimming hope that some strand of evidence would manifest itself, but unsurprisingly, nothing appeared at all.

  “Shit, you know, if I knew that keeping track of allies and enemies was this difficult, I might have paid more for my father’s medical care,” Lane said with a quick, punctuated chuckle.

  Allies and enemies...

  “You know, we could ask for help from someone else,” I said. “Your brother—”

  “No,” Lane said quickly.

  I didn’t say anything, but I made sure I made my face as expressive as possible, the better to highlight to Lane that I thought he was ignoring an invaluable resource.

  “Look, let’s not get into that right now, okay? I’m not ready yet.”

  You don’t always get to choose when or if you’re ready yet.

  Nevertheless, I decided the evening had been eventful enough, and I’d put Lane through enough already. I nodded to him as he revved his bike, and I got on mine. We had enough challenges ahead of us that we needed to get ready for.

  We didn’t need to add difficulties to our plates that we wouldn’t ever be ready for if the mere challenge of a spy could destroy the club alone.

  Kaitlyn

  Distance and time always seemed to be much better at healing than rationalization and intellectual discourse ever could.

  Just as I had left my meeting with Michael, I had become utterly confused about how I felt about him. Was this someone that was trying to negotiate me into a deal with the devil? Or was this someone that... I dared to say… I enjoyed talking to so much that I would have done it without the rationale of my medical expertise being needed?

  The more I thought about it on the car ride home, the more confusing it became.

  But the more distance I put between myself and him and the more time that I spent focusing on other things like how my day went and how the construction near my neighborhood was going, the less of an issue it became. In fact, by the time I parked the car, I was able to laugh the interaction off. I’d have a hilarious story for Devon when I saw her on my next shift, and I’d be able to brag about the time a handsome, unusually low-key Black Reaper tried to hit on me.

  Well, maybe brag was the wrong word, but I’d certainly have a story to tell about it.

  I got out and slammed the car door shut. As I moved toward my apartment, I noticed that it was the only sound that I heard at that
moment. No motorcycles, no beeps from medical equipment, no hurried voices of other medical professionals trying to save a life or get a situation under control.

  Silence.

  It was truly golden, something that, despite living in the small town of Springsville, just didn’t come around frequently enough. The small size of the town was what made it precisely so damn difficult to work with—there were few corners within it to escape to get rid of the madness. Almost everywhere I turned, I’d see someone I’d provided care for or someone or something associated with needed medical attention.

  I slowed my walk down to my apartment to soak in the silence, but eventually, the roar of a loud car engine and its obnoxious music ruined the peace that I had, and I resumed my fast walk to my apartment. It has to end at some point, I suppose.

  I got inside, locked the door behind me, and kicked my shoes off, doing some stretches that I liked to do at the end of every day. When I finished that, I headed to the fridge, grabbed a drink of lemonade—one of the things I liked to have before going to bed—and headed to my bedroom. There, I sat on the edge of the bed and gazed at the two photos that I always looked at before I went to bed and before I went to work.

  One was from my nursing school graduation. I had taken a photo with everyone in my family, but this particular one was just my parents and me. They had moved far, far away from the madness and danger of this town, thank God. I texted them every day, and I had a good relationship with them, but I made sure they never came to see me, only the other way around.

  The other one crushed me every time I looked at it because I knew I’d never get to take another photo like it.

  In it, my sister, Kristina, and I smiled at a cousin’s wedding. We were both dressed in blue formal gowns, and in my opinion, it was the nicest we ever looked. And that wasn’t because we were dressed nice, had a ton of makeup on, or were in great shape or anything like that, although it was certainly true that all of those things applied.

  Rather, it was because she had a joy on her face that had come from finally breaking up with her cruel boyfriend.