Chapter 33
Clyde
The dead don’t start giving off the sickly smell of rot until hours later. The bodies on either side of me are still fresh, and while there are two layers of plastic separating me from each, I could be fooled that I’m resting in the hard bed of the truck with men who are only sleeping.
The driver doesn’t try to make the journey bearable for me, and I’m being shaken as if I’m a nugget of gold the driver is attempting to separate from mud and pebbles.
Then again, maybe I’m the dirt? Maybe Bracer lied when he whispered for me to play dead before pulling the trigger, and I am in fact just a body, temporarily inhabited by a soul that refuses to leave.
If I’m alive, how did he fool everyone? Did he shoot into the air, aiming so close to me it seemed believable enough? Did he always keep a pistol loaded with blanks on his person, for situations like this one? I wouldn’t put that past him. I also can’t work out the reason he would be helping me in the first place, since Bracer and I have never been anything close to best buds. If anything, I’ve been avoiding his requests to influence my uncle about Roy for a while now.
Another bump, and then a beep I know from somewhere but can’t place. It’s so hard to focus on the outside world when pressed between two men I’ve killed. I’m no blushing flower. I’ve killed before, and I’ve taken the bodies to Bracer’s crematorium, but—
That’s it. That’s the sound. The beeping his back gate makes when opening .
But he wouldn’t save me just to throw me into the fire alive… would he? I don’t know anything anymore.
Either way, my life as I know it is over. I shot Puck in public, and while stabbing Kalash to death could have been hidden, that can’t. And yet I don’t regret it. Because otherwise, that baseball bat would have landed on Road’s head.
I chose him over my club. And if I were to be honest with myself, I’ve been choosing him over my club for a while now. What does that say about me?
I should feel guilt, loathe myself for being a piece of filth without honor, ready to betray his family for good dick. Only the Hell’s Butchers haven’t felt like family for a long time now, and my relationship with Road is… it’s not so simple at all.
What started as a chance to explore my sexuality turned into trust, intimacy, and a connection that felt safer than any of the friendships I made with my club brothers. With him, I can be myself. He won’t begrudge me for not being the kind of man I’m expected to be, or laugh at my vulnerabilities.
How could I not choose him, when he risked his life trying to talk to me?
I’m loyal. I’ve just changed who I'm loyal to.
My thoughts freeze when the engine stops. I hope that if I am to be loaded into the oven, I’ll get the mercy of a bullet to the head first, but that does not mean I’ll go without a fight.
The truck shifts under someone’s weight, and I hear boots on the bed of the vehicle, sense them right next to my feet.
My heart works overtime, as if to make up for the dead silence of the bodies next to me. I hear the click of the safety being taken off before my bag is unzipped and I face the muzzle of a gun.
“ Now , we can talk,” Bracer says in a voice that sends a chill down my spine. I regret brushing off his requests so many times.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been on this side of the gun though, so I meet his eyes to show no fear. “Sure. Let’s. Why’d you save me just to threaten me here?”
Bracer shakes his head. “Because you can still be useful. But first, explain since when you’ve been working with the Vultures.”
My heart drops. Of course. What other logical conclusion could there be?
“I’m not— ”
Bracer leans down and pushes the gun in my face. “Don’t fucking test me, Clyde. I’ve had enough trouble dealing with your fucking uncle. Getting rid of you will be no chore for me. Are you working with them to get rid of Grizzly? I’m not gonna let a kid like you become the new prez. Over my dead body!”
I hold my hands up. I’ve seen Bracer pack a whole magazine into a man, and I’m not going to risk sharing that fate. “We’re a thing! I mean… Roadkill and I. I’m gay.” Saying it out loud makes my palms sweaty and my stomach clench, but it needed to be done. In the twisted logic of club life, this will still be better than the alternative—admitting to working with the Vultures.
Bracer’s eyes widen, but he’s silent as he straightens back up, assessing me in silence. I hate the judgment in his little smirk.
“Oh that’s just fucking precious. What a joke. You threw your life away for dick?”
His words are like a slap to the face. He has no idea how deep my connection with Road goes. He isn’t just some dick. He’s my lifeline. I might be as dead as the bodies next to me in the eyes of my club, but I’ve got no doubt that if I show up on his doorstep, he’ll pull me in for a hug and work something out. He cares about me in ways Bracer can’t fathom.
I’m not about to tell this prick any of that.
“It is what it is,” I say noncommittally, so I can keep the cards close to my chest and see what I can gain here. He did mention that I could be of use.
Bracer sneers. “So you don’t have a meaningful connection to the Vultures. I might as well have shot you.”
“Wait! No. I’m a dead man now. I’ve got no way back and nothing to lose. You want my uncle gone? I can do that. He won’t see me coming.”
“If you’re lying, and you think you’ll just disappear on me with your lover boy, know that I will find you. And I’d shoot him first.”
Not a hollow threat, as I recall a Butcher who went off-grid for three years back when I was a kid. He was found in Louisiana, and executed for betrayal. Bracer has his ways, and I’d be living with eyes in the back of my head, worried that one day Road won’t come back to wherever we call home.
But can I commit to assassinating my uncle? I never had love for Puck, but even killing him was a split-second decision not cold-blooded murder.
Then again, whatever gets me out of the position I’m in now works. I could regroup, find Road, reassess our situation, and maybe even snitch on Bracer. I know I’m done for in my club, but if I gave my uncle an actual rat’s head on a platter, maybe he’d let go of the vendetta against Roy’s killer. Or at least I’d be able to disappear with Road without a price on our heads. For all the rest of the Butchers know, I’m dead.
“I’m not lying.” A lie detector might beg to differ, but there isn’t one here. “I’ll get to him for you and disappear.”
Bracer smirks and gestures for me to get up. “Don’t be seen anywhere in public.”
Relief floods my heart even though this is hardly the end of my trouble. It’s a step in the right direction. I jump off the truck under Bracer’s watchful eye.
“Take that off. You’re not a Butcher anymore.”
I realize he means my vest with club colors, and even though I have so little love for my club brothers at this point, I’m reluctant to take it off. My identity has been tied to this club for so long I struggle to understand who I will be without it.
Just… Clyde?
I swallow and take off the cut, struggling to say goodbye to it. It feels like getting skinned. I’ve got no doubt this wound will bleed for years to come, if I’m lucky enough to live that long.
I throw the vest to the bed of the truck, right by Bracer’s boots. He shakes his head and points to a motorcycle in the corner of the garage.
“You can take it,” he says like some benevolent fucking king. I guess beggars can’t be choosers, but it does hurt that I’m losing my Harley too. I know that baby inside out, unlike the piece of junk I’m headed for.
When the keys fly toward me, my feet feel like I’m wearing concrete boots. But he’s watching me, so I can’t show weakness, no matter how sick this situation makes me. Nausea coils in my stomach when I grab the handlebars and raise my leg, praying I don’t embarrass myself by stumbling as I mount the motorbike, but then I’m in the saddle, and the key goes into the ignition.
Bracer’s watchful eyes seek out any cracks in my armor, and I stiffen when the engine doesn’t immediately come back to life. I’m about to scream when it kicks in, and I drive out without looking over my shoulder. My stomach tightens, as if it wants to cuddle up to my spine, half-expecting a bullet to hit the back of my head after all. As if this was all a stupid game to Bracer. But nothing happens, and I ride past the gates of the crematorium, bursting out onto the empty road cutting through the fields .
My hands are damp with sweat by the time I’m in the woods, too far for him to see me, and my body gives up trying to pretend everything’s fine. I brake so fast I avoid falling on my face by a narrow margin, but then I’m bending to the side and emptying my stomach into the grass as tension jerks my body in frantic heaves.
It’s only once I’m done throwing up that the world stops spinning. I rest my head on the cool steel in front of me, chortling like a madman. Life’s really done a number on me, but I’m still alive at least, and if Road followed the instructions in my last message, he’ll be waiting for me at the lake.
I message him once more, just confirming that I’m on my way, but I don’t wait for an answer. I want to speak to him in person, hear his voice.
All the fatigue and gloom overcasting my heart are gone the moment I think about reuniting with him. Nothing about the road ahead will be easy, but if we travel far enough, who’s going to hound us? The night will offer an opportunity for us to discuss the secrets that ended up being a wedge between us, and then we will… disappear.
Heat comes over me in a wave, and I take a deep breath, imagining a world where I won’t need to always be so self-conscious. Nobody will know me there and I’ll not be forced to meet any expectations. That means I might just… be gay where I’m going. Not in the feather boa-carrying way—I don’t think that’s me—but someone who isn’t worried about sharing an apartment with another man, dancing with Road at the right venues, or having breakfast together each morning, without hiding our closeness from the neighbors.
It would not be a straightforward life, but maybe it could still be a happy one?
New hope sings in my chest as I head off with only Road on my mind. Everything else can wait until morning.
I make the briefest stop at a gas station with my hood up. I need Road inside me so much I don’t even know how to describe it, and we will need lube for that , but then I’m following the familiar path through the woods, between the trees and down the hill, toward the small lake I’ve made my own sanctuary. I checked my phone at the shop, and was surprised that he didn’t answer, but the connection can be patchy here.
I grin at the sight of Road’s motorcycle. My heart even does a little backflip, and I’m not holding back my excitement anymore. I speed up, my feet carrying me in the darkness.
“Road! ”
He might have fallen asleep since he doesn’t answer me, but I know just the way to wake him up, so I stride in with a manic grin on my face, illuminating my way with the flashlight of my phone.
He’s there, curled up on the couch, around the thick hoodie I keep here for when the evenings get too cold. As I step closer and shove at his arm, about to kiss him, the foamy saliva trickling out of his mouth and down his cheek makes me freeze.
My own heartbeat drums loudly, as if I were inside a giant bell after its clapper struck the side. I whisper Road’s name, taking in the mess around him. His fingers are wrapped around the neck of an empty tequila bottle, and a small Ziplock bag with traces of white powder rests on the floor by the couch.
Struck by the frost of the shock spreading inside me, I give his cheek a gentle slap, only to withdraw from his clammy skin. His hand is as cold as the dead bodies I traveled with today.
I don’t want to believe it, but my breath hitches.
This is wrong. So wrong.
“Road? Roadie, sweetie?” I utter, lost as I pat his cheek again. My stomach twists in terror when his hand falls lifelessly to the side. This can’t be happening. Not after everything we’ve been through.
A wave of nausea hits me when I try to organize my thoughts and realize he might have heard I got shot. But he wouldn’t… he wouldn’t end things because of it. Because of me?
The way he’s hugging my hoodie now feels different and I choke on a sob.
“Road!” I shake him, then force his eyes open to point my flashlight at them.
No reaction.
Just more of that white foam seeping out from between blue lips.
He’s dead.
He’s really dead.
When tears streak down my cheeks, I realize I haven’t cried in ten years. After what that vile stranger did to me, I killed any softness in me with the help of the brutal world around me.
But Road awoke it in me again. He let me be soft.
And now he’s dead. Because of a twisted set of circumstances. Because he loved me so much he refused to go on. He didn’t need to say it. I know he did.
I kiss his cooling forehead, but as soon as I do it, a violent sob makes my whole body ache.
“I love you. Just so you know,” I whisper and some of my hot tears drip on his face as I stroke his head. I love that short fuzz.
Everything I did was futile. My whole arrangement with Bracer, shooting Puck…
I take deep breaths of air not yet stained with death. But I know all too well what happens to a body after a while. I refuse to see him that way. Without Road, none of my plans make sense. Those dreams of making him breakfast, a place of our own, evenings on the couch, and fucking each other’s brains out until we’ve melted into one only worked with him in the picture.
No one else will do. No one else would understand me and my life the way a fellow biker can. The way he could.
I pull out the gun I was intending to threaten my uncle with if push came to shove. It might have also served as protection if needed. Now it will take me to Road.
Peace comes over me as I take a deep breath and pull his arm around me.
It’s awkward with him on the couch and me kneeling by it, but I don’t want to drag him off it. He deserves to be comfortable. I press my face to his chest, and the gun under my chin.
“It won’t be long now,” I whisper to him, but right as I’m about to pull the trigger, I hear the faintest heartbeat.