Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
JINX
“Progress?” I toss aside the steel bar I use to break ground for the new gate posts as Darko approaches the end of the driveway.
Loki continues to unload the sheets of corrugated steel off a flatbed trailer that’ll make up the new panels along the roadside. I hate that we have to do this. That we have to shut ourselves away as though we need to hide from the world. But it makes sense.
The farm is too open. Too many sight-lines from all around to where the farmhouse stands sentinel in the front of the yard.
We need to be sensible.
“Yeah,” Darko answers as he looks left and right down the new boundary line. “But not on what everyone’s expecting.”
“Oh?” I snatch up my water cooler from the grass and unscrew the lid. “What then?”
“Kyra.”
I damn near forgot to swallow the liquid. “How’d you manage that?” I spent hours scouring the web for signs of her income stream and came up with fuck all. What the hell did he do differently?
“By not starting at the source.” Darko casts a quick look in Loki’s direction to check he’s still out of earshot. “You tried finding her sub page first, am I right?”
“So?”
“I started by finding her bank account.”
Sneaky shit. “And worked your way back from there.”
“Exactly.”
My skin tingles at what he suggests. “You found her content then?”
He smirks. “I did.”
Silence hangs thick between us, save for the clang of the steel as Loki stacks it up. The sun may hide behind clouds today, but the humidity has my patience thin enough as it is.
“Did you look at it?” Violence between brothers is frowned upon, but I seriously consider whether I could get away with a sneaky hook to the jaw depending on what he says next.
“I saw it,” he taunts, “but I didn’t look at it, if you catch my drift.”
And now I’m angry that he doesn’t think she’s good enough to admire. What the actual fuck? Somebody explain how jealousy works to me, because my head spins trying to make heads or tails of the warring emotions.
Darko hooks his thumbs in his pockets, waiting for me to steer the direction of the conversation.
I bite. “Are you going to fuckin’ tell me her handle, then, or what?”
“What’s it to you?” He tilts his head.
“Pardon the fuck me?” I widen my eyes at the fucking gall of the kid.
“Knowing what she posted online is irrelevant to finding out more about Marty. Why do you need to know what Kyra’s account name is?”
“Why do you need to know what it is to me before you hand it over?” I take a step toward the fucker.
He’s young. Usually sticks to himself. But he’s a right asshole when he wants to be.
Kid observes too much from his quiet corners of the room.
We all think his nose is buried in his laptop, but the sneaky little shit sees and hears far more than we realize.
“You don’t date anyone, Jinx.” He folds his arms and widens his stance, settling in for the conversation. “You don’t touch the bunnies. As far as anyone knows, you don’t have a piece on the outside. So what gives? Why her?”
Because she reminds me that my heart knows how to feel. “Why not?”
One side of his smarmy mouth tilts up. “Blue Babylon,” he states. “No capitals. No spaces.”
bluebabylon
“You look confused.”
“Of course, I’m fuckin’ confused.” I shift to rest my weight against one of the old wooden posts. “You think Mongrel was the type to send me to Sunday school? I know it’s some kind of religious reference. I don’t know what it means, though.”
“Babylon was seen as a place of sin,” Darko explains. “A place where corruption and the hedonistic influence of man ran riot.”
And blue could be referenced to the thin blue line—her upbringing. Well shit. That makes sense then. “Blue Babylon,” I mutter. “And I bet nobody would get why she chose that.”
“Because of her career choice?”
“Nah, my brother.” I draw a deep breath and eye Loki. “Because of her father’s career choice.”
Darko looks confused for a moment before it twigs. “She doesn’t like him, and the handle is a giant fuck you.”
“I’d put money on it.”
“What are you two gossiping about?” Loki calls out, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm as he approaches.
“The sound your sister makes when she comes,” Darko hollers back without missing a beat.
“Nice,” Loki scoffs, retrieving his water from near mine. “I’d be insulted if I actually had a sister.”
“It was worth a try.” Darko shrugs and then turns back for the house.
“Hey,” Loki calls after him. “Get Goblin to bring us down some sandwiches, yeah?”
“Why don’t you tell him yourself?” Darko counters.
“I would, but I’m too busy thinking about how your sister calls me daddy.”
Darko spins, cants his head with his gaze narrowed as he considers a reply, and then carries on toward the house with a middle finger thrown in the air.
“I didn’t know he has a sister,” I muse.
“Neither did I,” Loki chuckles. He watches the kid walk for a beat before turning to face me. “He wasn’t giving you news about Matty’s sister then, since we’re on the topic of sisters and all.”
“Nope.” I retrieve the steel bar from the ground. “Just an update on a favor he’s doing for me.”
“Oh yeah?”
I shake my head. “Nothing serious.” The stack of iron panels sits chest high amongst the overgrown grass on the roadside. “Tell me again why we do this and not the prospects.”
“Because we want the fucking thing straight and level.”
“Right.” I slam the rod into the cracked ground and make a circle with it. “Heard anything from Crow or Circus today?”
“Not recently.” Loki takes another sip of water. “They were heading over to harass the Wilcoxes last I heard.”
The Wilcox family has run a flower farm several miles from the town limit for decades, their blooms supplying most of the independent stores in the state.
What few people know is that smack in the center of legitimate crops, they have a special poppy field that’s contracted to a select few customers—one of whom is the Devil’s Breed.
“Reckon they’d say anything even if they had seen them?”
“I reckon if they push on David’s good Christian nature, they could make him feel obligated to share.”
“And how would they do that?” I repeat the motion with the steel bar, working the ground into an easy-to-dig area.
“Allude to the sinful things the Breed plan to bring to Temperance.”
“I think if old David had a conscience as rich as what he puts in the collection plate every Sunday, he wouldn’t do the deals he already does.”
“I suppose.” Loki caps his water and sighs. “I can’t shake the feeling that we do too little, too late, though.”
Hell yeah, we are. This fence should have been put up the first week we were here, but the barn was more important, since it provides extra bike storage and a place for people to sleep when brothers from out of state visit. “Better we do something, though, right?”
“Are we a dying breed?” He smirks. “No pun intended.”
“What makes you say that?” I glance at him as I slam the steel bar down again.
“You can’t deny that motorcycle clubs had their heyday in our fathers’ time,” he muses, rubbing his trap muscle. “Things were different then. Not so much surveillance and connection from the digital age. They could get away with a hell of a lot more than we can now.”
“Point being?”
“Every year, the rallies get smaller. Clubs dissolve. People merge with those left. And the public sees us as more of a nuisance now—a stain on the landscape—rather than anything to be feared.”
“You’d rather we started making people disappear again? Bring back the midnight raids and bully tactics to get money from the businessmen?”
“Not what I said,” he states flatly. “I’m just saying things ain’t what they used to be.”
“Then what are we worried about the Devil’s Breed for if we’re all such apparent softies?” I stop work and lean my weight on the bar.
“Because they’re some of the few holding steadfast to those old traditions.
” He folds his arms, tilting his head a little.
“I agree that we need to change with the times. Hell, I’m the first to argue it with the old boys.
But the more we progress, the greater the divide between clubs like ours and them grows. ”
“And the fewer people we have interested in becoming a part of the life, which puts us in a situation like we are now.”
“Exactly.”
I sigh, glancing towards Vanessa’s house and all it represents of our assimilation into the mainstream. “I don’t know what you expect us to do about it.”
“I wish I had the answer.” Loki runs a hand through his hair, rubbing the back of his head as he looks toward the ground. “It’s not something we can continue to ignore, though.”
“You’re right.” I draw a deep breath. “It’s not. But it’s also not something we can rush to solve just because the Breed are breathing down our necks.”
He shrugs.
“If we want to replenish our numbers with strong, loyal people who’re just as intent on keeping our way of life alive, then we need to be selective in who we invite inside these walls.
” I nod to the pile of steel panels. “We can’t risk letting somebody in who’ll fold at the first sign of trouble or be easily bought out by a rival club. They have to be solid, Loki.”
“I don’t dispute it.”
“Leave it with me,” I say on a sigh. “I’ll talk to Chaos about a strategy for the future, and we’ll bring it to the table.”
“Sure.” Loki turns to return to his work.
“Hey.” I tip my chin as I call after him, waiting for the guy to turn to face me before I continue. “You didn’t react much when Chaos suggested the old boys. Why’s that?”
His jaw flexes, and he avoids my eye as he answers. “Because I put Dad in a home last week.”
The fuck? “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“To protect his pride as much as anything else.” Loki wets his lips, running his teeth across the bottom one before he stiffly adds, “He has dementia, Jinx. He gets confused a lot, and it scares him.” His gaze lifts to meet mine.
“That’s not the Tinker everyone remembers.
I’d rather keep their memories how they are. ”
A rock lodges in my throat as I swallow. “I’m sorry, man.”
“It is what it is.” He turns and ends the conversation, walking away a little slower.
My chest aches, a phantom terror tickling at my muscles as I set the steel bar down and place my hands on my hips.
Fuck. That’s the sum of it, really, isn’t it?
We’re tough as nails, hardened by this life, until humanity catches up with us and reminds us that beneath the leather, road grime, and oil, we’re men.
Mere men.
And we fall just as hard as the rest of them.
Maybe we are a dying breed?