Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Prime
The makeshift morgue was cool and damp. Maybe it was the concrete walls. Maybe it was the fact that every bad thing that had happened on this island had ended up down here sooner or later.
Dead bodies. Evidence. Secrets.
Tonight it was a skeleton.
A fucking skeleton.
Doc stood over the stainless-steel table we normally used for gear repair or cleaning guns but was now used for dead bodies and skeletons. He adjusted his glasses and squinted down at the bones like they were a puzzle he’d never seen before.
“Y’know,” Doc muttered and scratched his chin, “I’m used to fresh bodies. Not ones that are just bones.”
Skull snorted. “You saying we’re moving up in the world?”
Doc side-eyed him. “I’m saying this isn’t exactly my specialty. Bones don’t scream, bleed, or leak, so this is outta my normal wheelhouse.”
Vin crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Just tell us how old it is.”
“I said I’m not a bone guy,” Doc repeated, lifting a femur and turning it in his gloved hands. “But… based on wear, sun bleaching, and the lack of connective tissue? I’d guess several years. Maybe more.”
Lost stood across from me, arms crossed and jaw tight. He hadn’t said much since we’d found the skeleton. This had been surprising to all of us.
I moved closer as Doc shifted the skull. He turned it gently, checking the eye sockets, the jawline, and the remaining teeth.
“Everything looks intact,” Doc said. “No obvious trauma. Though, again, I’m not the coroner type—” He twisted the skull a little more and the jaw suddenly popped open with a sharp click.
All of us froze.
Something fluttered out onto the table. A small, folded piece of paper that had been wedged between the teeth.
Doc stared at it. “Well now… this doesn’t look to be as old as the skeleton.”
“No shit,” Vin muttered.
Doc picked it up with two fingers and held it like it might bite him. Then he handed it to me. “Think this must belong to you.”
I took it carefully. The paper was crisp. Clean. Not yellowed or decayed. Someone had put this here recently.
My stomach tightened as I unfolded it.
Three seconds later, my blood ran cold. “You’ll all pay for the sins of the club just like he did.”
Silence filled the room like smoke.
Skull swore under his breath. “Motherfucker.”
Vin pushed off the wall. “Who the hell is ‘he’?”
Doc straightened and took off his gloves. “Well… that’s my cue.” He tossed the used gloves into his bag.
I looked up at him. “Cue for what?”
Doc chuckled and grabbed his bag from the floor. “For me to get my ass out of here. Knew it was a good choice not to join you guys all these years.”
I blinked. “Really?”
“Oh yeah,” Doc said and slung the strap over his shoulder. “This? Notes stuffed inside skulls? Bodies popping up outta nowhere? No thank you. Lead me out, Lost.”
Lost grabbed the three bottles of whiskey he’d brought earlier, Doc’s unofficial payment every time he was dragged into our mess, and nodded.
They headed toward the door with Doc humming like he was leaving a grocery store instead of a room full of bones.
As soon as the door shut behind them, silence settled again.
Me. Skull. Vin.
One skeleton. One note.
And a hell of a lot of questions.
I blew out a slow breath. “Alright. Let’s talk about what the hell this means.”
Vin rubbed the back of his neck. “It means the guy’s changing shit up. This isn’t like the other bodies.”
“Nope,” Skull agreed. “This is different. This is deliberate.”
“Pretty sure the four dead bodies before were deliberate, too,” Vin snickered.
Skull flipped him off.
“It’s not a kill,” I said. “It’s a clue.”
Vin’s eyes narrowed. “Almost like he wants us to find out who he is.”
I tapped the note against my palm, and the words stared back at me like a threat carved into bone.
You’ll all pay for the sins of the club just like he did.
“This really is a fucking game to him,” Vin muttered. “Part of me wishes he’d just try to kill us already so we could put a bullet in his head.”
“He’s not trying to kill us,” I said.
Both of them looked at me.
“Not yet, at least. The only one of us he’s hurt was Bob,” I continued. “And that wasn’t even aimed at Bob. Bernice was the target.”
Skull nodded slowly. “So he’s not after us.”
“No,” I said. “He’s after the people we care about.”
Pearl. Shay. Bernice.
The thought made something sharp twist in my gut.
“He’s hurting us,” Skull growled. “Just… not directly.”
“But what about the four dead bodies?” I wondered out loud. “We don’t even know those people.”
“Torturing us,” Vin added. “Dragging shit up. Playing with us. Maybe those bodies he was just using to see what we would do. If we go to the cops or not.” And we hadn’t, so maybe this guy was feeling comfortable enough with us to start showing us exactly what he was doing.
Except even now we had no fucking clue what his game was.
I stared at the skeleton again.
Placed perfectly. Undisturbed and waiting like a message in a bottle.
“What the hell are the ‘sins of the club’ supposed to be?” Vin asked. “We’ve done plenty of questionable shit, but nothing like this.”
Skull tilted his head. “Maybe it’s not our generation.”
The words hit me like a punch.
Old sins. Old secrets. Old enemies.
This island had been around longer than any of us, and the club had switched hands about sixteen years ago.
Razor and the original Kings had history buried deep in the dirt out here. They had feuds, friendships, deals, and grudges that none of us knew about.
Any one of them could’ve done something that invited a ghost back into our world.
So who dug up a skeleton?
Who stuffed a note in its mouth?
Who knew exactly where Piney had swept last night, waited until we were all asleep, and placed a body where we’d find it?
And why leave a message for us?
Why were we supposed to pay for the sins of men who weren’t us?
This wasn’t random. This wasn’t sloppy. This wasn’t a coincidence.
Someone wanted us to dig. Someone wanted us to suffer. Someone wanted us to remember.
I clenched my jaw. “Whoever this guy is,” I said quietly, “he’s not going away.”
Vin nodded. “He wants to be found.”
Skull grunted. “Then let’s fucking find him.”
I stared down at the skeleton one last time. The empty eye sockets and the jaw still hanging open where the note had been hidden.
Playing games. Toying with us. Running around in shadows, he knew better than we did.
The worst part?
He was getting bolder.
And I had no doubt he was watching us even now, somewhere out there on the island, waiting for our next move.