Chapter 9
Royal
The night behind Heck’s Kitchen is cold enough to bite bone. The wrestling match still roars inside the arena, but out here?
It’s just smoke, sparks, and the lull of drunken brotherhood.
A barrel fire spits and pops in the gravel lot, flames licking up into the dark like they’re trying to escape Hell itself. The Kings crowd around it. Oaks, Rye, Kernel, even old Crowbar, faces glowing orange, shadows carved deep into their jawlines.
Not one of them knows what Legend said to me ten minutes ago.
I keep my cut tight around me, the cold settling into the back of my neck, or maybe that’s just the weight of the shit I’m hiding.
Oaks sees me approach and stiffens a little.
Good. He should.
Rye nods at me, flicking a cigarette butt into the gravel. “Prez chew your ass out again?”
I open my mouth. But another brother answers. He wasn’t talking to me.
Always, I’m a ghost.
“Nah,” Crowbar rasps, missing half his teeth. “Legend saves the chewing for his ol’ lady.”
The men laugh.
Except me.
Sophie blew past Legend earlier like she was ready to stab him with her salad fork.
Tension between them could crack concrete.
I see the way some of the boys shift when they look at Legend, respect mixed with fear.
That man’s heart is a loaded gun, and Sophie’s the only one with a finger on the trigger.
But Oaks clears his throat, eager to change the subject. “Got somethin’ better to talk about than lovebirds. Tell him what the Pearly Gates crazies been preachin’.”
Rye snorts. “You mean besides purity, obedience, and tithing your whole paycheck to that scarecrow preacher?”
“No, no,” Kernel says. “The monster story.”
Crowbar throws a handful of gravel into the fire like he’s casting a spell. “Ah hell, the Demon Leaper.”
The boys howl with laughter.
But my spine goes tight.
Kernel puffs up like a campfire storyteller. “My cousin’s girl, Krystal? The one with no eyebrows and the nose ring like a bull, she swears Crowley’s people been sayin’ the Leaper’s takin’ girls to Louisville.”
“Course it’s Louisville,” Rye mutters. “If I was a demon gonna snack on virgins, that’s where I’d go.”
Another round of laughter.
Whiskey steps out of the dark. “What about Mama Crowley? Thought they blamed the disappearances on that devil’s dead wife.”
Oaks wipes his mouth, leaning forward. “Not anymore. Not since the cold case got attention, ran in the Herald Leader.”
“So, they’re blaming a monster instead of a ghost?” Whiskey asks.
Oak nods. “But listen. They say this thing’s tall as hell, bends backward in the joints, hops building to building. Got wings, or somethin’ like wings. Claws like bones. And it don’t just take the girls. It judges ’em.”
Kernel voice drops to a creepy whisper. “Leaps outta the dark, draggin’ ’em down into tunnels under the river.”
Rye deadpans, “Yeah? And it write ’em up a ticket too? ‘Sorry darlin’, you ugly and you failed Purity 101?’”
More laughter. But I’m not laughing. Because the way Oaks described it? The way Crowbar mimicked those grotesque, backward joints? The idea of tunnels?
I know damn well Becki has heard these stories since she was old enough to braid her hair. I heard them too. Hell, I still have nightmares.
“Some say it’s a gargoyle come to life,” I say, thinking no one may hear me.
Oaks grins at me, shoving my shoulder. “You believe any of this, Romeo?”
“Royal,” Rye corrects. “Not Romeo.”
Oaks waves him off. “Whatever. Royal, you scared of the big bad Leaper?”
I stare into the fire a long moment. The flames twist. Spit. Curl like something alive.
“It’s Louisville,” I say simply.
The boys go quiet.
Crowbar scratches his stubble. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning weird shit happens there,” I say. “Bad shit. Girls go missing. Bodies wash up in the river. People blame cults, drugs, gangs…”
“And demons?” Oaks smirks.
“Sometimes,” I say. “The stories ain’t all stories. The girls are really missing, and they end up dead.”
There’s a shift around the fire.
Subtle.
Uncomfortable.
Rye eyes me. “You been thinkin’ ’bout Crowley’s operation a lot?”
“I’m thinkin’,” I say, kicking a stray beer can into the dark. “That Pearly Gates hides a lot of things behind God. Behind scary stories. More than hellfire and brimstone.”
Oaks whistles. “Ain’t that the damn truth.”
Kernel nudges Crowbar. “Think we oughta get holy? Bring Bibles and holy water next time we ride through Louisville?”
Crowbar grins with all five of his teeth. “Hell no. Holy water burns my skin.”
They crack up again.
But Oaks watches me longer than the others.
“What’re you really sayin’, Royal?” he asks. “You actually believe some demon is takin’ girls”
I tilt my head, eyes narrowing. “I’m sayin’,” I answer slowly. “That somethin’ is takin’ them. Someone. Someone evil.”
The wind cuts through the lot just then, cold enough to raise goosebumps. The fire flares like it heard me.
A siren wails down the road.
An owl screeches overhead.
Someone inside Heck’s Kitchen cheers as another fighter hits the mat.
But none of that shakes the feeling in my gut.
The old stories.
The tunnels.
Louisville.
Pearly Gates.
It all ties together.
And the girl bound in my room? She knows more than she’s letting on. Oaks throws another beer into the fire, making it flare bright.
Rye claps me on the back. “Come on, man. Drink with us. Stop actin’ like you’ve seen Mama Crowley.”
I almost say I have.
Instead, I smirk and take the beer.
But staring into the flames, I swear I see something leap through the smoke, just for a second. Wrong-shaped. Wrong-shadowed.
And it vanishes. Nothin’ but a memory of a nightmare. However, my beer loses its flavor. No matter, I’m half-drunk by the time I head back to the Lockup.
First hint that something is wrong is the silence.
Not the usual hush of the Kings’ clubhouse settling into night, but that predator-still quiet that happens right before something lunges at your throat. It makes my skin tighten under my cut, the hair at the nape of my neck lifting like I’m standing in the presence of the Demon Leaper himself.
The corridor seems off. Air too still. Walls sweating cold. The odor of motor oil and beer unexpectedly covered by something subtly sweet. Shampoo? Cheap stuff. Something fruity. Peach. Something a club bunny would use after crawling out of one of the boys’ beds.
I’m halfway down the back corridor, on my way to sweep the grounds again, when I see it. The door to my room cracked open a sliver.
My stomach drops once, hard.
I locked it.
I always lock it.
The Kings of Anarchy don’t have many rules, but mine are iron, carved into me deeper than my scars. Doors lock. Knives stay sharp. Feelings stay dead.
Except she’s been breathing life back into all the wrong parts of me.
I move closer, silent, the outlaw instinct in me rising like smoke. Becki’s scent leaks out through the crack in a soft drifting ribbon, sweat, something sweet beneath, cheap shampoo. It strikes me like a fist.
Shampoo? I push the door open with one finger. See it on the tiny sink. Where the hell did she get that?
I get the real surprise. Empty cot. Empty chain.
My jaw flexes, once, twice, before instinct overrides thought. The cot’s still warm. Blanket rumpled. Chain lying across the mattress like a dead snake.
She didn’t break it.
She was let out.
Of course she was. Becki Crowley has never stayed where someone put her.
Not in her childhood. Not in that church.
Not even with me.
Someone let her go.
Someone touched my lock.
The thought is gasoline to my temper.