Chapter 7 #2
"Not enough yet. That's what we need to fix today." Razor leans on the table. "They're not small. Detroit chapter has run into them twice in the last year, both times they moved on before it came to anything. They're patient, which means they're not hotheads. Patient is more dangerous."
"Patient means they've been planning this," Ramsey says quietly.
"Which means they know our layout," Shadow says.
The room goes colder by about two degrees.
Cash unfolds his arms and leans forward. "Then we need to know theirs. I want to know where they're sleeping, where they're fuelling up, and whether anyone in this town has been talking to them. Because they didn't pick this town at random."
"Agreed." Razor points at Braxton. "Start with their digital presence. Then I want a physical sweep. Anyone who's come through this town in the last thirty days that we didn't know about, I want to know about them now."
I've been waiting for the right moment and now I take it. "The kids," I say. "EJ's at school right now. So are eight other club kids under ten. If High Stakes are already making moves in this territory, the school is exposed too."
The room shifts. Not in alarm, in attention. There's a difference.
Razor looks at me steadily. "What are you thinking?"
"After school today they come straight here and they stay here until we know what we're dealing with.
No exceptions." I keep my voice level. Not asking.
Proposing. "I'm not panicking, Prez. I'm being practical.
The kids are the softest target we have and the easiest way to apply pressure to any one of us in this room. We close that off before they find it."
The room is quiet for a second.
"I agree with Sprog," Shadow says.
Razor looks around the table. No objections.
"Kids on lockdown after school today. Braxton, get word to the school that we'll be collecting.
No prospects, patched members only." He puts his hands flat on the table.
"We don't want anything happening to the people in this town.
This is our territory and we protect it.
We find out what these people want and then we deal with it. Cleanly and without collateral damage."
He looks around the room one more time and then he says, "Dismissed," and the table comes back to life.
I walk out with Knuckles, who says nothing as we cross the yard, and then says, "Good call on the kids."
"Thanks."
"Not a compliment. A fact." He peels off toward the garage and that's Knuckles done with the conversation.
I get back under the truck.
Two hours later my phone rings.
I see Ruby’s number. Was I supposed to get the sandwiches today? I thought one of the prospects was getting it.
"Yeah," I say.
"Austin, there's been an incident outside the diner. Can you come immediately? The paramedics are on their way. It’s EJ. Come quick."
Everything in me goes completely quiet. Not silent. Quiet, the particular focused stillness that comes down when everything peripheral drops away and there's only the thing that matters.
"What happened to my son?"
"He was on his way to the diner with one of the prospects and the other kids from the clubhouse, then there was a sound. I rushed out of the diner and EJ fell. He's been shot, Austin. It looks like it grazed him but he's bleeding. Please hurry."
I hang up.
Thirty seconds. I sit on the dolly on the floor of the garage bay, and I have thirty seconds where I don't move. I lay out what I know. EJ’s been grazed.
He’s bleeding. Paramedics are coming. He's conscious because she didn't say otherwise.
Grazed means the bullet didn't enter. Bleeding from a graze is manageable if it's managed quickly.
The paramedics are coming but they're eight minutes away at best because this end of town is always eight minutes from anything.
The new doctor's office is three minutes from Ruby’s on foot.
I get up and I call Prez as I walk to my bike.
"This better be important, Sprog, I'm with Rosie right now."
"EJ's been shot outside Ruby’s. I'm on my way."
A pause of about one second. "On it."
He hangs up but I can already hear him shouting for brothers before the line goes dead. That's all it takes. One sentence. No questions, no hesitation. The club moves.
I get on the bike, and I ride. My mind stays exactly as quiet and focused as it needs to be.
EJ is bleeding. I'm three minutes away. Everything else is noise.
The road between the garage and Ruby’s is a road I know so well I don't have to think about it, which is useful right now because all of my thinking is being used for other things. I run the sequence as I ride. Get to EJ. Assess. Decide.
The diner comes into view, and I see Ruby moving people away from her door.
I park right outside Ruby’s and stride into the diner. The crowd parts for me the way crowds part when they can see that someone knows exactly where they're going.
Ruby is kneeling beside EJ with a folded jacket pressed against his side. She looks up when I get to them and her expression steadies. "He's conscious and talking," she says. "The bleeding's slowing. You've got time."
"Thank you."
I crouch down. EJ looks up at me, and his face does that thing it does when he's trying not to let on that he's scared, which is go very still and wide-eyed. It’s the same face he had when he fell off his bike at six and couldn't decide whether to cry or laugh it off.
"Hey, buddy."
"I got shot," he says. Like he's reporting a fact. Like he wants to make sure I understand the gravity of what has occurred.
"I know. You're going to be alright."
I hear the bikes before I see them. Four of them, rolling into the street in front of Ruby’s. The Black Saints are known here. Whatever people in other towns might think about a motorcycle club arriving at a diner next to an elementary school, this town knows what it means.
Brick gets off his bike first and Ruby nods at him the way you nod at someone you've dealt with before. He crouches down next to me and looks at EJ's side, and his jaw tightens just once and then settles.
A father I recognize from the school gate, a man named Paul who coaches EJ's football team, puts his hand briefly on Brick's arm as he passes. "Is he going to be okay?"
"He'll be fine," Brick says, and the certainty in his voice is not performance, it's just Brick, and Paul nods and steps back.
I get my arms under EJ and lift him. He makes a sound that he immediately tries to suppress and my chest does something I don't let show on my face.
"The paramedics are still fifteen minutes out, there’s a lot of traffic," Ruby says. "Where are you taking him?"
"New doctor's surgery. Corner of Lincoln and Lexington. It's three minutes on foot."
She looks at Brick. He gives her a short nod.
What matters is the surgery being only three minutes from the school and I can carry EJ.
Nothing matters right now except getting EJ through that door.
I move toward the gate.