1. Smoke
1
SMOKE
TWO WEEKS LATER
T he fall is simple.
Signal.
Jump.
Open parachute.
Land.
It’s the ground that’s hostile.
The fire burns in the distance.
She dances whimsically on the wind, the harsh crackle of burning timber and falling trees her soundtrack.
“Easy,” I mutter to her, glad I’m out of hearing range for my fellow crew.
They don’t know that I talk to the flames.
This is Johnny’s first real smoke jump, and he’s full of the piss and vinegar that comes with being a newbie.
We’ve practiced these jumps with him plenty, and he knows his role, but we’ll need to keep an eye on him.
There’s a fine line between bold actions to quell the fire and heroics that get you killed.
Hassan and I have done this together for six seasons.
The guy can swing an axe like no man I’ve ever met.
He’s stronger than Atom, the enforcer of my club, and that’s saying plenty.
It should be a breeze to bring it under control.
We’ve got time to fell trees, dig trenches, and clear debris and dried-out foliage that light faster than a pile of old books.
My fellow smoke jumpers litter the sky.
It’s crucial we don’t allow our parachutes to cross.
But we’ve done this a million times before, carefully navigating our trajectory as close to the fire line as is safe but allowing tolerances so we don’t end up off course or trapped.
For me, the jump has always been one of my favorite things.
I’ve grappled my whole life with low dopamine, searching everywhere for an adrenaline rush or some kind of serotonin response.
While others hoot and scream like it’s the wildest rush, it brings me to an even keel.
When the season’s over and I return home to the club, I’ll look for it in reckless sexual behavior and poor choices.
I’ll find it in killing for the club.
In another life, I’d probably be a serial killer.
But I settle for this, spending much of the summer jumping from planes, trying to get ahead of forest fires.
Unlike regular firefighters, we travel lighter.
No complicated breathing apparatus because there’s nowhere to refill tanks on a mountain—plus, it’s all carbon-based material.
Doesn’t smell great, but isn’t filled with nasty chemicals from paint-filled buildings.
Like any other day, I tug on my chute as I land and let my heels dig into the dirt.
My whole body vibrates and strains with the effort.
And without instruction, we all detach our chutes, deal with the canopies, and prepare for work.
We’re a well-oiled machine, fearless as the heat and smoke are picked up by the wind and blown in our direction.
But when I look at the sky, I see the clouds shifting, their pace increasing.
Typically, smoke jumping is safe enough because of our training.
There’s a higher chance of contracting poison oak than there is of dying on the job.
“Not liking this wind,” Hassan says.
“It’s twitchier than my ex was at our divorce hearing.”
I chuckle at that.
His wife was having an affair with their kid’s baseball coach and was hoping to get the agreement through before Hassan found out.
But I know what he means.
It can’t decide which way to blow.
Time passes as we wrestle with the steep slopes and denseness of the vegetation to clear a path.
The wind picks up, and I pull my bandana up a little higher to cover more of my nose.
Sweat prickles over my skin.
I once dated a girl who wanted photographs of me at work, all sweaty and smeared up with the grime of the day.
Was happy to share them with her, seeing she sent me pics of her stroking her own pussy.
Nothing breaks up a miserable day in the smoke and steam more than a little digital titillation.
I glance over and can just make out where Tim and Billy are hacking at the undergrowth.
I can’t see where Niall, Adrian, and Ryan are.
The wind changes direction, and the clearing of the smoke causes my heart to sink.
The flames have followed the smoke faster than any of us anticipated.
We’re too close to the flames without enough time to back up.
Johnny and Hassan are cornered.
The fire has horseshoed around us, throwing sparks into the air.
I shout into my radio that we need an urgent air drop of water to our position, on the off chance there’s one already loaded and on its way.
But there isn’t.
I hear my friends scream and?—
“We will shortly be landing at Denver International Airport. At this time, we would like to invite you to…”
Jerking awake, I suck in air as I tune out the landing announcement.
Sleep has become my nemesis.
Subconsciously, I stroke the dressing on my arm.
It seems almost cowardly that burns are my only lasting injury when four members of my team died.
The inhalation burns were limited to heat damage in my upper airways, but there wasn’t any way I wasn’t removing my bandana to give Johnny mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
I carried him over my shoulder, carting him through the flames.
He says I’m the reason he’s alive; I say I’m the reason he’s in the hospital.
In the ten days I was in the hospital, the fires were put out.
We had help from a couple of aerial teams from Canada.
And an inquiry began into what happened.
No one has blamed me directly, but the fact I’ve been sent home instead of allowed back on duty for the remaining two weeks of the season says all I need to know.
They must think I mishandled it.
Now, I do too.
Which means, four men’s deaths, men I’ve worked with every year for the past five years plus this one, were my fault too.
I’ve been responsible for many deaths, but these don’t sit well on an already suffocating conscience.
When I exit the baggage claim area, Atom is waiting for me.
I wish he’d brought a bike, but I know he’ll have his truck, given the bags and burns I have to carry.
“Brother,” he says, tugging me to him.
“Good to have you back.”
I don’t want to think about the wave of emotion I feel standing here.
There were times on that mountainside when I wondered if I was going to make it out alive to see this moment.
I hiss and wince as he applies pressure to my burns, and Atom lets go quickly.
“Shit, brother. I’m sorry.”
Now that I’m here, I wonder if I shouldn’t have just lain down on that mountain slope and let the flames burn the flesh from my bones.
But I can’t say any of that out loud.
With the inquiry and everything else, I need to be more certain than I’ve ever been.
I can’t allow myself to sink into a depressive place where I can’t remember the details clearly.
“How are you feeling?” Atom asks.
That’s a loaded question given the dream I had on the plane and the thoughts racing around in my head.
“Glad to be home,” I lie.
“So, now that we’re face-to-face, you want to tell me what the fuck you were thinking, hooking up with Butcher’s daughter?”
I mean it light-heartedly.
Ember’s an attractive girl with a Stevie Nick’s vibe.
A little boho around the edges.
Would be lying if I said I’d never considered what hooking up with her would feel like if I didn’t think Butcher, my president, would rip my balls off.
But then, before the accident, I’d also have thought the same about the blonde who checked me in at the airport and the flight attendant with the bubble butt who paid me extra attention on the plane.
Atom yanks my two heavy backpacks off the cart I put them on.
“I’ll tell you everything you want to know over our first beer. But stop dodging my question and tell me how you’re doing.”
We walk out of the airport towards the truck.
“I’m fine.”
“Shit fucking answer.”
I shrug.
“Best one I’ve got, for now.”
Atom looks at me carefully as we stop at a crosswalk.
We’ve known each other a long time.
He knows my answer is bullshit; so do I.
“Look, don’t want to talk about it. Let me get home. Get adjusted. See how we go from there.”
“You got two days,” Atom says.
“Bottling shit is no way to live.”
“I’m not bottling shit. Tell me what’s happening with the club.”
Atom sighs, accepting, if not agreeing, with the choice I’m making.
On the ride home, he fills me in on what I missed.
We spoke periodically while I was away, but club business isn’t something you discuss on public-access Wi-Fi or phone lines that can be traced.
As we leave the airport and the landscape opens in front of me, a little of the pressure in my chest eases, until I see a message from Johnny appear on my phone.
I swipe it away without reading it.
The sun is still high, burning the Colorado skyline into green, copper, and gold.
I can scent the lack of rain—everything smells scorched with pine sap and hot earth—and for the first time ever, the odor bothers me.
I pray for some water to hit the fields soon.
There’s nothing better than watching a storm roll in from the quiet of my back porch.
The thought of it eases everything that hurts in my bones.
So does the idea of climbing into my own bed, in my own house, in my own non-itchy sheets.
When I get home, there’s a car that I don’t recognize in the driveway.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
“I’ll bring the bags in while you find out.”
For a moment, I consider arguing, but I know looking out for people is Atom’s love language.
I push the front door open and realize my home smells like lemons.
Not just a little bit like lemons, but a lot like lemons.
There’s not a speck of dust.
And then I remember, just as she appears around the corner.
“Quinn.”
She’s gotten prettier as she’s gotten older.
Still tiny though. That thick, rich, auburn hair she always wore in a braid is now loose in smooth waves around her shoulders.
Her wide, hazel eyes are far more guarded.
But I’m still taken back to a time when I dated her sister, before she went missing, and the town all turned and looked at me with suspicion because I was a prospect with a motorcycle club.
I wasn’t allowed to grieve the fledgling relationship we’d had because I was thrust straight into the role of villain.
And I’ve carried the weight of not being there to protect her, to stop it all from happening.
Quinn saw me in the street about a month later, and literally ran up to me, screaming, asking where Melody was.
I let her pound her tiny fists into my chest until her father came and pulled her away.
They all thought I’d killed her.
There’s eight years between us in age, but now there is only eight feet in distance.
She’s barefoot with turquoise nails, and flour dusts the hem of her pale blue sundress.
It’d be a pretty picture to come home to, if she weren’t defiantly standing with her chin tipped up at my arrival.
But there’s enough left of the young girl who used to follow me around like I was her hero.
I see the same confused misery in her face that I saw the day her sister disappeared.
My heart doesn’t just jolt, it hammers hard enough to hurt.
Maybe it’s because of the emotional overload of everything else in my life right now, but it’s hard to keep the memories buried where they belong.
You let her go. You let her die.
She still looks at me like I stole something from her, when the truth is, I had nothing to do with Melody’s disappearance.
Over the years, I tried to figure it out, partly so I could silence those who thought I did it, but was never able to.
“Smoke,” Quinn says, as if she’s trying hard to be civil.
“I was just making lemon meringue pies. Would you like one?”
When she got caught up in that whole Bratva thing a couple of weeks ago and asked if she could stay at my house for a couple of days, I did the right thing and said yes…
even though every part of my body said no.
Which leaves me confused as to why every part of my body is now saying yes.
She should be long gone, taking the scent of lemons with her.
“What I’d like to know is why the fuck are you still here?”