9. Axel
Axel
Iwas about to say something—I don’t know, maybe “Merry fucking Christmas,” maybe just “hey”—when the door ricocheted off the wall and filled the room with a fresh wave of threat.
Reverend Archie Maple, in the flesh, wearing a black overcoat and a suit that looked like it could strangle a lesser man.
He filled the doorway and then some, shoulders broad enough to cast a shadow across the whole floor, eyes black as shoe polish and twice as mean.
The only color on him was the gold cross pin on his lapel and the fever bloom of rage in his face.
Darla followed him in.
“Darla,” he said, voice soft and poisonous. “Out. Now.”
She jolted like she’d been shot. The bag crumpled in her fist, and the tissue paper made a crackle like a warning flare.
She stood, started for the door, then shot me a look.
It was brief—apology, panic, something like sorrow—but it was all there, clear as glass.
She skirted her father, but he barred the door with his arm, blocking her exit just long enough to put his mouth to her ear.
He whispered something I couldn’t hear. Her shoulders slumped, and she slipped out into the hall, the sound of her sneakers fading fast.
The room shrank by about half when the Reverend stepped in.
He let the door swing shut behind him and didn’t bother with the lock.
He carried his Bible, thumb hooked into the worn leather like it was a knuckle duster.
He didn’t speak right away—just stood at the foot of my bed, letting the silence grow legs and start running laps around my battered skull.
When he finally spoke, his tone was colder than the saline in my IV.
“You think you’re clever.” The smile didn’t touch his eyes. “You think you can just march into my flock, spread your filth, and corrupt my daughter right under my nose.”
I didn’t answer. The painkillers made it easy.
He took a step closer, towering over me, so the air got heavy and electrical. The Bible thudded onto the tray table, just missing the bowl of waxy fruit the hospital called breakfast.
“I know your type,” he said. “Biker trash, running from a past you think nobody can find.” He leaned in, the cross on his lapel right at eye level. “But God doesn’t forget, Mr. Axel. And neither do men like me.”
I almost laughed. “You come to save my soul, Pastor?”
He smirked, sharp and joyless. “Your soul’s not worth the gasoline it would take to burn it clean.” He circled the bed, slow and deliberate, gaze never leaving me. “You know how many men have tried to pull my daughter from her path? Hundreds. Most of them smarter than you. All of them failed.”
The monitor behind my head bleeped, lazy and regular. My heart didn’t get the memo, though—it started drumming a little faster.
He stopped beside me, close enough that I could smell the aftershave, a cocktail of pine and expensive bourbon. He dropped his hand onto my knee, squeezing just hard enough to threaten the stitches beneath the hospital gown.
“You like playing dress-up, don’t you?” he said. “You show up at my church in a stolen Santa suit, thinking you’re some kind of fucking Robin Hood. You parade around my daughter, like she’s a toy you can break.” He squeezed harder. My ribs screamed, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction.
“She’s not a toy,” I said, even as the words came out like a bad joke.
He leaned in, so close I could count the pores on his nose. “She’s mine. Flesh of my flesh. You come near her again, you’ll wish those Neanderthals in the parking lot had finished the job.”
He pulled the Bible from the table, opened it at random, and stabbed at the page with his finger. “You know what happens to false prophets and wolves in sheep’s clothing?” He quoted, slow and venomous. “They are thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
He snapped the book shut and let it hang at his side.
“I know who you are, Axel,” he said, and the way he said the name made it clear he meant something else. “Or should I call you Alfred? It’s a shitty fake name, by the way. You really think the Royal Bastards take in strays without checking the pedigree?”
I said nothing. The taste of blood crept back into my mouth.
“See, the thing is, I keep tabs on my enemies,” he said, almost conversational now.
“I know about the last three towns you left in the middle of the night. I know about the woman in Idaho, and the mess in Fresno, and the little accident in Carson City that the locals pretended never happened. I even know about your mother, if you want to get really personal.”
He let that sink in. My vision tunneled a little, the painkillers curdling in my gut.
“You run from everything, Alfred,” he said, using the name again, softer this time. “But you can’t outrun what you are. Not here.”
He straightened, fixing his tie with a single flick of his wrist.
“This is the last time I’ll say it,” he said. “Stay away from Darla. Stay away from my church. If you don’t—” he lifted the Bible, shook it, “—you’ll wish for hell. Because what I do to you will make even God look away.”
He turned, slow and heavy, and walked to the door. The room felt about ten degrees colder.
He paused in the doorway, looked back over his shoulder.
“Merry Christmas, Mr. Martin,” he said. “Enjoy the cookies.”
He left, the click of his shoes echoing down the hall. I watched the heart monitor, the erratic line jumping up and down like a lie detector. The air was full of hospital stink and something else—fear, maybe, or the sour aftertaste of a man who’d just had every secret stripped bare.
I stared at the ceiling until my eyes burned, and tried to decide if I should be more scared for myself, or for the girl with the cookies who’d left her heart in my goddamn hands.
I never liked hospitals, but I liked them even less when the only thing keeping you alive was the hope that the next person through the door wasn’t coming to finish you off.
Somewhere out there, Darla was alone, and I was chained to a bed with nothing but ghosts for company.
***
I must’ve drifted out, because when I opened my eyes again, the world had gone blue.
Not the lazy, muted blue of an after-hours hospital, but a harsh, jarring electric that pulsed with every siren echo and nicotine-stained curse.
The first thing I saw was the shadow of Vin, big as a bear and twice as pissed off, filling the doorway with a presence that made the light bend around him.
Red was right behind, cigarette blazing, her hair a mess of copper static.
Vin didn’t knock. He just stepped inside and took a hard look at me—at the black eye swelling shut, the split lip, the tape holding my ribs together. He grunted, like he’d seen better and worse all in the same day.
Red flicked her cigarette into the hand sanitizer tray and tossed a bundle of clothes onto my lap. “Up and at ‘em, Princess,” she said, and the smoke curled out of her mouth like a dragon with a drinking problem. “Some of us have jobs to get to.”
I untangled the bundle of jeans with a patch on the knee, a black t-shirt, and the vest. The cut was still new, the Royal Bastards MC logo stitched across the back in screaming-white thread, and below it the prospect rocker, a patch that meant you didn’t matter yet, but maybe someday you could.
“You really want me walking out in this?” I asked, voice shredded from the swelling.
Vin shrugged. “Better than walking out in a dress.”
I started peeling off the gown, but my hands shook. I’d taken worse beatings, but never in front of a crowd, never with so many goddamn witnesses. I forced my legs over the edge of the bed and tried to breathe through the spike of pain in my ribs.
Red leaned in, her breath hot and full of coffee. “If you puke, aim for the nurse,” she said. “She’s a bitch.”
Vin looked at the IV in my arm, then at me. “You want a hand?”
I ripped the tape, yanked the needle, and watched blood bead up along the vein. “All good,” I said, but it came out like a lie.
I dressed fast, teeth gritted. The jeans felt like sandpaper, the t-shirt stuck to my chest where the nurses had shaved a patch for the heart monitor pads. I left the Santa suit in a heap on the floor.
“You got everything?” Vin asked.
“Not quite.” I looked at Red. “Where’s my knife?”
She grinned, reached into her purse, and handed me the K-bar, still in its sheath. “Wouldn’t want you to feel naked.”
Vin watched all of this, patient but not gentle. “We’re leaving now,” he said. “You got a problem with that?”
I shook my head.
He moved to the door, checked the hall, then nodded at Red, who slipped out first, hips swinging like she owned the building. She tossed a wink over her shoulder at me, then flipped off the nurse at the station, who’d just started to notice the cigarette smoke and the lack of hospital decorum.
I slid off the bed and followed, slow at first, then faster as the adrenaline started up again. My legs felt like broken broomsticks, but I wasn’t going to show it.
We made it halfway to the elevator before a nurse caught up, waving her arms and squawking about protocols and paperwork.
“You can’t just walk out,” she said, blocking our way.
Red smiled sweetly, then blew smoke in her face. “Against medical advice, sugar. Write it down in your little book.”
Vin handed her a slip of paper, a fake-out. “Here’s his discharge,” he said. “You want the copay, send it to the club.”
She hesitated, unsure whether to escalate. Vin made it easy as he stepped closer, crowding her personal space, and looked down at her like a wolf deciding whether to eat the sheep or just knock it over for fun.
She took a step back, hands up. “I’ll call security.”
Red laughed. “Do it. Last time they tried, they ended up with two broken walkies and a lawsuit.” She tapped her temple. “Precedent.”