9. Axel #2
Vin held the elevator door, and we crammed in, the three of us pressed together like a pack of dogs in a phone booth. The ride down was silent except for the rattle of the elevator and the wet wheeze of my breathing.
At the ground floor, Vin led the way out, straight through the lobby, past the security guard who didn’t even bother to get up from his plastic chair. Red gave him a little wave, then handed him a lighter as we passed.
Outside, the cold hit like a bag of gravel. My teeth rattled, but I kept moving. The parking lot was empty, except for three bikes lined up under the sodium lights. Mine was at the end, a battered old Harley with more duct tape than chrome.
I moved toward it, slow and stiff.
Red made a show of swinging her leg over her bike and firing it up. “You sure you don’t wanna ride bitch?” she asked, laughing.
I shook my head. “I ride my own.”
Vin smiled, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “That’s gospel,” he said, and got on his bike.
I straddled the Harley, hands clumsy on the grips. Kickstarting the thing was agony, but I did it anyway, because the alternative was lying down and never getting up again.
The engine roared to life, shaking my bones loose. The sound was ugly, raw, and perfect.
Red pulled up next to me. “You good, Ax?”
“Never better,” I lied, then looked at Vin. “The Reverend knows.”
Vin nodded. “He always does.”
“He called me by my old name,” I said, not caring if Red heard. “He knows about Carson City. He knows everything.”
Vin’s face went flat, no emotion at all. “We’ll handle it,” he said.
I didn’t believe him, but I nodded anyway.
Red revved her engine, flipped her hair, and said, “Let’s go. Before they decide to send us a bill.”
We tore out of the parking lot, the bikes skidding a little on the ice, the sound echoing off the low gray buildings. My hands hurt, my face hurt, but I was moving again, and that was all that mattered.
The last thing I saw as we left was the blue hospital lights fading in the rearview, and the thought that somewhere, Darla was locked up in her own kind of prison. Maybe we’d both find a way out, but I wasn’t betting on it.
***
The bar was empty except for ghosts and the ones too mean to die.
I limped through the door, the neon RBMC sign buzzing above the shelves, and dropped my helmet on the nearest stool.
The place smelled like old beer, Lysol, and a faint trace of last night’s fried chicken.
Vin disappeared into the back office with a phone glued to his ear.
Red was behind the bar, counting cash and not giving a shit about the blood still crusted on my temple.
I took a seat and patted the counter. Red poured a shot, slid it down. I caught it, downed it, and she poured another without asking. The whiskey was bottom shelf but had bite, like everything in this place.
The other patched guys filtered in and out, none of them making eye contact for long. I got a few nods, a grunt or two, but mostly they kept their distance. I was radioactive, and they could smell it.
After three rounds, my hands stopped shaking enough to light a cigarette. I sucked it down, exhaled smoke at the ceiling, and tried not to see Darla’s face in the swirls.
Red wiped the bar, not looking at me. “You wanna talk about it?”
“No.”
She nodded. “Didn’t think so.”
The clock above the liquor shelf ticked with every second I refused to remember. I couldn’t get the Reverend’s words out of my head: Stay away from my daughter. Stay away from my church. The old bastard was right—I’d never outrun what I was.
I did another shot, wiped my mouth, and said, “Fuck that girl.”
Red didn’t blink. “You keep saying that, but you don’t mean it.”
I poured my own, let it burn the back of my throat. “Fuck her daddy too.”
Red leaned in, elbows on the counter, eyes hard. “You scared?”
I tried to laugh, but it came out as a cough. “Only of dying slow.”
She smirked, but it was sad around the edges. “Aren’t we all.”
I didn’t answer. The noise from the back ramped up—Vin’s voice, low and pissed, cursing someone out in the kind of way that promised violence. Out front, the world was still, but the tension in the bar was thick enough to chew.
I left the glass on the bar and headed for the stairs, every step sending knives up my side. The bunkroom was the same as always—smelled like mold, bad decisions, and a touch of gasoline. I stripped off my shirt and looked at myself in the cracked mirror over the dresser.
The bruises were a mess of colors—red, purple, yellow at the edges. Stitches along my side, tape across my ribs. The old scars, pale and ugly, were almost invisible next to the new. I touched them, not gentle, and felt the familiar mix of pride and shame.
I lay down on the mattress, boots on, arm over my eyes. The whiskey was doing its job, but it couldn’t knock me out. Not tonight.
I drifted. The dreams came fast and ugly.
Darla, straddling my lap in the Santa suit, her hair wild, eyes hungry. She kissed me, soft at first, then hard enough to draw blood. The taste of it filled my mouth. Her hands slid up my chest, pressed down on the stitches, and I felt them split open, hot and wet.
She whispered, “You can’t save me,” then bit my ear until it tore.
The dream shifted. I was back in Carson City, a shitty motel off the highway, gun in my hand, my mother’s voice on the phone. She was already dying, but she sounded alive. “Come home,” she said. “Please. Just come home.”
But I couldn’t, not with what I’d done. The dead man on the carpet, his blood pooling under my boots. The sound of sirens, so close I could taste the fear.
The next dream was the Reverend, wearing his Sunday suit and my old CO’s face, dragging me out of bed and pinning me to the wall. He called me by my real name, and it stung worse than any fist. “You’re just like your father,” he said, and that was the kill shot.
I woke before dawn, sweat soaking the sheets, my mouth full of smoke and the taste of copper. My heart pounded so hard I thought it might burst. I sat up, breathing ragged, and stared at the wall until the world came back into focus.
Red knocked, once, then let herself in. She carried a cup of coffee and a cigarette, both for me.
“Vin wants you downstairs,” she said, setting them on the nightstand. “Says it’s important.”
I nodded, wiped my face, and lit the cigarette with shaky hands.
She lingered at the door. “You sure you’re okay?”
“No,” I said, and it was the truth.
She gave a ghost of a smile. “Me neither.”
When she left, the room felt smaller, like the walls were closing in. I dressed slow, every movement a reminder of how close I’d come to getting put in the ground. I thought about Darla—her hands, her eyes, the way she’d looked at me when she left the hospital. The promise in it, and the warning.
I walked downstairs, each step a rehearsal for whatever hell was waiting.
Vin was at the head of the bar, alone, reading a sheet of paper with a frown deep enough to dig trenches. He looked up when I came in, nodded to the stool across from him.
“Sit.”
I did.
He slid the paper over. “That’s from our man inside LPD,” he said. “Your name’s on the watch list. So is the Reverend’s.”
I scanned the list, didn’t bother pretending I understood the details.
“They’re prepping for war,” Vin said. “You ready?”
I looked him in the eye. “No.”
He liked that. “Me neither.”
He poured two shots. “To the ones who don’t get to run.”
We drank, no words left.
It was time to dig in and fight.