15. Halo
Two days later, I realize I’m avoiding Arianne.
Which means I’ve been avoiding my own home because Arianne is in it.
One night, I crashed on Vex’s sofa after we spent time trying to track our way up the Brotherhood hierarchy.
Another, I slept in the spare room at my dad’s place after a long day trying to clear up the garden. I didn’t sleep well. Ghosts crept too close for comfort. Memories of opening presents one Christmas with Mom trying to gloss over the fact Dad wasn’t there. The dent in the doorframe where she threw an ashtray at Dad’s head before she moved out.
Unhappy relationships. Abandonment. Grief.
They stormed and raged all night to the point no amount of tequila could silence them.
If I thought I wouldn’t be affected by Arianne’s presence, I’d have preferred her company. She could have brought Lola, who could have sat on a blanket while I mowed, pruned, and chopped the garden into a saleable state.
Maybe Ari and Lola would have evened my keel.
Maybe, I would have been able to address the tiny thought that grew in the middle of the night until it felt like the weight of a house on my chest. That Mom leaving Dad, and her giving me up in the process, has left trace particles of abandonment in my bloodstream.
Why else am I looking down at the bar top of an almost empty clubhouse, running my finger down the condensation on my beer bottle as the clock on the wall behind the bar clicks its way to three in the morning? I’m going to sleep here tonight so I resist the urge to creep into Arianne’s room, bury my face between her legs, and make her come, just so I can taste her all over again.
And thoughts like that are doing nothing for my semihard cock. You’d think at my age, I’d have a little more self-control. But it appears Arianne was put on this earth to test my limits.
I like her wit. I’m glad she found the courage to leave her ex. I’m relieved Lola has someone other than me. Even as I find myself missing my little sister. To avoid Arianne, I’m incidentally avoiding Lola too.
And I should be helping Ari find a path to move on.
“Haven’t seen you since Lola’s party.” Penny draws a line down my bicep with red nails. She’s wearing a denim jacket, getting ready to leave. As always, her tits are basically spilling out of a ripped-up Harley T-shirt. She’s got a great figure and has always been a pretty active participant in my clubhouse sex life.
It’s shitty the way I blew her off at Lola’s party.
“Could say the same thing about you.” I nod to the prospect behind the bar to get her a beer. I rethink my stance on Penny. A no-strings night with her to blow off some steam might fuck Arianne out of my system.
Even as I think it, my cock wilts a little at the idea—the equivalent of a sugar-free fuck with Penny as a substitute for the real thing. Plus, there’s a reason she’s leaving here at this time in the morning, and my guess is it’s Switch’s cock that has her smiling.
Penny blows out a little puff of air. “Given the way Bates’s old lady reacted over nothing at Spark and Iris’s wedding and then the way Bates pandered to her, thought it best if I kept a wide berth for a while.”
I laugh at that. “Pen. You basically insulted his kid. You deserve what you got. You’re lucky Bates didn’t get you kicked out of the club for good.”
She looks up at me with an impish grin. “You would have stopped him, wouldn’t you? You’d miss me if I wasn’t around.” Her beer lands in front of her; she picks it up, clinks it against mine, and takes a sip.
“I wouldn’t have stopped him, no. Because he’s had a hard-on for Vi for years. She’s now an old lady, and you were out of order. You gotta learn your place, Pen.”
Her smile dims for a second. “You want to take me to your room and show me my place?” She places her hand on my cock over my denim.
In the SEALs, we had this thing called the One-Second Rule. When under pressure, physically or mentally, all it takes is one second to make a bad call or one second to regroup. To regain control of your own thoughts so you get the clarity you need to make a deliberate choice. A quick decision. One that enables you to take action.
I gently take Penny’s wrist in my hand and place it back on her own lap. Her mouth opens when I stand, shake down my jeans, and grab my keys.
“Don’t touch me again. You deserve better than this shit.”
“What if I happen to like this life?” Penny asks, but I hear the desperation in her voice.
“Do you really though, Pen? Do you really love not knowing which biker you’re gonna fuck each night?”
“You’ve never minded that I do that before.”
I shrug. “I don’t mind. Because you’re perfectly entitled to do whatever the hell you want with your life and body. But the idea of fucking you after you’ve already fucked someone else has never been my thing. I’m not a second-round kinda guy. And the fact you’ve never even noticed that before says more about how you see me than how I see you.”
“Then show me a better life, Halo. I’d make a good old lady. I know the score. I know you like two women at once sometimes. I’ve been there, remember? I’d even share you as long as you end up with me at the end of the night.”
“It’s not going to happen, Pen. You passed a point of no return. You’re never going to be accepted into the old ladies. You’ve pissed too many of them off and slept with too many of their men. Another year, and you’re going to be strung out. Go get a better job, go back to school—heck, do anything but hang around here.”
Tears fill her eyes, but they don’t tug at me the way Arianne’s did. It would appear nothing affects me quite the way Arianne does. “You’re sending me away?”
I shake my head. “I’m not sending you anywhere. But you were good enough fun that I’m telling you the truth. You’re worth more than all this.”
“But not enough for you?”
I shake my head. “Good night, Pen.”
I light a cigarette and head out into the lot. It’s not like me to be shaken, but it’s time to admit Arianne has crawled under my skin. A weakness ignored can be fatal, I know this. But the right person can come along at the absolute wrong time.
My phone vibrates, and even as I hope it’s King with some job for me to do, I know it isn’t. It’s time to go home.
Unknown: How does it feel to know everything you hold dear is to be erased?
It’s him. The one responsible for my father’s death. I can feel it in my bones. I think of the way Dad struggled in those last few seconds. The look of wide-eyed fear. The loss bites at me.
Me: Fuck off. Contact me when you have the balls to face me man to man.
There’s a moment where three little dots bounce at the bottom of the screen.
Me: All you’ve got are empty threats.
The three dots bounce again.
My phone rings, and Vex’s name pops up on my screen. I swipe to ignore it. I’ll be calling him soon enough once this exchange is over.
Me: This is getting boring.
My phone rings again. This time it’s King. Fuck. Why does everyone suddenly want me at three in the morning?
Unknown: Does this look like an empty threat?
I’m just about to swipe off the texts to answer my president when the image comes through. Flames creep around the side of my dad’s house.
“Motherfucker,” I curse as I storm to my bike.
This time when King calls me, I answer.
“Wrinkle’s place is on fire,” he says. “Vex called the fire service.”
“It’s Collins. He just messaged. I’m on my way over.”
“We’ll meet you there. Arianne and Lola aren’t there, are they?”
“No. They’re at my place. See you in ten.”
I jump on my bike, praying for empty roads and no cops. I make it in six.
Saint and Spark, who live nearby, are already off their bikes when I get there, even as the wail of sirens travels closer.
“Fuck me,” I mutter. Thoughts of Collins escape me for a moment. I only have vague memories of Mom, who gave up on Dad and his whoring ways when I was younger. But the ones I do have revolve around her trying to make this a home for us. Trying to give me a happy place to come back to after school.
Dad never abused her, but he didn’t love her either. She was more house mouse than old lady. He’d hide away in his man-cave office when he was home.
Which reminds me, all of dad’s papers are in there. His laptop. The office at the end of the house doesn’t seem to be affected by the flames that cover two thirds of the building.
“Quick. I need Dad’s papers and laptop and shit,” I shout to my brothers.
They follow me to the large window as I look around for something to break the glass. An ugly gray planter, cracked in a frigid winter many years ago, sits beneath the window.
“Spark.” I get his attention from the flames. “We’re throwing it through the window.”
We grab a side each, then swing it back and forth three times before letting it fly.
Glass shatters, slivers flying around us. Saint had the foresight to grab a small plank of wood, and he runs it around the jagged edges. I pull my cut off, then my hoodie, which I wrap around my hand to brush enough glass away that I can jump through the opening.
Something explodes at the other side of the house. Probably the gas canisters my dad kept for the outdoor grill. The walls shake, and a crack appears down one wall.
“Hurry up,” Saint yells.
The fire truck pulls onto the lot, but I don’t stop.
I begin handing Saint and Spark anything worth saving, starting with the laptop from Dad’s desk.
“Keep it dry,” I shout as I hand it to Saint. When I return with the fireproof box that Dad kept his important papers in, I see Saint wrapping it in my cut and moving it out of the way of the jet of water aimed at the opposite end of the house.
“You need to get out of here,” a firefighter yells.
“Two minutes.”
What I need is one second.
One second to gather myself.
To think.
To make the right decision.
I open the gun case that has my birthday as the code before pulling out Dad’s weapons. Some aren’t legal, and I don’t need the police finding them. I drop them into the black sack next to the case. The one Dad would use when he was out on a job.
I’m going to need them all if I’m going to take Collins out.
As I hand it to Spark, there is another explosion. A second gas canister.
Bits of the ceiling fall to the ground.
“Halo. Get the fuck out of there,” Spark yells. He offers his arm in my direction to help me out.
On impulse, I open Dad’s desk drawer and tug out the framed photo he kept tucked away in there. Sentimental bastard missed Mom, for all he said he didn’t. Which is why the photograph of their wedding day was never far away.
I concluded while I was here the other night that Dad spent his entire life spouting about being a free man, but the truth was, he was a broken man who realized he’d thrown away his chance of being married to the woman he loved.
It’s now officially the only photograph I have of my mom.
I climb out the window while listening to the whoosh of flames and the sound of thousands of liters of water being sprayed into my childhood home as it burns.
My patience evaporates.
“He’s going to pay,” I say to no one in particular.
King and Clutch arrive in Clutch’s truck. King pulls me into a tight embrace. “Sorry, brother.”
His voice is rough. He spent a number of his childhood days here too, playing on the tire swings Dad built out back. We spent hot summers sipping on beer and smoking cigarettes I bought for him and Clutch. On the table out back, I told him and Clutch I was enlisting with a goal to become a SEAL.
They saw me as their older brother, but I saw the two of them for what they were: my future president and vice president.
“I need to kill Collins,” I tell King. “I got messages before I took your call.”
King tips his chin back up the driveway. “Vex is going straight to the clubhouse so he can watch everyone’s house while we’re here. Give him your phone or whatever the fuck it is he needs to trace that shit. I don’t like the idea that whoever the fuck did this could still be loitering around, waiting to pull some shit on one of us or our families.”
Clutch rubs a hand through his beard. “We need to call lockdown.”
King sighs. “I know it’s the right fucking thing to do, but everyone has had enough of being pulled out of their homes to spend days at the clubhouse. It’s wearing on nerves.”
“Which is another reason to try and draw Collins out. Finish this,” I say.
King pulls out his phone, and everyone’s phones vibrate. “There. Sent. Get home. Get your women and families. We meet back at the clubhouse. Nothing is going to get resolved tonight. Church first thing in the morning.”
“I need to stay here and sort this out though,” I say. “There’ll be police, and the fire crew, and processing insurance and reports and shit.”
“I’ll sort it. Saint can get Rae. You go and get Arianne and Lola.”
“Can’t let you do that, Prez,” Spark says. “You’re not going to stand here unprotected.”
At the words, Switch’s bike pulls into Dad’s lot. “Not alone,” King says. “Switch can have my back. And at the moment, Collins doesn’t want me. If he really is coming for Wrinkle’s line, Halo and Lola are the only two left. And Halo’s mom if he really wants to do it all.”
“Fuck. We all need to get everyone the fuck out of here,” Spark says.
“Lola deserves better than this shit,” I say. “She’s just a baby.”
King squeezes my shoulder. “We’ll make it right.”
And while I appreciate the sentiment that the club has my back, I’m certain that when the time comes, I’ll have to face Collins alone.
I jump on my bike and ride home. I’ll have to switch out the bike for the truck to get Ari and Lola to the clubhouse. Makes me think I should make some permanent changes to my room there so it’s easy to accommodate my sister…and Ari.
Probably should grab some clean sheets too. My mind whirs with all the things I need.
I see the damage before I turn onto the driveway. Thick black paint daubs the outside of my house. It doesn’t say anything, just abstract swaths of black paint over the windows and doors and paving.
My heart races as I accelerate. I pull all the additional weapons I have on my bike. Hidden knives strapped to various parts. I park the bike and leap off it, hitting a dead run for the front door.
There will be nowhere they can hide if they’ve hurt Ari or Lola.
I’ll hunt them down and massacre every one of them.
I yank my key from my cut and open the door, then push it wide open. A small light has been left on in the hallway. There is no paint inside. No sign that anyone has been here.
I close the door, and with my gun raised, I clear the lower level. I pass the dining table where it looks like Ari has started the jigsaw puzzle I gave her. She’s put all the straight edges in place, but I can’t stop to look properly as I check we’re secure before I head up the stairs. It takes me a moment to realize my weapon is wavering. My usually steady hands are shaking, my heart racing.
Lola’s bedroom door is ajar, and I nudge it open with my foot. She’s asleep, her little chest rising and falling in her favorite onesie with a giraffe on it. I try to swallow and realize my mouth is bone dry.
I’m actually fucking scared.
I step across the hall into Ari’s room, but she turns and opens her eyes as I enter.
“Everything okay?” she mumbles.
I lean back against the doorframe, hide my weapon by my side, and rub a hand across my jaw. “It is now.”