EPILOGUE
EMBER
THREE WEEKS LATER
Three weeks after the mountain, a coffin comes to Grimstone with my dead name on it.
I’ve spent six years in this club learning how to take up no room. There’s a skill to being unseen, and I wore mine on purpose, which is the difference between me and Shadow.
She was overlooked.
I hid.
It’s the reason I’m still breathing.
The club has been putting itself back together since the mountain.
Byte’s arm is out of the sling. Wolf’s charter rode home to Idaho lighter by one man and heavier by a debt none of us talk about.
The women don’t hide what we are anymore, and the men are still figuring out what the hell to do with that.
It suits me more than I thought it would.
The open doors. The loud women. No more pretending we’re less than we are.
I didn’t think I’d ever get to want that.
For six years, I’ve braided hair, poured drinks and kept my real name buried where nobody could reach it.
Then a flatbed pulls up to the gate at dusk, and somebody digs it up.
Grim’s on the gate when it comes, because Grim’s on the gate a lot lately. Since the mountain, he’s decided the club’s safety is something he can hold together by standing in the right place long enough.
More nights than not, the right place seems to be wherever I am.
I have a case of beer in my arms when the truck’s air brakes hiss. Grim walks out to meet a driver nobody called.
The driver won’t get down.
Grim stands at the window while the man holds a clipboard against the glass. Grim reads whatever is written there.
Then his shoulders change.
I’ve known him six years. Grim has two settings: still and stiller.
This is something else.
“Get Crow,” he says without taking his eyes off the truck. “And get Loco. Now.”
The flatbed drops its gate.
There’s a coffin on the back.
Coffins aren’t exactly unusual around here, except this one is ours.
I’ve watched Crow and Buck build enough of them to know their work. Oak. Hand-built. False floor underneath, the kind made to carry rifles or drugs under a body when the club needs something moved without questions.
One of ours.
And the coffins we build don’t come back.
My eyes find the brass plate screwed to the lid.
The case of beer nearly slips out of my hands.
Nobody in Grimstone knows that name.
Nobody except me.
Ember is the name I chose when I got here. I built her from nothing because the woman I was before couldn’t survive what happened.
But the name on that coffin belongs to her.
The girl who ran.
The girl whose sister died.
The girl I buried six years ago without ever putting a body in the ground.
Crow comes out of the crematory wiping his hands. His eyes go to the coffin, then the plate, then me.
He knows.
“Open it,” Loco says as he reaches us. “Slow.”
Crow works the lid carefully.
It comes up.
Empty.
Fresh white satin lines the inside. No dust. No dirt. No note.
Nothing except a box somebody went to a hell of a lot of trouble to send to Grimstone with my real name screwed to the lid.
“It’s a message,” Crow says.
“I know.”
My voice barely sounds like mine.
Because I’ve seen one before.
A long time ago. Before Grimstone. Before Ember.
You get the coffin first.
Then you get a week. Maybe two.
After that, they come and fill it.
They always fill it.
Grim looks at me. “Who?”
I finally put the beer down.
“People I hoped were dead.”
The passenger door of the flatbed opens.
A woman climbs out.
And the case slips from my hands anyway.
Bottles hit gravel. Glass breaks.
I don’t hear any of it.
I know her.
She’s thinner than she was. Harder. There’s a scar through one eyebrow that wasn’t there the last time I saw her.
But I know her. God help me.
“Hello, little sister.”
My knees nearly give.
“Wren?”
She gives me the smallest smile.
My sister.
My dead fucking sister.
“You’re dead.” Stupid words, but they’re the only ones I have. “They told me you were dead.”
“They tell everyone the same thing.”
Her eyes move over the club gathering behind me. Crow beside the coffin. Loco. Shadow coming across the lot. Then Grim, planted at my shoulder.
“We don’t have long, so listen to me. I broke every rule I had left to get that box here before they did.”
She nods toward the coffin.
“You know what it means.”
“I don’t—”
“Yes, you do, Em.” Her voice softens for half a second. “It’s why you ran.”
Nobody has called me Em in six years.
It hurts more than it should.
“They found you,” she continues. “The coffin is a courtesy. They send it so a runner knows there’s no point doing it twice. I stole it off the truck and brought it here myself. As far as they know, it’s still on its way.”
“How long?”
She shrugs. “Not long.”
Her attention shifts to Grim. His hand is near his gun, his body between me and everything that came through that gate.
Something flickers across Wren’s face. “Looks like you didn’t run to nowhere this time.”
Grim ignores her.
He looks at me. “You want her here or gone?”
For a second I can’t answer.
Six years in this club. Six years standing on the edge of rooms, making myself useful and quiet and easy to overlook.
And Grim asks me what I want as though my answer is the only one that matters.
“Here,” I say. “She stays. She’s my sister.”
Ariea stops behind Shadow. Nova does too. All three women stare at Wren. Then at me.
I feel it a second later. That strange warmth under my skin I’ve stopped pretending isn’t there.
Wren feels it too, her eyes widen. “Oh, fuck.”
Shadow steps closer. “You feel us.”
Wren looks at her. “You’re the one.”
Crow moves instantly, putting himself half a step in front of Shadow.
Wren almost smiles. “Yeah. Definitely you.”
“What does that mean?” Loco asks.
Wren looks around at all of us. “The coffin wasn’t sent because of what happened on that mountain. Em was already on their list.”
“Whose list?” Grim asks.
“The people I ran from. The people she ran from. The people who made sure women like us stayed alone, scared and too ignorant to understand what we were.”
Nobody moves.
Wren looks at Shadow again. “But then you happened.”
Shadow’s chin comes up. “Me.”
“You and him.” Wren nods at Crow. “Three weeks ago, you lit up that mountain bright enough for the wrong people to notice.”
Shadow goes still. Crow doesn’t, his hand finds hers.
“I felt something,” Shadow says. “Afterward. Walking back toward the clubhouse. Something far away. Cold. Like it had turned to look at us.”
Wren’s face loses what little softness it had. “It did.”
Silence settles over the lot.
“You think Renner was the war?” she asks. “He wasn’t. Renner was one man stealing power he had no right to touch. He was a parasite, and eventually parasites get crushed.” She looks at the coffin. “The people who sent that are different.”
“How different?” Loco asks.
“They’ve been doing this longer than your club has existed.”
Nobody has a smart answer for that.
Wren looks at me again. “They’ve spent generations keeping women like us apart. One here. One there. Never enough together to understand what we are. Never enough to become dangerous.”
Her gaze moves to Ariea, then Nova and then Shadow.
Then back to me.
“And now there’s a coven sitting in Grimstone.”
Grim steps closer to me.
Wren notices. Of course she does. “And apparently,” she says, “you’ve got an army too.”
Grim finally speaks. “Anybody comes for her, they come through the club.” His voice drops as he looks at me. “Through me first.”
My heart does something stupid.
This is really not the fucking time.
Wren studies him, then looks at me with an expression I remember from when we were girls. We are absolutely discussing this later.
If we live that long.
Shadow walks to the coffin and looks down at my old name. “So what happens now?”
Wren's eyes meet mine. “They come.”
The fear is still there. Of course it is. I know what these people can do. I know why I ran from them. I know what that coffin means.
But six years ago I was alone.
I’m not anymore.
I look at Wren, alive when I thought I’d lost her forever. At Shadow, Ariea and Nova. At Loco and Crow. Then at Grim, standing so close his shoulder almost touches mine.
I spent six years making sure nobody knew who I was.
They know now.
Fine.
Let them.
I reach out and close the lid of my coffin.
“Then let them come.”
TO BE CONTINUED