11. Falcon #2
I've heard him say it before. This time it doesn't sound like a test.
"Falcon," Zip says, low.
Vulture doesn't look at him. "Your VP patch."
I unfasten the cut slowly, the leather is heavier in my hands than it's ever felt, and put it on the table. VP patch facing up. Nobody moves to push it back.
"This isn't a lesson," Vulture says, quiet enough that it lands harder than shouting would.
"A brother's dead. You don't get handed responsibility back in the same hour you lose the right to carry it.
You want it again, you earn it from the bottom, same as every man in this room did the first time. "
My chest goes hollow in a way I don't have a word for. "Understood."
"Zip." Vulture doesn't look away from me while he says it. "You're acting VP until further notice."
Zip doesn't look pleased about it, he doesn't look like he's earned a prize. I remember he told me that he didn’t want my job. But he just nods once, the way a man accepts a weight nobody wanted to hand him.
"Falcon rides with the patched brothers," Vulture continues.
"No perimeter authority, no tactical call, no seat at this table unless I say otherwise.
You take orders same as any full patch who isn't holding rank.
You'll run whatever Ice Pick and Zip need running, and you'll do it without a title attached to make it feel like less than it is. "
"Understood," I say again, because it's the only word left in me.
"Rook, Harrier, you've got him on rotation starting tomorrow. Collections, supply, perimeter walks, whatever's ugly and unglamorous and doesn't need a VP's name on it. That's the job now."
Harrier nods, there’s no joke in him tonight either.
"And Falcon." Vulture's voice doesn't soften, exactly, but something underneath it does.
"Carrot's mother gets a visit from this club, from you specifically, when she's ready for one.
Not because it fixes anything. Because that's what we owe her, and pretending otherwise is its own kind of running. "
I nod. It's the hardest thing anyone's said to me all night.
Nobody claps me on the shoulder afterward.
Nobody tells me it'll be all right. Zip picks up the patch off the table, folds it once, and hands it to Vulture without a word, and Vulture puts it in the top drawer of his own desk instead of a pocket, like it's something that needs keeping safe until it's earned rather than something that's simply his to hold.
Church keeps moving because the club doesn't get to stop for grief in the middle of an active threat, however much every man at that table wants to.
We spend another hour on security, no assumptions this time, every camera overlap, every patrol gap, every medical appointment, every supply route.
The women's house gets a dedicated interior corridor away from exterior walls.
Knox wants medical kits in two locations.
Condor proposes three pieces of tech nobody understands until Zip tells him to use words spoken by humans, and even that gets said quieter than usual, like laughing too loud tonight would be its own kind of disrespect.
Church finally ends when Knox calls with the hospital update, and everyone stays seated while Vulture puts him on speaker.
"Emily's stable," Knox says. "The bullet went through soft tissue, missed the liver and kidney. She lost a lot of blood but surgery went well."
Harrier exhales and leans back in his chair. Beside him, Digger whispers something that sounds like a prayer.
“Is Emily awake?” I ask Knox.
“Not yet,” he answers.
“What about Cara?” The question escapes before I can stop it.
Nobody comments. Zip deliberately avoids looking at me, which is its own kind of mercy.
Knox pauses for half a beat. “She’s here.”
That tells me almost nothing. Maybe it has to be enough.
“How is she?” I ask.
Knox’s expression tightens. “Falcon, she isn’t my patient.”
Right. Boundaries. I don't have the rank to ask that question the way I used to, and I don't have the right to expect an answer just because I want one.
"She's with Frankie and Sarah. Ice Pick is outside the waiting area."
"Good," I say.
"Merrick got out before police closed the rear route," Knox adds. "He's gone."
Something in my chest tightens all over again, and I don't say anything, because I've used up whatever right I had tonight to have opinions about how this club runs its business.
Church breaks a few minutes later. Nobody lingers the way they usually do. Zip is the last brother to leave. He stops in the doorway and looks back at me.
“Coffee?” he offers.
“You don’t have to stay,” I tell him.
“I didn’t ask if I had to.” Zip waits for an answer.
“Yeah,” I say finally. “Okay.”
He returns a few minutes later with two cups. Instead of taking the chair beside me, he sits across the table.
It’s a small but deliberate distance, and I understand it without either of us mentioning it.
“Are you scared?” Zip asks.
“Of what?” I reply.
“Of never getting it back,” he clarifies.
“Yeah,” I admit.
“Good,” Zip says.
There’s no teasing in his voice this time.
“It means you finally understand what it costs someone else when you decide you know better,” he continues.
I lower my gaze to the coffee. “I don’t know how to fix this.”
"You don't fix a dead kid," Zip says, flat, honest, the kindest thing anyone's said to me all night precisely because it doesn't try to be kind.
"You carry it. And you do the boring, ugly work Vulture just handed you without complaining that it's beneath you, for as long as it takes, and you let that be the whole answer instead of looking for a faster one. That's it. That's the job now."
"And Cara?"
"Not tonight's problem." He says it gently enough that it doesn't sting the way it should. "Tonight's problem is showing up tomorrow at six for collections with Rook like every other patched brother in this club, no title, no excuse, and doing it again the day after that."
I nod. It's the smallest, hardest instruction anyone's given me in weeks, and for once I don't argue with it.
I message Ice Pick instead of Cara, because I've already used up my right to reach for her directly tonight.
Falcon:
Do they need anything at the hospital? Food, clothes, chargers?
Ice Pick:
Frankie says coffee. Sarah needs a clean hoodie. Cara needs nothing.
The last part hurts, probably on purpose. I answer anyway.
Falcon:
Harrier will pack food. Send sizes for clothes.
I don't ask to speak to her. I've already said sorry, and sorry doesn't mean much from a man who just lost the only proof he had that he was trying.
Harrier doesn't threaten me when I walk behind the bar tonight.
He just starts pulling containers from the fridge the second I tell him it's for the hospital. He’s quieter than usual, and I understand that quiet too.
Sandwiches, fruit, water, coffee, and enough snacks to last until morning.
A prospect and two patched men take the delivery.
I stay, because for the first time in a long while staying isn't a choice that earns me anything.
It's just the only thing left to do. I walk the north breach with Condor because he lets me, not because it's mine to oversee anymore.
I sit with Digger while Knox checks him again.
I don't go near the patrol schedule, because that's Zip’s to build now, and every time I catch myself reaching for it out of habit I make myself stop.
By evening the compound's repaired enough to function, not enough to forget what happened, and it never fully will, not with an empty bike in the back of the garage and a mother somewhere who doesn't know yet that her son isn't coming home.
I stand at the edge of the path to the women's house, close enough to see the boarded window and the bullet damage still visible through the kitchen glass, and there's nothing for me to do there tonight, and nothing that says I've earned the right to try.
I turn around instead, and head back toward the clubhouse, where my brothers are waiting. I'm not VP there anymore. I'm just one more man doing the work, which is exactly where I need to be for as long as it takes.