Chapter Twenty-One #2
“Sax didn’t even fucking start it,” Cox finally said, his voice a rumble of quiet fury. He turned to Kellen. “That was you , you piece of shit.”
Mel still had no memory of the fight. The last thing he remembered was settling on the blanket with Abigail.
But he’d heard the story, now, from the perspective of almost all the patches.
From those, he’d put together a pretty solid version of events, he thought, but it still felt halfway unreal.
Even losing Saxon didn’t yet sit in his mind like a truth.
The whole thing was more like a news story he’d read than something he’d lived.
There had been a few actual news stories as well.
The version he’d assembled was that Maniac had said something to Kellen—he didn’t know what, exactly, nobody did but Kellen, who wasn’t sharing, but Mel knew the shit that drove Kell nuts, so it was probably something about his toughness (or lack thereof) or his increasing outsider status in the club.
Kellen answered with a punch to Maniac’s gut, and a scuffle ensued.
The patches closest by, Cox and Darwin, were at first inclined to let them fight, fisticuffs were practically part of the official program at a Horde party, but then a civilian in the area called out to be careful of the fire.
After that, stories vary. Cox and Darwin, who’d moved in to break it up, said it looked like Kellen had intentionally moved toward the fire then and shoved Maniac into it on purpose.
Kellen categorically, steadfastly denied this.
He insisted it was an accident, and he was the only one in Missouri who spoke with certainty about it.
Whichever version was true, a brawl had exploded, during which a lot of patches had been hurt and two had died. Saxon, stabbed fourteen times, died the first night in the hospital. Maniac had died on Monday, after almost three excruciating days in the burn unit.
Mel had apparently been hit by something like an AR-15.
Most of the patches and quite a few civilians had reported hearing semi-automatic gunfire.
But nobody yet knew who had that gun. Montana insisted they hadn’t brought that kind of heat with them, and nobody in Missouri had seen anything to refute it, not even during the brawl.
Neither had SoCal. It was supposed to have been a friendly club reunion; you didn’t bring war weapons to a party unless you were planning to start a war.
For exactly that reason, Mel felt sure a Montana patch had shot him.
Double A agreed. They’d both been in that weird sit-down with Rhett and Gravy.
They’d heard their contempt for Missouri, and they both wondered if Montana didn’t have an unfriendly plan in the works.
But Badger didn’t want to go there. Not yet, at least.
Nobody was sure who’d stabbed Saxon; he’d never regained consciousness. Missouri didn’t know where to turn for justice for him, either. Not yet, at least.
Thwarted justice was becoming a habit in Missouri.
Montana, on the other hand, was demanding Kellen’s head.
Without any clear truth about that night, Badger had grabbed Kellen’s version as the official one.
Montana refused to entertain that possibility.
The only thing that kept all-out civil war from happening in the middle of Signal Bend was that no other Montana patch—or, for that matter, SoCal, who were thus far playing Switzerland in the Horde war story—had seen the trouble start.
And whatever Rhett might be planning, if he was planning anything, he wasn’t ready to press start yet.
Officially, Missouri considered Maniac’s death an accident, as Kellen continued to insist. Internally, however, Cox and Darwin had way more cred than Kell, so that dude was on borrowed time.
Sitting in the middle of this grim meeting of the walking (and rolling) wounded, Mel could see what he was sure everybody else saw, too: to try to avert a civil war, to keep the Night Horde MC whole, Missouri might well have to serve Kellen to Montana on a plate.
Mel didn’t want that. Kellen was a nuisance, and he was trying to shield his shitty nephews from paying for what they’d done to Abigail, but Mel hated the notion of trussing him up for Montana, leaving him to the likes of Rhett and Gravy to deal with.
Kellen needed correction—Mel thought he needed excommunication, in fact—but not whatever Gravy would do to him.
He was a Missouri patch, so Missouri should deliver his consequences.
Also, no one had suggested that Maniac hadn’t said something worthy of a punch—being a dick was his brand, after all. Everybody everywhere, even Montana, assumed Maniac had started it.
Kellen began to speak, and his mind was on the question of culpability, too.
“If we’re throwin’ blame around,” Kellen said, with an emphasis misplaced in this downbeat room, “Mel’s the one who really started it.
Back in the clubhouse, when he scrapped with Mane.
And Cox, too, sticking him right after.” Raising his voice over the sudden clamor of resistance, he added, “They’re the ones turned everything wrong! ”
Fuck it , Mel thought. Let Montana have him. But he didn’t bother putting it into words.
Badger lifted his head and locked his eyes on Kellen. He stared fiercely, silently, until Kell dropped his gaze to the floor. Even then, Badger glared and remained silent. Mel couldn’t decide if the president was too angry or too overwhelmed to speak. Maybe both.
“That is bullshit, Kell,” Dom said when the pushback settled. “And you know it. What happened in the clubhouse was normal shit. What happened at the bonfire was massive fuckery. You’re always looking to squirrel out of paying for shit you do.”
Isaac had been staring at Kellen, too. At Dom’s comment, he shifted his gaze to Len and said, quietly, “Len. Tell ‘em. It’s time.”
After a brief eyeball chat with Isaac, Len nodded, glanced at Mel, and focused on Kellen. Mel understood that Len had told Isaac about their little chat at Marie’s a few days earlier.
He thus wasn’t surprised when Len calmly said, “It was Knox and Jalen and a couple of their buddies who fucked up Abigail’s place in the summer.
Did it just for the sport of meanness. Kell found out and tried to keep it on the downlow.
When Mel and I pried it out of him, he threatened to turn rat if we didn’t back off. ”
The silence that overtook the hospital chapel was almost noisy with the buzz of rage. Kellen’s eyes showed a fear borne of complete understanding. The only sin greater than killing a brother was betraying the club itself. Kellen had done the first and shown a willingness to do the second.
Everybody saw exactly when the full realization landed on him, because Kellen broke for the door.
Nolan grabbed him by the nape of his kutte with one hand, and by his shoulder brace with the other, and threw him to the floor beside Mel’s wheelchair.
Kellen wailed and grabbed his injured shoulder.
When he tried to struggle to his feet, Nolan kicked his leg out from under him.
Kellen landed on his brace and yelped with the pain.
“Stay. Down ,” Nolan snarled, and Kellen stayed down.
“Vote it now,” Tommy said from the first pew. “He’ll ... make ... trouble ... if we wait.”
With a heavy, heartsick sigh, Badger nodded and said, “Vote to excommunicate Kellen Frey. Show of hands.”
Every hand went up but Kellen’s. Not one patch hesitated.
“So voted,” Badger said.
Nolan immediately crouched to rip the kutte off Kellen’s back, further roughing up his dislocated shoulder. “Ink’s next, motherfucker,” he barked.
But when he yanked Kellen up to his feet and started to pull him to the door, Badge called, “Hold up. We need a vote on what to do with him.”
“End him,” Len said, staring straight at Kellen, whose eyes popped wide.
“He didn’t actually rat us out, though,” Bart said. “He threatened to, which is fucked, absolutely, but is it killing fucked? I say we exile him from Signal Bend. The whole state, maybe.”
“We don’t know if he’s ratted us out already or not,” Badger said. “We do know he’s willing to. Maybe he’s already got something in the works.”
“No! I wouldn’t,” Kellen said, trying to sound strong but missing by a fair margin.
“It was just talk. Stupid talk. I’d never hurt the club.
Even now. The ex—...” He stopped and swallowed.
“Excommunication, I understand. I didn’t do it on purpose, but I understand.
You gotta give Montana something or the Horde ends up fighting itself.
I’ll take that hit. But I’d never hurt the club. ”
Badger glared hard at him. “What do you call all this, then?”
Kellen stared, his eyes glittering with not-yet shed tears, but he had no answer.
“Give him to Montana,” Isaac said. “We don’t want him, they want his head. Get rid of the trouble inside our Keep and settle the trouble with another charter. Two birds, one rat bastard.”
Montana would make his death slow and horrific. Mel still didn’t like it, but he didn’t speak up against it. Fucker had tried to turn this mess on him. He had ample reason not to stand up for Kellen Frey.
“No,” Kellen whimpered. “C’mon. Please.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Nolan said and punched his bad shoulder. Kellen dropped to his knees and began to cry.
Over that weak mewling, quiet took over again as the patches mulled their choices.
Breaking the stillness, Badger said, “Vote it.”
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~oOo~
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“C areful, careful. Let me help, hon.”
He gave her some of his weight and let her help.
Five days after that dark meeting in the hospital chapel, four days after Len and Bart shoved a trussed-up Kellen into the club van and drove him to Montana, and two hours after the Horde buried Saxon, Abigail guided Mel up the steps to her back porch.
He was on his feet, but he wouldn’t be doing anything fancy, like standing straight up, or walking at what could be called a regular pace, for a while.
Dr. Gladwell—whom Mel would always think of as Dr. Doogie—had said he shouldn’t be on his own for at least a couple weeks, and Abigail had immediately offered to bring him to her house.
Mel considered the idea a sweet cherry, hot fudge sauce, and coconut sprinkles on the shit sundae of his recovery, so he’d agreed to it at once. Being pampered by this Earth Mother of a woman would almost be worth getting shot by maybe a brother and then gutted by a doctor.
Climbing the steps to this porch, however, had made him reconsider how much silver there was in this lining. There weren’t any steps in the clubhouse. He could’ve moved into his room there for a while and had a nonstop parade of club girls to see to his recuperative needs.
But that thought held no appeal. He didn’t want a parade of club girls anymore.
And he’d made it to the porch, anyway.
Abigail shooed the cats out from under their feet and led Mel into her house, through the kitchen, past the dining room, past the staircase to the second floor, past the front room, and down the short hallway to her grandmother’s room.
This door had been closed as long as Mel had had access to the interior of Abigail’s home, but now it was open, and the room was bright and neat.
It was clearly an old lady’s room, with a full-size maple spindle bed, pale blue floral wallpaper, and about a hundred quilts—only a slight exaggeration—laid on the bed, hanging on a rail at the end of the bed, hanging on the walls, and stuffing an open armoire in the corner.
The pale pink, old-fashioned recliner that had been in the front room was now in a corner between the window and the bed, with a neat stack of bedding on the seat.
The bed itself was crisply made with smooth white linens and fluffed pillows. On the nightstand sat one of her stoneware pitchers and a small Mason jar as a glass. A little stack of Zane Grey paperbacks rested next to the milk glass lamp.
She’d assembled a sickroom for him. Mel was both charmed by her thoughtfulness and depressed to need it. But either way, loving this woman and being loved by her was the best medicine in the world.
The bed was turned down, ready for him, and honestly, after more than an hour sitting in her ancient truck coming back from the hospital—she’d driven like she was afraid he’d shatter at the slightest bump, and that truck had a ride like a cement mixer—then almost two hours at Saxon’s funeral and burial, and the ride up here from town, and the slog across her yard and up the porch steps, he was damn sore and damn tired.
“Sit down, hon,” Abigail said, pushing him lightly toward the bed. “Let’s get your shoes off. And anything else you don’t want to wear in bed.”
“Just shoes,” he said. He was wearing sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a zip hoodie.
Basically pajamas, anyway. He hated that he couldn’t reach his fucking shoes, but his belly was stapled together, not to mention the parts that had been sewn up or cut out inside.
He was going to need more time to climb out of the invalid hole.
She got his sneakers off and helped him lift his legs—no sit-ups in his near future—onto the bed.
Once she had him tucked in, she picked up the pitcher and filled the glass with water.
“Are you thirsty? Hungry? I stocked up on foods you can eat. I can make us something good, and we could watch a movie while we eat.”
With that she nodded at the bureau on the wall facing the bed. Atop it was a 25” tube TV/VCR combo that belonged in the Smithsonian. A small bookcase beside the bureau was stuffed with VHS tapes.
Laughing—carefully—Mel caught her hand and brought it to his lips for a kiss. “I love you, Abs. I love the way you take care. Right now, all I want is for you to get in here with me so we can be close and fucking quiet . Just you and me, finally.”
That was the thing about hospitals—they were the farthest thing from restful. Bright, noisy, and full of people waking you up to stick things into places you’d prefer they didn’t. He didn’t understand how anybody got well in a hospital.
Smiling, Abigail leaned down to kiss his forehead. Then she kicked off her shoes, walked around to the other side of the bed, and climbed gently in.
A full-size bed wasn’t really built for two, but that was just fine with him. He pulled her in close, tucked her head under his chin, and closed his eyes.
What he needed right now was only this: love and peace.