Chapter Two
Amelia
I’ve never felt poorer than I do riding into Hell, Kentucky in the passenger seat of a tow rig, my child asleep beside me, my busted truck dragging behind us, and my underwear stuffed in the bottom of my purse like evidence from a crime scene.
That is saying something because I’ve been poor plenty of times.
Poor with a full pantry and no money in checking because bills came out early.
Poor with a husband who makes good money but keeps me asking for every dollar like a beggar.
Poor with a closet full of clothes I’m not allowed to wear because he says they make me look cheap, then not allowed to throw away because he says wastefulness is trashy.
Poor in ways that don’t always show up on paper.
Tonight, though, it shows.
It shows in my broken truck rattling behind us on the trailer like a shame parade.
It shows in the boxes strapped down under bungee cords and bad luck.
It shows in the duct tape holding one corner of a plastic tote closed because the lid cracked two towns back.
It shows in the grocery sack full of clothes I packed for August because his dresser drawers were closest to the bedroom door, and I didn’t have time to be organized when I was busy trying to disappear.
My hands hurt from gripping August’s backpack in my lap.
My eyes burn.
My cheeks feel hot from crying and humiliation and the terrible knowledge that the first man to help me in months had my panties stuck to his face before he ever knew my name.
God has a sense of humor.
It’s ugly as sin.
Derby rides ahead of the tow rig like the road belongs to him. Broad shoulders. Black cut. His bike is loud enough to rattle the fillings in my teeth, but I’m grateful for the noise because it keeps me from thinking too much. It fills the space where my panic wants to crawl in and make a home.
Every few seconds, I look in the side mirror.
Nothing but darkness.
No headlights.
No black SUV.
No familiar shape of my husband’s brand-new ride.
No Jeremy.
Still, my stomach refuses to unclench.
I keep waiting for him to appear because men like Jeremy don’t let go.
They don’t call it chasing. They call it concern.
They don’t call it control. They call it love.
They don’t call it punishment. They say, “Look what you made me do,” with a sad face, like your bruises wound them worse than they ever wounded you.
Beside me, August sleeps with his head tilted to the side, mouth open, dinosaur clutched under his chin. His lashes are still wet. He’s five years old and already knows how to cry quietly.
That’s the kind of thing that can kill a mother without leaving a mark. I look at him and my throat tightens so hard I have to swallow twice.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, though he can’t hear me over the Harley, the tow rig, and the road.
I’m sorry for the shouting. Sorry for the running.
Sorry for the way I shoved clothes into bags while my hands shook.
Sorry for telling him we were going on an adventure when every adventure he has ever seen on a cartoon involved snacks and songs and not his mama crying over a flat tire on a backroad.
Mostly, I’m sorry I waited until tonight.
The sign for Hell comes out of the dark like a warning.
WELCOME TO HELL, KENTUCKY.
Somebody has spray-painted a red crown over the H.
The town rises out of the rolling hills in pieces.
Not pretty pieces, not the kind of place that puts on lipstick for tourists.
Hell looks like it has survived floods, fires, fights, and men who think rules are suggestions made by people with soft hands.
Old brick buildings line the main stretch.
Some are boarded up. Some glow with neon.
A bar squats on the corner with motorcycles angled outside like a row of sleeping wolves.
Farther down, a church steeple cuts a white shape against the black sky, and something about it makes my skin go cold.
Derby signals, and Wildcat follows him past the bar, past a closed diner, past a mural of a snarling crown-wearing skull painted across the side of a building.
The closer we get to the end of town, the more motorcycles I see.
Parked against curbs. Tucked beside alleys.
Lined outside a fenced compound with lights blazing through the night.
Then I see the jail.
At first, I think my eyes are playing tricks on me.
The building is old stone and brick, squat and severe, with iron bars still visible over some of the windows. A sign hangs out front, black and silver, the letters sharp enough to cut.
KINGS OF ANARCHY MC.
The clubhouse is an old jail.
Of course it is.
I have spent years trying to get out of one kind of cage, and now I’m sitting in front of another with my sleeping child beside me and a dead man’s name in my mouth.
The thought is unfair. I know that.
But fear isn’t fair. Fear only recognizes bars.
I almost laugh. Not because it’s funny. Because if I don’t laugh, I might throw up.
I’ve brought my child to an outlaw motorcycle club in a town named Hell because a dead wrestler might be my father.
This is either the bravest thing I’ve ever done or the stupidest.
Maybe both.
Derby slows near the gate. Two bikers step out from the shadows, and Wildcat’s foot eases onto the brake. The tow rig gives a heavy little lurch. August snuffles in his sleep but doesn’t wake.
The men wear leather cuts. One has a beard thick enough to hide half his face. The other is oversized, tattooed, and built like a brick wall that learned how to glare. Their eyes slide from Derby to me, then to the truck strapped down behind us with my boxes and trash bags.
I know what I look like.
A mess.
A woman with swollen eyes, dirty jeans, and shame sitting beside her like another passenger.
That’s what bothers me most. Not the danger. Not the bikers. Not even the iron bars. The mess.
I’ve spent years smoothing myself into a shape Jeremy approved of.
Hair neat. Voice calm. Face made up enough to look like I’d not been crying but not enough to make him ask who I was trying to impress.
Clothes nice enough to reflect well on him and plain enough not to invite suspicion.
I learned how to look composed while shrinking inside my own skin.
Tonight, there is no composing this.
The huge one says something to Derby I can’t hear. Derby answers, then jerks his thumb back toward me. Both men look again.
This time, their gazes are sharper.
Not lustful. Not mocking.
Assessing.
That should make me feel better.
It doesn’t.
I’ve been assessed by men before. Jeremy assessed my clothes, my tone, my spending, my friends, my parenting, the way I folded towels, the way I held my mouth when he talked. Men can measure you for all kinds of cages.
The gate opens.
Derby rides through.
I sit there for one second too long, hands locked around August’s backpack.
I can still ask Wildcat to stop.
The thought comes fast and stupid.
Stop and go where? Back to Jeremy? To some motel I can’t afford because he controls our money?
To a shelter where he will find me because his cousin works dispatch and his best friend drinks with half the county deputies?
To my mother’s old place, empty now, with the roof leaking and the neighbors still thinking Jeremy is such a nice young man?
Derby stops inside the gate and turns his head.
Waiting.
Not patient exactly. Derby doesn’t look like a patient man. He looks like a man who would rather lift the truck with his bare hands than wait on me to decide whether I’m done being scared.
For reasons I don’t understand, that helps.
Wildcat drives through.
The gate shuts behind us with a heavy metal clang.
It sounds final.
Wildcat parks where Derby points, beside a row of bikes that shine like black beasts under the floodlights. My truck gives one last pathetic rattle on the trailer behind us like it’s been waiting for permission to die.
For a second, no one moves.
Men stand around the yard and porch, half in shadow, half in light.
Some smoke. Some drink. Some watch. There are women too, not many, but enough to keep me from feeling like I’ve stepped into a prison yard.
One woman sits on the porch rail in cowboy boots and a dress, laughing at something a man whispers against her neck.
Another stands near the door with a shotgun tucked casual against her shoulder like it’s a broom she might use if company gets too rowdy.
This isn’t just a clubhouse.
It’s a kingdom.
A rough one. A dangerous one. One built out of iron bars, bourbon breath, grease, smoke, and men and women who look like they’ve never apologized for taking up space.
I don’t belong here. The knowledge is immediate and brutal.
I’m not one of these women with their loud mouths and steady hands. I’m not soft enough to be pitied or hard enough to be respected. I’m a mother with twenty-seven dollars in cash, a maxed-out credit card, and a dead man’s name tucked under my tongue like a prayer I’m not sure I believe in.
Still, when Wildcat opens my door, I lift my chin before I climb down.
It’s ridiculous.
I know that.
My truck is broken. My boxes are strapped to a trailer. My son is sleeping in a tow rig. My underwear is in my purse because it almost murdered a biker on Hell Road. There is no dignity to salvage from that.
But I lift my chin anyway.
Some women get diamonds.
I have posture and spite.
Derby swings off his bike and walks to my door before Wildcat can offer me a hand. Wildcat backs off with both palms lifted, like Derby has given an order without speaking.
I hate that Derby is good-looking.
That feels unfair on top of everything else.