Chapter Six #4
Whiskey doesn’t look up. “Prez knew what Sophie would be asking. And he recognizes your emotional resistance.”
“My emotional what?”
Sophie smiles. “Resistance.”
“I heard the words. I reject them.”
Whiskey’s phone buzzes. He reads the screen. “House is clear. Garage is a disaster. Wildcat used worse language.”
“That’s my garage,” Derby says proudly.
I should not smile.
I do.
Derby sees it.
For one strange second, the room narrows down to his eyes on my mouth.
Then August says, “Can we get cereal?”
The moment breaks.
Thank God.
Or unfortunately.
I don’t know anymore.
Derby points at him. “You are obsessed.”
“I like marshmallows.”
“That ain’t cereal. That’s candy in a bowl lying about breakfast.”
“I like lying candy.”
Sophie laughs.
Whiskey says, “I’ll add cereal to the list.”
“I don’t need a damn list,” Derby says.
“You absolutely need a list,” Sophie says.
I sit back on the edge of the bed, overwhelmed all over again. They are talking about cereal. Cereal and garages and lists. As if moving a woman and child into a biker’s house under threat from her husband is something that can be handled with logistics and sarcasm.
Maybe here, it can.
That’s the frightening part.
This world shouldn’t make sense.
It keeps making a terrible kind of sense.
I look at August. “Do you want to stay at Derby’s house for a little while?”
He looks at Derby. “Do you have monsters?”
Derby’s face doesn’t change. “Not inside.”
August nods. “Okay.”
My heart squeezes.
Not inside.
Such a simple answer.
Such a dark one.
I look at Sophie. “Okay.”
She nods once, like she knows not to make a victory out of my surrender.
Derby goes still.
I turn to him. “But if this gets weird…”
“It’s already weird.”
“Weirder.”
“Then we deal with weirder.”
“If I want to leave…”
“You leave.”
“If August is uncomfortable…”
“We fix it or you leave.”
“If Jeremy shows up…”
His eyes go mean. “He won’t get to the porch.”
The way he says it should not comfort me.
It does.
I stand. “Then okay.”
There it is.
The decision.
Not a big dramatic thing. Just a tired woman in borrowed pajamas agreeing to move her child into a biker’s house because the clubhouse is too dangerous, the motel is too exposed, and the husband hunting her has made every normal option unsafe.
Derby watches me like he understands all of that and hates it.
“Pack what you need,” he says.
Not an order.
A start.
So I do.
Sophie helps me sort clothes from the boxes while August finishes breakfast on the bed.
Whiskey leaves to handle whatever Whiskey handles.
Derby stays in the hall unless we hand him something.
He takes each bag or box without comment, except once when I give him the one with my mother’s things and his hands slow.
“Careful with this one,” I say.
He nods. “I know.”
Not I will be.
I know.
As if he understands some boxes carry more dead people than paper.
Sophie finds my jeans from yesterday and a clean top balled in the corner of a bag. I change in the bathroom, keeping the door locked even though no one tries to open it. My clothes smell like road and fear, but they are mine. I tie my shoes. Wash my face. Stare at myself in the mirror.
I look awful.
Swollen eyes. Pale lips. Hair impossible. A bruise just visible near the collar of my shirt if I move wrong.
But I’m upright.
I brush my fingers under my eyes, smooth my hair as best I can, and lift my chin at the woman in the mirror.
There she is.
Not pretty today.
Not polished enough.
But present.
That has to count too.
When I step back into the room, Derby is waiting near the stairs with two bags in one hand and August’s dinosaur bag in the other. August has decided Derby is responsible for Blue Rex’s transportation and has given him very specific instructions.
“Don’t squish his neck.”
Derby looks down at the bag. “Kid, I have carried guns, cash, injured men, stolen trophies, and one drunk prospect who vomited in my saddlebag. I can handle a dinosaur.”
August frowns. “Blue Rex is not stolen.”
“Good for him.”
“Or drunk.”
“Even better.”
Sophie touches my arm. “Ready?”
No.
“Yes.”
We go downstairs.
The clubhouse looks different in daylight.
Still rough. Still dangerous. But less like a nightmare and more like a place people live with bad choices and strong coffee.
A few men sit at the bar. Someone is frying bacon in the kitchen.
Lottie and Brittany stand near the main table with bags of supplies, looking like they are trying very hard not to fuss over me.
They fail immediately.
Lottie hands me a sack. “Toothbrushes, wipes, snacks, socks, and a couple shirts that might fit you until we get to a store.”
“I can pay you back.”
She waves that away. “Honey, I stole half of it from the clubhouse pantry and the other half from men who deserved it.”
Brittany hands August a small juice box. “Not expired.”
Sophie looks at her.
Brittany sighs. “Probably not expired.”
August takes it. “Thank you.”
The women melt.
Derby mutters, “He’s weaponized manners.”
Legend stands near the front door.
He looks like he hasn’t slept. Rain-dark hair. Hard eyes. Cut on. Phone in hand. President first, maybe-brother somewhere under it, still trying to find shape.
His gaze moves over August, then me, then the bags in Derby’s hands.
“Sophie told you?” he asks.
I nod. “About Derby’s house.”
His eyes flick to Derby. “You good?”
Derby’s jaw tightens. “Everybody keeps asking me that.”
“Answer.”
“Yes.”
Legend studies him for one second longer, then looks back at me. “Derby’s place is secure. Oaks and Wildcat checked it. Two prospects will be posted off-road where you won’t see them unless you need them. Whiskey is working Vale. Sophie has your phone situation handled.”
“My truck?”
“Getting fixed.”
“I need it.”
“You’ll have it.”
Not maybe.
Not we’ll see.
You’ll have it.
I nod, unsure what to do with that kind of certainty.
Legend steps closer, but not too close. He learned something last night. Or Sophie taught him. Maybe both.
“If you need something, you call Sophie. Or me.”
I almost say I don’t have your number.
Then I remember I barely have a working phone.
He must see the thought on my face because he adds, “We’ll get you a clean phone.”
“I can’t afford…”
He gives me a look.
I stop.
Then I try again, because stopping feels too much like surrender. “I don’t want charity.”
His expression changes.
Not annoyance.
Recognition.
“I don’t give charity,” he says. “I handle family business.”
My breath catches.
Family.
The word stands between us, too new and too old.
“We don’t know if I’m family,” I whisper.
Legend’s jaw flexes. “We know enough for today.”
That is all he gives me.
It’s also more than I had yesterday.
August tugs my hand. “Is he my uncle?”
The room freezes.
Every single person.
Legend looks like someone shot him and forgot to tell his body to fall.
Sophie’s eyes go soft.
Derby suddenly finds the floor very interesting.
I kneel in front of August, my hands on his shoulders. “We don’t know yet, baby.”
“But maybe?”
“Yes. Maybe.”
August looks at Legend with open curiosity. “Do you have dinosaurs?”
Legend blinks.
The president of the Kings of Anarchy MC, feared in Hell, whispered about in Paradise, son of Legendary Mike, soon to be husband to Sophie Montgomery, looks completely defeated by the question.
“No,” he says.
August sighs. “Nobody has dinosaurs.”
Derby lifts the bag. “That is why we’re apparently entering the dinosaur market.”
Legend looks at him. “You promised him a dinosaur?”
“It was under duress.”
August says, “No, it wasn’t.”
Oaks laughs from the bar.
Legend rubs his forehead.
Sophie smiles at me, and for one small second, I feel like I’m standing inside something almost normal.
Then my phone, the old one Sophie had left on the dresser after Wildcat checked it, buzzes in her hand.
The room stills.
My stomach drops.
Sophie looks down at the screen. Her face changes.
Not fear.
Anger.
She turns the phone toward Legend.
He reads whatever is there.
His expression goes cold.
“What?” I ask.
No one answers fast enough.
“What is it?” I repeat, sharper.
Sophie walks to me and holds out the phone.
A message sits on the screen from an unknown number.
You can play house with the biker, Amelia. I’ll be there when August wants his real father.
My knees go weak.
Derby is suddenly beside me.
Not touching.
There.
Legend’s voice cuts through the room, low and lethal.
“Move them now.”
No one argues.
The clubhouse turns into motion around me. Bags lifted. Doors opened. Men checking the yard. Sophie’s hand at my back without pushing. August asking why everyone is quiet. Derby’s face carved out of something dark and furious as he carries my son’s dinosaur bag like it’s a weapon.
I stare at the message until Sophie takes the phone gently from my hand.
“He got the new number,” I whisper.
Whiskey appears from somewhere behind Legend. “Then we find out how.”
“But Wildcat checked it.”
“For trackers and spyware,” Whiskey says. “A number is easier. Could have had it already. Could have got it from someone. Could have guessed you’d turn on the old one eventually.”
That makes it worse somehow.
A tracker is a thing.
A bad program is a thing.
But this feels like Jeremy himself, slipping through cracks I didn’t know were there.
Derby looks at me. “Amelia.”
I look up.
His voice is rough, but steady. “We’re going to my house.”
I nod.
Not because I’m not scared.
Because I am.
Because Jeremy has reached through another locked door without touching the handle.
Because my son is watching me.
Because Derby is standing there with a jaw full of violence and a bag full of dinosaurs, and for today, that is the best bad idea we have.
“Okay,” I say.
Derby’s eyes hold mine.
Then he turns toward the door.
August slips his hand into mine, juice box in the other, Blue Rex tucked under his arm.
We walk out of the old jail clubhouse into the gray Kentucky morning.
Not free.
Not safe.
Not yet.
But moving.