Chapter Twenty
Amelia
The first thing I truly see is the sign.
Not the campground beyond it. Not the bikes. Not the women standing around like they have been expecting me since before I was born.
The sign.
It’s nailed between two stripped pine posts at the edge of the property, big enough that no one can pretend they missed it. The wood is dark and weathered, carved deep with black-painted letters that look less like welcome and more like law.
QUEENS OF ANARCHY MC CODE
Under that, seven rules are burned into the wood.
No man enters without invitation.
No woman leaves with the man she ran from.
Kids eat first.
Crying is allowed. Whining is taxed.
Touch without permission and lose the hand.
Straighten your crown before you start a war.
Hot Mama don’t like ugly.
I stare at it through the windshield of Lottie’s SUV while August leans forward from the back seat, his seat belt straining across his dinosaur pajamas.
“What does taxed mean?” he asks.
Lottie puts the SUV in park under the sign like we are waiting to be judged by outlaw commandments. “Means if you complain too much, somebody makes you do chores.”
August frowns. “That’s not money.”
“Honey, chores are worse than money.”
He reads the sign again, sounding out the words he knows and guessing the ones he doesn’t. “Kids eat first.”
“That’s right,” Lottie says.
“I like that rule.”
“So does every kid who ever lived.”
He points. “What’s lose the hand?”
I close my eyes.
Lottie answers before I can find a version that isn’t horrifying. “It means you keep your hands to yourself unless somebody says you can touch.”
August nods solemnly. “Derby asks.”
My throat closes so fast it hurts.
Lottie glances at me, then looks away.
The words sit in the car with us.
Derby asks.
Yes. He does.
He asked before he touched my back in public. Asked before kissing me. Asked before removing my shirt. Asked while his body shook with restraint and mine shook with wanting. Asked like my yes wasn’t a hurdle but the whole damn point.
I press my fingers against my thigh until the ache distracts me.
Don’t cry at the sign.
I have been crying across half the country. In gas station bathrooms. Into motel pillows. Behind sunglasses while August slept with Blue Rex tucked under his chin. I have no tears left that will fix anything.
Lottie reaches over and pats my knee once. “Straighten up, honey. They smell fear and casserole guilt.”
“What is casserole guilt?”
“The kind women get when they think they ought to bring something to every disaster.”
“I didn’t bring anything.”
“You brought yourself and the boy. That counts.”
“That sounds like something from a greeting card written by a biker with a felony.”
“Most wisdom is.”
She drives under the sign before I can argue.
Lonerock opens around us like a place stitched together from opposites.
Summer camp and war camp. Shelter and clubhouse.
Healing retreat and armed compound. The road curves through tall pines and dusty ground toward a cluster of buildings tucked into the trees.
There are bunkhouse cabins with painted doors, some bright yellow, some turquoise, some the red of a warning light.
A communal kitchen sits near the center with smoke curling from a metal chimney.
Long picnic tables stretch beneath a covered pavilion.
A campfire circle waits nearby, ringed in stones and mismatched chairs.
A spa building stands off to one side, its sign hand-painted with curling letters: SAGE & SIN WELLNESS. There are bundles of dried herbs hanging from the porch beams, crystals glittering in the windows, and a shotgun propped behind the counter just visible through the glass.
Of course.
Across from it is a garage with bikes lined in front, black and chrome and painted in colors that make the Kentucky Kings’ bikes look almost polite.
A purple Dyna with silver flames. A red Harley with a skull wearing lipstick on the tank.
A black touring bike with a tiny crown painted over the headlight.
Tools hang on pegboards inside. A woman with shaved hair and grease on both arms is arguing with another woman over a carburetor like they might settle it with wrenches.
Laundry hangs between two cabins.
Children run beneath it.
That is what stops me.
The children.
August sees them too. His whole body changes in the back seat. He presses both hands to the window, Blue Rex trapped under one elbow.
“Mama,” he breathes. “Kids.”
There are six that I can see at first. Maybe more.
A girl with dark braids and purple rain boots runs past carrying a foam sword.
A boy about August’s age chases her with a plastic shield made from a painted trash-can lid.
Two toddlers sit in the dirt with toy trucks, guarded by a woman smoking on a porch with a baby asleep against her chest. An older kid, maybe ten, helps a smaller one carry paper plates toward the kitchen.
They are loud.
Dirty.
Normal.
The relief that hits me is so sharp it almost feels like pain.
August isn’t the only child here.
He isn’t the only child with fear packed in the trunk.
He isn’t the only child whose mother had to run.
Lottie parks beside the communal building and turns off the engine. “Welcome to Lonerock.”
I don’t move.
Neither does August.
The door of the main building opens, and every woman nearby seems to look at us at once.
Some wear leather cuts with Queens of Anarchy MC across the back.
Some are in leggings and sweatshirts. Some have bruises yellowing under makeup.
Some have scars that don’t hide. Some are older, broad, and hard-eyed.
Some are young enough that my chest aches because young women should not know this kind of place exists.
And then she appears.
Hot Mama.
There is no other name she could possibly have.
She steps onto the porch like the whole property is an animal she already broke and trained to heel.
She is older, maybe late fifties or sixties, but age hasn’t softened a single thing about her.
It has only made her more dangerous. Her silver-streaked hair is piled high in a messy, deliberate crown.
Her lipstick is deep red. Her hips are full, her waist wrapped in black denim, her boots scuffed and sharp-toed, and her leather cut sits over her shoulders like a throne made wearable.
The cut says Queens of Anarchy MC.
Under it, smaller: Prez.
President.
A woman president.
I knew that from what Lottie told me, but seeing it is something else.
Hot Mama plants both hands on the porch rail and smiles like she has been chewing men into smaller pieces for decades and finds it good for digestion.
“About damn time. Well?” she calls. “You waiting on a formal invitation or a burning bush?”
Lottie rolls down the window. “You got any bushes left after the last retreat?”
Hot Mama’s smile widens. “Sagebrush set one on fire for cleansing. Then charged a fee.”
A woman from the spa porch yells, “It was ceremonial!”
Hot Mama doesn’t look away from us. “It was arson with essential oils.”
The woman lifts both hands. “Healing looks different to closed minds.”
Lottie snorts and opens her door. “That’s Sagebrush.”
“I guessed,” I whisper.
August leans forward. “Is she magic?”
Lottie looks back at him. “Only if insurance asks.”
Hot Mama steps down from the porch as we get out. The kids have stopped their game and now hover at a distance, staring at August with the fearless curiosity of children who can smell a new player. August moves close to my side but keeps looking at them.
Lottie opens the back and starts unloading bags. “Get your backpack, sugar.”
August grabs his dinosaur bag and Blue Rex. Before he can close the door, the girl with braids and purple boots marches over.
“What’s his name?” she asks, pointing at Blue Rex.
August grips him tighter. “Blue Rex.”
“I got a raptor.”
He blinks. “You do?”
She pulls a green dinosaur from the pocket of her hoodie. Its tail is chewed. One foot is missing. “This is Princess Chomp.”
August’s eyes widen with genuine respect. “She looks tough.”
“She bit my dad.”
The air changes for me.
Only for me, maybe.
The girl says it so easily. Like weather. Like fact. Like the kind of thing children here don’t have to explain because everyone already understands parents can be monsters.
August looks at me.
I keep my face steady with effort.
Then he looks at the girl. “Blue Rex does court.”
She frowns. “Like jail?”
“Sometimes.”
“Cool. We got a jail in the sandbox.”
Of course they do.
August looks back at me. “Can I?”
My first instinct is no.
The word rises fast, born from every road mile, every threat, every time someone got too close and made my child the weak place to press.
But I look around.
At the women watching.
At the sign.
At the code.
At rule three.
Kids eat first.
At rule five.
Touch without permission and lose the hand.
Hot Mama’s voice comes from beside me. “No kid disappears here, baby. Not unless they’re hiding from chores, and even then Shortie finds them by snack time.”
A broad older woman near the security shed lifts two fingers. She has gray hair cut short, arms like fence posts, and a rifle slung over one shoulder like a purse.
Shortie, I assume.
She nods at August. “Stay where your mama can see you until she stops looking like she’ll bite the first crow that flies over.”
August looks at me.
I swallow.
“Yes,” I say.
The word is harder than it should be.
His smile is worth it.
He runs with the girl toward the sandbox, Blue Rex clutched to his chest. Two other children join them before he even reaches it. They all start talking over each other about dinosaur court, sword rules, and whether Princess Chomp should be allowed to bite criminals twice.
I stand there watching him.
Breathing.
Not well.
But breathing.
Hot Mama stops beside me.
She smells like vanilla, tobacco, leather, and something floral that doesn’t dare be sweet.
“Caroline’s eyes,” she says.
I turn slowly.