Chapter 36
CLUTCH - IT HAD TO HAPPEN
The thing about healing is that sometimes it can feel like it happens so fast that you don’t recognize what it took to heal and sometimes it takes an agonizingly long time to repair damage done… and then sometimes when the damage is too severe, it makes healing impossible.
It felt like everyone in the club was varying degrees of healing or, in some cases, in deciding if healing was even a possibility. A week after Razor took his last breath, it still felt like people were walking on eggshells. Unsure of what came next.
I stood behind the bar, looking out at the now-empty main room of the clubhouse. Everything had been stripped clean, washed away, but I still felt every wrong that had happened in this room.
Angel approached me as I took a swig of beer, murmuring under my breath, ‘happy birthday baby’.
A thought bubbled up, mixed with a memory of when I had first asked Bex when her birthday was, and she laughed, saying it didn't matter. When I had pushed, it had almost seemed as if she had pulled the date out of thin air. She said she had never celebrated her birthday before and that it wasn’t important.
I had let it slide because it didn’t seem like something she wanted to talk about, but now…
fuck, I should have asked more questions.
I should have celebrated with her more… I…
“What’s that face for?” Angel asked, stopping beside me, looking out at the room that seemed to hold so many ghosts.
I didn’t answer.
Was her birthdate in the folder Cypher gave me?
He tried again, “Celebrating something?”
I grunted, “It’s her birthday, or at least…”
I didn’t know what I was trying to say, since Razor had died it felt like I had one less person to be mad at and I had too much time on my hands to think about all the ways I had failed her.
Too much time waiting to be cleared by the doctor so I could go hunting.
To do something with this anger and energy I had building up within me.
Angel moved beside me, then I heard the crack of a beer opening and saw two rocks glasses placed in front of me. I watched quietly as Angel poured two fingers of tequila in both of our glasses. He took a sip of his beer and sighed heavily.
“Maybe the date she decided to celebrate is more real, more important than the date she was born into that … I can’t even call what she had a family.”
I nodded, thinking about what he was saying, but that didn’t change the fact that I didn’t push or offer to celebrate it with her. That I took what she said about birthdays not meaning anything at face value and let it slide.
Angel nudged the glass my way and picked up his. He waited till I lifted my glass and he toasted, ‘To Bex’.
I swallowed down the tequila, my eyes locked on the spot where she stood.
After a few minutes of silence, Angel cleared his throat, “You know I have replayed everything she said that night…”
I stood up straight, not knowing if I wanted to hear what he had to say. “Don’t…”
Angel sighed and then topped up our glasses. “No, Clutch, this needs to be said. We need to talk about this… fuck…” He shot back the tequila; I kept my eyes locked on the spot.
“I fucked up. Not just with Bex, but Mara…” A choked sound came out of him, but he swallowed it with a swig of his beer, “...with everyone. I missed so much. I let us become this… and her words haunt me.”
They haunt me too.
“And as much as that night haunts me, everything that led up to it. I think… I think it had to happen.”
My head snapped to him, a growl slipping free.
Angel looked at me with so much anguish in his eyes; I haven't seen that kind of pain since he lost her.
He looked at the same spot, as if he could still see it too, “We were too far gone. Something had to snap us out of it. How much more damage could he have done? How much more would we have allowed to happen under this roof? She was right; they all are.”
He took a deep breath, and I watched as he seemed to work through something. Then he broke the silence, his voice so low I almost missed it, “Where are the kids?”
“What?”
“The kids, the joy, the families. This club used to be about that. At some point, that stopped. I… I keep thinking about what she said, how this is an ecosystem. Our women don’t feel safe enough to want to have babies, to grow a family…
to settle down here. A world, a species dies out if you don’t reproduce…
is that what they were telling us without saying the words. That they didn’t want us to carry on?”
His dark eyes came up to meet mine. “Maybe I am not making sense. But what she said has been messing with me, and then… Mara decided she didn't want to stay here. The Doctor said he had an apartment over the garage she could stay in if she wanted… she feels safer with strangers…”
I blew out a long breath, looking around the empty space.
“Even Four, he’s our fucking VP, and he built a house off compound for Dani and rarely brings Cal around…”
“How is he?” I ask, not sure what else to say. Everything he is saying is true.
“Cal is shaken up; he heard the entire conversation with his mom the night they took him. Dani is talking with someone Mara recommended, looking for someone to help him. Four is pissed; his ex is in the wind and he is still being watched by the DA suit.”
Once again I wish she were here; she would know exactly what to do, what to say. I think about all the changes that have already taken place. I asked Angel for all the pieces of Bex’s cut. I don’t know why, but I needed to have it close to me.
“Well, we are going to have some soon…” The words bubbled out of me, before I really thought them through.
Angel looked at me, and raised an eyebrow.
I scrub a hand over my face, “Babies, kids… families. We will have them soon.”
I looked around the empty space again, maybe we don't rebuild what was, but we create something new… “They don’t feel safe, yet. But Mara came back, she came back for Bex. But I think part of her came back because this is home to her.”
Angel grunted and then took another sip of his beer.
Ledger came around the corner, didn’t say a thing, just slid up beside Angel, cracked a beer and stared out into the open space with us.
Like he knew exactly what we were talking about.
Then slowly Torch joined and a few other brothers.
No one went past the bar. Like a line had been drawn.
I took a deep breath knowing this is the only way we move forward, “You already started making changes when you told the Ol’ Ladies they could patch in. So we keep going, we throw out the old and we listen, we adapt… we make this a place where families can grow and everyone can feel safe.”
I heard grunts of agreement and then Torch chuckled and said, “I want to give Meg her road name.”
Brothers start talking over each other, humour and a lightness filling this space that has been missing for a long time. “What about Bullseye?” “Oakley.” “Phantom.”
Ledger laughs louder than I have probably ever heard him, slapping his hand on the bar like he is a part of his own private joke and then chokes out, “Cupcake…”
Cypher walks up to the bar, clutching his laptop tightly. “Cupcake?” he asks.
Torch snorted and then shook his head, “Ledger wants that to be Meg’s roadname, but I already called dibs…”
Cypher growled and I swear I heard something crack, at the same time I heard Meg come up beside us saying, “Cute but if I patch in I want something menacing.”
The brothers turned in her direction, welcoming her, celebrating that she was cleared from the doctor. Ledger passed her a beer dipping his head in her direction.
Torch walked over to her, and slung an arm over her shoulder saying, “Oh, you are menacing alright…”
Cypher cut him off, “I have what you asked for, Angel.”
Angel perked up, “Everything verified?” He asked.
Cypher gave him a curt nod, his whole body radiating tension.
Angel turned looking across the brothers and sister gathered in the room. “Tomorrow we accompany Clutch. As a club we will start righting our wrongs. We will make it safe…” His eyes trailed back to me, “... for her to come home.”
Murmurs spread around the room. Then Torch looked down at Meg, “You wanna ride with me?”
Meg looked surprised, I am not sure if it was the offer to ride on the back of his bike or the offer for her to join us. She looked like she was going to answer him, but Cypher stormed over looking like a 6’3 toddler about to have a fit. “She is not fucking riding with you.”
Torch fucking laughed at him and Meg elbowed him, stepping out from under his arm. She gave Cypher her back, looking up at Torch, “I am not cleared to ride on a bike yet.”
The tension in the room was palpable. Cypher looked like he was about to blow a gasket staring over her head, with Torch ignoring him smiling down at Meg.
Feeling like maybe this should be de-escalated, I offered, “I am not cleared to be on my bike yet either, you can jump in the truck with me.”
Meg smiled at me and then looked over at Angel who tipped his beer to her, “Up to you, Meg. I am going to go and make some calls, and let Four know we are moving on Bex’s parents tomorrow.”
He went to walk away but stopped and tapped the bar with his hand, “I heard from some sources that Preacher confirmed he had no involvement with Razor. Says he has enough problems on his hands without messing with our club.” and then he walked off towards his office.
I needed space and I wanted to go check in on Four and Dani, so I put my half drunk beer down and turned back to Meg. “I am heading to Four’s, did you need a ride?”
Without a word, Cypher turned and walked away. Meg watched after him, a conflicted look on her face. “Thanks, Clutch… I am going to stay, but I will come with you tomorrow.”
“Ya?” I asked, knowing that if she was joining us on a run that was as good as patching in.
Her eyes trailed across the empty room, then she looked up at me, “I didn’t say anything, I didn’t do anything. I want to be there for this… for her too.”
I didn’t know how to handle what she just said, didn’t know if I could get words out around the sudden pulse of emotions running through me. So I gave her a nod and turned making my way through the clubhouse and out into the cool October night.
Tomorrow I would take another step in making sure Bex could live the life she dreamed of, I would make it safe for her to come home.