1. Quake
QUAKE
PRESENT DAY…
“It’s time.”
I glance up from my task to see Lyric, my president, leaning against the doorframe of the clubhouse’s armory.
I’ve got a cleaning cloth draped over my shoulder and a partially disassembled pistol sitting in front of me.
As the Sergeant at Arms of Kings of Anarchy MC: Washington chapter, part of my job is to keep all club weapons clean and ready to go.
I stare at him, and he stares back. For a second, I wonder if he’s talking about church, a run, some club business I’m forgetting.
When he doesn’t elaborate, I ask, “Time for what?”
One corner of his mouth tips up into an infuriating smirk, one that he gets when he knows something others don’t.
“Why are you lookin’ at me like that?” I glance down to see if I’ve got something other than grease on my shirt, but there’s nothing.
Lyric pushes off the doorframe and crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s time,” he repeats.
“I’m gonna need more than that, pres.”
His smirk widens, and a memory slams into me with all the force of a freight train.
“Hold onto ‘em for me.”
“You sure?” I ask Lyric, hating how exhausted, angry, and heartbroken he is.
The accident that claimed the life of his father and the memories of his fiancée, Mellie, only happened a few days ago. He’s a shell of the man I know, and I hate that he’s asking this favor of me.
“I’m sure,” he says, setting his father’s weapons on the table between us in the armory.
“I can’t think past the next ten minutes, let alone what to do with these.
” His tone is somber, and I know he’s feeling lost. “At least here, with you, I know they’ll be taken care of, cleaned. You’ll do that, right?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks.”
“Whenever you’re ready, you know where they’ll be.”
He nods solemnly. “I’ll get ‘em when I have someone to pass them down to.”
The memory fades as quickly as it appeared, and my mouth drops open. I stare at him until his smirk turns into a lopsided grin.
“No,” I say, shaking my head, and his grin gets bigger. “No way.” Still, Lyric says nothing, which tells me everything. “Holy shit.”
“Holy shit is right,” he says with a laugh.
I launch out of my chair so fast it topples backward and crashes into the wall. Pres doubles over laughing, but I barely notice because all my brain does is repeat one thought: Mellie’s pregnant.
Finally, the queen of the club is knocked up. After years of watching those two love each other so hard it practically makes those around them sick with envy, after all they’ve been through, it’s happening.
The president of the KOAMC Washington chapter is going to be a dad.
I bolt past Lyric and out of the armory. He shouts my name, but I ignore him.
“Quake!” His footsteps echo behind me. “Dammit, Quake!”
When I reach the common area, I skid to a stop.
The room is packed. Zombie’s at the bar, Trick and Copper are playing cards, Pilot is eating something that looks questionable at a table a few feet away from me, and Pastor and Whiz are sitting on one of the couches arguing about whatever is on the TV.
It’s a normal afternoon.
Well, it was until I came running in like a lunatic.
“Lyric got Mellie pregnant!” I shout.
Silence. Complete and utter silence is the only response as everyone stops what they’re doing to take me in.
I open my mouth to deliver the news again, concerned about the lack of response, but then all hell breaks loose, and the roar is deafening.
“What?!”
“No fucking way!”
“About damn time!”
“I knew it.”
“You didn’t know shit,” Copper snaps at Zombie, our VP.
“I had a feeling,” Zombie gripes.
As Lyric's best friend, I’m a little surprised that he didn’t know, but it doesn’t matter because now the world will know.
I throw my hands up to shut everyone up, and surprisingly, it works. “Lyric just told me,” I explain.
Pres steps around me, and all eyes turn to him. His expression is carefully blank for all of two seconds before a grin appears, confirming what I’ve told the room.
Chaos erupts again as brothers leap to their feet, some shouting while others are laughing and dropping every cuss word known to man. Congratulations are thrown at him before he can even say a word.
Trick gets to Lyric first, wrapping him in a hug.
“Get the fuck off me,” Lyric grumbles, but there’s no heat in his words as he returns the gesture.
“No,” Trick retorts.
“Trick.”
“You made a baby, pres.”
“I’m aware.”
“A whole fucking baby,” Trick states.
“Pretty sure that’s how pregnancy works.”
“Hey, no one was this over the top when I knocked Lucy up,” Zombie grumbles as he makes his way to Lyric. “What the fuck’s that all about?”
No one responds because that’s not true. The entire club was elated for Zombie and Lucy when she got pregnant. And when she gave birth to Sari, their daughter, happy doesn’t even begin to cover the emotions we all felt.
One by one, brothers hug Lyric, slapping him on the back in congratulations. He tries to move but never makes it more than a foot or two before he’s swept up by another biker.
I stand back and watch it all unfold. Moments like this are special. Not many people understand motorcycle clubs. All they see are the bikes, the tattoos and rough edges, the leather cuts and criminal activities. What they don’t see is this.
They don’t see the family or the way life events belong to all of us. They don’t see the way one brother’s happiness is felt by every brother.
Just as I’m about to wrap my arms around Lyric, the door opens, and Mellie walks in, Lucy and Zoey on her heels. Mellie takes in the barely restrained chaos of the room and stops.
Every head swivels to take her in, but she’s focused on me.
“Don’t,” Mellie snaps, pointing at me like a mother would when scolding a child.
Oh, shit.
I raise my hands in mock surrender. “Didn’t say a word.”
“Quake,” Mellie says, dragging out my name.
“What?”
“Quake.”
“I didn’t, I swear.”
“Quake,” she snaps.
“Okay, I may have said something.”
“You fucking screamed it, brother,” Lyric comments dryly, catching the attention of his old lady.
Mellie sighs. “You said he wouldn’t say anything,” she accuses her husband as her gaze drifts from one face to another around the room. “So, all you idiots know?”
“We know,” Zombie says as he walks toward her.
Zombie and Mel have always been close. Hell, when she first lost her memory, he was one person she didn’t forget, much to Lyric’s dismay.
They love each other like siblings. “I’m so happy for you, little mama,” my VP says, wrapping her in a careful hug.
“Wait a second,” Lucy mutters, pushing Zombie away. “Little mama?”
“Are you…” Zoey begins.
“Yeah, I’m pregnant,” Mellie confirms, and Lucy practically tackles her in a hug, with Zoey joining a split second after.
The three of them are wrapped up in each other, tears flowing, and the entire room watches. Shit, I even see several of my brothers pretend they have dust in their eyes.
Pastor clears his throat suspiciously, while Trick refuses to make eye contact with anyone. Copper’s beer is suddenly very fascinating to him, and Pilot ducks his head to wipe his eyes on his shirt.
I point at each of them. “Bunch of fucking emotional bastards.”
“Says the guy who ran through the clubhouse screaming,” Lyric accuses.
“That was different,” I say.
“How?” Trick asks.
I shrug. “It was important screaming.”
Whiz snorts, sending beer flying out of his nose. He coughs but quickly regains control and glares at me with humor in his eyes. “Remind me never to tell you a secret.”
“The thing about it is, I didn’t have to say shit,” Lyric states.
The teasing banter continues, as does the celebration of the pregnancy news. Not everyone was present when I came running into the common room, and those who arrive now are greeted with the news before they even have a chance to say ‘hi’.
As time passes, I watch and soak up every little nuance, every whispered word, every hug freely given with no thought of how sappy it might be. I commit to memory everything that very few people are lucky enough to see and experience.
“So,” Zombie says, cutting through the noise. “Who’s gonna teach this kid life’s important lessons?”
“Not you,” Mellie and Lucy say simultaneously.
Zombie rears back, looking offended. “I’m a highly respected role model.”
“Says the guy who fucks his wife in a literal lion’s den,” Whiz comments.
“Don’t knock it til you try it,” Lucy quips. “But yeah, I get what you’re saying.”
“You trust me with Sari,” Zombie accuses.
“Sari is our daughter,” Lucy says. “Of course, I trust you with her. But someone else’s kid… that’s different.”
“How?”
“Because, brother,” I say, slapping him on the back.
“It’s like the rule of grandparents. You can give the kids all the sugar they want because you know you won’t have to deal with the fallout.
Ergo, if you teach this kid all of life’s important lessons, you won’t be the one dealing with the consequences when your lessons turn to shit. ”
Zombie scowls, but he’s not angry in the least. “I think you’re all forgetting who taught my precious baby girl her first word.” He shifts his gaze to Lyric. “Pres, I’m pretty sure she learned to call me ‘asshole’ from you.”
“I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about,” Pres replies. “Speaking of the little angel, where is she? I need to keep practicing.”
“She’s down for her nap,” Zombie says. “And that’s where she’s staying because she’s teething and cranky as hell.”
“Asshole,” Lyric mutters, sending the room into more rounds of laughter.
Mellie laughs so hard she leans into her husband as if he’s the only thing that can hold her up. He slips his arm around her, and I don’t miss the way his hand curls protectively at her waist.
It’s a gesture he’s made thousands of times. The two of them have survived things that would’ve broken most couples: memory loss, death, grief, violence. Through it all, they continued to find their way back to each other, and now they’re building something new.
A family.
When Rowdy died, a weight settled on Lyric’s shoulders, and it never left. Even after Mellie got her memories back, after we hunted down the bastards who were responsible for her amnesia and the accident that took Rowdy’s life, there’s always been this shadow surrounding him.
Most days, one would never know he’s hurting, but he is.
But today, right here, right now?
The weight, the shadow… It’s gone. Not forever, because that’s not how it works, but for the first time in a long time, Lyric isn’t looking back because the future is full of hope.
My chest is tight as I watch them, as I soak up something that is so rare in our world. We deal in violence, death, drugs, revenge, and the ugliest parts of humanity. The dark is normal in a way that feels like that’s all there is sometimes.
But then a day like this comes along. A brother becomes a father, a family grows, and we laugh until we cry. All of it swirls into a bright ball of light that breaks up the darkness.
The hours pass as jokes, stories, and congratulations blur. Brothers, old ladies, and club whores come and go until the common room settles into something quieter.
Conversations continue, and I silently slip away, returning to the armory and the secured cages at the back of the room.
The biometric lock disengages, and I release a pent-up breath when my eyes land on what I’m after… Rowdy’s weapons.
They’re still there, right where I put them a few years ago, waiting, maintained, protected, preserved. I made a promise to Lyric, and I kept it.
An image of Rowdy springs to mind, and I smile. The old man was hard, stubborn, but he was also one of the finest men I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. Lyric is just like his father, and I can only hope that I never have to do this for his child someday.
I gather the cases and carry them back to the common room, not saying a word as I set them on a table in the middle. One by one, conversations stop, and attention falls on me.
Lyric’s eyes shift from mine to the cases, and his shoulders stiffen for a moment. It’s on the tip of my tongue to crack a joke, tease him about forgetting that he’s the one who came to me earlier to get the weapons, but I refrain.
This isn’t the time for words or smartass comments. This moment isn’t about anything other than a legacy that will live on through more than the shotgun, pistols, and knives contained in the cases.
“Thanks, brother,” Pres says softly. “Maybe I’ll hear echoes of Rowdy in my baby’s tears.”
Mellie snaps her fingers. “I know that one! Um… it’s… Oh, give me a minute…”
“He’s referencing The Living Years by Mike + The Machine,” I say, and Lyric’s eyes snap to mine.
“You knew that?” he asks.
“Yep,” I confirm.
“Damn, Q,” Zombie says before whistling. “I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be.” What I don’t say is that I know the song because I listened to it over and over after I lost my own father.
I don’t say that my relationship with my dad was more than a little strained, and only when he died of a heart attack did I realize that it was too late to fix things.
“Anyway,” I say, nodding toward the cases on the table.
“I’m happier than I can say that you want those back. ”
Nothing more is said, and I lose track of time as the energy in the room settles into something more reminiscent of a normal weeknight.
When there’s only a few brothers and prospects remaining, I start cleaning up the mess.
I’m just dropping a handful of empty bottles into the trash when Lyric’s voice startles me.
“Got a sec?” he asks as I turn around to face him.
“Uh, that depends. You planning on telling me any other life-changing news?”
“Funny.” He juts his chin toward an empty table. “Let’s talk.”
Once we’re seated, I rest my forearms in front of me, bracing for something bad. “Hit me, pres.”
“Sister Beatrice called earlier today,” he begins.
That gets my attention. “And you’re just now telling me?”
His brows shoot up. “I was planning on telling you earlier, but you went and screamed your fucking head off. Didn’t really want to shit on the party.”
“Right, sorry.” My shoulders drop.
“Anyway, Sacred Haven needs some help.”
What he doesn’t say outright is that they need my help. For years, I’ve donated my time and money to their food drives, Christmas donations, school supplies, whatever they needed for the kids. The club has also helped, but not at the same level.
When I was patched into KOAMC, I promised myself I’d always find a way to balance the scales.
Evil takes enough from this world, so what’s the harm in giving back to it a little?
The children’s home is how I do that. And hell, it doesn’t hurt that it soothes a part of me that I’ve never let any other living soul see.
“Whatever they need, count me in.”