Chapter Nine #2
I waited a beat, then pushed off from the table and walked the length of the room.
I crossed to the TV and looked at James Hale’s face, frozen in mid-blink as the anchor cut to commercial again.
For a second, I thought about putting my fist through the screen.
I turned back to the table, and every man at it was looking at me.
Then I reclaimed my seat. I dragged a hand over my jaw.
As much as I wanted to bury the fuckers, I knew that wasn’t always the best play. “We’ll stick with the plan for now.”
Beast nodded. “Church is adjourned.”
The scrape of chairs was loud this time, the metal legs protesting against the scars already in the floor.
Men got up. Some went straight for the side door, not looking back.
Some lingered. Brick flipped the legal letter to Silas, who caught it with one hand and pocketed it.
Danica left her glass on the table, empty.
Only Twitch, the young Prospect, waited for me at the end of the table.
He said, “They’re going to play dirty. Stewart’s got friends in the statehouse.”
I said, “I know.”
“You want me to run the background on the legal team? Find out who’s got what in their closet?”
I looked at him for a long moment. “Do it. Quietly.”
He nodded and left, closing the door behind him.
The room emptied out in the slow order of hierarchy.
I stayed at the table, staring at the stack of printouts, the highlighted words blurring together in the overhead light.
I thought about the way Lennox’s voice had sounded, the first time I’d heard it -- the way she said “thank you” in the dark, the way she said “I don’t want to be alone.
” Stewart hadn’t heard that voice in a long time.
He wouldn’t have known it if it had walked into his own house and spoken to him.
The topmost page of the printout had a photo of Lennox -- not the engagement one, but a candid, from somewhere in the past year.
She was looking down, her hair pulled up, eyes not quite meeting the lens.
The caption said, “If you see her, call the authorities immediately.” Underneath, a hashtag: #BringLennoxHome.
I picked up the whole stack. Folded it in half. Shoved it into the inside pocket of my cut, where it fit awkward and stiff against my ribs.
Then I got up. Turned off the TV. And let the smoke drift through the empty room until the only thing left was the memory of it, lingering in the air.
* * *
Most of the afternoon had disappeared in meetings before I finally crossed the compound.
The yard was alive with the sound of a dozen things that didn’t need doing and three things that did.
Across the compound, a couple of Prospects were splitting firewood in slow motion, pretending to pace themselves.
Past them, behind the main house, someone was running a wet-vac in the guest cottages and swearing every third word.
But what drew me, more than the obligation or the noise, was the sound from the open bay of the garage -- not tools, not machinery, but the lilt of a voice, clear and precise, cutting through the usual half-done chaos.
I followed it. My boots left prints in the slush that hadn’t quite decided to freeze or melt. By the time I got to the garage, the sun was low enough that everything had a pale-yellow tint to it. The bay was open, the light inside harsh by comparison, and framed in it was Lennox.
She was crouched beside my bike -- my bike, not any of the rebuilds or the Prospects’ junkers -- with a shop rag in one hand and a socket wrench in the other.
Her hair was up, out of the way, and she was wearing one of my flannels over a black tank top, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow.
On the workbench next to her, the cut she’d worn was folded over itself, patches up and visible to anyone who cared to look.
The Prospect beside her was trying to explain something. “So then if you back it off a quarter turn --”
“That’s not right,” she said, not unkind, just certain. “The idle screw’s on the other side. You’re looking at the choke.”
He blinked. He looked at me, and I made a slight motion with my head that said go on, let her have it.
Lennox held out the wrench, handle first. The Prospect reached for it, but she didn’t let go until she’d shown him exactly where the socket fit, and when he fumbled, she took it back, set it in place, and loosened the nut herself.
Her hands were steady, grease across the first knuckle of her thumb, dark line under the nail.
I leaned in the doorway and watched. She didn’t hesitate before reaching for a tool.
She didn’t glance up at the Prospect every time he spoke.
When Monica passed by outside, Lennox called a hello and got a wave in return, and there wasn’t even a flicker in her posture.
A few weeks ago, she would have drawn her whole body inward at the sound of footsteps behind her.
Now she kept her shoulders open, chin up, not watching the gate…
She had stopped watching the gate.
The Prospect finished what he was supposed to be doing, muttered a thanks, and went off to sweep the floor, which was probably the safest thing for him to be doing. I waited until he was out of earshot before I crossed to the workbench.
Lennox noticed me but didn’t stop. She set the wrench down and wiped her hands on the rag. “The meeting ended sooner than I thought it would.”
“Said what needed saying,” I said.
“Don’t you have to do the handshakes? You know, as an official club member.”
“Not today.”
She nodded, eyes still on the bike, and picked up a screwdriver. She said, “Did it go the way you wanted?”
I thought about lying. I thought about telling her the truth. Instead, I shrugged. “Jury’s out.”
She pried the plate off the side of the carb, exposing the assembly.
I watched her hands: every movement cautious, but not tentative.
She’d paid attention that day on the road, the lesson I’d given her because I needed her to know how the machine worked in case she ever had to get away from something or someone.
And it seemed she’d been watching my every move when I worked on my bike at the house.
I had to admit I was surprised at how much she’d remembered.
She said, “I think I can fix this.”
“You think, or you know?”
She looked at me, one eyebrow cocked. “I know.”
I didn’t smile. I let her have it.
She went back to work. After a minute, she said, “You can watch, you know. I’m not going to break it.”
I picked up the cut from the bench and walked over to where she was working.
I waited until she paused to reach for the rag again, and then I draped it over her shoulders -- careful, because the back of her neck was bare and cold.
She looked up at me, her mouth curving at the corner, and for the first time that day the tension in my chest slackened.
“I thought you were supposed to be inside. Danica said --”
“She said to keep my head down. I am. I’m under a bike.”
I couldn’t argue with that. I crouched next to her, close enough that I could smell the faint metallic tang of the carb cleaner on her hands, and the sweat in the flannel that was mine before it was hers.
She was looking at the engine, but I was looking at her.
She said, “You ever think about what you’d be doing if you weren’t here?”
“Never,” I said.
She gave a small, genuine laugh. “Liar.”
“Wouldn’t suit me.”
She adjusted the choke lever, checked it twice, then tightened the nut with the same wrench. “I think it’s good now.”
“You want to try it?”
“Not yet,” she said. “Don’t want to draw a crowd.”
I nodded. She wiped her hands again, but there was no point -- the grease had gotten into the lines of her fingers.
“You don’t have to be in the middle of everything,” I said. “If you want, I can tell the Prospects to --”
“I want to,” she said. And for the first time she looked at me straight, no evasions, no polite hedges. “I want to know how things work.”
Behind us, the Prospect swept the shop floor, not making a show of it. Out in the yard, the sounds of compound life went on -- chainsaws, the whine of a two-stroke, the distant argument over whose job it was to patch the back fence.
But in the garage, the world had gone quiet.
I said, “Move over.”
She shifted, making space for me at the side of the bike. I set my hands on the frame, right next to hers, and she didn’t move away.
For a long minute we stayed like that, the bike between us, the cut warm on her back, the smell of oil and steel and the sun just starting to dip low outside the bay. The world kept moving, but the moment didn’t.
And for the first time in a long time, I let it be enough.
* * *
She was asleep on the couch when I left.
Blanket wrapped around her, one foot hanging off the end, hair unraveling against the armrest. I didn’t bother to wake her.
I set my boots by the door, got my jacket, and stepped out into the dark, pulling the door shut behind me with a click I hoped wouldn’t carry.
The yard was quiet. The only light was the orange halo from the porch, and the farther I walked from the main house, the less real the world seemed -- the trees bracketing the compound, the gravel of the parking area, the black shape of the barn against the even blacker sky.
I took my bike from the bay. The engine turned once, caught, and settled into its low idle with the same stubborn persistence I’d come to rely on.
I didn’t rush.