Chapter 2
Chapter Two
MARGOT
The clubhouse smells like motor oil and old smoke and something metallic underneath.
Iron, maybe, from the building's bones. It's a converted factory, and the original architecture hasn't been hidden so much as absorbed.
Steel beams overhead, exposed brick walls, concrete floors worn smooth by a decade of boots.
I catalog these details because that seems sensible right now.
I note the exits. Three that I can see from here.
The main door we came through, a hallway leading deeper into the building, and a set of double doors to the left that probably open onto the river side.
The lighting is dim, mostly industrial pendants with bulbs that throw warm shadows across everything.
There are men here. Four or five that I can see, scattered across what looks like a bar area.
An actual bar, brass rail, rows of bottles behind it.
One of them is behind the bar, younger, with a prospect patch on his cut instead of the full colors.
He looks up when we come in and his eyes go straight to me with obvious confusion.
"Colt." Rogue's voice carries the same flat authority it did in the parking lot. "Room six. Clean sheets. Water."
The prospect nods once and disappears down the hallway. Nobody questions it. Nobody asks why their president just walked in with a woman in hospital scrubs at two in the morning. One of the men at the bar mutters “Rogue” as we pass. Not to him, to the man beside him, low and wary.
I'm standing in the middle of a motorcycle club's headquarters and I should be terrified.
But I’m not.
I keep turning that over, examining it like a lab result that doesn't match the expected values.
I watched this man kill someone. Watched the muzzle flash, heard the sound that was louder than TV and movies ever get right.
Saw the body drop. And my nervous system responded with what?
Heightened awareness, yes. Adrenaline, absolutely. But not fear. Not of him.
Maybe it's the twelve-hour shifts in a Level 1 trauma center. Maybe it's the fact that I've watched people die badly. Slowly, in pieces, screaming. And a gunshot seems almost merciful by comparison. Maybe I'm just broken in some useful way.
Rogue stands at the bar and pours bourbon into a glass without ice.
His hands. God, his hands. I noticed them in the parking lot but under these lights I can see them properly.
The knuckles are a mess. This isn't from tonight.
This is layered damage, old scars over new ones, some splits still fresh enough to weep.
He's been hitting things. People, probably. Walls, maybe.
He drinks half the bourbon in one swallow and then turns to face me, leaning back against the bar with his arms crossed.
The gun is still in his waistband. His cut, that's what they call the leather vest, I know that much about bikers, bears patches I can now read.
PRESIDENT across the top curve. DEAD SAINTS MC. MEMPHIS.
"You need anything?" he asks.
The question is so mundane in context that it almost makes me laugh. I just witnessed a murder and was transported against my will to an undisclosed location and he's asking if I need anything like I'm checking into a hotel.
“Just water," I say. "And to know the actual plan here. Because 'as long as it takes' isn't an answer."
His expression cracks open a fraction. Interest. The way you look at something that deviates from your expectations.
"The plan is you stay here tonight. Tomorrow I figure out the long game."
"I have a shift at seven AM."
"You'll have to miss it."
"People will notice. I have coworkers. A charge nurse who'll call. An apartment my neighbor checks on."
"Then we'll deal with that tomorrow too."
I could push. I could argue, negotiate, demand.
But I'm running the scenarios the way I run triage.
Assess the most critical issue first. And right now, the most critical issue is establishing that I'm not a threat to him, because men like this eliminate threats.
I've seen the results in my ER. Bullet wounds and blunt force trauma and young men dying on gurneys because they were perceived as problems.
"Fine," I say. "Tomorrow."
He studies me with those pale eyes. Blue-grey, the color of river water when the sky is overcast. There's intelligence there that doesn't match the crude stereotypes. He's calculating constantly, I can see it. Every interaction is a chess move.
"You're handling this well," he says. An observation. Testing.
"Would it help if I screamed?"
"No."
"Then I won't waste the energy."
Colt appears at the end of the hallway and gives a thumbs-up that's almost comically casual. Rogue jerks his head toward the hall and I understand. Follow, and so I do.
The hallway is long, doors on either side. Some numbered, some not. This must be where members crash. I can hear music from behind one door, the low murmur of a TV behind another. It smells like beer and leather and beneath all of it, that same iron tang that seems baked into the walls.
Room six is small but not uncomfortable. A double bed with what appear to be genuinely clean sheets. Colt followed orders. A nightstand with a lamp. A window that's been covered with blackout curtains. An attached bathroom barely big enough to turn around in.
"It locks from inside," Rogue says from the doorway. He’s almost too big for the frame. Has to angle his shoulders slightly. "Don't try the window. It's welded shut."
"So I'm not a prisoner, but I can't leave."
"You're not a prisoner."
"The distinction seems academic."
He almost smiles. I see the ghost of it at the corner of his mouth before he kills it. "Get some sleep, Margot."
He turns to leave and I say, "Your hands."
He stops. Looks back. "What about them?"
"Those splits are infected. At least two of them. I can see the inflammation from here."
He looks down at his knuckles like he's never considered them as things that require maintenance. They're cruel hands. Big, scarred, built for damage. But the skin around two of the fresher wounds is red and swollen in a way that says bacterial infection creeping in.
"I've had worse."
"I'm sure you have. That doesn't mean you should ignore a staph infection until it goes septic."
He leans against the door frame and crosses his arms again. It's a power posture. Makes him bigger, takes up more space. But he's looking at me with something that's almost curiosity.
"You want to play nurse?"
"I am a nurse. And if your hands fall off from untreated infection, that's not my problem, but I'd rather have something to do besides stare at the ceiling."
He holds my gaze for a long moment. I don't look away. Looking away would be submission and something in me, something stubborn and possibly stupid, refuses to submit to this man just because he has a gun, a president title and blood on his hands.
"There's a first aid kit behind the bar," he says finally. "Basic stuff."
"I'll need alcohol. Rubbing, not drinking. Antibiotic ointment if you have it. Clean gauze."
He disappears and I sit on the edge of the bed and breathe. Really breathe, for the first time since the parking lot. My hands are shaking now. Delayed response, adrenaline crash. I press them flat against my thighs and count backwards from ten in the way that always works after a bad code.
By the time he comes back with a battered first aid kit and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, my hands are steady again.
"Sit," I tell him, nodding at the bed.
He raises an eyebrow. I've just given an order to the president of a motorcycle club in his own place. But he sits. The mattress dips hard under his weight and he holds out his hands, palms down, like a child presenting for inspection.
Up close the damage is worse than I thought.
These aren't just bar fight injuries. This is systematic abuse.
He's been hitting things regularly, probably for months, without any attempt at aftercare.
The skin over his knuckles is a topography of violence.
Old white scars, newer pink ones, and two fresh splits that are angry red at the edges.
I pour hydrogen peroxide over a piece of gauze and take his right hand in mine. His fingers twitch and I feel the tension lock through his whole arm, muscle going rigid under my fingers.
"This is going to sting."
"I know what hydrogen peroxide does."
I clean the first wound and he doesn't flinch. Doesn't make a sound. His jaw tightens, a muscle jumping beneath the stubble, but that's it. I've had patients twice his size cry over a simple wound cleaning.
I work methodically. Clean, assess, apply ointment, cover.
His hands are warm under mine. Hot, almost, like he runs at a higher temperature than normal.
The tendons shift under his skin when he flexes his fingers and I'm aware, suddenly and stupidly, of the size of him.
Of how close we are. Of the fact that these hands killed a man an hour ago and I'm holding them in mine like something precious.
Not precious. Damaged. There's a difference.
"You do this a lot," I say, working on the second hand now. "Hit things."
"Occupational hazard."
"There's a difference between occupational and compulsive."
His eyes cut to mine. Sharp. I've hit something. But he doesn't respond, just watches me work with that calculating stillness.
"You're good at this," he says after a while.
"I'd hope so. Twelve years of training and practice."
"Not the nursing. The... this." He gestures at the space between us. At the situation. At the fact that I'm bandaging the knuckles of my captor and making clinical observations about his self-destructive habits.
"What, not falling apart?"
"Sitting across from me like I'm just another patient."
I finish wrapping his left hand and sit back. Look at him directly. He's close. Closer than I realized. I can smell bourbon and cigarette smoke and underneath that, something warm and male that I have no business noticing.
"You're not just another patient," I say. "My patients don't usually bring me to their clubhouse at gunpoint."
"I didn't point the gun at you."
"The implication was sufficient."
That ghost-smile again. Gone before it fully forms. He stands and the room feels bigger immediately, like he'd been consuming all the available space.
"Get some sleep," he says again. "I'll be down the hall if you need something."
"If I need something," I repeat. "Like an escape route?"
He pauses at the door. Looks back at me over his shoulder. "Like water. Or another blanket. Don't be clever, Margot. Not tonight."
He pulls the door shut. I hear his boots on the concrete floor, getting fainter. I don't hear a lock engage from the outside.
I get up and try the handle. It opens. The hallway is empty and dark and at the far end I can see the glow of the main room, hear the low murmur of voices. I could walk out there. Could try the main door. Could see how far I get.
I close the door and lock it from inside. Sit back on the bed.
Not because I'm obedient. Because I'm smart. Because running in the dark in an unfamiliar part of Memphis with no phone, no keys, no car, after witnessing a murder that a motorcycle club president committed. That's how you end up as a story on the ten o'clock news.
I'll play this differently. I'll be useful. I'll be calm. I'll be the one thing he doesn't expect. Unafraid.
And tomorrow I'll figure out how to get home.
I pull off my shoes, lie on top of the covers in my scrubs, and stare at the ceiling. My hands still feel warm where they held his. I can still smell the gun oil on my fingers.
Sleep doesn't come for a long time.