Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Rookie
Krypton slides a flash drive across his desk at seven in the morning.
"Everything's on there." He leans back in his chair, arms behind his head. "Access logs, proxy traces, the Clarksburg IP resolution, the utility records. Every piece of evidence tied together with a bow."
I pick up the drive. It's small enough to fit in my palm.
Weeks of work, compressed into a piece of plastic and metal no bigger than my thumbnail.
"Skaggs is in the wind." Krypton drops his arms and reaches for his coffee. "Wiped the Maple Street house clean. Landlord says the rent was paid through the end of next month, but the place is empty."
I turn the drive over in my fingers. "And Sarah?"
He shakes his head. "Nobody's heard from her since the Backroads blowup. Phone's off. Car's gone from the compound lot."
I turn the flash drive over in my fingers.
Sarah Boyd, who took a bullet for this club, is gone.
Cody Skaggs, who spent weeks gutting the club's network with credentials she gave him, is gone.
Two people who should be in separate rooms being dealt with separately are now together somewhere, and the club doesn't know where.
Porter didn't sleep at the clubhouse last night. His room was dark when I walked past at two in the morning. His bike was in the garage, but his massive Dodge Ram 3500 was gone.
The man whose wife vanished with another man is out there somewhere on frozen roads, and nobody stopped him because some pain can't be contained inside four walls.
"Ruger wants you to present this in Church." Krypton stands, cracks his neck. "Today. Full table."
My pulse doesn't spike. It steadies. "I'll be ready."
Church convenes at noon.
Every patched member at the table. Every chair filled except one.
Porter's chair is empty. His cut is draped over the back of it, which means he came in at some point this morning, hung his leather on the chair, and left without sitting down.
Nobody comments on the empty seat. Nobody looks at it either. The absence fills the room louder than any man's presence could.
Ruger nods at me from the head of the table. "Take a seat, Prospect."
The words land in my chest like a thunderclap.
I look at the table. At the chairs.
At the men in them—Bloodhound, Ounce, Coin, Bracken, Maddox, Decorum, Daemon, Wraith, Satyr, Krypton. Every face I've served coffee to, washed bikes for, taken orders from for three years.
There's an empty chair at the far end. Not Porter's. A chair that's always been there, always been empty, always been waiting.
I sit down. The wood is cool under my palms.
The table is scarred and scratched, initials carved into the underside by men who've sat here for decades. I can feel the history of it through my fingertips.
"Rookie, I was going to have you present. But, Krypton I want you to run through this." Ruger flattens his palms on the table. "Floor's yours."
Krypton runs through the technical side. The intrusion history, the tripwire system, the proxy traces, the Fairmont misdirection, the Clarksburg resolution.
He gives the data the way he always gives data. Clean, precise, no filler.
Then he stops and looks at me.
"For the record, Prez," Krypton turns to Ruger. "I built the hardware. The prospect built everything else."
He folds his arms. "The tripwire was his design. The trace program was his code."
He looks at me. "The IP resolution that led us to Skaggs was his work. I was the wrench. He was the engine."
The room absorbs it. I don't react. Compliments from brothers aren't something you wear on your face.
Ruger nods. "The network threat has been identified and neutralized. Skaggs is in the wind. Sarah Boyd is unaccounted for. Those matters will be addressed separately."
He pauses. His gaze moves around the table, landing on each man in turn. "We have another matter."
My breathing changes. I don't let it show.
Ruger stands. "This prospect has served this club for three years. He came in as Vulture’s kid cousin from Chicago with something to prove. He made mistakes."
Bloodhound shifts in his chair. The faintest shadow of a smile.
"He leaked information to a woman who used it against us. He owned it. He took the consequences. And then he spent the next three years earning back every inch of trust he lost."
Ruger looks at me.
"He protected a woman when she was being stalked. He built the system that caught the network threat. He did what needed doing without flinching."
The room is airless. Every man at the table is looking at me, and the weight of their attention is so heavy I can feel it pressing against my sternum.
"I'm calling a vote." Ruger's voice carries the gravity of a man who's done this before and understands what it means. "Full patch. Bottom rocker. All in favor."
Bloodhound's hand goes up first. Then Ounce. Then Coin, Bracken, Maddox, Decorum. Daemon, Wraith, Satyr, Krypton.
Every hand at the table.
Unanimous.
Ruger reaches behind him. From the shelf on the wall, he pulls a folded piece of leather. He unfolds it, and the bottom rocker catches the overhead light.
MORGANTOWN.
He walks to my end of the table. I stand because my body tells me to, not because anyone asked.
"Turn around." Ruger's voice is rougher than usual.
I turn. His hands are on my cut, and I feel the prospect patch peel away—the velcro tearing with a sound that vibrates through my spine.
Three years of wearing that patch.
Of it defining who I was in every room I entered.
Of standing in hallways, washing bikes, making coffee, swallowing the word "kid" and letting it sit in my stomach like a stone I wasn't allowed to spit out.
Gone. Peeled off in two seconds.
The leather feels lighter without it, which doesn't make physical sense.
My legs are numb. My throat is tight.
The backs of my eyes burn with something I'm not going to let out in front of these men.
Then the new patch goes on. The bottom rocker. Pressed into place, smoothed flat, Ruger's palms running across the leather to seal it.
MORGANTOWN.
The word on my back that tells every person who sees me where I belong.
I turn back around. The table is standing. Every man on his feet.
Ruger extends his hand. I take it. His grip is iron and his expression is the closest thing to pride I've ever seen from a man who doesn't trade in emotion.
"Welcome to the table, brother."
Brother.
Not kid. Not prospect.
Brother.
The word hits me behind the ribs and stays there. It's going to stay there for the rest of my life.
Bloodhound is next. He doesn't shake my hand.
He pulls me into a one-armed embrace, his palm clapping against my shoulder blade hard enough to rattle my teeth.
"About damn time, kid." He pulls back and grins. "Sorry. Not kid anymore."
Ounce's handshake nearly crushes my fingers.
Coin nods once—a single movement that carries more weight than any speech.
Maddox wraps me in a bear hug that lifts my boots off the floor.
Bracken. Decorum. Daemon. Wraith.
Satyr. Krypton last. One by one.
Handshakes and back-claps and nods and gruff, masculine affection these men would die before calling by its real name.
Krypton is last. He doesn't hug. He doesn't shake. He points at me with his coffee mug.
"You still owe me for the solder I wasted teaching you hardware." His lips twitch. "Brother."
I laugh. The sound surprises me. Full and real and coming from somewhere I didn't know was open.
I look down at the cut on my chest. The bottom rocker. MORGANTOWN.
Three years. Eighteen years old with plaster dust in my hair and Kinsey's betrayal on my shoulders and a table full of men who looked at me and saw a liability.
Now they see a brother, an equal.
* * *
I stand in my room at the compound and look at the cut hanging on the back of my door.
The bottom rocker catches the light from the window. MORGANTOWN.
I've stared at that word on other men's backs for three years, memorized the font, the curve of the letters, the way it sits above the hem. Now it's mine.
I pull the cut on. It fits different. Not physically—the leather is the same, the weight is the same.
But the way it sits on my shoulders has changed, and when I catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror, the man looking back isn't the kid who walked into this compound with plaster dust in his hair.
The party fills Backroads by eight.
Ellie opened the bar for the club only tonight. Doors locked, blinds drawn, the jukebox playing loud enough to shake the bottles on the shelf.
Every patched member, every ol' lady, every woman connected to this club is inside these walls.
The compound's energy followed us here.
Men who were stoic at the table are loose now, laughing, the tension of Church replaced by the release of celebration.
Bloodhound has a whiskey in his grip and Vanna under his arm—she found a sitter for Waylon and showed up in a dress that made Bloodhound blink twice.
Ellie is behind the bar running drinks like a woman half her age.
She poured me the first beer herself, set it on the counter, and looked at me over her reading glasses with an expression that said more than any toast.
"About time, Prospect." She caught herself. "Sorry. About time, Brother."
Saylor is beside Ellie, working the bar. She's been watching me since I walked in wearing the full patch, and the look on her face is something I want to photograph and carry in my wallet for the rest of my life.
Pride. Not the polite, obligatory pride of someone who's supposed to be happy for you.
The fierce, burning, full-body pride of a woman who watched a man earn something the hard way and knows exactly what it cost.
She pours me a beer and slides it across the counter. Her fingers brush mine on the glass.
"Nice patch." Her mouth curves. "Looks good on you."
I lean across the bar. "Everything looks good on me."
She laughs. The real one. The one I've been chasing since the statistics classroom and my ridiculous pens.
Maddox commandeers the jukebox and puts on something loud and terrible and dances with Tildie until Ruger pulls her away.