Shadow
It was Wednesday night, church night. I was in the room with my brothers. The usual updates and minor housekeeping things were out of the way. I hoped it would be a short meeting. I wanted to get back to Cambria.
Undertaker, Sloan, Smoke, and Everly had all left for home on Monday.
They’d all been thanked several times for their help.
Undertaker had gotten a hug from Cambria, and they’d stood together whispering for several minutes.
After he left, she appeared to be in a better frame of mind.
She was still quieter than usual, but every time I asked if she was okay, she assured me she was.
And her sleep hadn’t been disturbed by bad dreams, so I hoped it was true.
In the past couple of days, more has been accomplished.
The death of Garen Brooks made national news.
The media reported that his death was suspected homicide due to signs of strangulation, but a broken neck was the actual cause of death.
However, it so happened that the night he died, that section of town experienced a blackout when the electrical grid went down.
And for whatever reason, the backup generators at the prison didn’t turn the cameras back on.
The two inmates in solitary confinement with Brooks had been found securely locked in their cells and hadn’t heard anything.
We knew that Undertaker had been transferred at the warden’s request to another prison by the following day.
That prison was in South Dakota. Or so the report said.
As if that weren’t enough excitement, it had been leaked onto the internet that a week before Garen Brooks’ death, his daughter had passed away after being in a fatal car accident.
The car had burned so hot and long that the body had been almost consumed.
They barely had enough for the DNA test, which confirmed it was Journi.
She was to be buried in Nevada next to her mom.
Brooks would be given a state-financed burial in a mass grave near the prison—no resting in peace next to his last victim.
In preparation for the death of Journi Brooks and Cambria’s new identity, she’d written a letter for her new friend and colleague, Mariette Aubert. It introduced her and vouched for her as a suitable replacement for Cambria, as she would be unable to continue working with her clients.
Cambria would send it off soon to her clients with the announcement that she had to retire due to a terminal illness.
She was sorry she couldn’t tell them in person, but she was too weak to do so and was spending her last days with family and friends.
We hoped most of them would give her “replacement” a chance and continue working with her.
Those who had met her, we’d deal with that if they insisted on a meeting face-to-face for some reason.
I’d finished updating the guys on all this. When I was finished and had assured them that Cambria was doing well, it was on to club-specific business.
“Alright, we have just over a month until it’s time to vote on whether Dylan has made the grade to be patched in. I haven’t heard anything from any of you to indicate you feel he’s not a good fit, so I’m assuming he’ll be approved. You know what this means,” Wrath said.
There were groans from all around the table.
“Goddamn it, we go through this almost yearly. And it’s not like we didn’t know it was coming.
We need fresh recruits. If you don’t have a recommendation tonight, I’m giving you until next week to have at least three between you.
I’d like more, so we can select the best, but three is the minimum.
Do you hear me? If you can’t come up with them, I’ll have to fine your asses,” Pres threatened.
None of us knew whether he was serious, and we didn’t bother to ask. The best course was to bring the man what he wanted. Not getting any pushback from us, Wrath moved to the next topic. It wasn’t one I expected.
“Alright, we need to talk about you lonely fuckers,” Pres said.
“What do you mean?” Chaos asked.
“I mean those of you who think that the way to find a woman, someone who is old lady material, is to go out and run personal ads. I swear to God, I can’t believe this is what you guys came up with,” Wrath grumbled.
“Come on, Wrath, you know how hard it’s been to meet quality women. They can’t all just fall in our laps like Jalisa, Betty, and Cambria did. And the women who come to the clubhouse to party or we meet at the bar in town aren’t the kind we want,” Crusher argued.
“Crusher is right. And going online to those dating sites is a hard fucking no. You can end up spending weeks or months conversing with someone only to find out that when you meet them, they’re nothing like they pretended to be. And I’m not talking about just their looks,” Fury added.
“Yeah, I want to meet and get to know each other in person. Cuts down on the chance that the person I’m getting into isn’t some dude dressed as a woman. I’m not throwing shade. If you’re into that, more power to you, but it’s not my thing,” Forge muttered.
There were more lively reasons and examples given. It was probably ten minutes before Wrath had heard enough. His whistle got our attention and made our mouths close.
“Okay, I get it. I don’t care what you do. But the rules still apply. You start to see someone, and if they’re going to be around the compound, us, and our families, they have to be cleared by Crusher or Shadow. Are all of you going to write your ads yourself?”
“No, Jalisa, Betty, and Cambria said they’d help us,” Stitch informed him.
Wrath groaned and rolled his eyes. “Christ, do you know what you’re doing, allowing Lunatic a hand in this? Good luck. God knows what she’ll put candidates through. She’s protective of all your asses. She’ll be grilling them and threatening their asses with the bunny bonfire.”
His reminder elicited a few nervous looks.
As for me, I was eternally thankful I’d found my old lady.
No way would I want to go through the personal ad process.
With the ad topic out of the way, we reviewed one more item, and then we were free to do whatever we wanted.
I hurried out the door and made for the common room like a shot.
I heard my brothers teasing me about where I was going in such a hurry.
I flipped them the middle finger and kept going.
Entering the common room. I stopped to soak up the sight of Cambria. It didn’t matter how often I saw her. She took me by surprise. It was still hard to believe she was mine. When she caught sight of me, her smile told me how much she loved me. I continued my trek to her.