7. Chapter 7 - Legion
The days go by slow.
Painful.
And I spend every moment strainin' into the silence.
Listenin'.
Waitin' on the helicopters that never come.
We're on day nineteen post massacre when Butch shows up in the clubhouse.
I knew he was still here—somewhere on the property, breathin', healin'—but he wasn't there.
Wasn't in the church when Brick sold us out to the fuckin' Feds.
Wasn't standin' in the smoke, and the blood, and the noise of everything comin' apart at once.
He was in a bed somewhere, shot half to hell, recoverin' from a betrayal he didn't even get to witness firsthand, and I—
I never went to see him.
Not once.
Nineteen days.
And me, bein' new to the title of Pres, bein' new to the weight of it, bein' new to the way it sits on ya like somethin' that don't fit right and maybe never will—I didn't even think about it.
That's the truth and it's not a flattering one. I was too busy figurin' out which end was up in a club that just had its foundation kicked out from under it to think about Butch.
The moment we lock eyes across the smoky room, I know I made a mistake. I can see it from here—the set of his jaw, the way he's standin' like a man contained.
And in that moment I know two things for certain…
One. He took that personal.
And two—he's not sure he still belongs here.
Hell, I'm not sure he still belongs either, and that's an uncomfortable thought.
Because the truth is, everyone else but him made a choice that day in church.
Made it—one way or the other—and wore the consequence of it immediately after.
Either they chose the club and lived, or they chose greed, and died.
All but Butch.
He wasn't in the room.
Wasn't anywhere near the moment where all these choices lived.
And so he never got to declare.
Never got to choose.
That moment came and went without him, and now he's standin' here in the permanent aftermath of it, surrounded by men who know where they stood.
And he has no idea where he would've.
That's why he's not sure he belongs here.
He's not sure whose side he woulda took.
And this place, this clubhouse that used to be his sanctuary, might now be more of a prison.
I don't call him over. Not with a gesture, not with my eyes. Because yeah, I am new to this whole Pres job, but I am not new to how this culture works.
My word is his scripture.
It is law.
It's a stupid power to give me, if I'm bein' honest.
But nonetheless, it is mine.
Butch and I are still starin' at each other when everyone else seems to notice all at once that he's here. The room goes silent. A weird kind of silent.
And Diesel makes his way over to me, stands by my side with his arms crossed and chin up. Not because I need protectin' from Butch, though he is an ex-marine and a helluva fuckin' shot. Could probably kick my ass ten different ways in as many seconds.
No, Diesel's not at my side to protect me. He's here because this is business and we're a united front no matter what.
Badlands needs to make a decision about Butch.
Come to think of it, Badlands needs to make a decision about everything.
Butch walks toward me slow. Not because he's bein' dramatic about it. Because he's not healed yet.
I watch the way he moves across the concrete and I can see the shoulder before I see his face—the way his left arm hangs lower than it should, compensatin' for somethin' that's still tryin' to fit itself back together again.
I heard he had cracked ribs too but I never actually got the medical rundown. Nobody brought me a chart. Nobody came to me and said here's where Butch is at.
And I didn't ask.
He stops in front of me.
He's got maybe three inches on me and about thirty pounds of former marine muscle that the gunshot wound and the cracked ribs have done their best to subtract from. He extends his hand. Palm out, square and deliberate.
"Demon." His voice comes out like gravel. That's all. Just my name.
I look at his hand.
I don't take it.
"How ya feelin'," I say.
It's not quite a question.
Something moves through his jaw. A tightening. He drops the hand slow, like a man who's been told worse things than I won't shake your hand and has learned to metabolize the insult quietly.
"Been better," he says. "Giselle's been seein' to me. Changin' the dressin', bringin' food." He pauses. "Didn't exactly have a line of volunteers outside the door."
Diesel moves before the sentence is even finished. Not toward Butch, just shifts—weight forward, chin coming up, and when Diesel speaks it ain't loud but it cuts through the room like it cost somethin' to say.
"The only reason you're standin' in this room right now is because Legion carried your shot-up ass back here himself.
" His voice is flat. Controlled. The kind of controlled that's more dangerous than yellin'.
"You wanna talk about who came to your door?
Maybe start with thankin' Dusty. Because he was part of that too.
And while we're at it—Giselle is Dusty's woman.
Not yours. Not a resource you get to co-opt and then use as a grievance. "
The room doesn't breathe.
"I know where you woulda ended up," Diesel says. Quieter now. "Same red dirt as the rest of 'em."
The silence that follows that is the kind that has weight.
Butch holds it. He doesn't flinch, doesn't look away, doesn't do any of the things a man does when he's about to fold. His jaw is tight and his eyes are on me—not Diesel, me—and there's something in them that isn't fear and isn't aggression exactly. It's something rawer than both.
"That's not fair," he says.
Still lookin' at me. Still not blinking.
"Every man in this room knew what Brick was doin'." He says it even, careful, like he's been holdin' it back for nineteen days and finally has somewhere to put it. "Every. Man." His eyes move around the room once, just once, then come back to mine. "Including Diesel."
A beat.
"I woulda stood with you. I didn't like what he was doin' any more than the rest of you. And I get it, Legion. You get to be self-righteous. You weren't here." He leans in to this fact. "You. Weren't. Here."
"No," I agree. "I was in prison doin' time for traitors."
"We were all in prison, Legion. Every single one of us." He looks at Diesel now. "Legion and I were on the same run when I got shot. The same. Run. If I was so important to Brick, if I was such a little loyal soldier, why the hell did he put me on that run, Diesel?"
He's got a point. And he knows it. Because I was there. I thought Brick was tryin' to get me killed. But maybe he was trying to get all of us killed. Me, Dusty, Butch, and Crow.
Because all of us are still here.
"All right," I concede. "I'll give you that one. But… we still gotta vote." I raise my voice. "I call church. Right here, right now."
For a moment, everyone is still. Then Diesel yells, "You fuckin' heard your pres. Church, now!"
Immediately, men are on their feet. Chairs screechin' back across concrete, boots heavy and purposeful, nobody askin' what goes where because they all know—this ain't the first time we've made church outta nothin'.
It's the sound of order bein' imposed on chaos and I stand in the middle of it and let it happen around me.
A few minutes and it's done—three tables end to end, long enough to lay a man out on if it came to that, chairs arranged in front of 'em in rows that ain't quite straight but are close enough.
"Uh… Legion?"
I look at Dusty. "What?"
"Should I… leave?"
I nearly laugh. Nearly. Because that's the moment it lands—he's never been patched in.
Never sat in a closed room while the men around him voted on things that could get somebody killed.
He's still a prospect. Still furniture, technically.
But he's my furniture now, and the rules that applied yesterday don't all apply today.
"Sit your fuckin' ass down, Dusty."
He smiles. "Yes, sir."
And I can respect that smile. Genuinely. It ain't the smile of a man who's scared—it's the smile of a man who just got told he belongs somewhere, and he knows what that's worth.
I know what that's worth. Took me thirteen fuckin' years to earn my own seat at a table like this one, and even then I had to go to prison first, had to eat three years of silence in a six-by-eight box while Brick sat right where I'm standin' now and ran things without me.
In my defense—and I'm always in need of one—I was tangled up with Eleanor Ashby for most of those years.
Not tangled the way people think. Not like that.
Tangled the way a man gets when someone powerful decides they have a plan for him and he's too young, and too broke, and too goddamn hungry to argue.
She was a formidable force. Formidable opposing force.
But that grin on Dusty's face—wide and a little disbelieving, like he can't quite trust that the door just opened—that pulls me back.
Because I remember bein' exactly that.
Standin' outside somethin' I wanted so bad I could feel it in my soul, just hopin' nobody changed their mind before I could get inside.
I've always wanted to be part of Badlands. Since before I had the words for it. Since I knew that belonging to something mean and permanent was the closest thing to safety a man like me was ever gonna find.
Diesel and I take our places at the tables. This is when it hits. All the other officers are dead. Diesel is the last one standing.
He lets out a long breath, like he's tired of this day. This whole fuckin' shit show that never quite seems to end. "We need to vote on a bunch of shit, actually."
I nod.
Indeed we do.
Diesel calls it. "Church is open. First order of business—Butch."
No preamble. No speech. No here's what happened, here's what we know, here's what we think. Just the man's name dropped in the middle of the room like a bomb.
Butch doesn't react. Which tells me he knew this was comin'. Probably been knowin' it for nineteen days.
"All in favor of Butch remainin' a patched member of Badlands MC—"
Nobody moves.
Not one hand.
Not one.