7. Chapter 7 - Legion #2
The silence goes on long enough to become its own kind of answer, and I feel it in my stomach before I feel it anywhere else—that specific sick drop, the one that comes before something irreversible.
I don't dislike Butch.
That's the thing.
I genuinely, actually, do not dislike this man.
He runs the range. He's ex-marine, he's capable, and if the vote comes back no… he's not gonna fold his hands and wait for it.
I can't see a weapon on him. But I'd bet my life there's a gun under that cut. He doesn't go anywhere without iron on him. Which means if this vote goes the wrong direction, somebody in this room is gonna get shot before it's done.
Maybe more than one somebody.
Maybe me.
I look at Diesel.
Diesel looks at me.
Nobody's hand is up.
Then Dusty stands up.
Nobody expected that. Not me, not Diesel, not the room.
A prospect on his feet in church is technically an offense.
Nobody says a word.
"Butch is a good man," Dusty says. His voice shakes a little at the start but evens out. "My girl, Giselle, she likes him." Dusty looks over at Butch, and actually fuckin' winks at him. "Not like that Butch, don't get excited."
Someone laughs in the back of the room.
"She likes him though," Dusty continues.
And he's lookin' at me now. "She told me he was worth saving.
And she gets these fellings sometimes, ya know?
Like a feeling." He leans in to the word the second time around.
"It was her idea to help him, not mine. No offense, Butch.
I was a bit busy. But anyway, that is just me sayin'…
" He blows out a breath. "This club needs all the good men it can get and I think Butch is good, so… I vote yes."
It's the dumbest, bravest, most correct thing anyone has said in this room in weeks.
The spell breaks.
There's grumbling—real grumbling, the kind that means this is irregular and I don't like it—but three seconds later a hand goes up in the back. Then another. Then another.
And then all of 'em.
Every hand in the room.
Diesel exhales through his nose. "Motion carries."
I look at Butch.
He's still standin' exactly where he was. Same posture. Same jaw. But somethin' went out of his eyes—not weakness, just the specific tension of a man who'd been preparin' to receive bad news for nineteen days straight, and just found out it wasn't comin'.
He won't say thank you. That's not how this works. He won't look at Dusty, won't acknowledge the room, won't do a single thing that names what just happened.
But his shoulders drop maybe an inch.
I look at Diesel. "Next order of business."
"We need officers," Diesel says. "You gotta choose."
And that's the moment it lands.
Not when I shot Brick. Not when I walked out of church with blood on my boots and thirty-six bodies to account for. Not when the vote came back and Diesel said my name like a title.
Now.
Standin' in a room full of men who are lookin' at me like I'm the answer to somethin'.
Badlands President.
That's me.
That's what I am now.
I let it sit in my chest for one full second—the weight of it, the wrongness and the rightness of it tangled up together, same as everything else in my life—and then I put it somewhere I can carry it and I open my mouth.
"Diesel." I look at him straight. "Vice President."
He doesn't blink. Doesn't smile. Just nods once, slow, like he's been waitin' a long time to be asked the right question.
"Chains." I find him in the room. "Sergeant at Arms."
Chains looks up from under the brim of his cap, jaw workin' slow. He gives me a single nod that says yeah, alright.
"Ratchet. Road Captain."
Ratchet's already got his arms crossed. He tips his chin. Done.
"Vote," I say.
Diesel calls it immediately. "All in favor."
Every hand goes up.
Clean. No hesitation.
"Motion carries," Diesel says. Then looks at me again. "You forgot Secretary Treasurer."
No. I didn't. It's just… I'm not sure which of these assholes can math, let alone be trusted with the money. And there's a second problem, which Diesel picks up on immediately.
"Shit," he mutters. "The cartel."
"Yeah," I mumble back. Ledger, our former secretary/treasurer, was our cartel contact.
Our only cartel contact.
This is bad.
Dusty speaks up. "Legion? I can keep books." He says it like it's obvious. Like he's just offerin' to carry somethin' heavy and doesn't see what the big deal is.
The room doesn't agree.
Things come apart fast. The kind of disorder that comes with men who've been pushed past their limit of irregular and are about to make their opinions known.
"He ain't even patched."
"Doesn't have a cut."
"Been here less than two years and now he's an officer?"
I let it run for about four seconds, but that's it. "Dusty saved my life," I say, flat. It's true, so I say it. "When I was dyin' of sepsis from the brand, he helped Savannah get me to the hospital. Not because he had to, but because he volunteered."
There's some grumblin' at this point. Even Diesel grumbles a bit over this.
I have no idea who was where on that day because I was out of it, so I have no clue why it was Dusty and not Diesel.
But it was. That's just a fact.
"He fought for this club just like the rest of us." I look at the room. "You wanna argue about ceremony right now? Today? After the month we just had?"