Chapter 3 #2
Her prairie dress—shorter than anything she'd wear back home where her brothers might see—flutters around her thighs every time a semi roars past.
She bites her bottom lip, concentrating on the blue lines that will take her away from here. Away from me.
I shift my weight, adjusting myself as I watch her.
Those legs. That ass. The way her hair falls forward when she bends over the map.
I picture walking up behind her, sliding my hands under that dress, bending her over the hood right here in broad daylight.
Holding her down with one hand between her shoulder blades while I work her panties down with the other.
I'd make her grip the edges of the hood while I spread her legs with my knee.
Take my time getting my belt undone, making her wait for it, making her beg for it.
I'd fuck her hard enough to leave marks on those perfect hips, her ass slapping against me while truckers honk and her fancy car rocks on its suspension.
I'd make her come screaming my name with her cheek pressed against that map, smearing the ink with her sweat, so every time she looked at it, she'd remember whose she really was.
But I don't move. Just stand there with my thumbs hooked in my belt loops, watching her trace highways with her finger.
Two years of barely seeing each other, and now she's leaving for good.
The girl standing in front of me isn't the same one who used to ride double on my dirt bike.
Her hair's got those expensive-looking highlights now.
Her nails are perfect—no more dirt under them from the barn.
Even her clothes scream money. Designer shit I don't really understand.
"So I'll go through Denver," she says, tapping the map. "A girl from prep-school lives there and she's gonna ride with me. We'll head east to Virginia. Emory and Henry is here." She points to a spot I don't bother looking at.
It's over. Whatever this thing between us was—if it ever really was anything at all.
"I'll be riding for all their teams," she continues, excitement making her voice higher than normal. "IHSA, IDA, ANRC—"
I don't know what any of those letters mean. Horse shit, that's all I know. Rich-girl shit. The kind of life where you worry about ribbons and trophies instead of whether your little sister ate today.
"Cassia will be delivered to the college stable next week," she adds, glancing at me like she's waiting for me to care about her fucking horse. "They have the most beautiful facility—indoor and outdoor arenas, trails through the forests..."
I try to picture her there. In that world. With those people. I can't make the image form in my head. These past two years, we'd hook up whenever she came home from that fancy boarding school. Hard, desperate sex in the silo. On my bike. Once in an old barn while a storm raged outside.
But it was just fucking. Never more than that. Never her inviting me to her house. Never me bringing her around my friends. Just our bodies doing what bodies do when they're starving for each other.
Basal instincts. Nothing more.
Our lives split down the middle a long time ago. She went one way, I went another. What's strange is that Eleanor didn't split with her daughter. While Savannah was getting ready to leave me behind, Eleanor was digging her way deeper into my life.
She set up a photography studio in Glendive.
From the outside, it looks like a tourist trap—somewhere to buy overpriced prints of Makoshika State Park to hang in vacation cabins.
But inside, in the back room with the blackout curtains, she takes pictures of me.
The kind I never thought I'd let anyone take.
In most of them, at least lately, I'm completely naked. She positions me careful, though. Makes sure nothing too explicit shows. But her eyes are on me the whole time. Moving over every inch of my skin. Watching me. Seeing parts of me nobody else does these days.
She pays me for it, but only when I ask.
I still can't figure out what that means.
Does she think I'm not worth paying unless I remind her?
Or does she not want to pay me because to her, what we do isn't business?
The way she looks at me sometimes makes me think it's something else to her.
Something personal. My body is her passion project. But I can't tell for sure.
Back at the truck stop, Savannah folds her map against the creases, shoving it into her purse.
"So, we'll stay in touch, right?" she asks, her voice suddenly uncertain.
I nod, knowing damn well I won't. My phone vibrates in my pocket. Diesel's third message today.
Savannah moves past me toward her driver's door. Our fingers brush for half a second. Not a kiss goodbye. Not even a hug. Just awkwardness hanging between us like we've never fucked under the moonlight in a field of tall grass.
Like we're strangers now.
She climbs into her Range Rover, and I can hear the air conditioning kick on full blast as the engine purrs to life.
I stand there, watching her pull away, the dust kicking up behind her tires. I keep watching until the dust settles back to the ground. Until there's no sign she was ever here.
Then I mount my motorcycle, kick the stand up, and fire the engine. The vibration between my legs drowns out everything else in my head. My phone buzzes again in my pocket.
It's Diesel, I know this. But I didn't wanna look at the text until Savannah was gone. Until it was really over.
Until there was no goin' back.
Tonight, the gates open for me.
Tonight, Badlands lets me prospect.
As Savannah drives toward her future, she releases me to mine.
The compound gates swing open as I approach as security cameras track my movement, little red lights blinking like hungry eyes. Three years ago, I'd have felt something about that. Pride, maybe. Or fear. Now I just feel the weight of being watched.
Twelve Harleys line the parking lot in perfect formation—chrome polished, leather oiled, each one angled precisely the same way.
I park my bike off to the side. Not part of the formation. Not yet.
Inside the clubhouse, the smoke hangs thick enough to walk on. Cigarettes, weed, something else burning that I can't name. A pool game stops mid-shot, cue ball frozen in its trajectory. Laughter cuts off like someone pressed mute. Every eye finds me.
Diesel emerges from the back hallway, his bulk taking up more space than seems possible. He's got grease under his fingernails and a fresh cut above his eye. No explanation offered for either. He tosses a rag at my chest. I catch it without thinking.
"About fucking time," he says, but there's no welcome in it.
Roach points toward a dark stain on the concrete floor with his chin. Blood. Not fresh, but not old enough to have set completely. Beside it a bucket of water—smells like bleach.
I don't ask questions. Questions are for people who have the right to answers.
My stomach growls as I head towards the stain and kneel down, the floorboards hard against my knees.
And then I start scrubbing.
My back muscles strain immediately. The blood has dried into the porous surface, requiring force to lift it out. Nobody speaks. Nobody offers help or explanation. I can feel Brick watching me from his chair in the corner, the weight of his attention heavy.
Minutes stretch. My knees begin to ache against the hard floor. The bleach burns my nostrils and the skin on my knuckles. Still, I scrub. Harder. More deliberately. Making each movement count.
Around me, conversations resume. Pool balls crack against each other. Someone laughs at a joke I didn't hear. I've become invisible. A ghost that only exists to perform this task.
When it’s clean, I stand, legs stiff from kneeling so long. No one acknowledges the completed task. No one says "good job" or "that'll do." I exist in a vacuum of recognition.
I move to the bar, my boots leaving wet marks where bleach water dripped from the rag. The whiskey bottle sits unguarded. I pour myself two fingers into a dirty glass, aware that every movement is still being evaluated.
No one objects. No one welcomes. The amber liquid catches the dim light as I raise it to my lips.
The whiskey burns all the way down to my empty stomach. The alcohol spreads through my blood, dulling the edges of hunger and fatigue.
Across the room, Brick rises from his chair. Every eye follows him, except mine. I stare straight ahead, feeling his approach, rather than watching it.
"Kane," he says, his voice gravel and smoke.
I turn, meeting his gaze directly. "Sir."
His face gives away nothing. "You eat today?"
The question catches me off guard, but I don't let it show. "No, sir."
He nods once, like I've confirmed something important. "Diesel, get this boy some food. Can't have him passing out before we've even started."
Diesel grunts acknowledgment, disappearing into the back.
Brick doesn't move away. He stays close enough that I can smell the tobacco on his breath. "You know why you're here, son?"
"To earn my place."
"And what makes you think you deserve one?"
I don't hesitate. "I don't deserve shit. Nobody does. You earn what you get or you take it. I'm here to earn."
Something flickers across his face—not approval, exactly, but acknowledgment. "Your daddy thought the same thing."
The world stops when these words come out of Brick’s mouth. I keep my expression neutral, but my pulse kicks up. "You knew him?"
Brick's mouth twists into something that might be a smile on another man. "Oh, I knew him all right."
The room goes silent again, every ear straining to catch this exchange.
I don’t know what to say to that.
Brick studies my reaction. "You got any questions for me, Demon?"
Demon.
"No, sir. I don't have no questions. I don’t even know who that asshole was. You," I say, nodding to him. "I've known you since I was fifteen." This is the first time I've ever mentioned that day to Brick. Not even sure he remembers.