Chapter Eight
The bonfire lit up the compound like a second sun.
Josie stood at the edge of the gathering, a beer she wasn't really drinking in her hand, watching something she'd never seen before: men who killed for each other laughing like they hadn't buried eight bodies four days ago.
Brothers clustered around the flames, trading insults and stories in equal measure.
Someone had dragged out a cooler full of beer.
Someone else had set up a grill, and the smell of cooking meat mixed with wood smoke and pine.
The old ladies moved through the crowd with the easy confidence of women who belonged here completely—Maren refilling drinks, Astrid passing out something she'd baked, Ingrid keeping the coffee flowing for the brothers who didn't drink.
It shouldn't have worked. Violence and tenderness, in the same space, in the same people.
But somehow it did.
"You gonna stand there all night, or you gonna help me?"
Josie turned to find Coldstart watching her from the doorway of the garage, wiping his hands on a rag that had probably been clean once.
"Help you with what?"
"Got a project I've been stuck on." He jerked his head toward the interior. "Heard you're good with metalwork. Want to take a look?"
She shouldn't. She should stay at the bonfire, try to be social, pretend she knew how to belong somewhere.
But the pull of the garage—the promise of work, of tools, of something she actually understood—was too strong to resist.
"Show me."
The garage was warm, lit by overhead fluorescents that hummed in the silence. Coldstart led her to a workbench covered in metal pieces, half-assembled equipment, and the particular chaos of a project that had gotten away from its creator.
"Custom exhaust system," he explained. "Trying to get the baffles right, but I can't figure out the welding angles. You ever work with exhaust systems?"
"Not exactly. But metalwork is metalwork." Josie picked up one of the pieces, turning it in her hands. "You're trying to curve this, right? That's your problem. You need a die to shape it before you weld."
Coldstart's eyes lit up. "A die. Yeah, that makes sense. I've been trying to hammer it into shape, but—"
"But you're fighting the metal instead of working with it." She set the piece down and scanned the workbench. "You got any scrap I can use to show you?"
They fell into work like they'd been doing it together for years.
Josie lost herself in the familiar rhythm—the weight of tools in her hands, the heat of the torch, the particular satisfaction of coaxing metal into shapes it didn't want to take.
Coldstart asked questions, good ones, and she found herself explaining techniques she'd learned from old-timers and developed on her own.
"Where'd you learn all this?" he asked, watching her bend a piece of scrap into a perfect curve.
"Foster care. The one decent thing any of those homes gave me was a vocational program.
" She set down the torch. "The instructor was this old guy named Earl.
Fifty years in the trade, hands like leather, never raised his voice.
He taught me that metal doesn't lie. You treat it right, it does what you ask. You fight it, it fights back."
"Sounds like people."
"Metal's easier than people." She smiled despite herself. "Metal doesn't pretend to be something it's not."
"True enough." Coldstart leaned against the bench. "You know, when you're ready to rebuild your forge, I've got connections. Scrap yards, equipment dealers, people who owe me favors. We could set you up with something better than what you lost."
The offer hit her like a punch.
"I—you don't have to do that."
"I know I don't." He shrugged. "But you're one of us now. That's how it works."
One of us.
The words echoed in her chest, settling into spaces she hadn't known were empty.
"I'll think about it."
"Take your time." He nodded toward the door. "Now get out there before Anvil comes looking for you. Man's been checking the garage every ten minutes since you walked in."
Josie felt heat creep into her cheeks. "He has not."
"He absolutely has. Go on. I'll clean up."
She stepped out of the garage and back into the bonfire's glow, her hands still warm from the torch, something lighter in her chest than there had been before.
The crowd had grown while she was inside.
More brothers, a few kids running around, the old ladies clustered in a group that erupted in laughter at something Maren said.
It looked like chaos, but Josie could see the structure underneath—the way people orbited around certain figures, the subtle hierarchy that organized everything without anyone having to enforce it.
"You disappeared."
Anvil materialized at her side like he'd been waiting for the moment she emerged.
"I was helping Coldstart."
"I know. I checked."
"He mentioned that."
Something that might have been embarrassment flickered across his face. "I wasn't—I just wanted to make sure—"
"That I hadn't been kidnapped from the heavily guarded compound surrounded by armed bikers?"
"Something like that."
Josie laughed. The sound surprised her—she couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed without forcing it.
"Come on." Anvil's hand found the small of her back. "There's food. You haven't eaten today."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I pay attention."
He guided her to a spot near the fire, where someone had left two plates loaded with meat and bread and something that might have been potato salad.
Josie sat, and Anvil settled beside her—close enough that his shoulder brushed hers, close enough that she could feel the heat of him even through her borrowed jacket.
They ate in comfortable silence, watching the fire, watching the brothers and their families move through the night like this was the most normal thing in the world.
"Tell me about Minneapolis," Josie said eventually.
Anvil went still beside her. "What do you want to know?"
"You said you were a bouncer. Head of security at nightclubs. What was that like?"
He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was lower than usual.
"Fifteen years of reading crowds. Learning to spot trouble before it started. Figuring out which drunk was going to throw a punch and which one just needed a cab home." He stared into the fire. "I was good at it. Kept people safe. Made sure nothing happened on my watch."
"Until something did."
It wasn't a question. She'd seen enough of his guilt to know there was a story there—something that explained why he volunteered for every watch, why he couldn't stop checking on her, why he'd positioned himself between her and trouble from the first moment they'd met.
"Until something did," he agreed. "But that's not a bonfire story."
"Okay." She didn't push. "What made you come here? To the Savages?"
"I needed somewhere to use what I knew. Somewhere the skills mattered." He glanced at her. "These men—they protect things. Territory. People. Each other. That made sense to me in a way the clubs never did."
"Because you weren't protecting strangers anymore."
"Because I was protecting people who'd do the same for me."
The fire crackled, sending sparks spiraling into the dark sky. Josie watched them rise and disappear, thinking about protection and belonging and the strange new world she'd stumbled into.
"I never had that," she said quietly. "People who'd do the same for me. It was always just me, making sure I didn't need anyone."
"That sounds lonely."
"It sounds safe." She turned to look at him. "When you don't depend on anyone, nobody can let you down."
"That's one way to look at it." His eyes met hers, dark and steady in the firelight. "Another way is that you were alone because nobody had earned the right to stand beside you yet."
Her breath caught.
"And you think you've earned that right?"
"I think I'm working on it."
The words hung between them, heavy with implications neither of them was ready to name. Josie looked away first, back to the fire, her heart pounding harder than it should have been.
The bonfire began to wind down as the night deepened. Brothers drifted off in pairs and groups, old ladies gathering children and leftovers, the particular choreography of a community putting itself to bed.
Anvil stood and offered her his hand.
"Come on. I'll walk you back."
She took it, letting him pull her to her feet. His palm was rough against hers, warm despite the cool night air, and he held on a beat longer than necessary before releasing her.
They walked through the compound in comfortable silence, Diesel trotting ahead of them like he owned the place. The dog had adapted to compound life faster than Josie had—already had favorite spots, favorite people, a whole routine that didn't depend on her at all.
Maybe she could learn something from him.
"Here." Anvil stopped outside her door. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow we start planning the next move against Brogan."
"We?"
"You know the territory better than anyone. Your knowledge matters." He paused. "You matter."
You matter.
Two words. Simple. Direct. The kind of thing people said without thinking all the time.
But Anvil didn't say things without thinking. Every word out of his mouth was deliberate, chosen, meant.
"Goodnight," she managed.
"Goodnight, Josie."
She watched him walk away, disappearing into the compound's shadows, and realized something that scared her more than Brogan ever had.
She'd stopped planning how to leave.
Somewhere in the past four days—between the bonfire and the metalwork and the man who checked on her every ten minutes—she'd stopped mapping escape routes and started wondering what staying might cost.
What it might be worth.
Diesel whined from inside her room, and Josie opened the door to let herself in.
"I know, buddy. I'm in trouble too."