“I lied,” I said. “It's a good one, but I just thought you might have more to say away from pryin' eyes.”
“Oh,” Hunter said. “Well, I don't.”
“Kid, I'm your Sergeant-at-Arms. Someone is messin' with us, I gotta know, so I can take care of them. That's my job, not yours. You don't have to go through shit alone. That's the whole point of being a Crusader, got it?”
He gave me a pained look. Real pained. My heart went out to him, but my curiosity was piqued at the same time.
“I was on patrol, out in the paper district,” he said. And that was the first sign of something bad. Paper district, a neighborhood populated mostly by abandoned warehouses and the homeless addicts who lived in them, was no place for a prospect. There were rules down there that even we had to abide by. A delicate balance to uphold. Those folks were crazy as King Lear, pure and simple. We enforced our right to deal on certain corners, and left others alone. But it took some training to know exactly where those boundaries lay, and I knew Hunter had none of that training.
“What the hell were you doin' down there? Who sent you? Who were you ridin' with?”
“I was solo,” he said. And there was sign number two. No one went into the paper district solo. Not even me.
“Who the fuck told you to do somethin' as foolish as that?”
He shrank a bit, and I realized how mad I sounded. But I wasn't mad at him, and tried to show it by ordering us another round.
“Dutch,” he finally said, watching the drink get poured and grabbing it as soon as he could. “Dutch sent me.”
Well, now that was interesting. What the hell was Dutch doin' sending a bloody prospect on a patrol, alone, in the paper district? Dutch, who was so damn concerned about keepin' the prospects we had. Hunter was lucky to have come home at all.
“Did he say why?”
Hunter flinched again and took a hearty gulp of his whiskey, barely even showing the way it must have burned on the way down. Like I said, he was a good kid, not one to complain or show any discomfort.
“Er, not really,” Hunter said, lying.
“You sure?”
“Sure,” he grunted, finishing the last swallow of his whiskey. Good. I wanted him drunk enough to spill. He shot me a side-eyed glance and leaned in. “I think he wants my rocker.”
All our prospects wore the Crusaders patch, but they didn't get the club's name or their name until they were patched in. All they had was the lower rocker, sayin' Prospect. If a prospect fucked up bad enough to get their rocker taken away, they were advised to leave town altogether.
I couldn't imagine Hunter had done a damn thing worthy of havin' his rocker revoked.
“Why do you think that?”
Hunter ordered the next round himself, and waited until the glass was safely in his palm before he answered.
“He told me so,” he said.
“And did he say why?” I pressed. Hunter looked me sideways again, then manned up enough to look me in the eye.
“I don't think I'm supposed to be tellin' you things Dutch tells me in private,” he said. Well, I had to respect the kid for that. In any other situation, that would have gotten him a pat on the back. But just then, I wished he was just a little less loyal.
“You can tell me,” I said.
“He just...he doesn't think I'm loyal enough,” Hunter grunted. “That's all, alright? That's why he sent me to the paper district, to prove I'm loyal. Alright? Now, I don't want to talk about it anymore. Thanks for the drinks but...”
“Alright, kid, alright,” I said, clapping him between the shoulders. “I understand. And for what it's worth, I ain't got no question about your loyalty, and never did. If Dutch tries to take your rocker, you come to me, and I'll see if I can't sort him out. You're one of the good ones, got it? I look forward to callin' you brother someday.”
That, at least, got a smile out of him, which I was glad to see. And I was doubly glad to see Tiff sway into the bar, lookin' half drunk already at four in the afternoon. Well, so was my little buddy. I waved her over and tried not to feel too bad about the smile that spread across her face.
“Baaaaby,” she said, tryin' to cuddle up to me, but I kept myself stiff as a board. “You finally done with that Carter girl? You ready to come back where you belong?”
“Don't hold your breath waitin' for that, Tiff,” I said. “But I wanted you to meet a friend of mine. Hunter, this is Tiff...”
“Oh! Poor baby! What happened to you?” Tiff immediately went into motherin' mode, as women are wont to do, and plopped herself down on Hunter's lap, pouting as she took his cheeks in her hands and clucked over his wounds. I left them there, getting acquainted, and went to find Blade. I didn't know what I'd learned from Hunter, but I was sure it was something. Hopefully, with our brains working together, we could figure it out.
Bex
Peach's was dead, and I was dog tired. It was a Tuesday night, a month after coming to Cutter. The ice around Cross' heart hadn't shown any signs of thawing. Dutch was getting a wildness in his eyes when I talked to him. Sylvia would stand behind him while I sat there, and whisper in his ear while looking at me. By then, I was telling him all sorts of shit that wasn't true.
“Cross told me that Boon wasn't cut out for the Crusaders, and he thought he should have his patch removed.”
“Cross told me that Soldier was date-raping some girls from the community college.”
“Cross told me that Blade let Fleet take some money from the club funds, on the sly, for his old lady's cataract surgery.”
“Cross told me that Mikey's bike was too hot to ride around town, and that he'd be arrested before the end of the month.”
“Cross told me all the new prospects weren't worth piss in a bucket.”
Nothing Dutch cared about. Nothing Dutch wanted to hear. But enough to make it seem like I was doing my best. At least
, that's how it was for a while. But Dutch's patience was thin as ice in March, and I was about to fall straight through. He'd already stopped getting me escorts to and from work, saying the club couldn't afford the expense. Maybe that should have been my first sign. I got a third-hand cage from Mack and drove it around town.
“You look haggard,” Peach said, pushing me towards the door. “Ain't you just had three days off? Get out of here and get some sleep. I need you on point if it picks up tomorrow.”
“Alright, alright,” I said, untying my apron before Peach could complain any more. I threw it into her waiting hands. “I'm going, I'm going.”
“And don't you come back here lookin' so damn sad,” Peach shouted, drawing approximately no attention from the three men in the club. “You got a big, strappin' young lad to bone the sad right outta ya. Use him. Doesn't last forever!”
If only she knew. But if Peach knew, Dutch would know, and our cover would be blown. As I crossed the desolate parking lot, the night's stars struggling to shine through a layer of clouds and no moon in sight, I cracked my back. Another night sleeping on Cross' moldy old couch had me aching all over. My head and my heart could endure his punishment forever, but my body was starting to whine.
I didn't see him approach until it was too late to make sense of who he was or what he was doing. I was looking down, into my bag, one of those devil-designed black holes that drag your keys down to the bottom the minute you put them in. I heard the footsteps. And then I felt the blow.
It didn't hurt at first. It was just surprising. One minute I was walking, the next minute I was sliding across black tar with my bag upturned and my keys shining in the dark. My hair fell over my eyes and I brushed it away. First, I felt the gravel that dug into my palms from catching my fall; then I felt the deep blossom beside my eye, the pain jabbing straight across my skull like an arrow.