A few seconds pass, his face gets even darker.
There’s no one around, but I can’t help but reach for my gun. The same feeling I got before every mission, every patrol, the feeling that shit is just one moment away from going very, very wrong settles over me.
Breathing becomes hard, I feel like I’m suffocating, and all I can think about is killing the first enemy I come across so I can feel like the danger’s eased just a little, just enough for me to breathe again. It’s a fucked-up feeling I’ve carried with me ever since my second tour in Afghanistan, and it’s one that comes back every time that pre-combat surge of adrenaline hits my body.
Certain sounds, certain actions, sometimes even crowds trigger this response in me.
And there’s nothing I can do to fight it; it’s like trying to hold back the ocean.
“I’ll be right there, Trish,” Stone says, hanging up. He looks from me, to Mack, to Rusty, anger and determination creasing his face. “Put that fire out, now. Lock this warehouse up. We have to get back to the clubhouse. Now.”
The four of us handle shit and get the fire under control and the warehouse locked up.
I haul Goldie onto the back of my bike and the whole ride back to the clubhouse I feel like I’m back on deployment; in flashes, the desertscape of California gives way to the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, my blood pounds with the need for combat, for bloodshed, and the stomach-turning fear that comes along with those needs — the realization that I’m entering a kill-or-be-killed scenario and just how fucked up that scenario is.
We pull into the clubhouse parking lot around the same time the rest of the club is arriving. Stitch is barely off his damn bike before I’m waving him over.
His usual glower deepens as soon as he catches sight of Goldie.
“What the fuck did you do to the prospect?” He says. “Don’t you know how fragile these little bitches are?”
“Someone planted a proximity-detonated car bomb outside the warehouse. Goldie was the unlucky son of a bitch who got too close.”
“A fucking bomb? Fucking Saint Mary with a dildo up her ass, what the fuck is this world coming to?”
“Oh, it gets better — they were doing this to grab our attention. That bomb was set to go off just far enough away that it wouldn’t be lethal.”
“My ass. Maybe that’s true, but if those sons of bitches knew how dumb Goldie was to begin with, they wouldn’t be giving him more fucking brain damage. Kid will be eating through a straw soon enough.”
“Hey, I’m right fucking here, Stitch,” Goldie says.
“Don’t care where you are, kid. You ain’t got brain cells to spare and that’s the truth.”
I heft Goldie off my bike and Stitch gives me a hand with him, slipping his arm around his shoulders.
“So, do you have any fucking clue what’s going on?” Stitch says. “How many more of you am I going to be stitching up before this is through?”
“No clue. Feds came by the clubhouse earlier, we went to go warn Stone about it, that’s when the bomb went off. Tricia called Stone, said that some other men — guys who definitely weren’t feds — were in the clubhouse harassing her and Adella,” I grit my teeth at that last part. Thinking of some bastard threatening that young woman puts me even more on edge than the bomb.
“Sounds like I better stock up on surgical thread and morphine,” Stitch mutters as we open the doors to the clubhouse and we guide the still-woozy Goldie inside.
I catch one look at Stone’s face — he’s on the phone with whoever set off this whole clusterfuck of a situation — and he looks as lethally pissed as I’ve ever seen him.
“I don’t think you need that, Stitch. I think you better make sure you’ve got a shovel, cause Stone looks ready to bury whoever the fuck it is that threatened us.”
“They went after Trish and Addie, what do you expect?”
I grunt. There’s nothing Stone wouldn’t do for his wife and daughter.
“Hey, Stitch, I didn’t see you there,” Goldie says, shaking his head and staring with glossy eyes as we guide him toward the nearest chair. “You think you could get me a beer? I’m fucking thirsty, man.”
“Sorry, prospect. And I’ve been here the whole time. You’re going to be having memory issues for a while,” Stitch says. “And no drinking for the next few days. Alcohol worsens the effects of any traumatic brain injury and, kid, you ain’t got much to begin with, so you need to fight like hell to keep what you got.”
“That sucks, man,” Goldie says. “First, I get blown up, and now I can’t even drink? What about light beer? That shit’s practically water.”
“It’s your brain. If you want to be a moron and fuck it up, that’s on you,” Stitch says, his words sharp. Looking at him, I can tell he’s already counting the cost in blood that the club will have to pay to get rid of whoever set that bomb.
Then, as my eyes further scan the clubhouse, they land on Adella. She’s behind the bar, standing next to her mother, with tears in the corner of her eyes.
Before I know it, I’m leaving Goldie in a booth and storming across the floor to her.
“Are you OK?” I say, the words coming out harsher than I intend and making her jump
She calms after a second and smiles at me.
“I am. It was just scary. These two guys had guns, my mom had her shotgun out, and it just felt like, if I said or did the wrong thing, we were all going to die.”
I reach across the bar, take her hand in mine.
