Saving Axe

  fucking house. He had no idea we were coming for him, the stupid lazy bastard. They drove him out of the city, and we met them in the desert sometime after midnight. Out in the middle of nowhere, where his screams wouldn't be heard.

  Fats pleaded, protested. Blamed everything on Mad Dog and Mud. "I didn't touch the girl. It was Tink who wanted her," he screamed.

  He was a stupid fuck.

  He didn't realize that we had already killed Tink, that his response would only fuel Crunch's fury. And mine.

  Crunch wrapped chains around Fats, leaving his gag off so we could hear him scream. I wanted him to plead. To beg our forgiveness.

  He did, the entire time.

  I talked to him, explained how we would drag him behind the car, that the last thing he would see in life would be our faces. I wanted him to know.

  Crunch took the wheel of the SUV and slowly picked up speed. We could hear Fats screaming in agony as he was dragged through the dirt, the sand grinding against his exposed flesh. Then Crunch stopped the vehicle, walked back to Fats, and stood over him while he pleaded, whined like a distraught child. Crunch bent down toward Fats, said something in his ear. Whatever it was, it had an immediate effect on Fats, who began wailing.

  Wordlessly, Crunch returned to the wheel of the vehicle, and this time, floored the gas pedal. The dust billowed up behind us, a miniature dust storm. Fats' screams faded away quickly into the blackness of the night.

  Blaze stood there silently, watching. When it was over, not much of Fats remained.

  "Mud is mine," I said. He killed my father. Tied him to a chair and beat him to a pulp.

  In Benicio's warehouse, his kill room, we tied Mud to a chair, restrained him the same way he'd restrained my father before he beat him to death.

  It was more poetic that way, I figured.

  There was a special place in hell for people like Mud. But on this earth, I had my own kind of hell prepared for the man who had killed my father.

  When he saw the blade, his eyes got big. Like the others, he pleaded for his life. Said he had a girlfriend. "Please," he whined. "Mad Dog. It was all Mad Dog's doing."

  Standing behind him, I brought the blade close to his face, ran it along his jawline. Reaching down to the side of his neck, I felt his pulse.

  "Your pulse is through the roof," I said, my voice calm, friendly. "It's not healthy, your pulse racing like that."

  Mud begged. "Please, man, you don't have to do this."

  From the side of the room, Crunch stood with his arms crossed over his chest, watching me.

  I pricked the skin on Mud's face with the tip of the blade, watching blood bead up on his face, drip slowly down his cheek.

  Mud whimpered.

  I talked to him, my tone measured. "You know," I said. "People associate scalping with the Native Americans, but it's found throughout ancient societies, back to the Greeks and Romans."

  I heard Mud whine.

  "Do you know what scalping involves, Mud?" I asked, the blade still against his cheek.

  He didn't respond intelligibly, instead making a strangled sound.

  "Speak up, Mud," I said. "It's impolite not to answer when you're asked a question."

  "Ye -yes," he choked out, tears streaming down his face. The stench of piss filled the air.

  "Good," I said. "The thing about scalping is that it doesn't necessarily kill you."

  "Oh, God," he pleaded.

  I leaned over and whispered in his ear. "God can't save you now." Then I stood up, looked toward Crunch. He nodded, and I began.

  I talked to him throughout the process, calmly, telling him stories of the man who raised me. He didn't respond intelligibly after the first minute or so, alternating between passing out and screaming in agony when I revived him.

  When I finally passed my blade across his throat, I expected to feel some satisfaction.

  But there was nothing.

  "Axe," June said, sitting up in bed, her hand over her mouth. "My God. Cade."

  I crossed to the other side of the room in Benicio's place, bathed in the soft light of the small lamp she'd turned on. "I need to shower."

  Her face was pale. I wasn't sure what I looked like, but I knew it wasn't good.

  Not after all that had happened.

  "Yes," she said. "I fell asleep. What time is it?"

  "Almost morning. Go back to sleep."

  She climbed out of bed, shaking her head. "Let me help you."

  I stood, motionless, staring ahead while she undressed me, slowly pulling off my clothes. Then she turned on the shower. "I'll get rid of these clothes."

  When I came out of the shower, she was in bed, the bedspread tucked up around her neck, Bailey snuggled up beside her. I slipped under the covers, slid into the bed with her and Bailey.

  "How did it feel?" she asked. "Killing them."

  "Like nothing," I whispered.

  She turned around, facing me, her lips close to mine. "What do you mean?"

  "I feel nothing anymore," I said. It was the truth. I felt like I was dead inside. I didn't feel rage, or hate. I just felt blank.

  She was silent.

  "If you knew what I did, you'd think I was a monster," I said.

  "We're all monsters."

  "Not all of us," I said. "Not you."

  "I wanted you to do this, Cade," she said. "It makes me the same as you."

  "Blaze wants us to bring Mad Dog to the club, let the club decide his fate."

  "What do you want to do?"

  What did I want to do?

  I exhaled heavily. "I want to be done with it all."

  "Will we be running from this forever?"

  She said we. She was willing to run with me.

  "Benicio's men will clean up the mess, make sure none of it blows back on us. They're good."

  "So you can leave," she whispered.

  "Blaze would run the club," he said. "We could walk away."

  "Do you want to walk away?"

  Six months ago, I'd have said never. No matter what, I would be loyal to the club.

  Of course, six months ago, I'd had my head buried in a bottle so deep I couldn't see out. Six months ago, I didn't give a shit what happened to me. Back then, I might have hated Mad Dog, but I wasn't about to leave the club, the people who had taken me in when I was displaced from my military family.

  Now? That so-called family had betrayed me, in the most unimaginable way. I didn't know who was with Mad Dog, and I didn't care. They were all traitors.

  Blaze tried to convince me otherwise, tried to reason with me, tell me he didn't believe that the treachery spread throughout the club. I didn't want to hear it. But in the end, Crunch sided with him, agreed that Mad Dog should be brought to the club.

  I no longer considered the club my family. The only reason I agreed to bring Mad Dog in front of the club tomorrow is because I wanted to see the looks on their faces when I cut his throat.

  The next day was church. June kissed me on the forehead, smoothed her hands across the front of the leather cut I wore, not because I considered myself part of the Inferno MC any longer, but because today when I meted out justice on Mad Dog, I would do it as the Sergeant-at-Arms for the club.

  I still held the title, and today I would act in the truest sense as the club's enforcer.

  Regardless of the club vote.

  I wondered if June understood that I might get killed in the process.

  "Be careful," she said.

  "You have nothing to worry about," I lied.

  "You're not a very good liar." She kissed me. "But I love you anyway."

  Mad Dog was in Benicio's vehicle outside, bound and gagged, beaten and bloody from the night before. Blaze thought it was prudent to bring the facts to the club before bringing Mad Dog inside. I didn't give a shit what the club decided, as long as I killed Mad Dog right there, in front of all of them. It was suicidal. But then, wasn't all of this? The entire thing was insanity, bringing Mad Dog to church. Doing this in the
clubhouse. It was madness.

  The entire club was there, expecting a regular church meeting.

  This was about to be the most irregular church meeting in the history of them.

  There we were, Crunch and I, back from the dead.

  You could have heard a pin drop when we walked through the door. Before voices erupted everywhere.

  Blaze stood in the front of the room. "I know - " he said, holding a hand up, waiting for the room to return to silence again. "I know that this is not what you expected, to see Crunch and Axe here today."

  "No shit," someone said.

  "What the fuck is going on?"

  The murmurs rippled through the group again, and Blaze held his hand up, his face weary. "We need to explain some things, and the club needs to make a decision today, about where we go from here, about who we are. What kind of a club we are going to be. The decisions we make today are about loyalty. Brotherhood. Family."

  Then he began his explanation, let Crunch present his evidence that Mad Dog was stealing from Benicio, stealing from the club. He got one joking comment almost immediately when he started to talk numbers and the books, and shut it down.

  "You think it's no big deal, this shit?" he asked. "That it's a fucking joke or something? My wife died over this shit. Mad Dog had my wife killed over this shit."

  After that, no one in the room moved a muscle.

  We took the club through everything.

  It was the longest club meeting I'd been present at.

  And when we were finally finished, and Mad Dog's fate came up for vote, I was filled with this sense of inevitability. Finality.

  The vote was unanimous.

  Mad Dog would die.

  When Benicio's men brought him inside, bound, and stood him before the club, the air seemed charged with electricity. I stood, facing him, ripped off the tape from his mouth. "They all know what you've done. Who you are."

  Mad Dog looked at me, then spit on the floor.

  I smiled. I would have no remorse when I did what I was going to do.

  "Do you have any last words?" I asked.

  "See you in hell," he said.

  I unsheathed my knife. The blade I'd saved for Mad Dog. Then I stepped in front of him. "I'll see you there," I agreed. "But not today."

  I stabbed him, right above the stomach, and pulled out the knife, slick with blood. I handed it to Crunch, like it was a goddamned ceremony.

  Passing the torch.

  Crunch did the same.

  Then Blaze stabbed him.

  And then one by one, the brothers followed suit, even after Mad Dog was on the floor, each of them plunging the knife into the man who had betrayed the club, who had betrayed us. It wasn't something I expected or planned, and I just stood there, not even looking at Mad Dog, but watching them, this parade of men willing to be a part of this, not just stand by and watch while we killed him.

  And in that moment, I didn't feel blank.

  I felt faith.

  In the most warped of possible ways, I felt hope.

  June

  "Are you ready?" I asked, smoothing my skirt. The thought of standing there, at April's grave, made me want to cry.

  "Yeah." Cade pulled on his leather cut.

  "Poor MacKenzie," I said.

  "You can sympathize with her," Cade said.

  "Of course," I said. "Losing your parents isn't easy. But at her age? I can't even imagine it. I was older. At least I could understand what was happening, you know? Talk about it. She can't even understand it."

  "Do you think she'll end up being okay?" he asked

  "Eventually," I said. "It'll be a long road. Do you know what Crunch is going to do?"

  "He'll hold up. I think he's going to go back to Puerto Rico with MacKenzie and grandma, at least for a while. Says he needs a break from the club. I don't know if he'll come back."

  "MacKenzie will be okay though," I said. "She will." I don't know if I was trying to convince him or myself.

  I was amazed by how many people had turned out, regular people and bikers, even from some other clubs who'd heard what had happened. April was a beloved member of the club family.

  During the service, I gripped Cade's hand, my fingers digging into his palm to keep composed. Crunch stood still, holding MacKenzie, who buried her face in his neck, overwhelmed by all of the people. It wasn't until Crunch watched MacKenzie toss a rose onto her mother's coffin after it was lowered into the ground that he broke down, sobbing.

  At that point, there wasn't a dry eye there, not among all those bikers.

  Axe

  “You sure you don’t want to stay, man?” Blaze asked. I looked over at June, where she stood talking to Dani after the service. June tucked her hair behind her ear, bit her lip. The circles under her eyes revealed the toll that all of this had taken on her.

  Hell, I knew the toll all of this shit had taken on me.

  I didn’t want to stay. Yeah, Blaze and I had once been close. Of all the Inferno MC members, I trusted him more than anyone. Crunch and I hadn’t been tight when we fled to Colorado, but now after all this, I considered him a friend.

  Our friendship had been forged in blood.

  But with all of that, I couldn’t stay.

  It would destroy me, and I knew it.

  Blaze knew it.

  It didn’t matter what happened in the club. Benicio might be a good man, but it didn’t matter if we worked for him. Hell, even if we went legit, it wouldn't matter.

  I couldn’t go back to it.

  Killing my father’s and April’s murderers was righteous act. But if I stayed, I would have to do it again. It was inevitable.