Page 14 of Bram

I picked my keys up from the counter. “I’m leaving now,” I said, and for some reason my voice felt like it didn’t belong to me.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t even look up, just watched the glass spin a slow circle on the table.

I walked out, past the same women at the bar. They didn’t bother hiding their curiosity, or their contempt. The compound yard was full of men in varying degrees of busy: welding, fixing bikes, stacking crates in the half-light. Every one of them looked up when I stepped outside, as if they’d been keeping a tally.

“Ms. Sparta,” Kodiak called from behind me. “Thanks for bringing Bram back to the club.”

“Sure,” I said indifferently.

“Look, Bram can be an asshole sometimes. But he’s a good man.”

“He probably saved my life, so I know he’s a good man. I also know he’s an asshole.”

“Losing Millie sent him to a dark place he could never quite get out of.”

“I’m sorry for his loss.” I turned to leave, but he put his hand on my arm. Tattoos ran up both his bare arms. His dark beard flapped in the breeze. All bikers seemed to be rough men, broken, suffering from some sort of tragedy from younger years.

“The thing is, I saw the way he just looked at you.”

He was right. I saw it in Bram’s eyes.

“I guess what I’m trying to say his don’t write the asshole off. He likes you. Really likes you.”

“I get it,” I said, doing my best to understand.

“He has trouble loving because he lost the one thing he loved the most.” He nodded. “Anyway, thanks again.” He went back inside, and I walked away.

The prospect from earlier was waiting for me by the gate, where my car had been moved to. “Thanks for bringing him in,” he said.

He must’ve been new, because he stood there expecting me to say something comforting. Instead, I walked to my car.

The Mercedes reeked of blood and sweat. I climbed in, shut the door, and sat with both hands on the wheel, engine off. I could see the compound in the rearview, the windows yellow and low-lit, the men like shadows moving from building to building.

I didn’t start the car. Not right away.

I thought about the night and tried to play it back in order. The Scorpions at the bar. The first one’s hand on my arm. The way the tall one smiled when he called me “sweetheart.” The back door. The way Bram’s hand looked when it closed around the knife. The sound of a skull hitting metal. The blood, black and slick on his shirt. His voice, telling me it was fine, don’t call an ambulance, don’t panic. The way he’d looked at me—really looked—while Doc worked the needle. Not like a man in pain, but like a man who’d made up his mind about something and was just waiting for the world to catch up.

I ran it all back, then forward again, like shuffling a deck until the cards made sense.

I looked at my sleeve, the stiff patch where the blood had dried, dark brown at the edge, still tacky in the middle.

Eventually, I turned the key, waited for the engine to settle, and rolled down the window for air. The night was cold and clean. The wind cut through the inside of the car, lifting the smell of blood off the seats.

I waited until my hands stopped shaking, then put the car in drive and rolled out through the gate.

I didn’t look back.

Bram

Two prospects half-carried me down the hall, one under each arm, doing their best not to show how heavy I was. I could have walked, but they needed the practice, and my legs were jelly anyway. The pain was bright and clear, and for once I didn’t try to outlast it.

The back corridor was narrow, just enough room to walk two abreast. Everything echoed: footsteps, voices from the kitchen, the squeak of the battered cart someone used to wheel supplies down to the bar. The door to my bunk room was painted shut at the bottom; one of the kids shouldered it open, steady and careful. Inside was exactly as I’d left it: bed against the wall, metal locker, lamp on a crate, window overlooking the yard and the desert beyond. There was a water stain above the bed that looked like a map of Texas, and sometimes at night I’d trace the highways with my eyes until I could sleep.

“Here we go, boss,” a prospect said.

They got me to the bed. I sat, made a show of flexing my shoulders, then told them to fuck off. They lingered in the doorway, unsure, until I nodded and they vanished. The room was empty again. Just me and the lamp and the pounding of my own pulse.

I didn’t bother undressing. I lay back, arm across my chest, feeling the stitch pull tight with every breath. The blanket was rough, stank of old sweat, and the ceiling was close and yellowed, even with the lamp off.