Page 30 of Bram

“He’s out,” I said. “And he’s already moving.”

Sniper exhaled. “Copy.”

I ended the call, then dialed Trace. Same deal.

He picked up with a grunt, like he’d been napping. “You want something, or you just miss my voice?”

“Call the Santa Fe crew. Tell them to lock it down. No one in or out unless it’s blood.”

He was quiet, then said, “You got it.”

I pocketed the phone, kicked the bike to life, and let the engine drown out the rest of the world.

The sun was still up, but the day felt over. I rode back to Barstow, the wind cutting all the way to the stitches in my side.

I knew what came next.

I’d always known.

***

The cemetery at the edge of Barstow was the only place in town that stayed the same year after year. No strip malls, no for-sale signs, just the plain concrete wall and the dead grass inside. The gate was aluminum, painted to look like something it wasn’t, with a latch that screeched when you opened it. I parked the bike on the dirt shoulder and walked in on foot. Gravel crunched under my boots, sharp and loud, even with the wind blowing the way it was.

It wasn’t a big plot—forty, fifty graves, most of them old enough that the stones had gone smooth. The new ones stood out, granite that still had a shine. Millie’s was back left, just past the row of cottonwoods the city planted in a fit of optimism. The trees hadn’t made it, but the stumps did a good job of marking the boundary. Her stone was simple: name, two dates, a line underneath that I picked out of spite because she would have hated anything flowery.

I didn’t crouch or kneel. I never did. I stood the way I always did, back straight, hands at my sides, the cut on my vest catching what was left of the sun. The wound in my side had started leaking again, not enough to show through the shirt, but enough that I could feel every heartbeat behind the stitches.

I looked at her name, traced the years with my eyes, then let my gaze drift to the line below: NOTHING GOOD BURNS FOREVER. It was a joke, a kind of joke, the way we used to talk about the world before we thought it would end with one of us in the ground. Millie liked to say that everything ended, but if you were careful you could drag out the good parts. I thought about her every day, but here, it was different.

I talked, voice just above a whisper, enough that the words landed on the stone and not much further. “It’s almost done, Mill. He’s out.” I didn’t say his name. “He’s out, and I’m still here. You believe that?”

There was no answer, not even from the wind.

“I let it go too long,” I said. “I should have burned it down when I had the chance. You knew that. You always knew.”

The light was going fast now, oranges rolling over the hills, turning the shadows long and blue. I watched the edge of it crawl up her stone, the way the darkness settled in around the letters, making them sharper.

“I fucked up,” I said, letting it hang there, because she’d always wanted honesty and this was the only place I could manage it. “I didn’t expect to meet anyone. Didn’t expect her.” I thought about the way Julie looked at me—never with pity, never with anything but raw expectation, like she thought I could actually fix what was broken. “I’m sorry, Millie. I didn’t think I’d feel anything again, not after you. But I do.”

I closed my eyes for a second, just enough to hear my own breath over the wind. It rattled, a little. Age, or the hole in my side, or both.

“I’m going to finish this,” I said, lower now. “I’m going to put him down for good, and then I’ll… I don’t know.” I smiled or tried to. “Guess we’ll see.”

The first stars were out, barely visible through the haze, and the town was starting to glow on the horizon. I wanted to stand there until the cold got to my bones, but I’d never been good at sitting still.

I took one last look at the stone. The words didn’t change. Nothing ever did. I turned, walked back to the gate, and let it clang behind me. The bike was right where I left it. I wiped my hands on my jeans, started the engine, and listened to the idle settle.

Barstow was waiting. The war was waiting. I twisted the throttle and let the machine do what it was built to do: go fast, and never look back.

I aimed for the highway, and the night swallowed everything behind me.

thirteen

Julie

We were in the dark for a long time. They put us in a concrete box, four steps by six, nothing but a shelf of cinder blocks for a bench. Emma got the corner. I sat with my back to the wall and tried to keep my eyes open. Overhead, a slit window let in a strip of sun that tracked along the floor, wide as a blade, and then nothing. The only clock we had was the rounds the bikers made outside our door.

Karma was coming back to bite me in the ass. I could have put this club down, and I didn’t do it because I was afraid for my life, for Mom and Emma. But still, here we were, except Mom was in another room.