Page 21 of Chains and Vows

She's so fuckin' small, her face only hits me mid-chest. Her arms around my waist, not my shoulders.

But it feels good, and it means somethin', so I hug her back. And we stay like that, sayin' nothing, for a good long minute.

"So," a voice cuts the moment in half. "You showed."

June and I break apart as I turn and find Laz standin' in the farmhouse doorway. She pats me on the chest and says, "You take care, Legion. We'll see each other again."

And that's it.

I'm dismissed. She walks back over to the counter, hops back up and continues what she was doin' before I got here.

Laz says, "Let's talk outside."

I don't say nothin', just follow him out. Givin’ June one last look over my shoulder as I leave.

Laz doesn't stop on the porch or take me over to a tree to stand under it to get out of the unusually strong October sun.

Nah. He heads down the driveway.

He heads towards my bike.

When I catch up to him I suddenly wonder what kind of shape we make, side by side like this.

Two men with the same father.

Same face.

Same hair, same eyes, same jeans, same boots, same everything.

Legion and Lazarus.

"You know what's funny?" Laz says, squinting against the sun. "Our mothers never met. Far as I know, they never even knew about each other. But they both named us out of the same book. Like he got inside their heads so deep, they couldn't reach for anything else."

He looks at me sideways. That same face. My face.

"Legion, the man full of demons. Lazarus, the man who wouldn't stay dead. And Matthias. Our father." He makes some air quotes for this word. "The apostle chosen to replace a traitor." He shakes his head. "Two women. Two babies. One dead man. And every single name a prophecy none of us asked for."

"Hmm,” I say. It's all I got.

"That's it?" Laz says, stopping beside my bike. "You don't got nothin' to say about that?"

"I didn't know him."

"Nah," Laz says. "Me neither. But he was Sons of Dust through and through. So there's pictures of him all over the clubhouse."

"Huh." I think about this for a moment. What kind of story those walls of pictures might tell. Matthias as a prospect. Matthias getting patched in. Gettin' drunk. Rallies. Runs.

"You should come to our club as a guest," Laz says. "Check it all out. See what you're missin'."

"Am I missin' somethin'?" I ask.

"You might be. You might not. How would you know?"

"Is your mother still alive?"

"She is. I take it yours isn't?"

I shake my head. "Nah. They're both dead."