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The cigarette betweenmy lips gave no satisfaction. It was a distraction, a much-needed numbness to the tragedy of my life. I was simply going through the motions. I inhaled, exhaled, dragged more smoke through my lungs, but nothing changed my current circumstances. The nicotine hit my bloodstream, and the rush satisfied my craving but nothing more. All I tasted was ash in my mouth. My life had become a bitter, exhausting void of nothingness that I endured from one day to the next. Flicking the end of the cancer stick, I watched the embers hit the ground and bounce off. The sparks ignited on the asphalt for a brief couple of seconds and then were snuffed out.
Just like the light in my life.
I had nothing left.
“Hey, kid,” a familiar voice greeted, leaning against the wall as Rael lit up his own smoke. “Dark ass sky tonight, huh?”
All I responded with was a grunt.
Rael did that often now. He didn’t ask how I was doing because there wasn’t a fucking point. And I didn’t share because it didn’t fucking matter.
The end result was the same.
Stefanie was gone.
“How long has it been?” he asked, taking a long, deep drag and blowing out the smoke in an exaggerated exhale.
“Four months, nine days, seventeen hours, twenty-three minutes, and five seconds.”
“You’re still counting,” he murmured, scrubbing a hand down his face.
If I wasn’t so broken, maybe I could respond better. “What the fuck you think?”
Rael lifted one shoulder and shrugged. “Can’t say that I blame you. If anything happened to Nylah,” he choked off, clearing his throat, “I’d kill every motherfucker in the state of Nevada.”
“At least you’d be given the freedom to go after her,” I replied with attitude, pissed off at the reminder that I couldn’t take justice into my own hands. “You don’t have to follow orders from your president if shit gets personal. I do. I’m just a prospect.”
Rael shook his head. He’d met Nylah shortly before I lost Stefanie. It was a bitter, angry, resentful pill to swallow that he got to keep his woman and make her his ol’ lady while mine was murdered to send a message to the club.
“Any leads?” he asked quietly, finishing off his cigarette and tossing it to the ground, smashing the cinders with his boot.
“No,” I growled, but that wasn’t exactly true. I was waiting on word from one of my contacts. A secret connection that would blow up the whole damn club and piss Grim off if he knew.
“Listen. You hear something about Stefanie, anything at all, you come to me.”
“But you all think she’s dead, remember?”
“And you don’t,” he rebuffed, staring hard into my eyes. “We found a body. It looked like your girl. But I know a lot about strange shit, son. Sometimes what we see ain’t always the truth. Sometimes we just have to feel with our gut and trust with our hearts.”
That was rich coming from him. I was tempted to sneer at his words but stopped when I saw the genuine, concerned look he didn’t try to hide. “Is that what you did with Nylah?” I asked quietly, remembering the story about how the nurse wanted to kick his ass the first time they met because she only saw the outlaw biker and not the man who saved her sister.
“Yeah. Could have fucked it all up if I let the doubt in. Thought she was too perfect and good for my lifestyle. That I wasn’t worthy of a woman as intelligent and beautiful. She fucking saves lives for a living, kid. I fucking reap them.”
Snorting, I had to admit his logic was sound.
“But then I realized that she balanced the darkness in me. She was the light that helped me become the man I needed to be because when the revenge, and the hate, and the bloodlust are all gone, son, what you are is what’s leftover.”
My chin dropped, and I understood every word.
“She makes me better. She gives me something to live for, and she’s shown me that I’m more than a killer or an outlaw. I’m a man, and my life as a Reaper has a purpose too.”
“What are you saying?” I snapped, lifting my head to argue. “I don’t have Stefanie anymore! She’s gone!”
“You have what she gave you, what she put in your heart and your head. The memories that no one can take away from you.”
“Bullshit,” I blurted, shaking with sudden adrenaline. I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. Not tonight.
“I get your rage. I really do. Fuck. You know my life has been built upon the vengeance I had to take for my sister’s murder. If anyone is in your corner, you can fuckin’ believe it’s me.”
