I rolled my eyes at that last one, which came from Pyro, who was my least favorite observer. Most of the other Crows ribbed us a little, gave well-meaning advice, or occasionally offered to act as an opponent when an object lesson was necessary. Sometimes they even watched in silence, actually learning something new from my lessons with Lennon. Not Pyro; he only came down to catcall, heckle, and be an all-around douche nozzle while Lennon and I did our best to ignore him. Today, Lennon’s dad, Sticks, was checking in on her progress, and I didn’t want Pyro undermining her confidence.
I called a time-out, giving Lennon and me a chance to get water. We took off our padded gloves and mouth guards, making our way over to the mats where our water bottles sat. I cracked my neck and reached both arms up, stretching, before I looked over my shoulder and tartly replied, “Why would Lennon take advice from the guy I put on his ass? If she needs tips on how to get the shit kicked out of her, she’ll know who to go to. For now, why don’t you leave the teachable moments to the big girls, ’kay?” I winked and turned back around to Lennon, who chuckled along with most of the other Crows in the gym. Pyro kicked the door open before charging out, muttering under his breath. That guy was a complete and total dick, and I was kind of hoping he’d try something stupid with me so I’d have an official excuse to beat his ass again. I blew out a breath. A girl can dream.
Sticks finished his rep on the free weights and walked over to where his daughter and I stretched on the mats. We were discussing kickboxing and how I felt judo or jujitsu lessons would benefit her, as they teach smaller fighters how to use their opponent's size and strength against them. Lennon and I could lift weights and work out twenty-four seven, but because of our size and body types, we’d never have the reach or physicality of most men. She’d have to learn how to be focused and vicious, turning her opponent's strength against them if she wanted to win a fight in close quarters. I was still working on getting the okay from Duke to teach Lennon to shoot, so we focused on close-quarters fighting for now.
“You’ve come a long way, baby girl. I’m proud of ya.” Sticks’s smile reached his eyes, warm and full of love and pride for his daughter.
“Well, Pops, I told you when I was six I was going to become the Pink Ranger when I grew up. Look at me now. Rita Repulsa ain’t got nothin’ on me.” Lennon giggled and struck a dramatic fighting pose. Father and daughter kept up their banter as I put away our sparring gear. I had no experience of how real dads were supposed to treat their daughters; the movies, TV shows, and books I’d read had showcased a plethora of examples of how good or bad the relationships could be. But in my mind, Lennon and Sticks were goals. Sticks loved his daughter, that much was evident for anyone with eyes to see, and Lennon adored him. I wasn’t jealous of what she had, but I liked witnessing their relationship. I was like a hobo warming her hands around the flaming trash can of their love. I was warmed by proximity.
We left the gym, followed by Prospect and Bard, who had finished their workouts and were getting ready to go to work doing whatever it was they did for the club. It wasn’t lost on me that I hadn't been assigned my daily babysitters since my impromptu session with Priest in the confessional and the resulting display of club justice. I no longer had shadows creeping along after me all day, but I could tell I still had eyes on me. The Crows might have accepted me for now and relaxed a bit, but I was still under observation. It didn’t really bother me; in fact, it was reassuring to know that Los Cuervos took security risks seriously, even if I wasn’t an enemy of the club. My presence here did put them at risk.
After running up to my room to shower and dress for the day, I tromped back down the stairs in a pair of cutoffs, a deep purple halter top, a pair of suspenders—I’m upping my accessory game—and my trusty black boots. My hair had been dried and put up into high pigtails, and my butterfly knife was tucked into my boots.
“Oh good, you’re down,” Prospect called to me from behind the bar. “Duke needs to see you outside.” I waved my thanks to him and skipped toward the front door of the clubhouse. Some of the old-timers, as Lennon called them, were on the porch talking about some big upcoming run when I walked out into the heat of the day. Cricket saw me coming and peeled away from where he was talking to Thor in the driveway to sling his arm around me.
“And how are we doing today, my lovely?” He looked down at me with a fond glow in his eyes, and I was struck with a wave of affection for my conscience. Ever since the night he overheard my trauma dump to Bones and Duke, he’d done me the immense solid of not looking at me like a broken girl. The day after, before Priest’s punishment, he had pulled me aside and placed his hands on my shoulders. Cricket’s gray eyes were uncharacteristically somber as they stared into mine. Seeing what he needed to see, I suppose, he’d crushed me to his chest in a hug, and that had been that. I knew my conscience was there should I need him, and I appreciated the silent support. There was a time for talking about issues or fighting through them, but silent acceptance shouldn’t ever be taken for granted. It was a breath of fresh air for me after the turmoil of confronting my phantoms with Bones and Duke as witnesses.
I squinted up at Cricket from my position under his arm and grinned. “I got to tell Pyro to go fuck himself earlier, so I can’t complain.” He snickered as I glanced around the sparse yard. Bear, whom I’d hardly seen around the clubhouse, was there smoking a cigarette and talking with Tank. Thor watched Cricket and me from the driveway. Lennon emerged from the clubhouse in shorts and a Rusty’s Garage tank top and gave her dad a side-hug before vaulting off the porch and joining Cricket and me.
He slung his free arm over her petite shoulders and tucked Lennon into his left side. “One more and we’d have Cricket’s Angels.” He wagged his eyebrows, causing Lennon and I to erupt into giggles. Pyro scoffed from his position leaning against the side of the porch where he was playing with his stupid silver lighter. “Your first mission, my lovelies, should you choose to accept it is to acquire Pyro’s lighter and shove it up his ass.” Pyro flipped Cricket the bird as he turned away from our trio. I waved and shot a smile Ace’s way where he worked behind Pyro in the flower beds off the clubhouse kitchen.
“You have any idea what this is about?” Lennon asked as she peered up at Cricket. He released us from his hold and sat at an old picnic table that was positioned not far off the side of the clubhouse. Cricket’s eyes danced with mirth as he bit his lip and shrugged.
“I can’t really say, but a little Crow told me we had a reunion to look forward to today.”
My back straightened. “Oh, are there members of Los Cuervos I haven’t met yet?”
Lennon scuffed the toe of her shoe in the sand. “Not really, I mean not ones that live here. You know all of the members in our chapter, but other states have additional chapters of the Crows. Then there are the non-members who are still affiliated with Los Cuervos. You’ve met some of the family members who chose not to patch in. I guess you’d say they’re Crow-adjacent.”
Lennon shrugged, looking around the group of bikers with a slightly more critical eye. Duke and Priest stood stiffly on the porch now, all broody silence and tension. Ratched pulled up the driveway on his bike, a hunter-green Harley Davidson Night Train. It was cute to see him, a big burly biker, with his hair in a man bun and riding in his nurse’s scrubs. Ratched patted the stylized golden four-leaf clover painted on his fuel tank like he always did after a ride. When I asked him about it, he’d simply said that Bones had painted it there forluck. Cliché, but everyone had their thing, I guess. Ratched jogged over to Priest, who wordlessly fist-bumped his friend. Lennon’s eyes darted over the group before she turned a skeptical glance at Cricket and asked, “Where’s Bones?”
Suddenly, we all turned our heads toward the driveway and eventually the road, where a vehicle hurtled toward us. A loud horn blasted, playing a song I’d heard somewhere before. As the vehicle approached, I squinted my eyes. It was a van, and the driver blasted the horn song again. It was so familiar. As it drew nearer, I saw that the vehicle turning into the Los Cuervos driveway wasn’t just any old jalopy… it was none other than my very best bitch, Sheila! And she was afearsomething to behold. I launched myself away from Cricket and the picnic table and into Bones’s arms as he exited the driver’s seat, the happiest grin I’d ever seen stretched across his face.
Priest
Of course, Bones chose Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” for the girl’s horn. It was just so…her. Intense, fast-paced, hard rock; a veritable battle cry for the girl who’d shaken up our club and ruffled all of our feathers. Really, it was a good choice, which was why Bones made it. He thought things through to an almost alarming degree. Bones had amazing attention to detail, which made him the go-to guy in our club and most of Nevada when it came to restoring antique cars. He got all the tiny details that seemed insignificant on their own and cultivated them into something noteworthy. Now her van,Sheila, was flamboyantly and unapologetically unique.
Indigo’s high-pitched squeal of excitement as she threw herself into Bones’s arms could probably have been heard by every dog in a five-mile radius. She circled her van, cooing at howshinyandpamperedher vehicle looked, whatever that meant. She was right, the van did look much better than it had, but the biggest difference wasn’t the new rims Bones had installed. It was the van-art mural painted on the driver’s side of Sheila. Some of my brothers crowded in to examine the artwork, clapping Bones on the back in congratulations before heading off to do whatever it was they had on for the day. Duke had wanted the club to show out for Indigo’s reunion with her van, in a show of friendly support, but most of the old-timers couldn’t have cared less.
Usually, I’d have agreed. We had the Alvarez run coming up alarmingly fast, and Bard and I needed to iron out the details of when the weapons exchange would occur. However, after the shit hit the fan recently, I was in no place to blow off Duke’s command of attendance for this little show. Indigo cooed and gushed over the mural on the sideof Sheila, and even I had to admit it looked pretty damn good. Bones truly was an artist. I knew he’d always loved to draw. He’d done a few drawings for brothers when they’d wanted tattoos or painted custom designs on their bikes, but I had no idea he could create something like this.
A sprawling battle scene was depicted in classic “van art” style across the driver’s side of the van. Tiny Viking warriors fought with axes and shields on a blood-soaked battlefield while armored and helmed Valkyrie soared into battle on the back of pegasuses. The scene culminated in a close-up of a Valkyrie that bore an obvious resemblance to Indigo who stood, bloodied but victorious, face frozen in a fierce battle cry as she held the severed head of an enemy aloft in one hand, her bloodied sword gripped in the other. The entire scene was just so…van art-y, I half expected Pink Floyd T-shirt-wearing stoners to emerge from the back doors in a cloud of smoke. However, even I could admit that the mixture of violence and whimsy Bones captured in his mural perfectly reflected the character of the van’s owner.
As Lennon and Indi gushed over Bones’s artwork, I approached to take in the artistic detail. Above the battlefield, two crows depicted in the far upper corners of the mural soared through the sky, observing the battle. Traditionally, in Norse mythology, Odin had two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, who reported to him. Representing memory and thought, the All-Father’s birds were depicted as crows here. They might have been added to the artwork for authenticity’s sake and commitment to a theme to a casual viewer, but anyone in our local area would see the depiction of crows above a battlefield as a claim. Bones was subtly marking Indigo under Los Cuervos's protection, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
Cricket, who had seen the van yesterday, ushered Lennon and Indigo to the rear doors, which he opened with a flourish. I heard Lennon’s gasp and Indigo’s shouted “holy fuckballs” as they appreciated Bones’s upgrades to the van’s interior. Both girls launched themselves inside as Cricket laughed, and Bones stood by watching their delight with his own wide grin.
“There’s a weapon’s cache!?!”Indigo stuck her head out of the rear of the van, little hearts in her eyes. “Bones, this is the most amazing andcatastrophically awesome thing I’ve ever seen in my life! I could live in here! There’s a cot for sleeping and built-in cubbies for snacks!” She jumped out of the van and into Bones’s arms again, and something about her enthusiastic embrace raised my hackles a bit. The feeling caught me off guard, and I did my best to shake it off before anyone else noticed the unwarranted and unwanted emotion.
Lennon exited the van more sedately, though she looked just as thrilled at Indigo’s happiness as Bones did. “Damn, Indi, all you need is a place to recharge your vibrator and maybe a mini fridge, and you’d be set to live in Sheila permanently. Tiny homes aresoin right now.” Lennon smirked at Indigo’s laugh while Bones noticeably stiffened. Misunderstanding the cause of Bones’s tension, Indigo patted him on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry, big guy, Sheila is perfect, and you did the most amazing job. A mini fridge would take up too much space, and I saw a charging port in the front console, so no worries there.”
Cricket unleashed a wicked laugh before Indi realized what she’d implied, and a vibrant blush spread across her cheeks as she hip checked Cricket and howled, “FOR MY PHONE. To charge my phone, you perv! You know…when I actually get one.”
“Hmm,” Cricket, ever the shit-stirrer, tapped his chin in mock consideration. “Me thinks Indi’s glorious reunion with fair Sheila calls for a celebration! How about a trip into Reno?”
“Yeah,” I added sarcastically, “because your last trip to Reno endedsowell.”
