I meet his eyes. “If you’re breathing, you’re still in the fight.”.
Silence stretches. Saint leans forward, eyes burning. “So, what do we call it?”
Dog scratches his chin. “Something mean. Something they’ll remember.”
Bookie shrugs. “We aren’t straight-laced enough to be angels. But we aren’t scum either.”
Saint smiles slowly. “We ride like devils. But we fight like saints.”
I nod, the name forming in my mouth like fire and scripture. “Saints Outlaws.”
It lands heavily in the room. Like a gavel dropped on holy stone. Dog raises his beer. “To the Saints Outlaws, then.”
We all raise our bottles. Dirty hands, busted knuckles, and hearts full of war. In this garage, surrounded by iron and ashes, the Saints Outlaws MC is born.
Not just a club. Not just revenge. This is what war becomes when men come home and find nothing left to come home to. We’re not saints. Not by a long shot. But we know how to fight. And for the first time in a long time, we’ve got something worth bleeding for. This isn’t just a club. This is a resurrection.
THREE
FOUNDING FIRES
THE GENERAL
The first time you step into the fire, you don’t do it for glory. You do it because someone has to.
Dog wipes his greasy hands on a shop towel and squints at the engine block we’ve been nursing for two hours. “I swear to God, this bitch is cursed.”
“Cursed?” I chuckle, leaning over the frame of the ’77 Dyna. “You rebuilt this carb twice. Maybe the problem’s not the bike.”
“Say that again, King, and I’m making you take her home.”
I grunt, amused. “She’d be more reliable than you.”
Behind us, Marisol laughs, that unfiltered, musical kind of laugh only teenagers can get away with. It bounces off the cinder block walls and makes Dog grin despite himself.
“He roasted you, old man,” she says, perched on the beat-up red cooler by the workbench. Dirt smudges her jeans, and her hoodie is three sizes too big. I think it used to be her brother’s.
Marisol has been coming to Dog’s garage for the past year. She was hiding from some bullies and ran right into Dog. He brought her into the garage to keep her safe, and she’s been here ever since.
Marisol has a shitty home life with a mom who works two jobs, an older brother hanging out on the street corners selling dope, and who the fuck knows where her father is. Despite all that she endures every day, she can still laugh and smile like a carefree teenager.
Dog glances over his shoulder. “You gonna let her talk to me like that?”
“She’s not wrong,” I answer, tossing him a wrench. “You’re overdue for a tune-up yourself.”
Marisol giggles again and pops the tab on her root beer Dog keeps on hand for her. “You two fight like an old married couple.”
Dog grunts. “I’d make a better wife than you, Tama. At least I can cook.”
“Barely,’ I shoot back. “And you still burn toast.”
Marisol snorts into her soda and wipes her nose on her sleeve. For a moment, it’s just that laughter, the clink of tools, the low rumble of a life we’re trying to build. She belongs here, in this space. Not as a mechanic, not as muscle, but as a tether. A reminder that there are still good things worth protecting.
I catch her watching me between sips, eyes serious behind the teasing. I nod at her gently, and she nods back. There’s something between us, unspoken, quiet. It’s trust and respect, like she knows we’d bleed for this neighborhood, for the kids like her, and she believes it.
Two nights later, Dog finds me on the back porch with a cold beer and a burning gut.
“She’s gone.” He states.
