He sighs and gets back to it. I’d normally be more patient, but my focus is shot. I’m running on three hours of sleep, and my entire goddamn house has been declared a domestic warzone.
“I’m telling you, Kyle, she’s a menace,” I grumble, taking a sip of my coffee. It’s bitter, but at least it’s not salty. “I wake up, and my coffee is poisoned. I go to my record collection, and someone’s put Wicked in my Black Sabbath sleeve. Show tunes, kid. In my house. And my bed? She moved my entire bed. Two inches to the left. Who has the time? Who does that?”
Kyle looks up, a flicker of amusement in his eyes he’s trying to hide. “Sounds like she’s got you figured out, man.”
“She’s a chaos agent, is what she is. I can’t even trust my spice rack.”
The garage door groans open, and Malachi walks in. He doesn’t look like the president of an MC. He looks wrecked, his eyes shadowed and bloodshot.
He stops, just staring at us. “East. You know anything about wiring? Old intercom systems?”
“A little. Why?”
“Because I’m being haunted,” he says, his voice a low, serious growl. “By a goddamn ghost child. I keep hearing laughter in the vents of my apartment. This morning, my toothbrush was gone. Replaced by a pink, glittery one with a princess on it.”
Before I can even process the image of Malachi being haunted, Knox storms in, his face like a thundercloud. He’s practically vibrating with rage.
“Which one of you assholes,” he roars, his eyes scanning the garage, “put a goddamn clown in my truck? A red-nosed, smiling porcelain clown. Staring at me from the passenger seat.”
I look at Malachi’s ghost, Knox’s clown, and my own salty coffee. A slow, dawning realization clicks into place.
As if summoned, Nash wanders in, his expression unreadable, but his shoulders are tight. He just quietly asks, “You seen a possum anywhere?”
James is the last to arrive, looking genuinely confused. “Morning, boys. Does anyone know why my alarm clock is suddenly 17 minutes fast? Third time this week. I’m starting to think I’m losing it.”
The five of us stand there in the garage, a circle of confused, sleep-deprived, and psychologically tormented men. The silence stretches, thick with the smell of grease and the unreality of it all.
Kyle is the one who breaks it. He’s trying to hide it, his face all scrunched up, but a snort escapes him. Then a full-on laugh.
“Man,” he says, wiping a tear from his eye. “They really… they got y’all good.”
Four officers—me, Malachi, Knox, and Nash—all turn our heads in perfect, silent unison, and just stare at him. A dead, cold, unified glare.
Kyle’s laughter dies in his throat. He immediately schools his features into a mask of seriousness. “I mean… we gotta do something about this. This is… a threat to club morale. Sir.”
“Smart kid,” I mutter.
Knox, who is still twitching about the clown, points a finger at the clubhouse. “This is bullshit. We’re the goddamn Outsiders. We’re not getting taken down by glitter and a… a possum.”
Malachi, seeing his officers are spun up, gets his “President” face on. “He’s right. This requires a formal response.” He points to the clubhouse. “War room. Now.”
We all file into the war room, the mood a hilarious mix of genuine fury and grudging respect. Malachi tells Kyle to stand guard. “Watch the door. The last thing we need is for them to know we’re onto them.”
I pull Kyle aside for a second. “Okay, kid, this is vital. Top-level security. If one of them comes, you need a warning signal. Not anormal knock. Do the ‘shave and a haircut’ knock, but backward. And add a little salsa rhythm at the end. Got it?”
He just blinks at me, completely lost. “Uh… what?”
I clap him on the shoulder, grinning. “Just… just yell, kid. Yell loud. We’ll workshop the knock later.”
I shut the door, and the five of us take our seats at the table, treating this with hilarious, military-level seriousness.
“Status report,” Malachi says, his voice flat.
“I’m being terrorized by a clown doll that I’m pretty sure has followed me from my truck to the garage,” Knox grinds out.
“There is a small, nocturnal marsupial with a camera strapped to it loose in my apartment,” Nash states. His voice is low and dangerously monotone.
“I am currently fifty-one minutes ahead of schedule, and I no longer trust my sense of time,” James says, rubbing his temples.
