“I will fix this wrong, Shannon,” I said.
No matter what it takes. No matter how long it takes. No matter what rules I have to bend.
Lane
Night had fallen upon Springsville, and outside of the shop, all seemed peaceful.
It was one in the morning, and everyone else had gone to bed or at least gone home. Businesses had closed. Only the owls and the crickets of the night made noise. Even the police, for the most part, were getting some shuteye. Only a local cop whom we had long befriended roamed the streets, and he understood that as long as we weren’t making extreme amounts of noises, we wouldn’t be bothered. It was a mutual agreement that benefited everyone.
Even within the compound, things were relatively quiet.
But as I had learned under my father, one should never mistake quiet for inactivity.
A single black van backed up to the entrance of our shop with the back open. In the trunk, bags with over five thousand dollars in cash total were thrown in. I had handled bags of cash before, but I had to say, every time I just casually threw in a bag with a thousand dollars in it, it felt much heavier than its actual weight.
When we finished loading, we went over the logistics one more time.
“Patriot, you’re driving the van,” I said. “I’m riding shotgun. Butch, Axle, you’re providing cover on the bikes. All good?”
“All good, brother,” Axle said.
He never smiled—the man was far too intense to do that—but he did the closest thing he did to that, widening his eyes. Butch gave me a fist bump, which at his size was equivalent to someone else actually punching me with their fist. Patriot and I shared a hug.
“Alright then,” I said, trying to sound just a wee bit more confident than I actually was. “Let’s move out.”
One of the many downsides of this trip was that we had to go to Compton and to the Hovas base to complete the sale. Perhaps wisely, they were not about to come into our space. As much as we didn’t like to admit it, the sight of many black gangsters rolling into a town of predominantly white older folk would not look good, no matter how progressive of a club we were. Even the presence of Axle, a black man, would do little to quell the fears.
It probably didn’t help that the Fallen Saints liked to provoke racial tensions from time to time as a way of getting on our nerves and the nerves of the city.
It also really didn’t help that for all the talk I had done in the days before, and as much as there was almost no turning back now, I was a hot mess.
Axle and Butch may not have noticed it—or they may not have said anything—but when Patriot saw me as I got in the front seat, with my throat dry and my legs bouncing, he didn’t start the car immediately.
“You okay, man?” he asked.
I looked at him, thought about lying, and just laughed.
“What the hell do you think, man?” I said as I leaned an elbow on the door and looked away from him, a bit too embarrassed.
“I think you should be as concerned you are for how few runs you’ve gone on since you became President.”
Ouch, okay, that’s a bit on point. But fair.
“But I also think that once the ball gets rolling, you’ll be fine. You opened fire when the Saints came to your father’s place. You’ll figure shit out if anything goes down here.”
“That’s a big if.”
I was just hoping that this deal would go down without anything more than some simple posturing. While the Hovas and the Reapers had had some minor fights in the past—we’d had to knock some sense into a few of our racist new members—by and large, we had... I wouldn’t necessarily call it an amicable relationship, but it was above neutral. It was somewhere between respectful and appreciative.
“Best thing I learned in war,” Patriot said as he revved the engine. “Just fucking go.”
Before I could say a word, he had shifted the gear to drive. The van sped out of the parking lot almost impossible fast, as if Patriot wanted to make sure I didn’t suddenly jump out of the passenger’s seat. And who could blame him? Only he knew the extent of my nerves, and only he could know what to do to prevent me from being a complete idiot.
I imagined the Hovas getting pissed and firing upon us. I imagined the Saints getting a bead on us and ambushing us. I imagined stray fire gone bad. I imagined a bomb being planted in the cadre of weapons.
Man, I imagined some fucked up shit. Is this what most green soldiers did before their first battle? Is this what I was supposed to do before my first dangerous run in... well, since my dad’s and Shannon’s death?
I went unusually quiet for over half the ride, not saying a word. Patriot eventually turned on the radio to some heavy metal rock, a mutual favorite of ours. I allowed the lyrics of System of a Down and Five Finger Death Punch to swarm my ears. It certainly at least got me jacked and allowed me to not become melancholy and depressed.
