“Just remember, man, as soon as we start acting different, the spy—if there is a spy—is going to know something is up, man,” I said. “We have to carry on like normal in the presence of the rest of the club, no matter what.”
“Especially since I may be wrong,” Lane said.
Let’s hope so and you bury this idea before you say anything. Because I don’t want to see what happens when you’re wrong and you speak.
The two of us stood up, dusted ourselves, and walked back to our bikes. We moved slowly, perhaps naively holding on to the dimming hope that some strand of evidence would manifest itself, but unsurprisingly, nothing appeared at all.
“Shit, you know, if I knew that keeping track of allies and enemies was this difficult, I might have paid more for my father’s medical care,” Lane said with a quick, punctuated chuckle.
Allies and enemies...
“You know, we could ask for help from someone else,” I said. “Your brother—”
“No,” Lane said quickly.
I didn’t say anything, but I made sure I made my face as expressive as possible, the better to highlight to Lane that I thought he was ignoring an invaluable resource.
“Look, let’s not get into that right now, okay? I’m not ready yet.”
You don’t always get to choose when or if you’re ready yet.
Nevertheless, I decided the evening had been eventful enough, and I’d put Lane through enough already. I nodded to him as he revved his bike, and I got on mine. We had enough challenges ahead of us that we needed to get ready for.
We didn’t need to add difficulties to our plates that we wouldn’t ever be ready for if the mere challenge of a spy could destroy the club alone.
Kaitlyn
Distance and time always seemed to be much better at healing than rationalization and intellectual discourse ever could.
Just as I had left my meeting with Michael, I had become utterly confused about how I felt about him. Was this someone that was trying to negotiate me into a deal with the devil? Or was this someone that... I dared to say… I enjoyed talking to so much that I would have done it without the rationale of my medical expertise being needed?
The more I thought about it on the car ride home, the more confusing it became.
But the more distance I put between myself and him and the more time that I spent focusing on other things like how my day went and how the construction near my neighborhood was going, the less of an issue it became. In fact, by the time I parked the car, I was able to laugh the interaction off. I’d have a hilarious story for Devon when I saw her on my next shift, and I’d be able to brag about the time a handsome, unusually low-key Black Reaper tried to hit on me.
Well, maybe brag was the wrong word, but I’d certainly have a story to tell about it.
I got out and slammed the car door shut. As I moved toward my apartment, I noticed that it was the only sound that I heard at that moment. No motorcycles, no beeps from medical equipment, no hurried voices of other medical professionals trying to save a life or get a situation under control.
Silence.
It was truly golden, something that, despite living in the small town of Springsville, just didn’t come around frequently enough. The small size of the town was what made it precisely so damn difficult to work with—there were few corners within it to escape to get rid of the madness. Almost everywhere I turned, I’d see someone I’d provided care for or someone or something associated with needed medical attention.
I slowed my walk down to my apartment to soak in the silence, but eventually, the roar of a loud car engine and its obnoxious music ruined the peace that I had, and I resumed my fast walk to my apartment.It has to end at some point, I suppose.
I got inside, locked the door behind me, and kicked my shoes off, doing some stretches that I liked to do at the end of every day. When I finished that, I headed to the fridge, grabbed a drink of lemonade—one of the things I liked to have before going to bed—and headed to my bedroom. There, I sat on the edge of the bed and gazed at the two photos that I always looked at before I went to bed and before I went to work.
One was from my nursing school graduation. I had taken a photo with everyone in my family, but this particular one was just my parents and me. They had moved far, far away from the madness and danger of this town, thank God. I texted them every day, and I had a good relationship with them, but I made sure they never came to see me, only the other way around.
The other one crushed me every time I looked at it because I knew I’d never get to take another photo like it.
In it, my sister, Kristina, and I smiled at a cousin’s wedding. We were both dressed in blue formal gowns, and in my opinion, it was the nicest we ever looked. And that wasn’t because we were dressed nice, had a ton of makeup on, or were in great shape or anything like that, although it was certainly true that all of those things applied.
Rather, it was because she had a joy on her face that had come from finally breaking up with her cruel boyfriend.
And two weeks later, she was dead.
I took a swig of that lemonade. I wished that it was spiked with a little vodka to try and forget everything that I remembered from that relationship, but unfortunately, now that I’d gone down that road, there was no stopping the recording in my mind of what had happened.
