I just…
My eyes shut…
No, don’t die like this. Don’t fucking die…
Another crash. Another shattering of glass. More bullets. More shouts.
And then blackness.
* * *
“Cole, my son.”
I opened my eyes. The world around me had frozen. But I was not in my apartment.
I was outside my father’s old home.
“Cole, my son.”
Dad?
I looked around. It was like time had frozen for everyone except me. I could see Butch, Owen, Axle, and some other bikers standing outside the front entrance of my father’s house, guns drawn. I could see a black van nearby, at the bottom of a hill. I could see bodies on the ground inside, and a... a woman…
Shannon.
“Cole, my son.”
“Dad?” I shouted.
But the voice had not come from outside. It had come from within.
This made no sense. Lane had sold the home a month after my father’s death and pocketed the sale himself. I’d never asked for anything; I didn’t want anything to do with him. But the house had since been demolished and rebuilt. What the hell was it doing here?
“Cole, my son.”
I looked around cautiously. It felt like at any moment, bullets could fly, I’d get shot, and I’d be dead. But then again, how could I die while I was in the middle of something that wasn’t... real?
Or was it?
In any case, it was like my feet moved without me doing so. Actually, even that wasn’t the case; my feet remained still, but I nevertheless moved through the air. My body moved through the front door, up the stairs, and through those double doors to my parents’ room. The last time I had walked through there, my father had just died, and I had never returned.
Until now.
“Cole…”
I looked around. I did not see my father, and yet I could hear him as clearly as I could hear my own breath, even though “hear” was not quite the accurate word.
“Turn around.”
I did.
And there, with the doors now shut, was my father. He looked as I had always envisioned him—grizzled, old, and veteran, but also caring, protective, and proud.
“Dad?”
“You look forlorn, Cole,” he said, his voice now sounding like an actual voice and not something in my head. “The last year and a half have not been kind to you.”
“Dad…”
