Spawn
Two Weeks Later
The thing about fighting an enemy like King was he stuck around inside your head a lot more than he did a few feet away from you.
Ever since that text warning us that we needed to not talk to the Black Reapers, two opposing thoughts captured my mind, both of which had, as of this afternoon, not amounted to anything.
The first was King. I kept my eyes and ears peeled for any threats, far more than I usually had. I believed that the sound of any motorcycle was coming from a King’s Man, and I believed that anyone rolling up to the shop was a threat. It was exhausting, but it sure wasn’t the time to be thinking about vacation. This became such a constant presence in my head that I almost forgot Mason could turn on me at any point.
The second was Melissa.
What the hell was I getting myself into there?
The attraction had never faded, but two weeks gave me a lot of time to think about what the hell I was doing. I had access to plenty of women in this club. We all kind of looked at Satan askance for choosing to date Hailey exclusively rather than play the field. Those two elements combined meant I was on top of the food chain, no longer at risk of having him steal my target like he had at a party a while back.
And really, going back to the recycling bin for pussy? Was that what I wanted?
Apparently, the answer was yes.
I told myself I just needed to prove I could get her back. I told myself that we’d hook up once or twice, it would be great, and then we’d go our separate ways. We didn’t need to play things out. We’d done that once already, and it didn’t work. Why try again?
Maybe the fact that I was still asking that question was why Melissa stuck in my head.
After all, if I was answering it honestly, the question would have simply morphed into anticipation.
But for right now, my focus had to remain on something else—violating King’s request.
Like last time, Brock and Lane pulled up to the clubhouse, with Satan and Sonny waiting at the front door. Unlike last time, we’d they’d try to pull a fast one, they didn’t even hide the fact that Mason and Butch were coming with them. But that made things a lot easier for everyone—when they entered, they didn’t even try and get Mason and Butch into church. The two of them headed to a bar, where I told a prospect to give them each a beer. Better for them to be calm and placated than for shit to start.
“So fucking sick of not being home back in Albuquerque,” Mason said to Butch.
“Yeah.”
“I haven’t seen Rachel in, what, over two weeks now?”
Butch nodded.
“What about you? You got a girl?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to say anything about her?”
The silence said it all. Not just about Butch’s reluctance to talk about his personal life, but about how the California Reapers probably felt about the New Mexico Reapers. Ours was not a profession that lent itself to collaboration very easily.
In fact, judging by how many pitches these fuckers were giving us while their own house was barely in order, I’d say that collaboration was the exception, not the norm. It certainly was for us.
Mason shrugged, and for a good couple of minutes, silence seemed to be the agreed upon volume. If I trained my ears very carefully, I could hear the muffled sounds of the leadership speaking in church, but Satan had designed the walls very well. It would take someone looking suspiciously close to the wall for anyone to even get a hint of catching what others were saying, and even then, you wouldn’t be able to clearly hear everything.
“Hey, you, Spawn, right?”
I turned my eyes onto Mason.
“Can I talk to you for a second?”
I tensed. Even Butch looked like he tensed. The prospects and the club members looked alert. Mason looked…normal. Almost bored.
“About what?”
