“I know your type,” he said. “Biker trash, running from a past you think nobody can find.” He leaned in, the cross on his lapel right at eye level. “But God doesn’t forget, Mr. Axel. And neither do men like me.”
I almost laughed. “You come to save my soul, Pastor?”
He smirked, sharp and joyless. “Your soul’s not worth the gasoline it would take to burn it clean.” He circled the bed, slow and deliberate, gaze never leaving me. “You know how many men have tried to pull my daughter from her path? Hundreds. Most of them smarter than you. All of them failed.”
The monitor behind my head bleeped, lazy and regular. My heart didn’t get the memo, though—it started drumming a little faster.
He stopped beside me, close enough that I could smell the aftershave, a cocktail of pine and expensive bourbon. He dropped his hand onto my knee, squeezing just hard enough to threaten the stitches beneath the hospital gown.
“You like playing dress-up, don’t you?” he said. “You show up at my church in a stolen Santa suit, thinking you’re some kind of fucking Robin Hood. You parade around my daughter, like she’s a toy you can break.” He squeezed harder. My ribs screamed, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction.
“She’s not a toy,” I said, even as the words came out like a bad joke.
He leaned in, so close I could count the pores on his nose. “She’s mine. Flesh of my flesh. You come near her again, you’ll wish those Neanderthals in the parking lot had finished the job.”
He pulled the Bible from the table, opened it at random, and stabbed at the page with his finger. “You know what happens to false prophets and wolves in sheep’s clothing?” He quoted, slow and venomous. “They are thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
He snapped the book shut and let it hang at his side.
“I know who you are, Axel,” he said, and the way he said the name made it clear he meant something else. “Or should I call you Alfred? It’s a shitty fake name, by the way. You really think the Royal Bastards take in strays without checking the pedigree?”
I said nothing. The taste of blood crept back into my mouth.
“See, the thing is, I keep tabs on my enemies,” he said, almost conversational now. “I know about the last three towns you left in the middle of the night. I know about the woman in Idaho, and the mess in Fresno, and the little accident in Carson City that the locals pretended never happened. I even know about your mother, if you want to get really personal.”
He let that sink in. My vision tunneled a little, the painkillers curdling in my gut.
“You run from everything, Alfred,” he said, using the name again, softer this time. “But you can’t outrun what you are. Not here.”
He straightened, fixing his tie with a single flick of his wrist.
“This is the last time I’ll say it,” he said. “Stay away from Darla. Stay away from my church. If you don’t—” he lifted the Bible, shook it, “—you’ll wish for hell. Because what I do to you will make even God look away.”
He turned, slow and heavy, and walked to the door. The room felt about ten degrees colder.
He paused in the doorway, looked back over his shoulder.
“Merry Christmas, Mr. Martin,” he said. “Enjoy the cookies.”
He left, the click of his shoes echoing down the hall. I watched the heart monitor, the erratic line jumping up and down like a lie detector. The air was full of hospital stink and something else—fear, maybe, or the sour aftertaste of a man who’d just had every secret stripped bare.
I stared at the ceiling until my eyes burned, and tried to decide if I should be more scared for myself, or for the girl with the cookies who’d left her heart in my goddamn hands.
I never liked hospitals, but I liked them even less when the only thing keeping you alive was the hope that the next person through the door wasn’t coming to finish you off.
Somewhere out there, Darla was alone, and I was chained to a bed with nothing but ghosts for company.
***
I must’ve drifted out, because when I opened my eyes again, the world had gone blue. Not the lazy, muted blue of an after-hours hospital, but a harsh, jarring electric that pulsed with everysiren echo and nicotine-stained curse. The first thing I saw was the shadow of Vin, big as a bear and twice as pissed off, filling the doorway with a presence that made the light bend around him. Red was right behind, cigarette blazing, her hair a mess of copper static.
Vin didn’t knock. He just stepped inside and took a hard look at me—at the black eye swelling shut, the split lip, the tape holding my ribs together. He grunted, like he’d seen better and worse all in the same day.
Red flicked her cigarette into the hand sanitizer tray and tossed a bundle of clothes onto my lap. “Up and at ‘em, Princess,” she said, and the smoke curled out of her mouth like a dragon with a drinking problem. “Some of us have jobs to get to.”
I untangled the bundle of jeans with a patch on the knee, a black t-shirt, and the vest. The cut was still new, the Royal Bastards MC logo stitched across the back in screaming-white thread, and below it the prospect rocker, a patch that meant you didn’t matter yet, but maybe someday you could.
“You really want me walking out in this?” I asked, voice shredded from the swelling.
