I didn’t know where I was headed. Didn’t matter. All I knew was I wasn’t ever going back.
For the first time in my life, I felt like the future was wide open.
And it tasted like cold smoke, and a little bit like freedom.
2
Axel
Twelve years after leaving Maine, and grifting around the country like an asshole hellbent on prison time, I rolled into Lexington, Kentucky, at dusk one summer night. I came in low on my Harley, engine howling just north of seventy, scraping the last rays of sun from the blacktop before the night rolled in.
The wind chewed at my face and slapped the battered leathers that had outlasted every address and alias I’d ever tried. If I closed my eyes and ignored the billboards, it could’ve been Maine, or Nevada, or the edge of any town I’d ever blown through. But this was Kentucky, and that meant bourbon on the breath of every breeze, and a low-grade threat of violence you didn’t notice until it was already breaking your jaw.
I followed the outer belt of the city, bypassing the pretty parts where families barbecued, and kids played ball in the street. My kind didn’t belong there. The addresses I was after were found in the in-between: pawn shops, tire fires, discount motels withbulletproof glass and hourly rates. The only guide I had was a mental map of every shithole bar within five miles of downtown.
The Rusty Chain announced itself about a mile before I hit it, thanks to a thirty-foot neon sign that flickered "RSTY CH N" in blood-orange stutters. It had rotted plank siding, a sagging tin awning, and a parking lot paved in broken bottles and used condoms. The place had its own smell, too—burnt oil, stale piss, and the desperation of a thousand last chances. I recognized it instantly. My kind of church.
I killed the engine and coasted in, gravel crunching under tire, a sound I liked better than applause. There were nine bikes lined up out front, each one shabbier than the last, all of them out of registration and at least two with frames stamped "property of evidence." I clocked the plates—three Kentucky, three Tennessee, one Indiana, two with the tags yanked off entirely. The last was a fat, low-slung beast with a baby seat zip-tied to the sissy bar. I made a note to buy that man a drink.
Before I kicked the stand down, I did the ritual of scanning the lot, reading the angles, and counting the exits. One main door, one fire escape on the side, two windows with plywood over the bottom halves and jagged glass up top. No other bodies out here, but the presence was real—someone had been watching me since I turned off the highway, and they hadn’t even tried to be subtle about it. I flashed a quick grin in the direction of the nearest shadow, just to let them know I’d seen them, and then I shouldered my duffel and went in.
The entryway was a hollowed-out phone booth, painted puke green and sticky with generations of spilled liquor. I paused just long enough to adjust the cut—the club vest, for the uninitiated—so it sat straight on my shoulders. It was a patchwork of old leather and newer thread, but the colors still mattered, even if I was wearing them on borrowed time. My arms looked like a history lesson in bad decisions, faded back alley tats, cigaretteburns, a scar from a broken bottle that ran wrist to elbow like a railroad track. I flexed my fingers, let them pop once, then pushed through the door.
The place hit me like a frying pan thrown by my grandma, God bless her soul. Every biker bar from here to Vancouver was a franchise, even if nobody owned the copyright. The first thing was always the smell of cigarettes so old they’d yellowed the floor, the busted jukebox, and beer that had never known refrigeration. Second thing was the sound—shouted arguments, glassware smashing, the muffled thump of someone getting their head bounced off a table in the back. Tonight it was only half full, but every set of eyes turned when I walked in, sizing me up like an overdue bill.
I smiled, nice and wide, and let my boots do the talking.
The bar itself looked like it’d been hewn out of the bones of older, meaner bars. The countertop was burn-scarred and sticky, dotted with the ghosts of cigarettes smoked decades ago. Every stool was a different height, like they'd been stolen from separate crime scenes. The music was classic rock, so warped by the speaker system you could barely tell if it was Skynyrd or the Stones.
Behind the bar stood a woman with a mane of copper-red hair that caught the light like a warning flare. She moved with the economy of someone who’d been harassed in every way imaginable and stopped giving a shit before puberty was over. Her tank top read, in faded marker, "I POUR, YOU PAY." No last names, no small talk. I liked her immediately.
She was serving up doubles to a slab of muscle at the end of the bar—Vin, if the Royal Bastards MC patch and the fact that every man in the room deferred to him meant anything. I watched as she slid him a shot without looking, catching the glass on her backswing and using the momentum to line up three more forthe next customer. She didn’t just pour drinks. She conducted traffic.
I took the stool farthest from Vin but closest to the main door. Old habit. She clocked my move and smirked.
“New in town?” she said, the accent Southern but not sweet.
I shrugged. “Passing through.”
She poured a whiskey neat without asking, then set it in front of me like a dare.
“On the house,” she said. “For the balls.”
I drank it down in one go. Cheap, harsh, with an afterburn that threatened to come back up, but it did the job. I set the glass down and tapped the rim.
“Another.”
She obliged, less amused now, her green eyes pinning me like a bug under glass.
“Name?” she asked.
“Axel.” I didn’t offer the rest. If she wanted it, she could ask. People just didn’t respond properly to Alfred.
She nodded like she already knew, then glanced down the bar to where Vin was watching the entire exchange with the patience of a man who knew he could end a life before dessert. He didn’t move, didn’t even blink, but I could feel the full weight of his attention on the back of my neck. That’s when I realized I was in his club’s bar.
“So what brings you to our little slice of paradise, Axel?” Red asked, pouring herself a shot for solidarity. “Tourism?”
I grinned. “Business.”
