“Yeah,” Carter says. “You think we call ourselves brothers if we don’t help fight each others’ battles?”
I ignore the corniness and focus on preparing my own bike. Hues of pink and orange bleed into the sky. The day is almost over, the sun already set. Ahead lurks tumbleweed, darkness, and a weather forecast I really don’t feel like riding into.
But for Carmen, I’m willing to damage my Harley and go headfirst into crazy wind.
I holster the gun Carter hands me, and secure the knife in my belt. The pointed edge hits the fading colors in the sky and glints silver. Soon, it will be dripping fresh blood, and that is one of my favorite sights to behold.
Second to Carmen’s naked body.
First is her smile. The radiance it emits does something foreign to my chest. It’s a nice feeling, and that scared me at first.
Until we found her at the airport. My gut brought us all straight to that terminal building. Things were getting difficult with Conrad. She was seeing no way out—I knew she’d run.
And it was at that moment I realized I didn’t want her to.
Her smile was starting to uplift my chest, and that’s when I knew something was different with her. Smiles were just smiles. They weren’t supposed to rewrite your reality and turn it into something wonderful.
With her around, the colors were starting to get brighter. The air felt cleaner every time I breathed it in. I took agile steps. Each time I walked, I did it with purpose. I finally had one—I’d been searching for that since I was eighteen years old.
And then she jumped on that motorcycle and said goodbye, and it became painful to walk.
You don’t feel like that around a person you don’t care about.
I knew the costs that were going to come with my intense feelings for Carmen. I knew they were gonna bite me in the ass and make me susceptible to life’s trials and tribulations again.
Because the second you choose to feel again, you stop being immune. You don’t get to decide fate. You don’t get to kill without consequence. Caring about someone throws you back into the passenger seat. Life becomes out of your control again.
But driving into the abyss now with a full tank of gas and a beating heart, I realize I’m willing to step out of that safe, middle area and gamble again. I could fall short, but I could also win big and take home everything I’ve ever wanted.
When you have feelings, you give someone else permission to play with them.
The O’Neills will do their worst.
But when you find something your father once told you didn’t exist, you want to cling to it with everything you have. Because you know it’s rare.
Carmen saved me from the shackles of my own mind, so now I’ll save her.
And her son, who apparently is Carter’s child.
I race through the desert with the others behind me. In the rearview mirror, I catch Carmen clinging onto Carter, her hair ribboning behind her in the breeze. Visibility is low, but from the projections of my taillights, I can still see her face.
She looks ill, her skin lacking its famous bronzed shimmer. Her eyes are somewhere else, looking out into the desert, but not really. The screaming wind hits her hard in the face and she doesn’t bat an eyelid, not even in reaction to the grit swirling in the air right in front of her face.
Good people always finish last.
I refocus my vision and grip the handlebars.
Always remember that, son.
My hands are dripping sweat underneath the leather gloves. I focus on the long stretch of road in front of me and hope that the roaring motorcycle engine is enough to quiet my father’s words.
Good people always finish last.
Love doesn’t exist. Only duty.
He was wrong.
But no matter how many times I reject his outdated, irrelevant opinions, I still hear his rattling voice.
