I know that I probably look guilty as fuck, sitting down here on this old blue leather couch, curled around a secondhand laptop that I bought this morning from a pawnshop. It’s beat, but whoever owned it upgraded the shit out of it, and it wasn’t a bad machine to begin with. Either way, I still have the ability to hack the shit out of most places on a child’s tablet, so it doesn’t matter what the specs are.
“It wasn’t a condition of my sentencing.” I shut the laptop and toss it aside. Scythe walks with the grace of a lumbering ox. If I’d wanted the laptop to be a secret, it would have been. “I guess I can thank the judge for that, if not for the last ten years of my life.” It’s hard not to sound bitter when I went into jail a naive twenty-three year old kid with starry eyes and a fucking Robin Hood complex, and came out a wizened, hardened thirty-three year old man.
There were many people who couldn’t believe that I got such a stiff sentence. Especially given that people who commit murder and dark shit often get far less jailtime. All throughoutmy trial, there were protests in the city. Some of the large ones almost turned into full scale riots. It turns out that many people felt that stealing money from men who had done unspeakable things was right. However, the ones who make the rules, they just saw the crime.
I suppose thatwrongandlegalare two different things. Is justice ever just?
“I’d suggest taking you down to the clubhouse tonight, but I don’t know if you’re ready. I want to give you a few more days.”
My cousin is a good man. He might look rough as fuck, but he’s wise, kind, and probably the kind that would rather help a spider outside than squash it.
I promised myself that I wouldn’t do the typical ex-con thing and be a maladjusted fucker who refuses to reintegrate back into society. I know that Scythe is worried that I’ll go off halfcocked with the vigilante shit again. I don’t want him out there, trying to live his life, worrying about me every second of the day.
“I appreciate that you gave me a place to go. I’m not here to make your life hell. Or your club’s.”
Scythe crosses his arms. His leather jacket doesn’t appreciate having to contain his bulk in that stance. It looks like it’s going to pop a few stitches. “That’s good. There are too many women and kids involved with my club brothers now, and they’re good men too.”
I give a tight nod, because I do know that. I wouldn’t have been able to come otherwise, and not because the law prevented me. I don’t believe in thug organizations. I hate men who abuse women and children, and those weaker than them.
Scythe switches it up. “Have you given any more thought into what you’d like to do now? The club owns and operates a bunch of businesses here, but I could talk to other places too. I know just about everyone.”
I know he hopes that I’ll show some interest in his club later on, but I don’t know if I ever will. I never owned a bike and I’m not all that interested in owning one in the future. I grew up rough, like most of those guys probably did. I never knew my dad, and watched my mom take up with man after man, in an effort to survive. She died when I was sixteen. She only ever used drugs lightly, so the heart attack wasn’t an overdose. She was thirty-five, and she was just worn down, inside and out. I was a loner growing up, more interested in computers than people. One of my mom’s ex’s left a fairly decent laptop at our grungy apartment, and that pretty much sealed my fate.
I was a lone fucking wolf then, and now, I have no interest in packing up with a bunch of men who figure that having a rough background makes me brotherhood material. I spent the last ten years institutionalized, on someone else’s schedule, doing what they told me to do. I followed the rules. I behaved. I kept my head down. I was determined to survive, at all costs. I don’t know what made me get involved with the prison writing program, except that it was put out there after I’d already done six years and maybe something in me justneededthat change. I still had four damn years left, and I was getting tired. I couldn’t change my scenery, but I could changemyself.
Loreena.I roll the word over in my brain like I’ve whispered it during the past week, unfurling the syllables from my tongue. I didn’t know her real name until I was released.
Scythe is the kind of guy who thinks he does well with long silences, but he gets uncomfortable with mine. I could go all daywithout talking. He clears his throat. “I’d just like to know if you have any plans. I’d like to help you, Maverick, even if you don’t exactly want it.”
I don’t have to tell him that it’s humiliating having to rely on him. He’s a man with a man’s pride. He knows.
“I’m going to Seattle tomorrow.”
Scythe is a big hand talker. He unfolds his arms just so he can start gesturing, a little bit madly. “You can do what you want with your life. I’m not here to tell you not to. I’m just saying that you have to be careful. You staying with me is one thing, but I’m a part of something bigger than me.” He points at himself, then windmills his hands to encompass the whole room. “I’ve taken fucking vows and I mean them with my life. If you can’t stick to that, or at least promise me that you’ll take care, I need to know that now so I can keep this part of my life separate from my club.”
I never meant to come here and tear a good man in half. He didn’t ask for any of this. He might be rough as hell on the exterior, but on the inside, he’s soft. He believes in his club, but he also believes in family. He didn’t say he’d turn me out.
“I’ll be careful. The last thing I want to do is go back to prison.”
“Why are you going to Seattle?” he asks carefully, like he doesn’t really want to know the answer.
“I have some business there.”
“Fuck! This isexactlywhat I’m talking about. You have business there,” he parrots. “What goddamn business? Because the way you said it, it ain’t anything fucking good.”
“A woman.”
“A woman.” He falters back a step. “That’s even worse.”
“It’s not like that.” I can’t help the protective edge to my voice. “She wrote to me when I was in prison. We’ve been corresponding for four years. She agreed to leave her address.”
“Yeah. So you can write to her, not show up in person without warning, and scare the living shit out of her.”
“I’ll call ahead.”
“Did she leave her number?” Scythe’s eyes narrow. “You can’t just creep her. That’s a sure way to scare her shitless.”
“She left her number.”
