The lot in front of the hangar used to be a mess of chrome and noise—rows of bikes, and always music bleeding out of the hangar. The perpetual smell of gasoline and weed. But it’s empty and quiet. No vehicles at all. No music. Just the faint creak of metal in the wind.
“Ghost town,” says Wyatt under his breath.
The big hangar door is propped open. We exchange the briefest of glances before we walk in. Inside, the clubhouse feels even stranger. Quieter than I’ve ever seen it.
It’s ten o’clock in the morning, early by motorcycle club standards, but Cipher and Pluto are seated at a table eating bacon and eggs. They stare at us as we stroll through the front doors, like they can’t believe their eyes.
“Well, holy shit,” says Cipher. “Look who’s not fucking dead.”
Wyatt smiles a little—Ryan’ssmile, wry and understated. “Hey, brother.”
They get up from the table, smiling. They’re happy to see us.
“Jesus, girl,” says Pluto, putting a hand on my shoulder. He searches my face like he doesn’t know what to say, and then pulls me into a hug. “Didn’t think I was ever going to see you again.”
“Cockroach,” comes Babydoll’s voice from behind the bar.
She steps out, dish towel over one shoulder. Her eye makeup is smudged like she slept in it, hair twisted up haphazardly.
“Told you,” she says with a wink. “Hard to kill.”
Cipher’s eyes flick between us. “Where the fuck have you been?” he asks Wyatt. “You two just fucking evaporated in the middle of the apocalypse.”
“Had to take off for a bit,” Wyatt answers. “Things were getting sketchy.” He glances at me briefly. “Billy was suspicious, you know. Getting paranoid. Had Silas whispering in his ear about me. Wasn’t safe. So we had to get out of the way, low-key.” He glances around the deserted hangar. “Never thought it would come to this, though. Shocking.”
Pluto shakes his head. “We’re still in the fallout, brother. Unbelievable what went down that night. Prez and VP dead, and then we go and find out you’re missing, too.”
“Yeah,” Cipher adds. “Whole club blew up in one night. Just a few of us still here now, trying to figure out next steps.”
Wyatt shakes his head, playing it like he’s just another man coming home to ashes. “After Max ran into Babydoll yesterday, I figured if there was ever a moment I could come back without lighting myself up, this was it. I wanted to grab what I left behind. Tools, personal shit…And I wanted to see who was left. Close the loop.”
“’Course.” Cipher claps him on the back. “Good to see you back. Guess the clubhouse is yours by rights now, anyway. You’re welcome to stay as long as you want. You two want breakfast?” He looks at Babydoll, who’s apparently the cook, and she nods to let us know we’re welcome.
We both shake our heads.
“Wouldn’t want to put you out,” says Wyatt politely. “We ate earlier.”
Babydoll shrugs and turns back toward the bar. “Suit yourselves.”
My eyes follow her, the pink t-shirt stretched across her back so tight the lines of her bra make indents, and then my gaze drifts to the TV mounted above the bottles. It’s on a local news station, volume low, and what I see on the screen makes me freeze.
Senator Jack Hargrove stands behind a microphone outside a courthouse.
And standing behind him is a man so familiar it’s hard to say which face chills me to the bone more.
Older…mid-forties…
“It’s Maxwell, right?”
Clean-cut, accountant-looking guy. But I know him as someone who associates with bikers.
I never understood who he was. Not O.D. I never saw him in the clubhouse.
But in a suit on TV, standing behind Senator Hargrove, he looks right at home.
He’s not a biker.He’s in politics.
My vision tunnels. The room goes distant, like someone turned the volume knob on reality down a notch, but no one notices. They’re all watching the TV now.
