“Let’s just take their truck,” I say, even though the man immediately makes a face. “I’m sure you can have someone take it out back and burn it later or something so it’s not evidence. How far is it? The chances of us ending up on camera in it are slim. The chances of the cops giving a fuck about who killed these arsewipes are even slimmer, if you ask me. No one cares when Nazis get murdered. Not even the KKK motherfuckers that probably pass for law enforcement around here. Now let’s go. I’m hungry.”
Another wide-eyed look gets cast my way, but he knows I’m right. I start hummingKilling in the Name Ofto hammer home my point, which is clearly the last straw for him, because he throws his hands up and turns away.
That’s another expression I’m intimately familiar with, but don’t hate. Thewhy do I bother arguing?one. I am a fan. I keep humming the song as I herd him towards the truck, watching those quads flex and bunch as he moves.
Besides, we need to get a wriggle on if I’m going to see the local Banna headquarters before dark. If I’m going to be hanging around here for a while, I need to know what I’m working with. I especially need to know how much of a fool this Colm is, and if it’s going to be difficult to keep him off my back while I get my real work done, without word of it getting back home.
COLM
So, this is Fallow. It’s pretty much the only thought I can keep in my head for the entire drive back to the farm. That and the fact that he won’t stop humming Rage Against the fucking Machine.
The pickup we took from the Aryans is a piece of shit and the suspension is garbage, so we’re bouncing all over the place because I’m taking the back roads. I can’t afford to be seen in this thing by anyone—cops, other Aryans, doesn’t matter—until we figure out a plan for how to deal with what just went down. Right now, I just need to get my ass home.
I feel unusually exposed right now, shirtless and covered in blood, sweat and traces of cum. In the questioning I’d been doing, Fallow had been basically built up to sound unreal. A mythological murder machine that I doubted I’d ever see with my own eyes, because of his reputation for keeping to himself and only popping up when someone needed to get dead.
I still haven’t been able to completely get a straight line on whether he works for us or not. Which seems like it should be an easy question for me to answer, given my connections. Because some people made it sound like he’s the pet assassin of one of the higher-ups back in the old country, but I’ve also heard that he’s been killing people in the organization.
Maybe he isn’t actually here on official business. Maybe he’s here on the run because he turned on his boss.
Maybe he’s here to murder me. Who the fuck knows?
The only thing I do know is that he already had me rattled before he told me his name, and I don’t like feeling fucking rattled. I’m keeping my identity quiet until we can get home and I’m surrounded by reinforcements. If I’m about to be murdered by the most intoxicating person I’ve ever had sex with—which is saying a lot, considering my dick is literally the only part of me that even touched him—I might as well go down fighting.
Maybe. Or maybe he’ll start tearing me limb from limb and I’ll just hump his leg in response, like a desperate animal, because apparently I’m into that. Or at least I was earlier, when I stood there while he licked the blood off my neck, panting and feeling my dick throb instead of doing what a rational person would have done and pushing him away.
Pathetic. Horny and pathetic, that’s what I am. Not being the one in control is an alien sensation for me, and I fucking hate it.
Fallow seems oblivious to my distress. He’s content to sit in the passenger seat, also bloody and dirty but at least fully dressed, meticulously cleaning the blade of his knife as he hums and occasionally looking out the window at the countryside. I can’t tell if his unaffected air is put on for my benefit or if he genuinely doesn’t care, but either way, it’s irking the shit out of me.
He murdered a bunch of people, fucked me, and then rescued me. The fact that the only real emotion I’ve seen on him was how pissed off he was when I touched his arm is rubbing me the wrong way.
God, even this whiny inner monologue doesn’t feel like myself. I tighten and then re-tighten my grip on the steering wheel, focusing on the sensation of the worn leather instead of the man sitting next to me.
After what seems like a lifetime, we hit the edge of the Banna property.
I refer to it as The Farm, and so do a lot of the other guys, even though it hasn’t been used to actually grow shit in decades. It was a family farm once upon a time, then it got bought or press-ganged or something into service as the headquarters for a local motorcycle club. They used to be the main dealers in the area, with us as their long-distance suppliers.
But when the Aryans started edging in on the territory, fighting broke out. It cost the club a lot of their membership, either to death or prison sentences, and made it pretty clear we either had to make a strong presence in the area or cede the whole thing to the Brotherhood. Padraig, my boss, isn’t a fan of ceding anything.
When Sav got injured a few months ago and we needed a place to stay outside of Oklahoma, it seemed like a win-win. I know Padraig’s plan was to eventually build up our presence here and leave Sav in charge, but his son had other plans.
He’s perfectly happy living free and having nothing to do with us, and I’m happy for him. And not because it meant I got to take over his role as local boss.
Okay, notjustbecause. I wanted him to be happy, but I’m not exactly unhappy with the outcome of my sudden ascent to power. Except now, when I might be about to get murdered by someone who I think might be the first honest-to-god serial killer I’ve ever met.
The guards at the gate immediately go on high alert when they clock the unfamiliar vehicle but relax when they see me driving it. They give Fallow a questioning look, but he hits them with the same soulless grin he gave me earlier as they open the gate for us.
I don’t say anything as I go through the tedious process of driving up to the property and parking. Mostly because I’m scared that the more I talk, the more he’ll see how much he manages to ruffle me. As soon as we’re out of the truck, I startto lead him inside to my office so I can tell him the truth and get down to business, but of course, he interrupts me.
“Whatisthat?” he asks.
Honestly, I’ve gotten so used to the noise, I barely notice it anymore. It’s annoying, but in the same way that the sound of air conditioning is annoying. Background noise. But on the rare occasions when we do have a visitor on the property, I’m always reminded that it’s pretty loud the first time you hear it, and it takes a minute to explain.
I can’t suppress a sigh.
“It’s foxes. I know they’re annoying, but you tune them out after a while. One of the ladies breeds them as pets that she sells. They’re in those kennels over there.”
I point to the chain-link runs lining one side of the building, Fallow’s gaze following my finger. Normally, people look some combination of annoyed, disgusted, or bored at this point. The noise is universally irritating for sure. But it’s actually become a weird indicator of how much empathy people have deep down, whether their response is to not give a shit or to at the very least think it’s fucking gross to chain up wild animals and impregnate them for profit.
