I looked at the new grave, the crude stake, and the mounded dirt. “She just wanted me to be happy. I never was, so she settled for alive.”
Emily nodded, arms wrapped tight now, not from the cold. “What were you like as a kid?” she asked. It sounded like a strange question, but I understood what she meant… tell me the version of you before you belonged to the club, to grief, to the cycle of loss.
I shut my eyes and tried to picture it. “Fat. Quiet. Used to read the library dry every summer, then spend the rest of the year figuring out which parts were lies. Ma worked at the college, so I hung around the campus after class. Sometimes the security guards would let me sit in the shade of the old labs, watch the technicians blow stuff up behind safety glass. Dad was overseas more than he was home, but when he was, he’d take me out to the gun range and teach me how to shoot lefty, then righty, then with my eyes half closed. I guess I liked the discipline of it. The repetition.”
The rain fell steadily. Emily brushed a strand of hair from her face and looked at the grave. “You ever wish you’d done something else?”
“All the time.” I thumbed the dog tags, their edges worn smooth. “But college felt like a scam, and the club felt like family. For a while, anyway.”
She was silent, letting it hang. Her patience made it easier to keep talking.
“My mom,” I said, “she never stopped calling me her boy, even after I was a full-patch secretary. Even after I had a record, after I’d buried half a dozen club brothers who didn’t know when to quit.” The words stuck in my throat. “She’s the only person who never made me feel less for choosing this.”
Emily’s hand found my elbow, light as breath. She didn’t squeeze, didn’t try to turn me to face her. Just enough contact to say: I’m here, I’m not leaving, you can let it out.
“Sometimes,” I said, voice rough, “I think she was relieved when my father died. Like she could finally admit how scared she’d been every time he deployed, every time the phone rang after midnight. She told me once—just the once—that the worst thing about living with a soldier was you never got used to waiting for bad news. You just built a thicker wall against it.”
I looked at the dirt again. “I thought I could build one, too. But I’m not her.”
The rain slowed for a second, wind dying. Emily’s voice was softer than the rain. “You’re allowed to fall apart, you know.”
I felt the pressure build behind my eyes, the old ache that wanted to turn into tears but only ever made it to rage or numbness. I wiped my nose on the sleeve, angry at myself for needing to.
“I was supposed to protect her,” I said, almost a whisper. “That’s the fucking deal, right? You lose your dad, you step up. You make sure nothing gets past you. And I let her die for nothing. Not even a reason, just a fluke, a couple of Sultans trying to score rep with a robbery gone sideways.”
Emily shook her head. “You did everything you could. You can’t be everywhere. You can’t fix everything.”
I stared at her, searching for the lie in her face, but there wasn’t one. Just a calm certainty that made me feel naked.
“Tell that to the part of me that wants to dig up the bastards and bury them alive,” I said.
She looked away, blinking rain from her eyes. “Would it help?” she asked.
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say it would fix everything, that revenge was the only justice left in a world that ran on cruelty. But the words wouldn’t line up.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But it’s all I have left.”
She was quiet for a long time. The rain started again, lighter this time, more like static than bullets.
“You going after them?” she said.
I nodded. “The club’s making a move tonight. Damron wants it quiet, but he doesn’t care how much blood gets spilled as long as it stays out of the news. There’s a motel on the edge of town, full of Sultans and whatever trash they picked up from Arizona. After the wake, it’s open season.”
Emily stood beside me, boots in the mud, hands now in her pockets. She didn’t argue, didn’t try to change my mind. Just stood, waiting for the rest.
I turned to her, face numb, and asked, “You think it makes me a monster?”
She tilted her head. “I think it makes you human. I just don’t want to see you end up in the dirt next to them.”
Thunder rumbled far off, a promise more than a warning. I looked down at the names, the dates, the fresh scar on the earth. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to be anymore.
We stood together until the rain soaked us through, until the club started filtering back to the bikes and the cemetery emptied out. Even then, neither of us moved. Emily’s hand rested at my elbow, steady, an anchor to keep me from flying apart completely.
“Will vengeance bring you peace?” she said, voice so quiet I almost missed it.
I didn’t answer. I just looked at the graves, the dirt, the horizon drawn flat under a storm-bruised sky. And for the first time since it all went down, I wondered if the answer mattered.
8
