"Legion?" I ask, but the word just hangs there.
Nobody answers. Nobody meets my eyes.
I go upstairs to the hallway of rooms they call the bunkhouse, the steps creak under my new-to-me boots.
The narrow hallway stretches before me, ten doors on each side. Like a motel where nobody ever changes the sheets.Lightbulbs hang naked from the ceiling, casting yellow pools every few feet, leaving darkness between. The floor is bare wood, worn to splinters in the center from decades of heavy boots.
Legion and I stay in room 3. My new tattoo throbs with my pulse.
Even though we slept in here for a few hours last night, it was dark and I didn't really look at it.
Now, I do.
The room is... nothing. A twin bed, messy because I was pulled out of here early by Mama Jo this morning for the gifting. A metal footlocker, locked. No photographs, no decorations. The single window has duct tape patching a crack in the corner. Below it sits a plastic milk crate holding three books—a Bible, something with a black cover, and what looks like a Harley manual.
The room feels like a cell. Not a home. Just somewhere to lay down between fights.
I blow out a breath and leave the way I came.
Alone.
Downstairs, whispers gather around me like flies.
I step into the dining room and everything stops—conversations, coffee cups mid-lift, cigarettes hovering. Five women frozen in their places around a scarred wooden table.
Their eyes move over me in waves—down to my bleeding wrist, up to my face, across to the door like they're expecting someone else. Someone more important.
"Have any of you seen Legion?" I ask, voice steadier than I feel. I push my shoulders back like Eleanor taught me for photographs. Chin up. Smile with your eyes. Never let them see you sweat.
"He walked right past you," Brandy says, eyes sliding over to gauge my reaction.
"That doesn't answer my question," I say, sharper now. "Have you seen him, or haven't you?"
The women exchange looks loaded with meanings I can't translate. Secret language of the claimed.
I don't belong here among these women with their leather, and denim, and cigarettes. I don't belong at the ranch with its chandeliers, and silver trays, and campaign donors. I exist in the cracks between worlds now, carrying too much of both to fit in either.
But there was a vote. Thirty-nine to eight.
I might not belong, but I'mallowedto be here.
"If you see him," I say to the silence, "tell him I'm looking."
I turn to walk out. And almost smack right into Mama Jo.
She materializes in the doorway like she's been summoned by my defiance, silver hair pulled back in a tight braid, eyes narrowed to slits. The whispers die instantly—not fading but slaughtered. The room goes cemetery-still.
"I've got something you should see, Not Mine." Her voice carries no warmth. No invitation. Just fact.
In her weathered hand is a black burner phone, the kind they sell at gas stations for cash. The screen is scratched, the plastic case worn smooth at the edges. She extends it toward me without explanation, like I should already understand.
"Take it," she says when I hesitate.
The phone feels unexpectedly heavy in my palm. Ancient technology compared to my usual sleek devices. When I snap the cover open, the screen flickers to life, already showing a website I don't recognize.
And there I am.
Naked. On my knees on the floor of the clubhouse, leaning over Legion's lap, his fat cock in my mouth.
