Tonight—nothing.
Just the wind moving through the compound like a ghost looking for somewhere to haunt.
I push through the front door.
The bar's empty.
Completely empty.
No Diesel nursing a beer. No Chains sketching at a corner table. No prospects cleaning up or hanging around hoping to catch scraps of conversation that might teach them how to survive here.
Just empty tables. Stale air. The neon beer signs buzzing their lonely electric prayers into the dark.
In all my years at Badlands—prospect days, prison, coming home, getting patched—I've never seen this room empty.
Not once.
Paranoia crawls up my spine like something with too many legs.
Are they having a vote without me?
The thought hits sharp and cold. A secret church session where they decide my fate before I even walk through the door tomorrow.
I turn. Head back outside. Cross the compound toward the church building—the original structure, older than everything else here, where real club business gets handled.
The door's locked. No sound, no clues, just nothing.
I step back. Light a cigarette with hands that want to shake but won't let themselves.
Maybe everyone's asleep. Maybe it's late enough that even the insomniacs and addicts have given up and crawled into beds, or couches, or wherever the fuck they pass out.
Or maybe they're avoiding me.
Maybe I'm already dead, and they just haven't figured out how to tell me yet.
"Fuck it," I mutter to the empty compound.
I head for the bunkhouse. Climb the exterior stairs to the second floor. The hallway's dark except for one flickering overhead light that's been dying for six months. Nobody's fixed it. Nobody's going to.
Room 3. I open the door. Step inside. Close it behind me.
The space greets me the same way it always does—bare, and spartan, and deliberately free of anythin' that might make it feel like home.
Steel bed frame. Thin mattress. Gun rack bolted to the wall. Duffel bag in the corner containing everything I own that matters.
I strip off my cut. Hang it carefully on the hook by the door.
The brand underneath aches. Always aches now, even weeks after the infection. Scar tissue pulling wrong. Shape distorted where they cut away too much dead flesh trying to save my life.
I peel off my shirt. The B is barely recognizable. Just a mess of scars that burn when I move. Then the jeans. Kick them into the corner.
The shower’s cramped, but it's better than nothin'. I turn the water on. Step under the spray before it's even warm. The cold water hits like a baptism.
I stand there. Let it pour over my head. Down my back. Washing away road dust, and Savannah's perfume, and the residue of every choice I've made that led me here.
If I could go back?—
The thought rises unbidden.
