“I just thought you should know. You know, in case there is anything you need to do?”
“Thank you, Grey.” I kissed the top of her head and then stared across her to Indie.
Before I could say anything else, a voice cut across the waiting room.
“Dr Mercer?”
Sophie’s head turned instantly, the softness leaving her face so fast it was like a flick-knife snapping open. A nurse stood a little way down the corridor, clipboard clutched tightly against her chest, urgency written all over her.
“Cubicle seven’s deteriorating. Chest pain. ECG changes.”
Sophie nodded once. Calm. Controlled. Already moving.
The woman in my arms a second ago disappeared beneath the doctor again. Shoulders straightening. Eyes sharpening. Every inch of her slipping back into command, like it was instinct instead of effort. She looked back at me once. Just once. Then she was gone, grey scrubs vanishing through the swinging doors as the department swallowed her whole again.
A phone rang. My phone. Fuck’s sake. I checked the screen. Barry the Blade. What the fuck now?
“What?” I answered too gruffly, knowing Indie would be picking me up for lack of respect at a later date.
“Brie’s dead,” he said flatly.
“What?” I asked again, but this time it really was a question.
“Someone got here first. Stabbed. Blood everywhere.”
“Fuck.”
“I know. Someone’s gonna have to go tell the club.”
And I was guessing that someone was me.
“Take the twins.” Indie motioned at them, beckoning them over as we talked in hushed voices in a corner of the waiting room. “I don’t want you out there alone. No one rides alone in colours.”
“What about the police?” I asked.
“I’ll deal with that. You get to Angels and Demons before the police get there first. Just hope we’re not too late.”
*****
Our bikes growled deep and savage in the night, vibrating the tarmac underneath us and waking the neighbourhood up, if there’d been anyone around to hear it. Nothing stirred inside the clubhouse. Not a flicker of light or movement. A few bikes were parked on the street, positioned under a dull street light, casting shadows out onto tarmac cracked with weeds.
I glanced at Chaos and Carnage, a lump of dread filling my stomach.
“I don’t know what we’re walking into here,” I muttered, intentionally keeping my voice low.
“Do you think they’ve been hit too?”
I didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. The silence around the place already felt wrong. Clubhouses were never truly quiet. Not during a war. There should’ve been music. Voices. Someone keeping watch. Something. Instead, the whole place sat there like it had passed out. I pushed at the door, feeling it give easily.
“Careful, lads,” I warned, creeping forward, one cautious step at a time.
For a moment I peered through the frosted glass doors to the bar, neon light moving in the distance from the bandit machine, a low music droning. Carefully I nudged the glass door, the smell hitting instantly. Smoke. Stale booze. Weed. Something chemical underneath it all.
Chaos wrinkled his nose. “Fuck me.”
The main room was dimly lit, a TV still flickering silently in the corner. A jukebox playing to itself. Bodies were everywhere. A couple slumped on sofas. One prospect sparked out face down at a table with white powder still dusted under his nose. Women curled into leather-clad bodies like they’d forgotten the world existed outside these walls.
No one even noticed us come in.
