The next few months pass by in a blur. I keep myself buried in work. Hardcore and I took a trip to Arizona to build a barn. My old man handed me the business. We went to war with the Depraved, but none of it has stopped me from thinking about Daisy. I’ve chased easy pussy and liquor. Tried giving Layla a shot, but no matter how hard I tried, all I want is her. The girl with those doe eyes and more emotional wounds than ought to be fair.
She’s all I fucking think about.
All this time she’s been with Hot Mama and her Queens.
I finally got permission to visit.
I’m riding out at first light.
The ride to Lonerock is dry and ugly, but bright enough to make the inside of my skull itch. The highway’s nothing but a scar down an endless stretch of nothing. The kind of road where you see your future squirming in the heat waves, and it looks exactly like your past and everything you’re trying to escape. Bloody, dusty––nothing worth running for, but I still chase the next mile. I chew the inside of my cheek to keep myself awake, to keep myself focused. At every stoplight, I imagine Daisy standing there. Sometimes holding that fucking knife. Sometimes just looking at me with those haunted eyes. I try like hell not to rehearse a speech or a plan, but the thoughts creep in anyway.
I’m coming for you.
I’ll fix it.
Save you.
I’ll fucking burn it all down.
I’ll kill them all.
I take the turnoff following behind my club brothers and see the old church that’s been here as long as Lonerock has been a place. We drive through the weathered town. Most of the guys file off to check in at the motel. Not me though. There’s only one place I want to be.
The battered sign hanging on the front of a bar called Queens, that looks like it was written with lipstick with a bullet hole in the center of the Q, welcomes me.
I park my bike out front next to a few others. The happy hour crowd has already gotten their start.
Meeting Daisy here after not seeing her for months isn’t ideal, but in Lonerock, Hot Mama’s word is law.
I grab the strawberry plushie I bought at a gas station from my saddlebag, then shove it back in. I don’t even know why I bought it. I guess it made me think of Daisy and her love for strawberry ice cream.
The front door of the bar swings open and some old drunk fool rolls out on his ass as a Queen of Anarchy bitch stares him down with the barrel of her shotgun.
Chapter Twelve
One month Ago
I’m scrubbing sticky eggs off a crusted spatula at the crack of dawn when Hot Mama hollers for me from the front porch. “Girl! Get your ass out here. There’s someone to see you.”
I’m hungover from the taste of some holistic tonic and whatever pill they had me on last night. My brain is sluggish and my tongue is thick. I’m still in pajama pants, and my hair’s a rat’s nest of tangles in a messy bun.
I shove on my flip-flops and peer out the living room window, expecting Pancake to be waiting to force me into doing naked yoga again. Last time she made me go on a hike to point our assholes at the sunrise.
Every last one of them is as crazy as the day is long.
What I’m not expecting is to see Gwynee all posh looking out of place with Sissy, Big Daddy’s daughter at her side. What the fuck are they doing here? I don’t want to see them, but I feel like I owe them.
They are part of the reason I’m still alive, but more than that, they remind me of Lunatic, and it hurts to think of him. He must hate me and think I’m more trouble than I’m worth.
I sniff my armpits and rub on stick deodorant before I walk outside.
Gwynee’s face lights up as she takes me in. “Hope you don’t mind us coming so early.”
Hot Mama yells at Sissy to come help her feed her chickens. I wait for the two of them to go off before I offer Gwynee some coffee.
“It’s thick as tar,” I warn her as I hand her a mug with a crooked handle that someone made in one of our craft classes, and we sit on the top step of the cabin I’m staying in. I bunk with six other women right now. They are all off doing their chores or still sleeping. I mainly keep to myself and stay out of their troubles. We’ve all got plenty of them to go around.
“It’s good to see you,” she tells me.
