You can't run away from this, my dad had said when I'd joined the Marines. He didn't understand that I needed to get out of this town. It was filled with memories of her.
Memories of my failure.
My dad thought I had run to the Marines because of June. He didn't know it was also because of what I'd done. I'd kept that secret, about June's sister and the ranch hand. If I hadn't, if I'd have done something about it, they'd be alive right now.
He didn't understand that I never wanted June to stay. If she stayed, she'd find out that I'd done nothing to stop what happened. She'd never forgive me.
Joining the Marines was a way of atoning.
How could I have known I'd wind up being a sniper?
So much for atoning.
I had a hell of a lot more to atone for now.
I stopped at the ridge and dismounted, stood there with my hand on the horse, feeling her breath rise and fall, the warmth of her flank under my palm. For the very briefest of moments, I was sixteen again, standing on this ridge, imagining my life stretched out before me.
Infinite possibilities and boundless optimism.
Fuck if it ended up that way.
Maybe I began my descent during the Marines, after all the bullshit deployments had finally eaten away at my soul. But I didn't go full fucking throttle into the abyss until I joined the Inferno. I was drifting, after I got out of the Marines. No, not drifting. I was fucking lost at sea with no rudder. No structure, no purpose. Just me and all the memories of the shit I'd done and seen. I was filled with rage, and no amount of talking about my feelings was going to change it. And I couldn't come home and face all the people who knew me, once upon a time. I couldn't face my dad, most of all.
So I'd picked Los Angeles. I figured I'd always heard people talk about how soul-sucking it was. It would be a perfect fit for me, the man without a soul. I got a job as a supervisor at a warehouse. Turns out, being a supervisor at a warehouse is really fucking boring.
So when one of my buddies introduced me to Blaze, Vice-President of the Inferno MC, it seemed like an ideal place for someone like me. I wasn't the only disillusioned veteran there. My buddy fell out while prospecting, but me? I went full monty, prospected and patched. Worked my way up pretty quick, too.
Mad Dog seemed took a real shine to me, psychopath that he is. He liked that I’d killed before with no qualms, and guided my skills toward his particular need - club enforcer. It wasn't long before he got to trusting me. What he didn’t count on was that my policy was to never trust anyone, no matter the rank. I’d learned that when I was in the Marines.
What I’d told my dad before, all that shit about brotherhood? Yeah, that sounded great. The problem was, it’s what I believed when I started, but I didn’t believe it anymore. Kind of hard to believe in that when your own brothers just tried to kill you. But I guess that’s been going on since the beginning of time, Cain and Abel and all that.
And the past year had been the worst, all the drugs and booze and girls. None of that had really gotten to me before. But it had become harder and harder to keep my head above water. The worst of that shit was getting involved with Sam, a stripper with a hard core coke habit and a penchant for doing crazy shit.
Three months ago was the end of that, thank God.
~ ~ ~
Three months ago
Los Angeles
I rode in, past the gate guard, and could already see the clubhouse was busy, even though it was two in the morning. Bikes lined the parking lot, and I could hear the thumping of bass from the speakers inside before I’d even pulled off my helmet. I needed a party after this shitty week, even though really I didn’t want to deal with one.
Inside, the place was torn up, par for the course on a party night. The clubhouse wasn’t exactly the highest quality establishment ever, and I hadn’t been enforcing good order and discipline as much as I used to, back a year or so ago. Mad Dog had let in a couple of guys who were shitbags, one who I thought was using more of the meth than he should be, and Blaze was distracted, gone to Stanford half the time, banging Dani.
So parties, while they used to be just wild, had gotten out of control.
I surveyed the room, taking in the chaos. One of the mamas, Deb, was bent over the pool table where a group of bikers were running a train on her. Deb was into that kind of thing, luckily, but I wasn’t sure this new group of assholes Mad Dog had recruited gave a shit if the female was into it or not, and that made me nervous.
“Good to see you, brother,” Mad Dog said, clapping me on the shoulder as I walked inside. He reeked of cheap whiskey and cigarette smoke. I exhaled heavily. I was tired and didn’t want to deal with him tonight.
“Yeah, Prez. You too.”
“Been gone a while.”
I shook my head. “Went out for a ride.”
“Well,” he said. “You should be careful riding alone at night.” His voice sounded friendly, but nothing was ever really friendly with Mad Dog. There was always subtext.
“I’m always careful,” I said.
“Yeah, well, as long as you know where you got to come back to.” He sauntered off, back to the used up looking girl waiting for him. She giggled, tossing her bleached blonde hair over her shoulder and stumbling drunkenly into him before they staggered to the back room.