Hard Rider

I wasn't sure how he'd take it. I expected anger. But I also expected he'd understand, and forgive, and be happy to know. I expected that he loved me too much to hate me. I thought he'd know how much I loved him, too. You can add another mistake to the scoreboard.

When I was dressed again, and done with my crying, I told him everything. Dutch calling for me at Ziggy’s, then showing up. I told him what Dutch told me, as close to word for word as I could manage. I told him about the threats. And I told him I was sorry. I told him I was sorrier than I'd ever been in my life. When I was done, he just sat there, looking at me. And I could just wait for him to say something, anything.

“Dutch told you I was a rebel,” he said, voice flat. “He said I was fixin' to betray the Crusaders.”

“That's what he told me, Dutch, but I...”

“But what, Bex? You believed him? You believed I'd go 'gainst my own club, my own brothers? Is that all you think of me, Bex? After all these years, all we been through...”

“No! No, Cross, no, it's not like that, I didn't believe him, I didn't...I didn't know what to believe, but it wasn't about you! He offered me money to start over, and he offered me protection from Jase! I was so scared, Cross, please, you gotta understand...”

“Money? Protection? I could have protected you, Bex. I would protect you from anything. But you...you sold me out. Sold me straight out of your lyin' heart. Start over? What makes you think you deserve to start over? You fucked up your life, and you were willin' to see me skinned, drawn, and quartered to fix it. No, Bex, those excuses won't be flyin' with me.”

Cross' eyes were angry before. Now, they were worse, because they were empty. He looked at me like I was a parking meter that ran a bit over its time. Just something that wasn't worth dealing with.

“Cross,” I pleaded, taking a step forward, trying to make him see how I was hurting. “I'm risking' everything telling you...”

“Get out,” he said, voice flat, neck muscles twitching. “Before I do what that cowardly ex-husband of yours can only threaten to do. Go back to the clubhouse.”

Now, it was my heart that chilled. Cross and I had fought before, when we were young. But he never threatened me. And it was a fool who'd take Cross' threats lightly. You only needed to glance at his knuckles to know that. If Cross had my number, I wasn't going back to my room; I was getting the hell out of Dodge. I couldn't have Dutch and Cross out for me.

“And don't you think for a second about leavin' town,” he said, like a goddamn mind-reader. “I'm not done with you.”

The last time he'd said that, he'd been talking about my body, maybe even about my heart – our hearts. Now, I didn't know what he meant. I knew I shouldn't stay. I could grab the next Greyhound to California and leave all this mess behind.

But I owed him a little more than that, didn't I? After all this, didn't he deserve a little bit more from me than just leaving – again – without a word? And once he cooled off, maybe, he'd see how Dutch had used my weakest parts against me, how much I'd risked just telling him the truth. He'd feel bad about threatening me, and we'd figure out how to get past this...

“You're still standin' there, Bex,” he said. “And I know you heard me. Get your lyin' ass out of here. Now.”

Alright. No more time for deliberating. I turned my tail and left, just in time for him to miss the waterworks start up again. No sooner did the door slam shut behind me than I started bawling. I'd never fucked up anything this bad, and my heart knew it. It was breaking. All I could do was watch it shatter, and wish I'd never heard of the Dead Crusaders, or Cutter, Missouri, or Cross DuFrane.

Cross

I was half-blind and full-dumb with rage, and all I could think to do was to go the one place I knew Bex wouldn't be at: Peach's. She wasn't working, obviously, and wouldn't be working ‘til the next day. But she'd be at the clubhouse, and she might be at the bar (though if she knew what was good for her, she'd keep her ass locked tight in that bedroom Dutch gifted her for her betrayal).

Besides, what does a man want to do when a woman breaks his heart, other than find another woman to remind him why women aren't worth it in the first place?

Bex and Dutch. Fuckin' Bex and fuckin' Dutch. Both of them, traitors. I couldn't tell you which hurt worse. Bex, I suppose, 'cause I truly hadn't seen it comin'. But Dutch had been fallin' off for a while now. I had seen all those cracks in his foundation, ignored them in favor of loyalty. Now, I was the asshole whose loyalty wasn't worth the price of a pack of gum.

Out on the streets, I rode too fast for my own good. Those broken wings on my cut didn't enter my mind at all. Fuck, let me crash again. At least I'd be free of all this shit. All this goddamn pain in my chest. It was choking me. It was killing me. I needed to kill it first, with strong drinks and weak women.

A traffic jam threatened my hell-ride, but it was just a threat. I wove in and out of the cars on the three-lane highway, damn near taking a few side mirrors with me, and gladly accepting the angry horns as a soundtrack to my fury.

Dutch. Red-eyed Dutch. Goin'-to-Memphis, don't-come-with-me Dutch. Don't-worry-about-the-drugs Dutch. Leave-it-alone and know-your-place Dutch. I rode a little faster. Twenty-eight years I'd known that man, twenty years he'd been leading' our brotherhood, and I'd served him for half of that. And now, suddenly, he was turnin' on us? What for? What in the bloody hell could Dutch want that he didn't have? Money, drugs, women, power, all right there in his palm. Was it the drugs? Had he been getting' into the horse? No; Dutch was too damn smart for that, wasn't he?

Was it Sylvia, that snake of a woman, whispering in his ear at night?

It didn't make any kind of sense.

Peach's appeared before me like an oasis in the desert, and I pulled into the lot with a roar. My poor Vincent was probably grateful to be safe and sound. Me? I was going to get wrecked that night, one way or another. I had what was left of my heart set on it.

Inside, with the smoke and sound, I felt my tensions ease a bit. But only a bit. Whiskey would take me the rest of the way. And then pussy, whatever pussy I could find, the first one that offered itself to me. But these girls were the ones who got too old or too used up for porn. I'd need a lot of whiskey to pretend any of them could take Bex's place.

Peach herself served me my first drink. And knew enough not to try and chat me up while she served it. I guess my face betrayed m

e, just like everyone else in my fuckin' life. A man feelin' sorry for himself is not a pretty sight.

At any rate, Peach may not have wanted to pry, but the man at the end of the bar did. I don't know how I missed him when I came in, but there was Blade, sittin' pretty with a fuckin' crossword puzzle in front of him. Who does a crossword puzzle in a strip club? He saw me, and gave up on 42-down to solve something more interesting.

“Don't,” I warned as he approached.

“Well, that's no way to talk to your superior,” he said through a grin.

“Don't feel like talkin' at all,” I grunted, slamming back my drink and signaling for another.

“Most men don't, when they come to Peach's with the sun still high in the sky,” Blade said, easing onto the stool beside me. “But I reckon that's when men need to talk the most.”

I couldn't tell Blade. He'd run straight to Dutch, and we'd be fucked. I'd be fucked. There was no we anymore. Bex was no longer a part of my plans.

“I really can't talk about it,” I said, trying to get him off my back. I had no friend in this whole damn world. Not even Blade, who just yesterday was the closest thing I had to a twin brother. Shit, that hurt too. I didn't even have Blade.

“Bex?” Blade suggested. I grunted. Blade took a sip of his drink, swallowed hard. “Dutch?”

I was compelled to look at him for the first time. We never talked about Dutch. At least, not in any significant way. Why would he? He was our President. We did what he said. There was nothing to talk about.

Was Blade on his side, too? Did I have to worry about Blade, trying to get me to say some shit, runnin' back to Dutch like a rat?

Or was it possible that I wasn't the only one who'd noticed the ways Dutch had changed?

Maybe Blade had seen those same changes. Maybe he'd been wantin’ to talk about it for a while. Maybe. But what was I riskin', banking on that? If I told Blade that I knew what Dutch had done, getting Bex to spy on me, and he told Dutch that I knew...