And anyway, out of all of his club brothers, he was an expert with knives. A quiet, efficient way to cull the herd of hillbilly goat fuckers.
While the rest knew how to handle guns, Shade did not. He stuck with what was familiar. What felt natural in his hand.
What he’d used in the past to keep himself breathing. What he’d also used when he was too tired to breathe anymore.
But that was only one time during a moment of weakness.
He’d been stolen once. He decided he wouldn’t let those people steal him again by forcing his hand to do something drastic.
So, he didn’t let them.
Just like he wouldn’t let the Shirleys get away with stealing women or children. Or injuring his brothers, like they had with Ozzy and Dodge.
Thank fuck both of them got off easy.
Unlike the Shirleys.
He glanced at the man behind him, who was now dirtier from being dragged through the undergrowth of the forest than when he’d been standing on two feet.
The fucker had been holding an AR-15 and casually smoking when Shade came upon him. He’d also been taking a lot of nips at a flask tucked in his dirty cargo pants. It was the smoke that gave him away while the moonshine made the man numb and dumb. Dumber than normal.
He was Shade’s perfect target. Snagging the man wouldn’t raise the alarm. They were too far from the compound.
It had been way too easy.
Shade stood hidden to the left of the man and threw a rock to the right.
Easy distraction. The Shirley was too stupid to realize it.
As the hillbilly turned to look toward the noise, Shade snuck up and made a clean slice under the man’s thick beard before he even knew what was happening.
Standing behind the fucker until Shade was sure the job was done, he couldn’t see the man’s face, but he was sure it was full of surprise since he dropped the hand-rolled and the AR-15. Then the Shirley slowly collapsed to his knees, his own hand trying to stem the flow of blood rushing from the ear to ear slice.
Not that anything could stop it. Fuck no, it was too late.
Once his target’s heart stopped and his lungs went still, Shade slung the semi-automatic rifle over his back using the strap to secure it there. He grabbed both ankles and began to hoof it down the short distance to Copperhead Road, where he’d left the van.
Black, windowless. Just like the one when he was four.
But this one was used for Tioga Pet Crematorium, one of the club’s businesses. It was only used to steal Shirleys. Not women and children.
At least, not yet.
They still hadn’t decided what to do with the kids—forty of them and growing—in the compound. Or the women.
They decided to only worry about the men first. Once everyone with hair on their balls was extinct, they could decide about the rest.
A decision no one really wanted to make.
Truthfully, Shade didn’t, either. He preferred to leave the kids with their mommas. Especially since he never had that chance.
He ground his back molars and pushed onward.
After a few more minutes of dragging the dead weight, he saw the van where he’d hidden it on the opposite side of Copperhead Road in the woods. He had built a “screen” of branches and brush to hide the van from any eyes. Especially pigs.
He didn’t want any of them greeting him in the middle of the night with his bounty. Not only would that be fucking awkward, it would raise some questions.
Just a few.
Ones he wouldn’t answer.
He’d gotten away his whole adult life never spending a minute behind bars, unlike most of his brothers, and he wanted to keep it that way.
He’d spent too much time in a different type of prison. Ten of his thirty years.
A whole fucking decade.
He reminded himself now was not the time to revisit that shit...
That was the past. He’d spent the last sixteen years trying to move past it.
He hadn’t. Never would. But he tried not to give it more than a fucking minute of his time, at least while he was awake. He spent too much time in the past while he slept.
Or tried to sleep.
Shade glanced both ways before crossing the dark road to make sure no vehicles were coming. He dropped the body at the bottom of the mountain lane, jogged across the road and down fifty feet. He quickly uncovered the van and drove it back to the bottom of Hillbilly Hill.
He could have dragged the man behind him, across the pavement and to the van, but that would leave evidence.
Blood. Hair. Skin. Pieces of clothing.
He shoved the van into Park, jogged around to the side and threw open the sliding door.
He tucked the AR-15 into the van under a tarp. He’d put it in his secret hiding spot, where he was putting all the weapons he came across. His spot wasn’t on the farm since Trip didn’t want them there. Most of his club brothers were ex-felons, a couple still on probation or parole, and if the pigs—local, state or feds—found a stash of weapons on the club’s property, it would cause issues.