I didn’t understand why he had chosen the ex-Berserker as his second. Wrath was a good man straight down to his bones, but he might as well have been broken at every bone as well because of the trauma of losing his Kylie. He barely functioned and lived in an Airstream at the edge of our five-acre property, not leaving for days at a time.
And he was a good guy, yes, but he wasn’t King’s best friend. No one could ever replace Mute for my man, but there were brothers he considered family and good friends, Bat like an uncle, Priest and Nova two of his closest comrades.
So why?
The question logged under my consciousness like a sliver, casting its pall on the entire night.
I felt better, mildly, when an hour went by, and Eugene, Cyclops, Buck, and Axe-Man went out for a ride, circling around town in case they caught sight of where Ventura and King might have gone.
Still, it was good to watch my family even without the two centers of our wheel, Zeus and King. I spent most of my time holding one of the twins, loving that Angel smiled at everything as if the world existed only for her entertainment, and laughing at how Walker was the yin to her yang, scowling and brooding like the four-month-old was already a Byronic hero. I teased Loulou about it, jokingly calling the grumpy baby a true little Monster, but she wasn’t offended. Instead, like the biker queen she was, Loulou leaned forward to kiss his frowning brow and whispered, “My little Monster.”
Lysander too stayed close in a way I found surprisingly comforting instead of ingratiating after so much time apart. He was stalwart, this hulking presence like a vassal serving his lord. It was a strange relationship, like he was serving penance to me for his mistakes, but I was biker enough to realize that was the only way for him to earn back my trust. At one point, I laid my head on his iron thigh where he sat on the arm of the couch beside me, and he hesitated for one brief, aching moment before he stroked my head.
There was fun stuff too because no biker party was ever boring.
Boner got wasted in a game of Edward Fortyhands with Lab-Rat, the man who tested every single strain of weed the brothers produced and drank everything and anything that could have possibly given him an artificial high, then promptly challenged him to a game of darts. His first three tosses landed darts in the wall, a cushion, and almost in my cat’s damn tail, so I made them the only three shots he took.
Maja challenged Hannah, Lila, Cleo, and Harleigh Rose to a dance-off, and I almost busted my gut laughing at the way Hannah twerked like a hip-hop dancer despite being sixty plus years old.
It was good.
It just would have been so much better with Zeus.
Incomparable with King.
And time was ticking on. I could feel the hands of the clock move with every beat of my truculent heart, reminding me that one, two, three hours had passed, and King still wasn’t home with me.
No one said it was going to be okay, and I appreciated that. They knew better than I did, after years of the life, that not everyone came home.
I hoped to God King wouldn’t go the way of Mute.
And then a phone rang, nearly impossible to hear under the roar of the music and laughter and constant chatter, but my ears were tuned to it, any vibration or repetition of sound that might be a ringtone.
It wasn’t my phone.
There was something in that––in the fact that my phone wasn’t ringing––that caused my heart to turn over in my chest, the move so painful I actually gasped and clutched at my chest, thinking, maybe, momentarily, I was having a genuine heart attack.
The room went so quiet, I could hear the buzz of the sound system under the Led Zeppelin song before someone swiftly turned it off.
“Yeah,” Bat answered, standing up from off the ground where he’d been playing with his sons.
I didn’t breathe; I didn’t want to move even an inch as if my suspension made a difference to the news I’d receive from that damn phone that wasn’t mine.
Sander was beside me, hand on my shoulder, Lou to my right on the couch holding both of her babies, and Harleigh Rose between my legs on the floor. I remembered that, for some reason even though it was no solace at the time. Later on, I would think about how my family was around me, and that meant something.
But when Bat listened to whoever was on the other end of the phone, and as if in slow motion, turned his head and looked up in my eyes, his black gaze impenetrable but his expressive mouth straight as a flatline, everything fell away.