Desolation Road (Torpedo Ink 4)

They’d decided ahead of time that it would be good to have one-on-one help. So each child would have an instructor to watch over them. The older and middle-aged children were going to be using deadly weapons and they wanted to ensure they were safe. He waited until they had gone with their instructors to their designated area at the corner of the field almost out of sight of the younger children. Absinthe thought it best if the younger children weren’t so reliant on the older ones for comfort and aid. He wanted them to try to make their own decisions and work on their own during the time he had with them.

“Emily, you and Jimmy are with Alena and me. We’ll be teaching you some very interesting techniques that will help you with all sorts of self-defense and weapons skills down the line. Give us a couple of minutes to set up.”

He kept a watchful eye on Jimmy, Czar’s newest son. The boy wouldn’t meet his eyes and continually looked as if he might bolt at any moment. Emily, Czar’s youngest daughter, sat close to the boy and held his hand. Jimmy clung to her but looked at the motorcycles and the various bikers and the colors they wore with a mixture of apprehension and hope.

“Where’s Savage?” Alena asked as she placed a set of colored rocks in front of each child. “Shouldn’t he be here? He said he’d come.”

“Had a hard time lately,” Absinthe said. “Knows an underground club in the Bay and decided it was best to go there for a day or two and get it out of his system. Said he’d be back tonight.”

“And our newest member?”

“He went to watch Savage’s back.” Absinthe placed the wall Master and Player had built for him made up of wood with a multitude of small holes set at different heights across from the children. “Someone had to, and we had this gig. Savage knew he couldn’t get back in time.”

“I’ll just bet he went to watch Savage’s back. He’s probably just like Savage, needing to fight in the clubs and then go after the women.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Savage, Alena,” Absinthe said, keeping his voice low. “Any more than the rest of us. He thinks there isn’t any hope for him, but he’s saved my life more than once. I resented him for it too. I resented you.”

“I had to save you, Absinthe. You were starving yourself to death.” Her voice dripped with tears. She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him, although the confrontation had been so many years earlier. “None of us could let you go. You’re part of my soul. Part of all our souls.”

“I know that now. I just didn’t know that then.” He slung his arm around her neck and brushed her cheek with his lips. “Thank you for saving my life. I didn’t appreciate it then, but I do now. And just so you know, Savage is a good man regardless of what he thinks about himself. I see inside of him and I know what’s there. He might have to battle demons in his mind, but in his soul, where it counts, he’s golden.”

Alena glanced down at her hands. “I didn’t mean to imply I thought Savage was wrong for what he does. We all have our strange needs. They seem right to us, but weird to everyone else.” She shrugged. “He’s my brother. I guess, someday, Destroyer will fit with us too.” She didn’t sound as if she believed what she was saying.

“He didn’t grow up with us, Alena, so it’s bound to be much more difficult to accept him. That will come. Savage said Destroyer didn’t shirk at all. That he took his back and no matter what was required of him, he did it without flinching. Although, I think both of them were more scared of these kids than they were of fucking up six members of the Venomous club.”

Alena laughed and turned with him back to Emily and Jimmy. Absinthe sat down in front of the children and picked up one of the rocks, letting it slip through his fingers again and again to drop into his palm. “When we were kids, even younger than you, some very bad people murdered our parents and took us to an awful place so they could do bad things to us.”

They had agreed that in order for the children to identify with them, particularly Jimmy, they would have to allow the children to know the same things had happened to them. They didn’t know how to whitewash anything. They didn’t have social graces or know how to talk gently to children. No one read them bedtime stories. They were going to try to help these children, but they were doing it their way. Bluntly. Following their path. What had helped them.