Page 89 of Resilience

“You’re right, Mom. What happened with Dad is off the point. It’s completely different from this. What happens tonight is for me, and I will be there. Involved.”

When her mother put her hands to her face and rubbed her eyes again, Athena stood up. The conversation had come full circle, so there was no point continuing.

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~oOo~

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At the service-dog training ‘graduation’ ceremony not long ago, Athena had made the mistake of telling their trainer that she left Blanche home sometimes and had gotten a fairly stern lecture about the purpose of a service dog, and how keeping Blanche close and letting her work kept her training sharp. That was all well and good for normal people, but there were some extremely not-normal things in the Bulls world, where a dog—any dog—didn’t belong. This fall had so far been basically nonstop chaos, so yes, she’d left Blanche back a few times. But when her life was as close to normal as it got, she kept her service dog with her.

Tonight was very much not a night for Blanche to come along. When Sam and Jay arrived, on their bikes, Athena tugged her jacket on and went back to her mother’s office to tell her she was leaving Blanche home and ask her to feed her dinner. But when she and Blanche arrived at the open door to the office, Athena found Mom strapping her shoulder holster on.

“What are you doing?” Athena asked.

“I’m coming with you,” Mom answered.

“What? Why? No!”

“Yes. You need someone there for you.”

“They’re all going to be there for me.”

Mom grabbed her leather jacket from the arm of the Eames chair she’d inherited from her father. After she pulled it on, she signed, “That’s not what I mean. I mean you need someone there for support when you see things you thought you understood.”

“Mom—”

“I’m coming, Athena. With you or right behind you, I’m coming.”

Athena knew the look on her mother’s face. There was no point fighting, so she relented. “Does Dad know?”

Mom’s smile had razor-sharp points. “Let’s say he won’t be surprised.”

Her attention lifted to a point behind Athena and she nodded. Athena turned to see Sam at the doorway. “We have to move,” he signed. “They’re at the barn.”

“Okay. My mom’s coming.”

Sam nodded. “I see that. Let’s go.”

“Wait! I need to let Blanche pee first.” She could wait until they got back to feed Blanche and the kitties, but there was no way she’d make her poor girl cross her legs for the rest of the night.

Sam stepped into the hall and made an ushering sweep of his arm. “Hurry, baby. We can’t make them wait.”

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~oOo~

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The others had the club van, and Sam and Jay had ridden their bikes to pick Athena up. So her mom rode with Jay, and Athena rode with Sam. She couldn’t say whether her mother’s presence had a quelling effect on the way the guys rode; they were being careful, staying near the speed limit and not doing a lot of lane changes or lane-splitting, but that might have been more about not drawing attention.

Athena loved riding with Sam, and she especially loved riding at night, but on this particular night she was anxious. So anxious, she was holding onto Sam too hard; three times, he tugged on her hand and asked her to ease up a little because she was fucking with his balance.

Maybe thirty miles beyond the western outskirts of Tulsa, they pulled off the interstate onto a country road with no name beyond its state road number. There was no gas station at the junction, no lights on the road, no sign at all that people lived out here. They turned right at the top of the ramp and headed into the forest-bounded dark.

Athena had heard about ‘the barn’ and ‘the field,’ and she understood what those places were to the club, but she’d never been out here herself. As far as she knew, no one except the club and the people they needed to ‘deal with’ had ever been out here.

After ten or fifteen minutes riding through deep dark, they came to a T intersection with a narrower paved road and turned left. Now on their right was a vast field, and Athena found that even creepier than the walls of forest that had framed both sides of the other road. Anything could be in that empty black.

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