Page 67 of Eden's Joker

I recognize this ocean. It’s the same one that symbolizes my feelings for Tyler—wild, unstoppable, destructive. But there is peace under its dark waves. Or something very much like it. And if I just let go, I’ll find it.

36

Joker

My plan was simple. In as much as taking over about ten MCs and having them see things your way can possibly be. It started well.

I called in the remaining members of about ten MCs at war with the Devils, promising them one last battle that would end it all. They were eager to come and weren’t far, licking their wounds up and down Cali and in Nevada.

Then I let the Devils take the empty town of Roaring Brook, laughing with my new friends—close to four hundred men, all told.

We set up an ambush for the Devils in a desert valley. Everything shone copper in the dying sun, the land and sky both, as the battle began.

Our intel was off. Or we’d been betrayed. Probably both.

Many more than half the Devils showed up and they weren’t alone. Forsaken Outlaws MC and another club I’d never heard of—Rogue Angels MC—joined them. Together they tore through us.

I got a bullet to the arm that just narrowly missed my throat. Scorpio got one in the stomach. Mostly because he was so upset at having to fight Karma. I saw them arguing in the field. And I’m as sure as I can be that the bullet he took was meant for her. But he won’t talk to me about it.

I don’t know what’s with him and that hard bitch. She never gave him the time of day anyway. I looked for her in the dusty darkness of the battlefield, wanted to put a bullet through her head just so Scorpio would finally be free of her. No such luck.

We lost twenty men. I don’t think the Devils lost any.

Eden wasn’t wrong. They’ll march straight into a hail of bullets to get her back. And they’ll usually remain unscathed. I swear the actual devil is on their side.

After the desert fiasco everyone scattered. I pulled us back to a bunker in a forest, which I use to stash all the weapons we’ve stolen from the Devils since this war started.

I’ve gotten very rich and well-equipped on the information from their three unknowing traitorbrothers Archer, Bane, and Fossil. All while the other MC’s waging war on the Devils kept getting themselves killed with not much revenge to show for it. All because they refused to listen to me.

But I have what’s left of their leadership here now.

I’d hoped to give them the speech about how the Devils can be defeated if only they’ll all follow me, standing knee deep in Devils' blood on that copper field in the desert, but that didn’t happen.

I still have Eden and all this weaponry. The war is far from over. It hasn’t even truly begun yet.

I’ll give them the weapons, but not Eden.

I hate it that this thought still keeps intruding. Or that I can’t fucking let my mind wander without it wandering right to how good she felt in my lap, opening for me, coming hard enough to almost pass out. Hurting her is impossible. But keeping her is impossible too.

So I don’t let my mind wander.

The bunker isn’t big enough to sleep more than a hundred, but it’s in a nice and remote place where the grass is soft, birds sing in the trees, and no one can see smoke from the fires we build at night. It’s as good a place as any to nurse a bullet wound, and Scorpio and I powered through like we’d done so many times before. Hot steel, heated in the fires, closed our wounds and after that it was all about managing the pain.

Scorpio did it with the help of his bottle. I did it out of sheer hate for the Devils. The hate that I now can’tfeel without seeing Eden’s face—smiling, laughing, coming for me like it’s the only thing she needs from this life. But at least I still got plenty of hate too.

The sun is setting, fires are going up, and the smell of baked beans and sausages roasting is filling the air like we’re on some weird camping trip. The smell of defeat is heavy in the air too.

The burning pain in my arm that wouldn’t go away for three days is now a throbbing ache, and my mind is finally clear again.

I’ve been rehearsing the speech I’m about to give for the better part of the last twenty-four hours. And it’s time to give it.

I climb to the flat roof of the underground bunker, which stands a few feet from the ground and fire my nine mil in the air three times to get everyone’s attention. More than half of the hundred or so guys gathered here weren’t talking before, and they don’t look like they’re gonna listen now. Defeated. I won’t fucking have that! Not when I’m so close to getting the one thing I always wanted.

“Listen to me,” I yell. “This is just a small setback. We have the weapons and we have the means to give the Devils the death they have earned so many times over. Bloody and painful.”

I pause to gauge their reaction. Most of them are looking at me, some even have fire in their eyes. Only Scorpio is giving me this look like he thinks I’m full of shit. But he’s been looking like that at everyone andeverything since the battle. Another thing that probably has something to do with that bitch Karma.

“It’s time for our final stand,” I continued. “Time for the battle that will end all battles. And end the Devils. In a town of Justice.”

---