Page 3 of Karma

I can tell he genuinely did. But I wish he’d told me about this plan. Yet what did I expect? He hardly tells me about his plans anymore, mostly because he thinks I drink too much. Which is exactly what I want to be doing right now. Drink so much I forgetI was ever here. But I’ve been doing that for the past fifteen years and it hasn’t happened yet.

What’s next on his list of surprises? Visiting the house under the train tracks? I wouldn’t put it past him.

“She was my stepmom, or whatever you wanna call it,” I say. “And I don’t need a grave to visit.”

He gives me another one of those pitying looks. “Just sit tight. I’ll be right back.”

And then he leaves me in the sweltering and nauseating heat of the parking lot, with the sun beating down on me like I used to dream it would when the temperature dropped below zero and the razor-sharp wind cut right through me.

Truth is, I called Honey Mom in the end. She was my father’s whore and she took me in and cared for me the best she knew how after he and my two older brothers were hunted and killed by the Devils. Told me so many stories about the good old days I can still sometimes hear her voice echoing in my brain. It’s gotten louder since we’ve been here.

She’s the only reason Joker and I know what really happened to our families. We were both children when our fathers’ club—Satan’s Spawn MC—was destroyed and truth be told, I’d probably have no memory of my father or the rest of my family, if it weren’t for Honey’s stories. Joker’s story is different. He has his own memories and I’ve fed them by retelling all of Honey’s stories.

I could’ve just lived my life, never remembering. Instead, our whole lives have revolved around it since we found each other not long after Honey died, which happened almost twenty years ago now.

“Plot 343, Mount Olivet Cemetery,” Joker announces triumphantly from behind my back, bringing me back to the present. “The pretty lady behind the counter said it’s just an hour from here.”

“I bet she did,” I say.

And I bet the “pretty lady” is some nerdy librarian type with long natural hair and wearing something modest and plain like a cardigan, because that’s the type that Joker’s dick gets hardest for. No matter how much he tries to pretend it’s not so.

This Eden woman he’s planning to abduct and torture, or whatever, is exactly like that too—a bookworm with zero tats and almost as little make up. Probably still a virgin at twenty-six. She’s completely innocent and pure. Too bad for her that she’s also the daughter of the Devil’s Nightmare MC guy who’s the root cause of the two of us becoming orphans at six years old.

Abducting and destroying her is all Joker talks and thinks about lately. She’s the means to our revenge against the Devils. I don’t know how I feel about that either. What we don’t talk much about is how very unlikely it is that we’ll survive this grand plan of his. It’s stone-cold killers we’re going against, and they won’t stop until they get their revenge. As they’ve proven time and time again. To us included.

He mounts his bike, but doesn’t put on his helmet right away. Instead, he gives me one of those searching looks like he’s trying to read my mind. I hate it when he does that. Mostly because he’s too good at it.

“I thought we could swing by the house before we leave the city,” he says. “You know, honor the foundations. Our roots.”

His words suck all the air from world and there wasn’t much of it to begin with. I hate that I still have a reaction like this just at the mention of that house. I left it all behind when I left this place. I did.

“Fuck no, Tyler,” I say, using his real name so he’ll know I’m completely serious.

“Come on, Scorpio,” he says. “We’ll burn it down like we should’ve done back then.”

Back thenwas in the dead of a freezing and snowy winter and the fire we tried to set wouldn’t catch. But in this heat and given the fact that it probably hasn’t rained in weeks, half that neighborhood would go up in flames if we tried to burn the house down. Maybe the whole city. I’d like to watch that.

The look he’s giving me now is all parts pity. And that’s the reason no one, not even he knows everything that happened to me in that house. I escaped and he helped me get my revenge, but those secrets will die with me. Fire won’t destroy them. Not unless I walk into the flames. And if he keeps dragging me down this memory lane, that just might happen.

“I’ll visit Honey’s grave, but then I’m taking a good long ride out of this city,” I say and put on my helmet. “Alone.”

Because I plan to drink enough to wash all this shit straight back down to the lowest regions of my brain. And he doesn’t like me doing that.

“I planned this part of the trip to get closure,” he says, sounding disappointed. “Now that we’re so close to getting closure for everything else too.”

He’s always been big on such grand, symbolic gestures and it’s only gotten worse as he got older.

“There’s no closure here, Tyler,” I say. “This won’t die until we do.”

And I’m pretty sure the same holds true for the revenge he’s plotting against the Devils. But I won’t tell him that. He knows and doesn’t like to hear it.

He grins and puts on his helmet too. “At least we can give it a shot.”

Then he revs his bike and peels out of the parking lot. And I follow. Like I’ve been doing for the last fifteen years. Even though this path he’s laid out for us will probably be the last we ever ride.

But fuck it, you gotta die sometime and from something. And getting revenge on the assholes who ruined your life is a pretty goodsomething.

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