Page 43 of Karma

“They’re joining the war now,” I say because even the beautiful view and the scent of lavender on the sheet isn’t enough to calm me anymore.

“You are?” Grim asks, his breakfast forgotten. “Why? It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“It’s got a lot to do with us,” Scorpio says. He’s now just pushing his breakfast around on his plate. “It was Joker who came up with it. And me.”

Grim leans back in his chair looking more shocked than I expected to see him.

“The Devils are winning that war on all fronts from what I hear,” Grim says. “It’s stupid to enter it now.”

I’m still not sure he wants Scorpio around for much longer. But this reaction tells me that maybe he does.

Scorpio shrugs but continues looking at his plate of eggs. “Maybe so. But Joker’s got big plans.”

“And you always do what Joker says, right?” Grim says in a disgusted tone.

Scorpio looks up, piercing Grim with a very angry look that’s also very sad somehow. “On this we’re united, yeah. It’s why we formed The Lost Sons MC in the first place. You could say it’s the whole reason for our existence.”

“I don’t get it,” Grim says and actually looks like he’s telling the truth. “Why now? The Devils are too strong. It’s time for the war to end. Not get into it.”

I wish they’d just stop talking about it. I kinda think they want that too. But not talking about it isn’t gonna change the fact that the war is happening.

“It’s like our whole legacy, you know,” Scorpio says. “The Devils killed our families and now we’re gonna do the same to them. Or die trying. But they’re gonna hurt either way.”

The silence that falls feels like winter has found us here even though we’ve spent the last eight months running from it as hard as we could.

I certainly don’t want to hear anything more about this. I had plans for a lot more nice hotel room stays for the three of us in the future. Maybe it would’ve been better, if he’d just left me the night he decided to come to LA with me instead. But, no. That would not have been better. And this is just shit.

“Killed your families, huh?” Grim says. “Why don’t we know anything about this?”

Scorpio shrugs. “You never asked and Joker doesn’t like making a big deal out of it. The Devils don’t know either. He wants to make the big reveal to them when he’s good and ready. And he’s just about ready now.”

“Who were they?” Grim asks. “Your family, I mean?”

“Satan’s Spawn MC,” Scorpio says. “They killed them all, barely left the whores alive.”

“Never heard of them,” Grim says.

Scorpio rolls his eyes in a very sad way. “Figures. It was a good twenty-seven years ago, so before even your time.”

“Just about,” Grim says, sounding like he’s chewing on something hard. Like glass. I feel like I swallowed a bunch of that too.

“Or mine for that matter, I was five when it all went down, so I probably wouldn’t remember anything either if my father’s whore hadn’t taken me in and told me all about how they killed my father and two older brothers. And a couple of uncles and cousins and such. She was full of stories. But Joker had it even worse than that.”

Grim exhales heavily. I would too, if I had any breath left in my lungs. But it’s all just ice. And glass.

“So we gotta do what we gotta do and avenge them,” Scorpio adds. “And that’s why Joker’s calling. Because it’s time.”

“I can understand revenge,” Grim says.

“It’s what we’ve been doing all winter,” I add.

“Good,” Scorpio says. “So I’ll go call Joker back and then I’m gonna head up north to get this done. And you two can decide if you want to come with. Or whether this is the last meal we’re gonna share.”

He pushes his half-finished breakfast away and stands up, not looking at either of us.

This is why he told us all of it. Not to share. Not because he’s not sure he wants to get himself killed in an unwinnable war. But because he wants us to know what we’re signing up for if we stay with him.

I wish he’d just kept quiet about it. Because how can you lose yourself in a fairytale if you know it has a very sad ending?

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