Page 75 of Karma

The front door of the house opens with a whoosh and Joker storms out of the house, slamming the door behind him so hard the whole porch rattles and shakes.

“Careful there, this old house can’t stand that kind of abuse,” I tell him.

This is one of those Wild West wooden homes and must be close to one-hundred and fifty years old. It’s still perfectly functional, if very creaky, but we should treat it gently.

Joker grunts something and comes to join me where I’m sitting in a squealing rocking chair that’s nevertheless surprisingly sturdy for its age.

“So, she broken yet?” I ask.

I don’t even get so much as a grunt in response. He’s just staring off at the town at the foot of this hill.

“You should at least feed her,” I offer. “You don’t want to starve her to death. Or do you?”

“She can starve. What the fuck do I care?” he snaps.

“So it didn’t go well?” I ask, smiling.

He doesn’t even look at me, but I feel him bristling like he’s ready to fight me if I don’t tread carefully here. That just makes me smile harder.

“Ice knows I got her and he knows who I am,” he says. “That’s good enough for tonight. The fucking Forsaken Outlaws turned on us. I gotta go see if anyone told them how to find this town.”

“What do you mean, turned on us?” I ask. All the air has gone from the world as far as I’m concerned. I must’ve heard him wrong.

“You didn’t notice them turning around and shooting up the compound as we were leaving with Eden? They killed Tiny and Brick.”

I saw them fall, but I figured it was for show. They had only joined us recently, after the Devils destroyed their MC in one battle or another.

“I thought that was part of some last-minute plan of yours,” I mutter, my mouth suddenly dry as though it’s full of dust.

“Nope, Karma and her boys betrayed us,” Joker says with a sneer. “So you can stop pining over her now because she’s a fucking rat.”

I go straight into pretend-land in my head. The place where I never fell in love with Karma and Grim. The place where they both still hate me. I’m good at pretending like that. It’s how I survived all the shit I’ve been through. And it’s a good thing too, because if I wasn’t so good at shutting out what I don’t want to face, I’d be puking my guts out right about now.

I rock back in my chair, drinking some of my bourbon, hoping it’ll wash away the dust. It doesn’t. It just burns.

“I guess that’s that then,” I mutter, pouring some of the drink onto the floor the way I would for a fallen brother. How could they betray me like this? How could they make me believe they loved me? “Good fucking riddance, I guess.”

“Yeah, I’m sure we’ll meet them in some battle soon,” Joker says, eyeing me like he knows something’s wrong in my head. It is. But he’s never gonna know about it.

“On the wrong side.”

“The bitch never gave you the time of day,” he says exasperatedly. “Why are you acting this way over her betraying us?”

I shrug and drink some more. It’s starting to taste better. Like it’s gonna let me stay in pretend-land if I just drink enough of it.

“They don’t know about Justice,” I tell him. “Only Roaring Brook. That’s where they’ll lead the Devils.”

Thank fucking God I never told them much about this place. I wanted to, I meant to describe it to them in detail, thinking they’d like it, since it’s a place where they could live free and not have to worry about getting caught. A place where Karma could have those clean sheets she’s always dreaming about and a real espresso machine like they have in those fancy coffee shops.

“I’m gonna go check on that with the others too,” Joker says

“It’d be better if you just finish up the shit with Eden,” I say but he just shakes his head and walks away.

I start dreading the silence and being alone on this porch before he’s even on his bike.

How could I have been so stupid? Why did I trust them? Trust them enough to tell all my darkest secrets? They’re probably laughing about that now… how I let Grim fuck me when I promised myself no guy would ever do that. I feel as dirty as I did when I made that promise, covered in the blood of the two monsters who made it necessary. My hands are shaking just as bad as they did that night. I butchered those two, stabbed them so many times I lost count. What do I do to Grim and Karma for this betrayal?

I wanna say I’ll kill them both, but I can’t even think it.

---