Page 79 of Karma

“You know, for someone who can read people as well as you can, you’re pretty dumb and blind when it comes to reading your own self.” I wish I could just let him get burned by Eden all on his own. But he’s my one true friend in this whole messed up world, and I’m not gonna abandon him now. No matter how angry he just made me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, and I think he really has no idea.

I pick up my boots and sit back down to pull them on.

“You’ll figure it out,” I say. “Maybe you’re right and this part of the plan is too much for me. You do your thing here and I’m going to Roaring Brook. Razor’s gonna need all the backup he can get when the Devils come.”

“Yeah, good,” he says, sounding very unsure all of a sudden.

But he doesn’t stop me from leaving.

The heat and glaring sunshine outside are not doing anything good for my hangover. But the whiskey I managed to finish did take the edge off and the long ride to Roaring Brook will take care of the rest.

The Devils will hit that town hard. I’m sure they’ll do it sooner rather than later. Karma and Grim must’ve told them all about it by now.

They’re the only ones who can answer my whys. I hope we’ll get the chance to talk before I die. Or not. There’s no answer they can give me that’ll erase what they did. It’ll be just more lies, nothing more.

Why would they even want me? Why would anyone?

I wish I could say I don’t give a fuck and mean it. Maybe in time that’ll come too.

42

Grim

What have I done?

That question just keeps growing louder and louder in my mind with each passing day. I go to sleep hearing it, dream it and wake up to it. By now, it’s a scream—the scream of some desperate man mourning the loss of everything he can never get back.

The Devils haven’t let us so much as take a piss without one of them watching us. I’m certain they’d have killed us by now if Karma wasn’t so good at talking shit about Joker. She has them convinced she can figure out how he thinks and they’re desperate enough to believe her. Because so far, every place they’ve hit to try and find their lost princess Eden has been a bust. Including the town of Roaring Brook which we found empty.

Truth is none of us has any idea where Joker and his guys are.

And with each damn hour that passes I feel Scorpio slipping farther and farther away from me. And I don’t know how I’ll survive that. I’m not sure I want to.

Another MC has joined the Devils in searching for Eden. Rogue Angels. Zane, or Unholy, as he’s better known, is with them and Karma has been trying to get them alone so she can make her request of them. The request for them to help us get solid new identities so we can stop running and settle down. She finally succeeded tonight and is sitting with them now.

I can’t see why she still cares about that. I don’t care about anything but making it right with Scorpio. Fixing what I fucked up with my impulsive, stupid ideas and over-estimation of my abilities. I’ve never betrayed anyone in my life, least of all a friend. Knowing I did it to a lover is like a stone hanging around my neck, pulling me down until I can hardly move.

I’d hoped to get access to a phone by now so I could call him and try to start fixing it. But it’s probably a good thing the Devils are hardly letting us talk among ourselves. Else I’d just fuck it up more.

I want to just ride and never stop. But I walk over to Karma, Rogue, and Unholy instead. We’re camping out in the open, the sky over the desert vast and full of stars. They’re sitting by one of the many fires and by the shadows playing over Karma’s face I can already tell the conversation isn’t going like she wants before I even reach them.

“So you’re saying you can’t help us at all?” she asks as I sit down next to her.

Unholy pokes at the fire with a stick and Rogue shrugs. He’s an intense-looking guy with dark hair, a lean yet muscular build and eyes that glow green even by firelight.

“We’re in the business of fixing things for those wrongfully accused of crimes and getting justice for those who are out of means to get it for themselves,” Rogue says. He sounds defensive, as though what he’s saying is something he wants to be true but isn’t.

“You took him in,” Karma says, pointing at Unholy. The guy used to ride with us for a time a long while ago, so we know he’s fully guilty of killing a priest. And the two prison guards he killed when he escaped and went on the run. And now this Rogue guy is clearly shielding him.

They exchange a glance then Unholy starts poking the fire harder. He was just a kid when he rode with us, but he’s turned into a hard man in the meantime. Even his eyes are like two pieces of stone.

“We go back a long way,” Unholy mutters, glancing at Rogue again, as if to confirm it.

But Rogue has eyes only for Karma. “Let’s put it this way. If there’s something we can help you with after this is all said and done, we will. You sheltered Zane when he needed friends and that’s a debt I will repay. But I can’t promise you that you’ll walk around free. After what we’re doing here, I can’t even guarantee that for myself.”

He’s got that magnetic leader type of presence. I’ve seen some of those in my lifetime. Most of them crashed and burned. But this guy… I want to believe him. And I can clearly see Karma does too.

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