Page 28 of Gunner

Say something. Call him back. If you don’t, you won’t get another chance. Offer him… anything. Cookies. Advice. A goodbye.

My throat is so dry and swollen feeling, my body dead and numb, aching and wounded, that I can’t even lift my hand. I can’t make a single sound.

Gunner opens the truck door, angles his massive body inside. He bangs it shut with that dull sound of old metal on metal. He rolls down the window, inch by painstaking inch, and says something low and soft to the guy who bends in. Probably telling him where his bike is. The guy nods, the window rolls up. The bikes are kicked back into their furious, growling thunder, and then they move out.

No one looks back.

Only then can I lift my hand. I don’t believe in either curses or benedictions, but I mouth the first words that come to my mind. “Not all who wander are lost, but you will be. If you leave, we both will be, I think.”

I step out of the crisp, sparkling morning with the bright sunlight and the world washed fresh from last night, and slam the door shut. I slip the lock into place, and then, panting, I stalk into the kitchen and become… unhinged.

I snatch up the breakfast dishes, that plate and glass that he touched, and hurl them against the wall. The shattering sounds tear at my insides.

I left home five years ago.

Why do I feel like the last link back there has suddenly been ripped away from me?

You can indeed lose something you never had.

And it burns like twisted metal impaled straight through the heart of you.

Chapter 10

Gunner

This time, I’m done.

It might have taken me ten days to get to it, but I’ve got things squared away with Tyrant.

After Archer checked me over and declared me one lucky bastard, I came right back to the club and sought out my Prez. He busted my balls about heading on, but he could see that nothing he said was going to change my mind. I offered him my blood as exchange for breaking my word about Penny, but he just laughed that off. Said I’d bled enough in the past few days. He didn’t require anymore. The club wasn’t built to promote thuggery, and he just slapped me on the good shoulder and told me I was free to go if that’s what I felt I needed to do.

When I mentioned to Raiden this morning that I’d be riding out tonight, he organized an impromptu farewell party. The last thing I need or want, but it would have been ungracious not to attend. These men have been my family for the past five and a half years. I’m leaving Raiden high and dry on the VP side of things, and I know that Bullet and even Smoke—though he’s a newer member who just patched in, joined up from the Berserkers when Ella came—will miss me to some extent.

It’s ten on a Sunday night. Not our usual night for parties, but no one is complaining. The music started hours ago. The air is thick with weed and cigarette smoke. The bass of Wizard’s music twists and thumps through the floorboards. The lounge is packed full, the bar in the corner worked steadily by Crow. Theguy hasn’t had a break from pouring drinks in hours, but he likes hanging out back there.

Lark isn’t here because she couldn’t find a sitter on short notice, and a few of the other old ladies are missing—at home with kids—but the club whores came out happily. Their laughter is punctuated by the occasional shout. Darts thud into the boards at the far end of the room and pool balls crash together. The couches in the corners are in full-on sin mode. Bikers know how to party, and after years of this, I know how it’ll go, right down to the predictable blow jobs right there in the middle of the room, men disappearing down the hallways with their woman for the night, or their old lady, wrapped around them. A few passed out on the floor or in chairs or on the couch to wake up late and complain the next day.

I stand in the same spot I always do, in the corner of the lounge, taking everything in, but not participating. I never do. The club whores used to try, but they gave me up for a lost cause long ago. The new ones probably heard from the more experienced ladies not to go near me.

No one offers me a drink or a joint.

Bullet will probably come over and talk guns with me in an hour or so, before he really starts drinking and takes one of the club whores to his room.

Around three or four, when things are starting to reach a pinnacle and winding down, I’ll grab my bag and ride out.

An unexpected knot forms in my throat at knowing I won’t be here tomorrow morning to hear the usual complaining about hangovers, the hushed laughter of women slipping out in the early hours of the morning, the teasing in the kitchen betweenRaiden and his old lady, the prospects complaining about missing out on the full party because of guard duty.

I reach up and rub my shoulder. It’s doing better, but the fucker has been surprisingly painful, the stitches itching and pulling.

The worst pain I have ever known in my life wasn’t the burns that covered my entire chest and upper arms. It wasn’t the smoke or the stench of gas, the burning flesh, the weeks of recovery that were like being bathed in melted glass over and over again. Worse than all of that is the way I’ve torn Diletta out of my life. I might have blood on my hands, and a soul as black as pitch, but I’ve only ever been an addict for her. The withdrawals are worse than anything drugs or alcohol could manufacture. I never realized, after years of locking down my emotions, just how much I did feel until I forced myself to become a hollowed-out shell.

The worst part?

Knowing that she doesn’t want me to go.

The first day, it was a pineapple upside down cake.

The second, chocolate chip cookies.

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