Page 75 of The Devil's Ice

“Iknowit.”

“OK, so… your Prez is a fuckin’ nightmare, your boys are disappearin’ left and right, kids are being dragged into this whole mess, and you’re in Viper’s sights, but you get a cancer diagnosis and find out that you have less than a year to live. So you decide that you’re goin’ out on your own terms.”

“You got it in one, man.” Bones hefted the box, winced a bit at the pain in his stomach that never really went away. “Scars assures me that King is going to get me safely to my cabin. I’m going to watch the first snowfall of the winter out there… then I’m going to drink some tea laced with a little something that I’ve made up special, and go to sleep. Permanently.”

“You could have done all of that without helpin’ us,” Wolf pointed out as he wrapped Charlie in a blanket. “Just up and gone to your little place, just run. Left me and the kids here, never made any arrangements with Scars and the boys, never taken out your own club members.”

“I could have. I thought about it.”

“But?”

“But, as you said, I’m not OK with Viper trying to kill kids.”

“Killkids?” Wolf looked up sharply, then the penny dropped. “You mean Keira?”

“Is that her name? The kid in Denver?”

“Yeah.” Wolf glared across the room at Bones, bristling with rage. “What the fuck happened?”

“A couple of boys tried to run her and her mother down in Satan’s parking lot.”

“What?”

“They messed it up,” Bones said hastily. “The kid and her Mom are both alive, though I heard the mother got hit by the van as they sped away.”

“Zoe got hit by a van?”

“I guess. I don’t have the details, because the guys who screwed up the assignment have gone missing.”

Wolf blinked at the onslaught of information, then remembered what Scars and Ice had said about Vixen being hurt in some incident – maybeshe’dbeen with Keira in the parking lot, for some bizarre reason?

I cannot fuckin’waitto find out what’s been goin’ on… midnight can’t come soon enough, I swear to God.

“OK,” Wolf said aloud, sticking a memo in his brain to ask Scars about Zoe and Keira and Vixen first thing. “So you’ve suddenly grown a conscience, now that death is comin’ for you? Decided to do the right thing, right at the end?”

“Something like that, yeah,” Bones agreed mildly. “Also, I didn’t want Viper to be the one to end me. It would be have been horrific, and maybe that’s what I deserve after the life that I’ve led, but Istillwant to be the one who makes the final call about how I go out. I think it’s a choice we’dalllike to make, if we could. I mean – who doesn’t want to just die in their sleep, in a snug little cabin next to a frozen lake?Especiallymen who have lived the lives that we have, who always thought we’d go by violence somehow.”

“I’ll give you that,” Wolf conceded, now wrapping Judge up nice and warm. “But youstillcould have just run without helpin’ us, seen your snow and ended things your way anyway.”

“I know. I just – I wanted to doonegood thing before I check out. I don’t think it’ll help me evade hell, if such a place exists, but at least I could leave Utah with a few points in my favour.” Bones shrugged, gave a wry smile. “It can’t hurt, right? And if I was going to blow town anyway, why not leave with a fanfare?”

“When your MC finds out what you’ve done to your Prez and Veep, they’re gonna hunt you down,” Wolf said. “You might not get to see your snowfall.”

“I’ll see it.” Bones spoke with such certainty that Wolf completely believed him. “I know I will.”

“OK, man,” Wolf said as he picked up the twins, one cradled in each massive arm to support their necks, and headed for the door. “Let’s get movin’ before one of your ex-brothers gets it in their heads to come and check on me.”

“It’ll be a while,” Bones said, following behind Wolf, carrying the box. “I sent the pictures of the dead bodies to a bunch of the Hellions right after I sent them to Scars, so they’ll all be over at the warehouse, looking for Viper and the gang. Possibly with oxygen masks, but if they didn’t think that far ahead, a few of them might well spend the night in the hospital. You’re going to bewaydown on their list of shit to worry about, believe me.”

“I’mstartin’ to believe you,” Wolf said as he stepped out of the concrete room that had been his cell, stepped into freedom and fresh air. “But I have to say that I can’t fuckin’waitto see the back of you, Gallagher, ‘cause when that happens, it means that these kids are with their Dads, I’m with my club, and we’re all on our ways to wherever we’re goin’ next.”

“Let’s head out to the meet-up spot, then… and get to wherever we’re going next.” Bones felt the chill in the air and sighed, knowing like his life was being measured in mere days now. “Some of us will be going there sooner and forever.”

“And some of us are just gettin’ started,” Wolf said, looking down at the babies snuggled against his broad chest; they were starting to wake up, their delicate eyelids fluttering, their tiny fingers wriggling. “I guess there’s some weird fuckin’ cosmic balance in all of that, and I guess I can live with it.”

“Weallhave to live with it, Wolf,” Bones said. “What choice do we have?”

“Oh, we have choices,” Wolf said. “More than we know, and more often than we believe. So let me tell youthis, man, that I’m so fuckin’ grateful that one of your last choices was to help us. I know your time is comin’ to an end and so I ain’t ever goin’ to be able to return the favor to you, but Icando this: Icansay thank you. For me and for my club – and for these babies and their parents. Thank you.”

---