Page 125 of Paladin's Hell

Chapter 40

Paladin

Needing to take Jay away I sweep her up into my arms. She’s shaking so much; I worry how what she’s just done might have affected her. I know why she wanted to hurt him, could understand it completely.

“Pal?”

“Yeah, Doll?” I’m crossing the clubroom and pausing with my foot on the first step.

“Did he piss himself?”

My face scrunches as I tell her. “Sure did, sweetheart.”

She gives a strange, twisted grin. It’s the type of expression I hope never to see again on her face. “Good.”

As she turns her head into my shoulder, I continue up the stairs and along to my room where Moira and Jeannie are waiting. Somehow they’ve got rid of Bitch, and there’s hot soup ready for her on the bedside table. I stay for a while, watching her eat, watching her do something normal to prove to me she’s still in the land of the living. When Pyro comes up and knocks on the door, letting me know everyone’s in church, I’m assured by Moira that Jay will be fine with her and Jeannie.

Glancing toward my girl, she raises her chin and looks at me bravely, reassuring me for herself.

It’s a sombre meeting room that I enter. Pyro and I are the last to take our seats. Shooter’s been given a chair alongside me.

Hellfire half-heartedly bangs the gavel.

“Today is one of the worst days there’s been for the club in thirty-six years.” He pauses as though to let the seriousness of what he’s about to say sink in. “One of our own has turned traitor.”

Lizard brings out his cigarettes, takes one, then passes his pack around. Today there are a number of takers. He lights up, inhales, blows smoke out, then asks, “Care to enlighten us, Prez? Most of us only know half the story.”

Hellfire takes a cigarette when the pack reaches him. It’s the last one, he raises his eyebrow at Lizard who shrugs. Prez takes it as permission, then scrunches the empty packet in his hand. “Okay, some of you already know some of this shit, others don’t. So I’ll go through from the top. Let’s start with Ingot.”

As he mentions the deceased enforcer’s name, fists thump over hearts. I do the same as a mark of respect though I can’t recall ever meeting the man. All I need to know is that he was a brother.

“Ingot was involved in a hit and run, as you already know. The driver left the scene. Neither us, nor the cops, ever found anything to point a finger at the culprit.”

“It was Taser?” Ink asks, his voice full of emotion. Sadness and anger combined.

“Yeah.” Hellfire says the word that makes the table erupt.

When at last single voices can be distinguished, Bomber snarls, “He still breathin’?”

“Just,” Hell confirms. “Club vote is needed to take him out. For those who like closure, the vehicle used was driven to Blue Mesa Reservoir and dumped in one of the deepest parts. That’s why it never turned up.”

“Fuckin’ long way to go. That’s a four-hour drive,” inputs Sparky. Being Road Captain he seems to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of where places are and how long it takes to get to them.

“Yeah. His accomplice, his cousin, followed him and drove him back here. Taser wanted that truck to disappear completely. Wanted to make sure it could never be linked back to him.”

Thunder’s tapping his mouth. “I recall he was one brother who wasn’t around the day Ingot was killed. But then, we weren’t expectin’ one of our brothers to be murdered, so there was no reason for any of us to stay close, and we weren’t suspicious of any absentees.” He sounds like he’s choked up as he adds, “Never looked inward. Didn’t see the fuckin’ need.”

“I was at a Comic-con that weekend,” Cad puts in. “Taser wasn’t the only one missing.”

“Well we never fuckin’ suspected a brother.” Pyro’s got tears in his eyes. “I’d never have believed it of Taser. Still can’t get my fuckin’ head around it now. Prez, do we need to go any further? I vote we dispatch the fucker to meet Satan. Don’t like breathin’ the same fuckin’ air.” The murmuring suggests others feel much the same.

“I hear you, Brother,” Hellfire replies sounding tired. “But I want everyone to know what’s been going on. More importantly, why.”

“There’s no excuse to justify murder.” Lizard throws in, looking disgusted.

“In his head, there was,” Mace contradicts. “He might have kept quiet about where Pal’s girl was hidden, but wanted to boast about everything else. Seems he had his eye on an officer role. Saw himself as Enforcer. Just had to clear a space at the table to make that job his, or so he thought. He was beyond angry I was voted in in his place.”

“He hid it fuckin’ well.”

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