Page 227 of Fearless

He glanced over at his Mustang, like he didn’t want to abandon it, but nodded. “Sure.”

The poor kid. He of course hadn’t been told what had happened to Ronnie and Mason, but he knew something had. In just a day, he’d gone from store clerk, to club hangaround; he’d watched Ava fall apart and the Dogs close ranks. It had to be such a heady, overwhelming change for him. He seemed, if not in shock, then at least subdued. Careful, eyes wide, his manner respectful.

Maggie had always liked him. With Ava out of town, her maternal instincts were in overdrive.Sweetie, she wanted to tell him,it’ll get better. Just wait for it. You’ve got all of us now.

Harry climbed on his bike, ready to follow, as Maggie started the truck and began the tricky process of backing out of the drive with the trailer in tow. Once they were on the street, rolling forward, she said, “Carter, how’s it going, baby? The boys being good to you? The grunt work not too hard?” She chanced a glance and saw him watching the mailboxes slide past, expression reflective.

“It’s alright.” His voice was dull.

“They haven’t got you scrubbing toilets yet, have they?”

She saw him nod from the corner of her eye.

“Well, I figure you had to do that at Leroy’s.”

Another nod.

Her voice sounded too-chipper, but she didn’t care, pressing on anyway. “The hangaround and prospect years are tough, I know. Lots of guys don’t last, mostly because they think they’re too important to mop floors and clean up puke. I don’t think they understand the point of the whole prospecting process – it’s like basic training in the military, breaking you down and building you back up. Say ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ and you’ll do just fine.”

A beat of silence passed, then: “What about when people disappear in the middle of the night?”

Shit, Maggie thought.

“Does anyone ever wash out because of that?”

She wasn’t going to lie to the boy. “Yeah. I figure that’s why some don’t last. The OMC world’s more like the Wild West than anything else.” She glanced over at him as they reached the first stoplight heading into town. “Pledging yourself to this club isn’t like joining a football team,” she said, gently as she could. “The club claims you. You belong to it. What you do in the world outside of it, that’s getting along as best you can; but where you live, that’s the club. That’s the nucleus. You still have your own life,” she added. “It’s your life. Your girlfriend, your wife, your kids, your house, your bank account. But it’s the club that governs you. Does that make sense?”

He nodded and glanced away.

The light changed and Maggie accelerated under it, the trailer grabbing at the hitch in back as it bumped along.

She was surprised to hear him speak up again. “I grew up here,” he said, quietly to the window. “The club was always there, in the background. Guys going by on bikes, guys in cuts at the restaurants. It didn’t ever scare me. I didn’t – I mean, I wasn’t one of those kids whose parents told them the Lean Dogs were the monsters under the bed or anything. I just…” Heavy sigh. “I didn’t think my life would go this way.”

Her heart squeezed for him. “I know,” she said. “I think anyone who hasn’t said that is lying to himself.”

She saw one corner of his mouth pluck in a tiny smile.

“I wish I could promise you it would be easy and safe,” she said. “But I can’t. It’ll be hard, it’ll be dangerous sometimes, stressful. But Carter, if you can hang in here, you’ll have a family, honey. A real family. Brothers. And they’ll love you. Love you like Mason Stephens never did.”

He was silent, but his expression had softened, become thoughtful. He’d heard her. He’d heard everything, and absorbed it.

Maggie sighed when they reached downtown, and saw all the civilian signs that had been put up along the roadside, and in the medians. “Can you believe this shit? Buncha mindless fucking robots,” she muttered. “Mason Stephens runs around this town his whole life, killing babies and molesting all the cheerleaders, but it’s us they want to burn at the stake. Makesso muchsense.”

“Mason looked the part,” Carter mused. “And looks are all that matter to most people.”

“Unfortunately, I’ll have to ‘amen’ you on that one.”

Carter sat up straight against his seat belt. “What’s that?”

“Where?”

“In front of the courthouse.”

They got the chance to look, because traffic had ground to a halt. They were maybe fifteen yards from the courthouse lawn, and Maggie buzzed down the windows, leaning out into the sunlight so she could hear.

A crowd had gathered, milling around beneath a woman who stood on an overturned plastic crate. Maggie recognized her: Tina Shaw. She was a secretary at the courthouse, like Jackie, and she brought her minivan to Dartmoor for all its oil changes and tire rotations. She had three kids, all under the age of ten. And most of the time, her small round face was flushed with good humor. Today, though, she wore a fierce scowl, and she lifted a bullhorn to her mouth. Maggie noticed the big poster-board sign the same moment Tina started speaking.

Knoxville Moms Against Violence.

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