Page 12 of Spike's Perdition
“‘Bout time you got here,” Soul snaps when we enter, and the door slides closed behind us.
“It’s her fault,” I tell him.
“Don’t blame her,” Grim signs, his movements jerky. Then he smirks. “And that’s fifty bucks.”
“You can get it to me after church,” Rogue, our treasurer, comments.
Jez drops her bag onto the table and lifts her hands. “Hell, even I know better than to not sign when the big man is in the room.”
“Fuck off,” I mutter.
“Ooooh,” Jez taunts and looks to her brother. “That’s another fifty, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Soul confirms.
Jez faces me and opens her mouth to continue taunting, but Malice stops her cold. “Sit the hell down, both of you. We’ve got shit to do.”
“Yes, sir,” Jez says.
Malice scrunches his nose and shakes his head. “No. Just… no.”
Jez sighs. “Yeah, heard how weird it sounded the second it was outta my mouth. I’ll leave all that to Apple.”
“Speaking of Apple,” Rogue says. “She keeps performing at Purgatory, and we’ll all be able to retire early.”
“Don’t know about the rest of you, but I am definitely not ready for retirement of any kind,” I tell them all. “The second you retire, life goes downhill.”
“Maybe if you had someone to share your life with, you wouldn’t feel that way,” Thorn comments.
I turn my attention to Soul. “Don’t we have club business to get to?”
Prez chuckles. “Yeah. I’m gonna turn things over to Jez because she brought this one to my attention.”
Jez moves to the opposite end of the long table, quickly sets up her laptop, and connects it to the large screen so we can all see what she’s seeing. When two images pop up, bile rises up the back of my throat, and white-hot rage threatens to turn my blood to lava.
“Jesus,” Possum mutters. “A little warning next time.”
The pictures are of two children, both no older than three or four, and both lying in hospital beds with casts and severe bruises. I don’t know who did this to them, but if I know Jez, we’re about to find out.
“Sorry,” Jez comments, fury in her tone. “But it only gets worse from here.”
“Who the fuck did this to them?” Malice demands.
“Oh, please tell me I can gut the motherfucker,” Grim signs.
“We’re all gonna get a turn,” Soul snaps. “Now, let her finish.”
All eyes turn to Jez expectantly. She’s staring at the images on the screen, a pained look on her face. As members of Saints Purgatory MC, we see the worst of the worst, and Jez has become an integral part of what we do. But we’re still human, and some things affect us more than others.
Like kids who’ve barely survived a monster… Kids like I was.
“Carter Maxwell is the piece of shit who did this,” Jez says, her voice monotone. “Fortunately, he was arrested. Unfortunately, that makes it harder for us to purge him.”
“Us?” Grim signs, eyebrow arched.
“You know what I mean,” she replies dismissively.
“How does shit like this even happen?” Fort, our techie, asks.
