Page 27 of Biker Boo

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Chapter 8

Monday October 30

Royal

October 30 “Hers”

I was never chosen.

Not by the club.

Not by the preacher.

Not by you.

But your name lives in my mouth

like a blade under the tongue

cutting, burning, holy.

And still I kneel

in shadows you forget.

Iremember the first Halloween I watched her.The graveyard behind the trailer park never used to scare me.Not when I was thirteen and sleeping on tombs to avoid the fists of my foster family.Not when I was fifteen and dragging a stolen Bible across these crooked stones, daring God to strike me down.

And sure as hell not now, now that I’ve become the kind of monster mothers warn their daughters about.

The kind that watches from the shadows.

The kind that leaves poetry and bruises behind like prayer cards.

Tonight, though… tonight the ghosts feel closer.

Maybe because I brought one of my own with me.

I light a cigarette with shaking fingers, crouched behind the wrought-iron fence like I’m still some teenage runaway dodging a patrol.But I’m not hiding from the cops anymore.

I’m hiding fromher.

From the truth.

Becki’s voice echoes down the hill, tipsy and laughing, stumbling in the dark with that fake courage girls wear like lipstick when they’re hurting.

She’s alone.

I am the blade between her ribs.

The shadow by the stone.

The secret she kissed in the dark and begged for more.

I step from the trees, slow and silent.

I put the mask on.

She doesn’t see me.

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