Page 6 of Harper's Song

I nod and say nothing, trying not to roll my eyes. He’s been warning me about this for weeks now. It’s not like I forgot.

My father is a member of Renegade Knights MC and we’ve both been under their protection in here, even though I rode with Devil’s Nightmare MC after being fostered there for a couple of years. I was never a full member and refused to join after Harper’s father, Scar told me I’m not good enough for her.

He’s not wrong. I always knew that. Ever since I stole that first kiss from her. She is too good and pure for the likes of me.

But would I be locked up in here if I decided to prove him wrong instead of running off to prove him right?

Would Hunter, the guy I consider my brother, almost die if I’d been there to watch his back?

Would any part of my life be as fucked up as it currently is if I’d just stayed with Harper?

No! That’s the answer to all those questions.

But fuck them all. Hunter most of all. If he hadn’t come riding in to try and stop Chance and me from helping out the Riders on that one job I did for them, I’d have more choices. As it is, my choice has pretty much boiled down to how hard I want to kiss the Renegade Knights’ ass so I can live in peace.

The answer to that would be,not at all.

“Jax, this is serious,” my father says over the sound of the buzzer that precedes the cage doors opening and announces the start of another drab, long and pointless day.

“I’ve always made my own way, Pop,” I say bitingly. “I had no choice. And I don’t see why that has to change now. If the Riders decide to come at me, I’ll be ready. But I’m through groveling in front of the Renegades.”

My father curses, tells me I’m an idiot, and pushes past me on the way out of the cell.

All the sweetness left by my dream is completely gone now, hours before it usually fades. But that’s probably for the best. It’s just a fantasy that can never be reality again.

* * *

The morning spent on laundry duty did nothing to improve my mood. In fact, it made it worse. My face and hands are burning and the corrosive bleach has attached itself to the inside of my nose and mouth, making every cigarette I smoke feel like I’m inhaling razor blades.

The courtyard where we get our daily R&R time isn’t too crowded today, so at least there’s that. The sky is covered in blotches of black clouds against a slightly lighter background and every once in a while the whole dark mess is illuminated by a strike of yellow, purple or blue lightning. Beautiful really. Not as beautiful as it would be without the thick, steel-reinforced and barbed wire-topped double walls of this prison all around me.

The two Riders that were brought in earlier today to the growling and banging against the cages of all the rest of us animals in here, are huddled in the far corner of the yard, talking to a couple of the Renegades as though they’re big buds. I’m sitting on one of the hard plastic benches with the wall to my back and a clear view of the courtyard and its exit.

Every so often the Riders glance my way. They’re both sporting brand new, prison-issued buzz cuts and the look in their eyes is more scared than angry. Figures they’d be total cowards, since to escape the Devils’ wrath they must’ve hidden away and lay low like a couple of rats.

I’m ignoring them for now.

The longer I can postpone that confrontation, the better. I can’t hope to do it indefinitely, but I can do it at least until my hands stop stinging and my nose stops burning from the bleach. Though after all these months of working in the laundry room, that hardly ever happens anymore. The four old-timers that have been working there for decades tell me

they can’t taste or smell a damn thing anymore or feel much with their hands. What a life! Stuck behind thick concrete walls for the rest of your life and unable to taste your food or feel your own cock in your palm. What a nightmare!

The two Riders keep glancing at me, holding the gaze longer each time. We’re nearing the moment when I’ll have to answer for my affiliation with Devil’s Nightmare MC. I don’t mind.

Truth is, I was as good as a member of Devil’s Nightmare MC before I left them. I consider them my brothers. And it’s a stone cold fact that I’d be right alongside them as they took down every Rider they could find over what they did to Hunter. In fact, I think I might finish the job with these last two on my own. Not that the Devils would thank me for it. I left them, so I’m dead to them. As it should be.

But Hunter is Hunter and he got hurt for trying to keep me out of prison. He failed, but that’s my fault, not his. He was looking out for me long after the rest of the Devils forgot about me. And that counts for a lot in my book. Even if I can’t quite bring myself to look him in the eye now.

“Got a smoke I can bum?” a timid, yet deep voice asks at my side, startling me out of deep thought.

Gene is a slight, dark-haired guy a little older than me, who walks with a limp and hunched shoulders. He’s a nerd of the first order, a computer programmer who found himself doing a favor for the wrong sort of woman and is now doing fifteen years for aggravated robbery. He might not make it. This is the last place in the world he should be, and I think he might actually be innocent like he claims he is. But this whole prison seems to be filled with innocent men.

“Sure, take the pack,” I say and hand it to him, scooting over on the hard bench so he can sit down next to me.

“No, you don’t have to give me all of them,” he says as he sits down with great difficulty, since his bum leg is clearly giving him pain. That’s the lingering result of a beating he got just last week, as is his droopy left eye, which he got in another beating before I arrived.

He has no friends in here and will probably never make any. I do what I can for him.

“I should quit anyway,” I say. “Smelling that damn bleach all morning will give me cancer all on its own, I don’t need to add to it.”

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