Page 78 of Harper's Song

Cross nods and more silence follows.

“Go now,” he finally tells me. “Diesel found a bike for you. He’s out front.”

I try not to jump up in excitement like a little kid and run out of the room to see my new bike. Maybe I even managed it, but I sure leave the room fast.

My bike is probably rusting away in some police depot somewhere and it’ll have to stay there now that I’m officially dead. Rook gave me that bike when I turned eighteen and showed me how to take care of it.

And now they’ve given me another one, and so much more besides.

Harper is already sitting on my new bike when I come out, wearing one of her flowing, flowery dresses and her riding boots. She’s chatting to Diesel, but they both turn to me as I come out of the house.

“I understand this is yours,” Harper says, giving me one of her gleaming smiles that never fail to make me feel like the sun is shining just for me.

“That’s what I hear too,” I say and somehow manage to take my eyes off her smiling face and long tanned legs stretched across the seat so I can take in the perfection that is my new bike.

“Harper had some suggestions,” Diesel says as he points out the decals of music notes along the sides. “But other than that, I kept it classy.”

And that he did—black leather and chrome accents all gleaming almost as bright as Harper’s face.

“You knew about this?” I ask her as Diesel hands me the keys.

She nods, smiling wide. “But I’ve been dying to tell you. Let’s go for a ride now. The sun is starting to set.”

She stands up, Diesel chuckles at her eagerness and I can’t help doing the same.

And as soon as she wraps her arms around my waist and her legs around my hips, as soon as the bike roars to life under me and we take off down the long driveway to the gates of Sanctuary and beyond, I truly know that I am finally home.

Even if I am currently riding off into the sunset, with my girl behind me and the open road in front of me. I know I’ll be back. I’ll always be back. Because this is where I belong.

EPILOGUE

One Month Later

Harper

Crickets are chirping in the darkness around us, the smell of smoke from the many torches burning in this clearing is mixing with the wholesome scents of the redwood forest and moist earth, and I’m leaning against Jax’s chest as he holds me loosely. I could stay in this moment forever.

I just finished performing all my new songs for my family in the garden at Sanctuary and now I’m sitting with my friends in the grass, adrenaline still pumping through my veins and music still echoing in my mind.

Hunter is finally back from his stay at the reservation, Chance and Veronica just left us to be alone, and I think Ariel and Ruin are about to do the same.

Ariel cried during my concert and the tracks are still visible on her cheeks when the wind moves the torch light just so. But she’s smiling widely now, a new lightness in her voice as she tells Ruin all about a cat she once had as a little girl. Edge and Summer have disappeared into the darkness of the trees even before I finished my set.

Ariel and Ruin do in fact stand up and say good night. A certain tightness is still there in Ariel’s face, and maybe it’ll never go away, given what she’s been through. But I think it’s not as pronounced either.

“I think everything’s finally gonna work out now,” I say to Jax and Hunter as I watch my parents embrace and kiss like teenagers by a tall redwood tree at the edge of the clearing.

“I should’ve made that call to Cross right after we came out of the prison,” Hunter says gravelly. “Everything would’ve been different if I just told them to trust Jax from the start.”

He’s been apologizing a lot since he got back a couple of days ago, and taking a lot of the blame on himself. Needlessly. Even though the reason for him being out of contact this whole time wasn’t just bad cell phone reception at the reservation. He’d actually turned off his phone during his stay.

But he needed the break. That darkness that shrouded his eyes and his voice when we left home together is less noticeable now. Not gone, though.

“And you wouldn’t have been butchered if I came back home with you instead of pigheadedly messing everything up,” Jax says. “What might have beensare a pointless thing to dwell on. We’re all here now.”

Except Trixie.

I hear that unsaid thought loud and clear and as though someone actually spoke it. Probably because all three of us must’ve had it at the same time.

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