Page 142 of Fury

He stopped in front of me. “Please! Please, don’t do this!”

“Beg.” Drac shoved him forward.

Mikey’s legs buckled underneath him and he dropped to the ground ten yards in front of me. The crowd quieted.

“She tricked me, man! I didn’t know who she was! It was an honest mistake! I’m sorry.”

Sorries, mistakes. I didn’t have wiggle room for those notions.

“We don’t talk to outsiders. We don’t talk business to nobody.” My voice boomed over the buzz of the fire. “Fucking simple. You don’t get it. You never will. Your weakness and your vanity put our club at risk.”

“Please!”

“We are one percenters, boy, and that isn’t some clever label. But it seems you didn’t realize that on the other side of that coin, we are one-hundred percent in with all our blood, all our fire. We are the fire. That takes strength and character that you obviously don’t have.”

Drac handed me our old Marlin 1894. Murmurs rolled through the crowd at the appearance of the long rifle.

Mikey shuffled back on his feet, stumbling onto his back. “No! Please! I’ll do anything! Anything you want! Please.”

“There’s no coming back from this shit. The damage is done. You’re useless to me now. You’re fucking scum.”

I raised the Marlin and aimed at his face, my heart quieting; an odd quiet, a noiseless hush I relished. I took in a slight breath, and that satisfaction zipped through me, streamlining, focusing my every sense on my target, on the perfect weight of the firearm in my hands.

I snapped the lever down and pulled the trigger. The explosion silenced everything, the vibration shuddering through my shoulder, my arm, my chest. Mikey’s body jerked back, quickly dropping in a pile. That split second of sweet ferocity possessed me, sating me.

There was a hush in the courtyard, except for the fire in the pit. Those flames roared and leapt to the drum of my heartbeat. I pitched the Marlin back at Drac who caught it with a lift of his chin.

I let out a whistle and Leper trotted to my side, head raised, eyes on me. “There’s my boy.” I rubbed his head, and his tail wagged back and forth.

Catch stood alone at a distance, his eyes on what was left of his prospect, a brooding expression on his face. Members took turns kicking and smacking at the lifeless body in the yard, until they lost interest.

The party took on a life of its own. The corpse was finally gotten rid of and forgotten.

41

Beck had changedeverything forme.

He was my precious miracle, and I was a mama bear wanting to cuddle with her cub in a quiet cave all our own and experience the world again through him. Spending time with Beck was satisfying, and fulfilled a part of me that had been empty for so long. He was my center, my joy. I could let go of my many fragments of unhappiness by focusing on him and his happiness.

Eric and I separated, and he and Pam got married within months of the divorce. I can’t say it didn’t hurt, it did, but I was glad he was happy. Pam quit cheerleading, opened a children’s dance studio in Brentwood and had a baby girl the following year. A part of me envied Eric and Pam’s getting on with it and moving full steam ahead with their lives.

Although I enjoyed my work as a stylist and wardrobe designer, I decided I wanted something other than the LA rat race for me and my boy. All that celebrity crap and the constant shifting waves of what was trendy and what was not didn’t intrigue me the way it had initially. Eric let me have the house in Rapid where I stayed and raised Beck. I’d grown to love the area. Rapid City was an odd combination of mountain city with desert sand. Beck and I enjoyed hiking and exploring in the Black Hills. The dense, sweet, earthy smell in the air from the variety of evergreens, the dirt actually shining and shimmering from the mica were magical to us. It was our special corner of the world.

At home, I designed and made my own clothing line, a few expensive pieces both formal and more funky casual, and sold them in LA via trunk shows and through stylist friends, especially Kelly who had gone on to great success. Whenever I was back in LA to bring Beck to see his dad for winter break or the summer, I’d stay for several weeks and network with Kelly’s help.

From the beginning it was obvious that Beck was a born musician. Playing the guitar and the piano were instinctive for him. He had an ear for music, and he composed and played all the time even before he started taking formal lessons. His talent was something special, something beyond an ordinary aptitude. He wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps, and I knew deep in my gut he would surpass his dad’s level of artistry, and hopefully, success.

Eric was doing well as a producer based in LA. Whenever Beck visited him, he went with his dad to work and met lots of people and saw how the industry operated. The music business became second nature to him.

After finishing junior high in Rapid, Beck auditioned for an arts high school in LA. He was over the moon when he got it, and Eric and I were so proud. Beck moved to his dad’s in California, and I endured an empty nest much too early. I desperately missed my son, but I wouldn’t deny him his dream. I would never do that. It was his time. It was also the way of parenthood, wasn’t it?

I needed to focus on moving ahead with my own life and work.

I took the plunge and sold the house in Rapid and bought a much smaller one in Meager. Meager was small, quiet, an old pioneer settlement in the Black Hills that had seen better days when ranchers and farmers were more plentiful in these parts. There was a sense of comfort to me that this was Tania and Grace’s hometown, even though neither of them lived here any longer. The town seemed sleepy and worn around the edges, yet there were signs of some renewal. We were a good fit.

With the extra money from the sale of the house, I opened my own store on the main street of town. My shop was one of the first new businesses to open up on Clay Street after decades of the traditional stores dying a slow quiet death. The pre-war general store had eventually become the five and dime and now, it too had been silenced. Only a post-war family-owned gas station and Peppers, the Western boot shop that had served generations of families, remained sturdy fixtures. A diner that still had tables and chairs from the fifties had closed recently and then quickly reopened as a trendy coffee house complete with freshly made baked goods. The locals loved it, and so did I.

Meager began to get noticed on visitors’ tours through the Black Hills, especially during Sturgis Rally time. Younger families were moving in, and the town seemed to be on an upswing.

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