Page 28 of Fury

Staring at my compass, my eyes finally drifted shut.

Iwas patched in the momentI could stand without wobbling.

I put on the new leather vest Chaz presented to me. Flames colors. My club. I was following in my grandad and my dad’s footsteps. Chaz smacked me once on the back. Reich did the same and pushed me toward Lyon, the club secretary, who squeezed my shoulder.

“Congrats, Kid. Your father would be real proud if he could see you now.”

Chaz whistled sharply, and we all turned our attention to Coop, the president.

“Fuck ‘em,” my president’s voice rumbled through the meeting room. “They took your fingers, but they didn’t take your pride, your will to survive. You’re a man. Now, a brother. They took and tortured, but you held on. You wear your scars with pride just like your colors. You battled, and you won. Your soul, your heart, your mind got nothing to do with the scratches on your face and a missing finger or two.”

And so I was named.

Finger. Reminding me of what I’d lost. How I’d paid for my club loyalty in flesh and blood and bone. Yet also reminding me of my tenacity, my determination.

I’d gotten what I’d wanted for so long—to be a full-fledged brother of the Flames of Hell. I was in. This was it. And I’d earned it

But my dad wasn’t here to congratulate me. To beam a proud smile, to lift that sharp edged and dimpled chin of his at me like he had a few memorable times before.

“A dimple in the chin means the devil within,” he’d told me when as a boy I’d first poked my finger into that indentation of his flesh and he’d poked his finger into mine and we’d laughed.

The party to celebrate my membership played like a puppet show on the stage of my whirling emotions. I was the audience of one, sitting alone in the theater, strapped to the seat.

I’d survived, but with Dad gone, I had no one to come home to. My thoughts went to Serena, as they usually did. Hell, I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for her. Her kindness, understanding with a word, a look, her touch. But she was still there, suffering at the hands of that maniac.

“I like being alive.”

Rena wanted to live, and the sheer force of that quiet yet iron will of hers humbled me. I wanted to help her make that dream of a real life come true.

Did she miss me like I missed her? It was more than just missing somebody. A power supply had been cut off, unplugged. Suddenly, I was disconnected from something necessary that I hadn’t been aware of ever before. Not like this.

Had things gotten worse for her? Med enjoyed ratcheting up the intensity of his games once he got started. He’d punished her for some unknown sin that last night and maybe he was continuing that punishment. She’d probably lost her old lady status. Maybe he would ditch her. Fuck, we both knew what that meant. I wanted her alive and living a real life, be that with me or without me. Not suffering a prisoner’s nightmare.

“Finger.” My VP stood in front of me.

I blinked at Chaz.

He slanted his head. “Man, you good?”

“Yeah, sure. Yeah.” I shrugged and scanned the crowded room once again, trying to look interested in the doings. Trying not to feel sick.

“Join the party. It’s your party. Got bitches here who want a piece of you.” Chaz put an arm around my shoulder, and I stiffened, my throat closed. I unstuck myself from his arm.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

I didn’t like anyone touching me. Not anymore. In the short time that I’d been home they’d all figured that out. My sullenness, my unwillingness to talk, kept most of them at a distance anyhow.

“Dude, you pissing on your own party?” Reich asked, swigging a beer from a long neck. “Get out there and blow off that steam, motherfucker.”

I ground my jaw and shot him a glare. His face soured, and he turned away, slinging his arm over some girl.

“Come on, brother. Let it go. Time to celebrate,” said Chaz, his voice softer than usual. Concern laced with impatience. I’d been crowned tonight. I had a new life now. I needed to play the part.

I did my best to crack a grin. A flash of stinging pain raced over my tight skin, and I swallowed it back down like a balloon of cocaine. “You’re right.”

I drank, I smoked, I danced. I got high. I got drunk. I threw up the tequila I’d downed at the sight of sliced white bread in the piles of sandwiches the girls had made. I looked for Serena’s face in the crowd. Hoping. Hoping.

I threw myself on a sofa, too dizzy to stand. A woman straddled me and kissed my chest, my throat, my face. My scars stung under her lips. My lungs squeezed. I was hard as a rock.

---