My vision swam. I screamed, the sound tearing out of my throat like a wildfire. The echo bounced off the mausoleums and came back, doubled.
Baldy unzipped, dick already out, and pressed himself against me. I bit his wrist as hard as I could, tasted blood,felt the tendons slide under my teeth. He yelped, slapped my head, but I wouldn’t let go.
The others circled in, watching, laughing, hands in their pants.
For a second, I wondered if this was really it. If I was going to end up another slab in the field, name worn away by the wind and the dumb violence of men. I drew in a lungful of air, every nerve raw, and screamed again. Louder this time. So loud I saw stars.
From somewhere up the hill, I heard a gunshot—real this time, not just in my head. The locals froze. Another shot, closer.
Baldy staggered off me, blood running down his hand. He looked up, eyes wild.
The bikers were coming. I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse, but it didn’t matter.
3
Augustine
Somewhere, a coyote yipped its head off, and the echo bounced around Los Alamos Cemetery like a bullet in an empty skull. I let it ride, the tail end of the sound blending into the low thrum of my Harley. I didn’t bother to cut the engine right away. I liked the way the deep V-twin shook the fog and made the windows on the maintenance shed rattle. It was just past dawn, chill enough to keep the living away, but not so cold it’d numb my fingers. I swung the bike in slow, parked it up tight to the wrought iron, and killed the lights.
No one else was stupid enough to be here at this hour, which was the point.
I let the silence settle, just me and the dead, and the gas station coffee sloshing in my gut. The main gate was chained, but it was only ceremonial—it never stopped the grave robbers or the high school degenerates from hopping over. I grabbed my saddlebag, took the shortcut, boot heel scraping the concrete, and walked the old stone path until the marble teeth of the family plot came into view. Even in death, the Williamses couldn’t stand to be more than arm’s reach from each other.
I squatted by Uncle James’s headstone and fished a bottle out of my saddlebag—bottom-shelf whiskey, good enough for a man who’d never sipped anything better. I thumbed off the cap and poured a slug over the top of the grave, then took a drink for myself. The booze scorched the back of my throat and punched awake the rest of my system.
“Morning, asshole,” I muttered. “Hope the afterlife’s treating you better than county did.”
The granite was worn at the edges, lichen eating away at the date like a slow-motion cancer. James had died six years ago, but most people in the club still talked about him like he’d pop up next Thursday for the weekly ride. Old habits. Even ghosts could be reliable if you wanted them bad enough.
I leaned my elbows on my knees and rolled the bottle between my palms. The cut—the vest, for you civilians—hung heavy on my back. The old man used to joke that I was born in that jacket, c-sectioned right out of her and into the life. He wasn’t far off.
I looked out over the rows of graves. The new ones had plastic flowers; the old ones, just moss and sun-bleached plastic tags. Fog hugged the ground, making everything look like a movie set. I could see the town waking up a mile off, smoke curling out of chimneys, a few trucks already rumbling down the highway. On a good day, it smelled like pinon and wood smoke. Today, it just smelled like cold dirt and hangover.
“You missed the good shit last week,” I told James. “Cops busted two patches out by Rio Arriba.” I let that hang, then shrugged. “We didn’t do it. Would’ve been cleaner if we had.”
A crow landed on a crooked stone a few yards off, watched me with the dead-eyed patience of a dealer at closing time. I offered it the bottle. “You thirsty, bud?”
The bird fluffed its feathers, then cawed and flapped off toward the oaks. Couldn’t blame it.
I tilted the whiskey back for another sip and let the burn settle into my chest. Six years since James was ambushed, and I still couldn’t visit without feeling the mess of itall—some mix of anger, pity, and admiration that stuck like gum to a shoe. The guy had been a hard-ass, a great uncle, a textbook psycho. But he was family, and more honest than most of the liars still breathing aboveground.
“You know,” I said, “people always say ‘rest in peace.’ But you’re the last motherfucker I’d want asleep on the job.”
There was a slanted photo frame stuck in the grass—Uncle James in his club leathers, all smirk and mustache. I propped it up against the marble. “I brought you something, by the way. No flowers, but I figured this was more your style.” I set a single bullet on the grave, a hollow point, shiny and new.
I closed my eyes for a second, thinking about the old man’s advice on women, business, and violence—usually in that order. I wondered if the club would ever breed another bastard that stubborn. The odds weren’t in our favor. These days, most new blood thought loyalty was a dating app.
I was just finishing the last of the bottle when it happened.
It started as a distant shriek, the kind that could’ve been a coyote or a drunk or maybe both. But the next one was unmistakable: a woman, terrified, close enough to rattle the glass in my hands.
The bottle hit the grass. My head snapped up, every muscle in my body going tight as a garrote. My hand went to my Glock before I even thought about it. Safety off, mag check, smooth as breathing. The second scream was closer, punctuated by the unmistakable crunch of bodies moving fast over gravel.
A cold little smile crept up on me. It’d been too long since I’d had a decent morning workout.
I stood, eyes scanning the rows of stones, and started toward the noise. My boots barely made a sound on the wet grass. I kept low, using the line of mausoleums as cover. In my mind, I was already running the scenario—four, maybe five perps, at least one woman, unknown weapons. My pulse dropped into that steady, hungry rhythm I got when the world shrank down to threats and targets.
The fog was thicker on this side of the cemetery, rolling off the valley in fat, greasy clumps. I ghosted along the fence line, catching a glimpse of movement ahead—shapes flailing, voices raised. There was a clatter, a shout, then the slap of flesh on stone. I gripped the Glock and smiled wider.