No one cheers. We just stand here, heat and silence pressing in.
I head to the garage and drop my gloves into the oil pan, watching the blood dissolve into grease until it disappears like it never belonged to anyone.
Peanut’s waiting by the door, tail flicking. I crouch and let her climb into my lap. Her small, innocent purr vibrates against my chest.
For a second, I let it be enough.
But when I look at my reflection in the chrome of my bike, I don’t see a man looking back. I see the outline of one, washed in gasoline and smoke, clinging to the last gentle thing in a world that keeps demanding more.
6
SYVANNAH
The smell hits before the engines fade, bringing back painful memories. I tamp them down before I spiral. Gasoline, smoke, and blood rolls through the compound like weather, seeping through the cracks in the clubhouse walls. I know what that smell means. Something went wrong again.
I’m sitting on the couch in the common room with Peanut on my lap when the first bike pulls in. The purr in my hands dies the second the doors open. Tiny is the first through the doors. His face is streaked with soot and blood. Dagger follows Tiny with a tight jaw and hard eyes. Trigger is cursing into his comm while Torch limps toward the bar for water. No one is laughing, and that absence tells me more than any report ever could.
One by one, they file back outside. Curiosity gets the best of me, and I follow. Capone is waiting on the porch. He doesn’t need to ask, he just listens. Every word from Trigger’s mouth is clipped, flat, and professional. The language of men who kill to survive.
I catch Tiny’s reflection in the glass. He’s standing still, staring at his hands like he doesn’t recognize them. His gloves are dark with oil or blood, I can’t tell. Neither can he.
Nadia appears beside me, whisper-soft. “Don’t go out there.”
“I’m not,” I lie.
She gives me the kind of look you learn in recovery groups. The look that saysyou’re lying, but I understand why.
“I’ll make coffee,” she says, already moving toward the kitchen. “That’s what we do when everything smells like war.”
I stay where I am, frozen in the doorway, watching through the glass as Capone gives orders and the others scatter to obey. Tiny doesn’t move. He’s a shadow carved out of steel.
Tiny heads to the garage and stops to pick up Peanut along the way. They disappear, and I resign myself to go back inside. I’m not in the right headspace to help anyone, let alone myself. If Tiny needs me, he knows how to find me.
When the guys come back inside, the noise starts again. Voices are loud, laughter that doesn’t reach their eyes. The usual routine of pretending the world isn’t on fire.
Tiny comes in last and brushes past me without a word. The heat from his body leaves goosebumps on my arms. His eyes scan mine for half a second, enough to see the exhaustion, guilt, and distance.
He doesn’t have to say anything because I already know. Someone died. Maybe more than one. I also know he’ll blame himself for all of them.
Instead of staying back like I did when he went to the garage, I follow him down the hall a few minutes later. He’s at the sink, scrubbing his hands like he can wash the day off. Water runs red, then brown, then clear.
“You’re bleeding,” I say.
He glances up. “Just a scratch.”
“That’s what everyone says before infection sets in.”
That earns a ghost of a smile. “You sound like Daisy.”
“She’s smarter than most of you.”
Tiny snorts. “No argument here.”
I grab a towel and reach for his hand before I can think better of it. The contact hits like an electric shock. His skin’s rough, warm, trembling under the surface. I wipe the water from his knuckles, slow and steady.
Tiny doesn’t pull away, but he doesn’t look at me either. “You shouldn’t see this.”
“I’ve seen worse.”