Page 94 of Price of Angels

“I think she’s sweet, too,” Ava continued. “I can reach out to her. If she’s going to be an old lady, she’s got to meet the gang at some point, right?”

“I never said ‘old lady.’ ”

“You didn’t have to.” She turned, the wind catching her hair, streaming it out behind her like a dark banner. “I’ll talk to her,” she promised. “God knows I don’t have many tally marks in the Friend column.”

“Did you get some rest?” Ghost asked him when he joined his president at one of the round tables in the common room.

Carter had brought them coffee and fresh glazed doughnuts, and was now behind the bar, cleaning the beer taps, his movements industrious. He was a worker, Ava’s old friend from high school. There was no keg too heavy nor bathroom floor too grungy for the kid, and he threw himself into his prospecting with a fervor that would have been comical if not so necessary.

Michael sipped his coffee and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Feeling better?” Ghost was looking over a sheaf of papers in a file folder and spared him a questioning sideways look.

Michael understood the question for what it really was: Are you ready to put your fucking head in the game again? Or can I expect more insubordination?

He nodded.

“Good, ‘cause we’ve got to go see the Jessup brothers.”

There was a sudden, involuntary tightening in his stomach. “What for?”

“They’re stirring up trouble with Fisher, and I’m about done with the assholes.”

Michael held a swallow of coffee in his mouth a long moment, letting it burn his tongue, thinking of the most careful way to phrase his question. “Aren’t they your only link to this Shaman guy Collier warned you about?”

Ghost sighed. “Yeah, they are.” He shoved the paperwork into a military-precise pile and closed the folder. “Be ready to leave in ten minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Fisher’s place looked its usual worst, only slimy with melting snow. The dirt yard, the scrap metal art sculptures, the ruined wrecks of cars that would never run again. The falling-down trailer with its exposed rusted axles was a sad sight. There was a rusted-out Buick parked behind Fisher’s truck. Steam curled from the trailer’s roof vents, dissipating in the strong currents of breeze.

Michael paused as they passed the Buick, memorized the plate. Then stretched his legs to catch up to his president and vice president.

Walsh had come with them. This was about as official as any visit from the MC could get. All they needed was Ratchet taking manic notes alongside them.

The porch of the trailer groaned in an ominous way under their combined weight. It wouldn’t have been surprising if the thing collapsed and dumped them all into the mud.

Ghost knocked hard, an insistent pounding against the door. “Fish, it’s us. Open up.”

There was a scurrying sound, and the locks disengaged, and then their skinny redneck dealer ushered them in with a blanched look. He was in a wifebeater and jeans, gooseflesh raised in obvious pebbles down his thin arms.

“What’s the matter?” Ghost asked him, when they were all inside, but the question wasn’t necessary.

The living room was a scabby ruin of mildewed carpet, accumulated trash, dry rot, and TVs stacked one on top of the other. Two mean stood in the doorway between this room and the kitchen, both in jeans and canvas jackets, both with the same square face and harshly-lined mouths.

The Jessup brothers, Abraham and Jacob, they had to be.

Holly’s father and uncle.

Her rapists and captors.

Monsters.

Michael’s hand was on the butt of the gun at his waistband before he registered the movement. Every cell in his brain screamed for action. Shoot them. Kill them. Chop up the bodies like shark bait and burn the wet remains in a deep hole on the cattle property. Everything in him wanted to destroy everything about them. Call Mercy, that’s what he ought to do; unleash that Cajun torture machine on the brothers, and listen to them scream and beg and cry. Make the prospects mop up the blood. Make a trophy of the teeth that survived the burning and take it back to Holly, to lay at her feet, proof that they would never touch her again.

His thoughts shocked him. They frightened him, if he was honest. That’s not who he was: he didn’t step out of line; he didn’t enjoy what he did for the club; death was a responsibility, and not a gift.

What had the girl done to him?

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