Page 35 of Fearless
I didn’t want to change the subject entirely, but the overwhelming sadness of Shadow’s upbringing had me craving a happier topic to fixate on.
“Tell me how the Steel Demons formed.” I scratched lightly over his scalp. “And how you brought Shadow into the fold.”
“You mean Reap hasn’t told you already?” he chuckled with a kiss to my temple.
“Maybe he has and I just want to see if your stories line up.”
“You suck at lying and it’s adorable,” he teased, kissing my neck. “Well Reap and I knew each other since we were kids, you knew that already. We met Gunner when we were about sixteen, when he bailed us out of jail by flashing his family’s money around.”
“I can see him doing that,” I giggled. “But why would he help you two?”
“He had a vintage motorcycle that was precious to him, a family heirloom of sorts. But he couldn’t get it running. I promised I’d fix it for him and, surprise for us, the preppy little punk actually held up his end of the bargain and got us out. We got along remarkably well for being from such different backgrounds. He was always kind of an outcast among his rich, snobby family, and I think we gave him a sense of freedom he never had.”
“So SDMC was just you three for a while?”
“Daren and Noelle were with us too. But yeah, the five of us were the OGs.” He sat up halfway in bed, propping pillows against the headboard. Apparently he was fully awake now too, and getting into storytelling mode. His arm fell around my shoulders and I nestled into his side.
“I keep forgetting about Reaper’s brother,” I admitted. “He’s only talked to me about him a few times.”
“Daren was kind of like that,” Jandro nodded. “Quiet kid, always kind of in his own head. My loudmouthed ass would forget he was around too, until he had something really important to say. Then he’d usually grab one of his siblings. But anyway,” he rubbed his jaw, “the five of us lived in a tiny-ass apartment after Reaper’s home got swept. He and I were twenty-one, the others a little younger. But you know, we partied, revved our engines loud in the streets, got into bar fights, went on longer rides together on weekends. That was SDMC in its infancy, just a bunch of dumbass hooligans.”
Jandro’s voice softened as he stared blankly at a random wrinkle in the sheet. “When Reap went back home for a visit and found everyone all gone, it was like a switch flipped. He left as Rory and came back home as Reaper, the SDMC president we know.”
I recalled how Reaper told me the story, standing in the middle of empty homes and artifacts buried in the sand. I wondered if that was the most emotion he allowed himself to show regarding the loss of his family.
“He said everyone had been taken away, and we couldn’t afford to fuck around anymore,” Jandro continued. “We had to become a club, a real one with a hierarchy, rules, and a reputation. At first, it was to shape up so we could find his family. After some years passed without so much as a clue about them, it was so we could form and protect our own.”
I drifted my fingertips over his chest and abs like how he was caressing me earlier. “How did Shadow get involved?”
“That was a whole other ordeal,” he sighed. “I was working in a prison at the time, and he was in the mental health building, for reasons I’m sure you can guess.”
“Nightmares, talking to himself, and erratic violence?”
“Yup. You wouldn’t even recognize him, Mari. Same height but skinny as a rail. A shaved head, no facial hair. I don’t think he ever got a proper meal in his life.”
“Jesus. Poor Shadow.”
“Yeah. I could tell he wasn’t mentally impaired in any way, so I felt bad that he got placed in that unit. One night, I snuck him a flask of my boss’s hidden stash of liquor. He slept like a baby, but now he’s dependent on booze to sleep at all. And he’s developed a hell of a tolerance over the years so he always needs more.”
“I understand why you did that, but that kind of drinking is poisoning him. I’m amazed he’s still alive and functioning as well as he is. How old is he?”
“No idea. There was no record of his birth, only a rough estimate of his age. He was never even given a name before coming to the prison. I told him we could share the same age and he could pick a birthday. But yeah, you seen that white eye of his? Sometimes I wonder if he’s a mutant.”
I drummed my fingers on Jandro’s ribs. “So how’d he join the club?”
“The Collapse ensured that for us,” he laughed dryly. “The prison shut down three years later. It was a federal facility so when the Fed went tits up, so did everything it funded. Retirement accounts and pensions became worthless in a matter of days. Nobody was getting a paycheck anymore, so everyone threw their middle fingers up and went, fuck it! At some point, someone unlocked all the cells. One of my coworkers who had finally snapped started shooting at inmates.”
“Oh my God.” My hand flew to my mouth. His words were a poignant reminder that the impoverished and disadvantaged suffered most from the Collapse.
“It’s okay, though. No one got hurt because someone shot that motherfucker from a hundred yards away with a pistol. I’m talking clear across the building! Guess who that was?”
“You?”
“Nope. Shadow. He took another guard’s pistol and honestly saved everyone. Anyway,” his hand gesticulated wildly, engrossed in his storytelling, “obviously, he had nowhere to go after that happened. I couldn’t just leave him, so I invited him back home with me and,” his fist closed and pressed to his lips as he tried to stifle a laugh, “you think he’s awkward now? You should have seen him standing in our dumpy-ass apartment living room, Reaper and Noelle staring at him like he’s an alien and asking me what the hell this guy was doing here. So that was fun, especially with Noelle, because just being in the same room as a woman freaked him the hell out.”
“As opposed to now, where he just looks mildly uncomfortable?”
“Yes, exactly. So it took some work convincing the siblings to bring him into the fold. He was a hell of a shot, but never rode on a motorcycle before. Eventually, I think it was Daren who convinced Reaper having him was a good idea. There were learning curves, but eventually it all worked out. Gunner taught him about different kinds of weapons. He understood Reaper was our leader. He and Noelle just avoided each other.”
