Page 16 of Femme Fatale
"Everyone," I said, meaning it.
She rolled her wrist, flexed her bloody fingers. "You got a code?"
"Don’t fuck over the family. Always pay your debts. Never snitch, never whine. Loyalty over everything."
She grinned, showing a chipped front tooth. "Not bad. Most people just say ‘get rich or die trying.’"
I shrugged. "That’s the end of the code, not the start."
A silence, but not the awkward kind. More like the eye of a storm. She pushed her empty glass toward me. "You ever take a punch, Selene?"
I thought about my mother, my father, the river, the men who tried to take what wasn’t theirs. "More than I can count."
Tempest eyed me, then stuck out her right hand, palm up. "Arm wrestle. Winner sets the terms."
I wrapped my hand around hers, feeling the roughness, the scars. Her grip was granite. We braced on the table, elbows dug in, knuckles white.
"Three, two, one—go."
She drove down with the strength of a piston, but I held her, not giving an inch. My arm trembled, pain flaring, but I held the line. She bared her teeth, sweat beading on her forehead. We locked like that, muscles burning, for a solid minute.
Finally, she broke the stalemate with a quick feint let up, and then slammed down so fast I barely saw it.
My knuckles hit the table. She released, then tapped the surface twice. "Not bad," she said, "for a pencil pusher."
We both laughed, breathless.
I reached into my jacket and slid the Tail-Gunner patch across to her. She picked it up, stared at it, then, without a word, used the edge to cut her own palm. Blood welled up, dark and thick. I did the same with my palm.
She offered her hand. I took it, let her squeeze until the blood mixed. It hurt like hell, but pain is the oldest loyalty in the world.
"Blood oath," she said.
I nodded, feeling the sting. "Welcome to the club."
We wiped our hands, and she bandaged hers with a bar napkin. "So what’s the play, Selene?"
"Tomorrow, we roll out. Real show of force. You up for it?"
She grinned, savage and wild. "Always."
We clinked glasses, and the regulars watched us like they’d seen a new animal at the zoo. I finished my drink, and as I left, Tempest called after me.
"Hey, President."
"Yeah?"
"You ever need backup, call me first."
I didn’t look back, but I smiled all the way to the Harley.
One day left. The storm was ready.
***
The road out to the clubhouse ran straight through the badlands, two miles of cracked tarmac hemmed by ghost Joshua trees and the perpetual mirage of Vegas in the rearview. By late afternoon, the heat shimmered so hard the Harley’s shadow stuttered, broken in half a dozen places. But I liked the ride. I liked the waythe engine sang under my knees and the wind tried to pry the skin from my bones. It made everything else feel honest.
The clubhouse itself was an old mining lodge, squatting between two mountains like it had something to prove. The wood was sun-bleached to the color of old teeth, and the windows were covered in security mesh that hadn’t stopped a single rock in twenty years. But it was solid, and—more importantly—ours. Out front, a double row of bikes. Joker’s Kawasaki, black and low; Spade’s matte Triumph, all military angles; Aces’ Ducati, red enough to turn heads from a mile off; Glitz’s vintage Vespa, plastered in stickers; Nines’ ratty Honda, more solder than metal; Tempest’s Harley, which looked like it had already been through a war. Everyone would need a new bike.
