Page 54 of Femme Fatale
I said, “You better.”
There’s no neat ending to a story like ours. Vegas is too alive for that, too ugly, too perfect. We just kept going. Zeke never stopped loving me, not even on the days when I hated him more than myself. The scars faded, but the memory didn’t. We survived, despite every law that said we shouldn’t.
Some nights after close, I’d sit on the porch with Four Roses and a pack of cheap cigarettes, and wait for the sun to come up. Sometimes, out on the road, I’d hear a single Harley engine, slicing through the dark, and I’d remember how it all started—the pain, the chaos, the hope. And I’d smile, just a little, and flick my cigarette out into the sand, where ghosts belong.
Because in the end, that’s what Vegas is. Not a city. Not a war. Not even a graveyard.
Just a place where two broken people can find each other, and maybe be whole, for a little while.
Epilogue
Joker
Ipulled my Harley into the dust-choked lot of Broken Chips, a roadhouse so run-down it had to be a front for something, but the only thing I ever saw out back was wasted truckers and the odd stray pit bull. The place sat on the eastern city limits, Vegas neon bleeding out and dying in the dirt before it reached the cracked parking lot. There was a sign, too—half the letters blown, so it just read “B O K E C I S.” On nights like this, you could almost believe it was the last real bar on earth.
Nines rolled in behind me, her bike idling low, engine note so smooth it barely tickled the air. She wore matte black head to toe, like a negative print of my own cherry-red everything. When she pulled off her helmet, the sweat-slicked blonde spikes were flat against her skull, eyes shielded behind orange Oakleys. She looked at me sideways, her mouth twitching. “Nice dump,” she said. “You sure it’s safe?”
“Nothing’s safe,” I told her, killing the engine and letting the night swallow the last of the noise.
We walked in together, boots echoing off concrete. Inside, the place was all bad angles, walls yellowed with old smoke, and the floor patched with duct tape and hope. The air reeked of spilled beer and cigarettes, with an undercurrent of ammonia that made my eyes water. The lighting was two bare bulbs and a gnarled strand of Christmas lights, so dim you had to squint to see if the bartender was a man or a woman. Pool tables stood at the far end, felt ripped and patched, sticks bent like question marks. Nobody played. Nobody talked. Everyone in here was either hiding or killing time until they had something to hide.
We grabbed a booth near the windows. I took the seat facing the door. Habit. Nines slouched across from me, scanning the room with practiced apathy. I ordered two cold domestics because anything harder would have been like dipping my liver in kerosene after the week I’d had. The bartender slid the bottles across with a nod, no words, no smile.
Three sips in, I clocked the approach of two guys, maybe thirties, both tan from real work and not the gym. The tall one was built like a utility pole, sharp chin and a jaw you could hang a tire iron from. The shorter one had a wrestler’s shoulders, the kind of muscle you get from farm labor, not supplements. They moved casual, but the way they angled in was pure high school football huddle. I tagged them as ex-military, or at least the kind of men who worshiped people who were.
The tall one said, “Ladies.” He meant it as a joke, I think. “Mind if we join you? All the other seats are taken.” The place was empty except for one old man drooling on his arms at the bar.
Nines shrugged, flicked her eyes at me. My call.
I didn’t say yes, but I didn’t say fuck off, either, so they squeezed in, the tall guy beside me, the short guy beside Nines.He smelled like cloves and axle grease, or maybe that was just the city. He smiled, all teeth, and introduced himself as Mike. The other guy was Dex, which was either his real name or something he’d picked up on a chain gang. “You girls local?” Mike asked, voice lazy but scouting.
“Born here,” I lied, “but I keep trying to escape.” I sipped my beer. “You?”
Mike laughed, soft and low. “Not from here, but we get up to Vegas often enough. Dex and I are what you’d call regulars.” His eyes flicked down my arm to the fresh scab on my knuckle, and he grinned wider. “That a riding injury, or a fighting injury?”
Nines snorted. “Is there a difference?” She tapped Dex’s glass with hers, a clink that was more threat than toast.
They went back and forth like that, Dex teasing her about her hair, Nines mocking his laugh, both of them pretending this was a date and not a game of chicken. Mike focused on me, or maybe he just liked the way I never blinked.
“You look like you’ve had a long week,” he said, voice dropping so Nines and Dex had to lean in to hear.
“I look how I feel,” I said. “The city’s been busy.”
He pulled a battered pack of Lucky Strikes from his shirt pocket and offered me one. I took it, and he lit it for me, his fingers warm on my wrist as he cupped the match. “You want to step outside?” he asked. “The smoke alarm in here is just for show, but some people are sensitive.” He glanced at the bartender, who definitely wasn’t watching.
I looked at Nines. She had Dex wrapped around her finger, leaning in close like she was whispering club secrets. But her hands were flat on the table, and the way her index finger tapped at her phone told me she was still scanning the room. I weighed the options—leave her here, or make Mike wait and risk him getting bored or mean. The old me wouldn’t have left a friend with a stranger. The new me remembered what it was like to beunderestimated, and figured Nines could cut Dex open if he tried anything.
Mike stood and waited for me to join him. I slid out and felt the old stiffness in my thigh where a bullet had passed through a few months ago. He offered his arm, gentleman-style, but I ignored it. He shrugged and led the way, hand grazing my lower back as we cleared the booth. It was a small touch, but I clocked the angle and the pressure, deciding it wasn’t for comfort, but was for control. The warning bells went off, but I let him do it anyway. Maybe I was too tired to care, or maybe I wanted to see how far he’d push before I pushed back.
Outside, the air was pure exhaust and sagebrush, a dry wind carrying the taste of burned coffee from the bar’s kitchen vent. The moon hung low, sickle-shaped, cutting the sky just above the busted neon sign.
“Nice bike,” Mike said, glancing at my Harley. He walked slowly, as if he expected me to follow. “You ride often?”
“Every day I don’t want to kill myself,” I said. “And some days I do.”
He laughed, short and sharp. “You don’t seem the suicidal type.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I just like the feeling.”
