Knight (50 page)

But the recovery was worth it. When the song’s melody melted like chocolate and my last tremble rocketed up from my pink toenails and escaped in the flick of my curls behind my shoulders. No sample of Cream ever rocked so hard and sounded beautiful.

“Thank you...Rose?” The cafe manager looked up from counting his receipt to glance at the packet of business cards, photos, and
résumé
I handed him. “Rose
Darnell
?”

“I can play piano too.”

“Yes...” The manager nodded. Even in the dim light cast by the bar, his face paled a sickly green. “Rose, thank you for your time...but I don’t think you’re what we’re looking for at the moment.”

My smile cracked but didn’t shatter. “Oh. I can do contemporary too. Or classical. Or whatever you want. Really. What kind of music would you prefer?”

“The kind...” He rubbed the sweat from his brow. “The kind that gives us the least amount of trouble. I’m sorry, we just can’t afford any...
incidents
now. Thank you for your time.”

I stuttered when I introduced myself but only because I worried about the acoustics of the cramped cafe. I never considered taking a stage name. Now it only seemed logical.

As long as I stayed in the city, it was possible everybody knew who I was.

Who my brothers were.

What my father did.

My stomach twisted. I prayed no one would ever find out what my father did.

I packed my guitar and muttered a polite
thank you
, though my face flushed with more than just insult.

Shame. A mortification my brothers never would have tolerated.

But I wasn’t my brothers, and the manager didn’t care. He locked the cafe door behind me with a frightened click.

Really
?

I should have pounded on the door, should have shouted to the manager that it wasn’t like my wool jacket and rusted, ten year old Honda Accord raged like Anathema in the streets of the Valley.

I was one hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. Christ, if I scared him, he was already lost.

My first shot in months. Not a one-time show. Not a silly little fundraiser where I’d be stuffed in the corner. A
real
gig. A paying job. Something that could finance a new guitar if mine broke or get my car the oil change Brew demanded.

The cafe’s parking lot wasn’t the greatest place for an existential crisis.

It also wasn’t the best place to cry.

So I planned a new course of attack instead. I could still forge my own path…even if I had to dig myself out of the hole first.

I wasn’t about to go home and sulk. I might have gone into work for some extra cash, but when I called in to request the day off, Steve gave me as much time as I needed.

I doubted he wanted me to return, even to hand in my apron.

I’d bake him some cookies for the trauma.

Keep always said if I visualized what I wanted, and imagined the outcome I desired, I could make it happen. Dreaming wasn’t much of a help now. The lovely vision in my head fizzled away. The intimate stage, the quiet audience, the record producer offering me a latte and presenting me with a contract.

Now the only thing I could imagine was how far half a tank of gas could drive me. I visualized eking out another two blocks of my normal commute, but optimism was easier when a switchblade earned the desired result.

That would change.

I had two choices. Head home, scoop out a bowl of ice cream, and queue up Pink Floyd with a desperately needed bubble bath. Or, I could do what I needed to do.

My beautiful guitar played sour in my ears, and the thousand dollars sitting in my purse ticked away like a time-bomb, just waiting to explode and impale me with Anathema’s shrapnel.

I would never,
ever
touch the money. It was stupid to ask for it. Stupid to let my brothers back into my life. Stupid to let what happened in the diner...happen.

It was my fault. My boss went to the hospital, and he swore to me on every holy book that he didn’t tell the doctors or police who pummeled him. He apologized to
me
for getting hurt.

For Keep and Brew, violence solved everything. When life gave them lemons, they pulverized the fruit, chopped down the tree, and salted the earth where it once grew.

But that wasn’t me. No matter how many auditions I could book with a functioning instrument, I couldn’t be a part of that life. Not anymore.

I
hated
the thought of losing the money, but I hated more the wire closing my boss’s jaw. If I wanted to take care of myself,
really
take care of myself, I had to yank the thorn that was Anathema out of my paw so I could walk on my own two feet.

The pawn shop on Washington and Third was almost as old as the town. Dad knew the owner, but no one wore a cut. I hauled the guitar inside. My heart ached with the musty, wooden smell permeating the store. Not much sold here. The clutter grew like mold on the walls—anything from cracked rocking horses to fishing poles. My guitar was the newest and best item in the store. I hoped that meant it wouldn’t be here for long. The poor instrument didn’t need to suffer because I had a bout of nobleness.

Or guilt.

Whiny punk music screeched from a tinny radio behind the counter. I filled out the receipt and handed it to the tattooed clerk drumming out of sync with the beat. Facial tattoos weren’t the counterculture statement I chose, but ink ran in the blood of most club members. The clerk scarred his face with reds and yellows. I offered a polite smile as he shifted onto a chair.

“I’ll give you eight hundred,” he said.

The smile cracked. “It’s a fifteen hundred dollar guitar.”

“Eight fifty.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going lower than twelve hundred.”

“Nine twenty-five.”

I patted the case. “You don’t understand. This is a Gibson. It’s a
brand-new
guitar. I only played it three times.”

Tattoo shrugged. “Then what? Is it defective?”

“No! It’s a great guitar.”

“The why you gettin’ rid of it?”

I wasn’t about to share my life story and recent emotional catharsis with a man who inked the naked Virgin Mary on his cheek.

“The music store doesn’t do refunds,” I said. “Can you be fair? My dad used to come here all the time.”

“Who’s your old man?”

“Blade Darnell.”

The tattooed man stilled. Everyone reacted the same way when confronted with my father.

I thought I was the only one who cowered like that.

“You’re Blade’s girl?”

“I want thirteen hundred for the guitar. That’s fair.”

The clerk cackled, and the colors on his face swirled. A chill curled around my spine.

“Thirteen hundred then.” He took the guitar and counted out the money. “Blade always did drive a hard bargain.”

“I guess.”

He bound the bills with a rubber band and pushed the stack to me. “Great doing business with Anathema again.”

I didn’t want to correct him. The hair on my neck rose. I hated leaving the instrument in the clutches of someone more likely to use it for firewood than composition, but something wasn’t right.

It didn’t take the daughter of Anathema’s former Vice-President to realize this was no place for anyone without a weapon.

I took the money and ran. Another deal done. Business as usual for Anathema. They paid the dues to get in, and they paid with their life to get out. No in-between, no easy escape, and no pity for those who didn’t belong.

And now?
Freedom
. The club would be a memory, the money a mistake, and my family’s paranoid rules just a quark of a childhood lost, forgotten, and healing.

My brothers could live for the patch sewed onto their vests. They could ride the bikes and intimidate the diner patrons and inject themselves with whatever drugs they needed to ease their conscience.

But I was done.

And it felt
incredible
.

Unfortunately, being done meant seeing them again. And I was a lot braver in my own head than I was face-to-face with my brothers.

I hadn’t been to the bar in years. Not since the party when Dad gave it to Keep and the name changed from The Imp to Pixie. We hadn’t stayed long. Dad didn’t want his daughter present at the true MC party.

That was his excuse to go home anyway.

I tried not to think about it.

The guys used to joke Pixie was the reason the town built train tracks to designate good and bad sides. Leather ruled the streets near Anathema’s headquarters. The exhaust of industry padded wallets and more secrets housed within the empty warehouses than wholesale stock.

Pixie blended into the dark and dank of the street. It didn’t even have a sign out front, only the emblem of the naked fairy kneeling over the entry. I parked and earned the snicker of the lone prospect guarding the door.

“No, sweetheart.” He pointed to the car. “This ain’t a place for you. Not unless you’re sellin’ something to make it worth our while.”

I auditioned in a black sweater with a sensible skirt. Not the usual attire that graced Anathema’s hangouts. The prospect wasn’t an idiot, and he was right. But I knew what to expect inside.

“I’m looking for Keep and Brew. Are they here?”

“They might be.”

I reached for the door. The prospect pressed his hand against the wood before it opened.

“You’re not their type.”

Ew.

I heard enough about my brothers’ exploits without the prospect painting a picture for my benefit. I shook my head.

“I just need to talk to them.”

“Sure.
Talk
to them.” He grinned. “When you’re done, come back and
talk
to me too.”

The prospect’s patch on his vest wasn’t as intimidating as a top rocker. Knowing the club’s hierarchy, he’d probably be stuck outside all night.

“Okay,” I said. “Let me go ask my brothers. I’m sure they’d love for me to keep you company.”

He paled. “Your brothers?”

“Keep and Brew?  I won’t be long if you want to wait.”

His hand popped off the door quick and nearly smacked me in the face. “Go right in. Sorry I said anything. Just having fun, you know.”

“Of course you were.”

The last time I walked willingly into Anathema’s clubhouse, Brew and Keep were just members. Respected, but they weren’t as important as Dad.

Things changed.

Dad, the Vice-President, went to jail for murder.

The club split. Wars fought in the streets.

What might have weakened Anathema just made it more dangerous. Everyone had something to prove, and they’d earn that respect with bullet casings and ripped patches. And now, my brothers were in the middle of it all. Secretary and Sergeant at Arms. I hated that responsibility and all the devils it summoned—police, ATF, FBI, and every enemy of the club.

So why was I
proud
of them for making it?

Just another way the club twisted all our heads.

Keep maintained his bar better than his body. He injected horrible drugs in his veins, but his home didn’t reflect that vice. He replaced the tile floors with a lovely hardwood, and he tore down the splintered clapboard walls for a more modern feel. And open. The bar expanded into a seating area, surrounded by billiards tables and dartboards.

Had it not been filled with a half dozen burly men in leather vests, it might have passed for a nice college hangout. Even the stripper poles, couches in the shadows, and playboy posters on the walls weren’t as bad as what I expected from a biker bar. Far more Whitesnake than Slayer.

“Sweet mother Mary and Joseph!” A gruff voice strained by age and cigarettes chortled from the bar. “It
can’t
be!”

The bar stool squeaked as a lumbering man rolled from the plush leather and held his arms out. I blushed. At least some of Pixie hadn’t changed.

“Is that little
Rose Bud
?” Caleb “Scotch” Jones captured me in a hug. “I can’t believe it. You’re all grown up now!”

Scotch squeezed me a little too hard, but I didn’t complain. I owed my surrogate uncle and godfather a hug. Probably more than one since the last time I saw him, during Dad’s sentencing.

“It’s been a while.” I silently counted the missed holidays. “About three years?”

“And about fifty pounds.” Scotch patted his stomach and held me at arm’s length. “Look at you. A proper lady now! So what the hell are you doing here?”

I blushed. “Just a little business.”

“That is the last thing a little lady like you should be doing. Your brothers know you’re here?”

The door slammed. Keep’s profanity echoed through the bar.

“Rose? What the
fuck
!”

I shrugged at Scotch. “No?”

“You got a pair of balls on you, girl.” He slapped my shoulder as Keep set his sights on me. The cut squeezed tight over Scotch’s chest, the VP patch re-pinned on the leather after returning from retirement. “You’re definitely a Darnell, that’s for sure.”

Keep’s shout for Brew wasn’t a friendly announcement of my arrival. He pointed me to a table. The handful of members at the bar bolted, sneaking away before getting caught in his path.

“Your phone broken?” Keep slammed a chair down beside me. “Pixie is not a place for a visit. Not for a girl like you.”

I swallowed. Keep didn’t blend in at the diner, but Pixie suited him. The shaved head, the cut, the scowl. I never knew my brothers as children, they were already men when I was born. But I saw pictures and remembered how Mom talked about them. Her sweet little boys didn’t grow up into gentle men. I twisted my hands in my lap, and my stomach flipped as Brew barreled through the back door.

“Oh, this is gonna be good,” Keep said. “Real good.”

The plan went much better in my head.

“You want to get passed around like some sort of whore?” Brew leaned over the table. “Or you lookin’ to collapse some veins like your brother?”

“N—no.”

Keep grimaced, but his voice softened. “Things changed, Bud. It’s not safe around here anymore. We don’t want you getting hurt.”

I smiled. “Is this where you say you’re not angry, you’re just disappointed?”