Page 3 of Damron (Bloody Scythes MC #1)

Chapter three

The Question

T he Red Rooster sat forty miles outside Los Alamos, surrounded by nothing but cactus, oil stains, and silence.

The parking lot was dirt and broken bottles, the clientele split between local mutants and the kind of drifters who thought the apocalypse already happened and they were the only survivors.

Damron St. James claimed the corner booth, back to the wall, eyes on the exit.

Carly sat across from him in a denim miniskirt, boots that could kick a man’s teeth in, and a v-neck that did war crimes to every guy’s self-restraint.

A pitcher of Modelo sweated on the table.

She poured him a glass, foam head thick as clouds.

“You still drinking light beer?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

He shrugged. “It’s not light if you drink the whole pitcher.”

She snorted, sipped her own glass, left a perfect lipstick stain on the rim. “You always were a cheap date.”

“And you were always high maintenance, darlin’.”

Carly grinned, white teeth bared. “Careful, or I’ll filibuster your ass right here.”

He liked the way she said it: like she might, like she already was. He started to reach for the pitcher, but her phone vibrated.

She thumbed the screen, face blank. “Fuck,” she muttered.

“Work?”

“Mother.” She rolled her eyes, poured herself another. “You ever wish you’d picked a quieter life?”

He considered it. “Briefly.”

She flicked a peanut at him, nailed him in the chest. “Asshole.”

“Guilty,” he said. “But at least I’m not a criminal.”

She snorted again, this time with real laughter. “You run guns, Damron. You run drugs. You run girls sometimes, even if you pretend you don’t. If you aren’t a criminal, nobody is.”

He lifted his glass. “To the New Mexico justice system, then.”

She clinked his glass. “May it never notice us.”

They drank, and for a minute it was almost peaceful. Then the parking lot exploded in a murder of engines.

A string of Harleys roared up, dust-choking the sunset.

Five bikes. Five men in sleeveless cuts, patched with the white skull-and-lightning logo of the Dire Straits MC.

They didn’t bother with helmets. They didn’t bother with subtlety.

The leader was a barrel-chested slab with a shaved skull and facial tattoos that looked like an artist had a seizure.

They parked in a perfect line, like a SWAT team or a firing squad.

“Friends of yours?” Carly asked, too low for anyone but him to hear.

Damron took his time watching the men dismount, the way they moved, the careful confidence of men used to being feared. “Not lately,” he said. He sipped his beer and kept his face smooth.

The Dire Straits entered like a flash mob of rabid dogs. The first man, the tattooed slab, scanned the bar and locked onto Damron’s cut. He said something to the others, and three peeled off to the pool tables. The other two headed straight for Damron and Carly.

Conversation in the bar strangled itself mid-sentence.

One of the locals, a retired lineman with shoulders the width of a refrigerator, suddenly remembered he needed to piss and shuffled off to the can.

The bartender—six-four, two-sixty, and ex-Army—watched the action from behind the taps, already calculating his odds.

The leader stopped at their booth, rested his knuckles on the table like a cop about to ask for a bribe. “Well, shit. If it isn’t St. James.” His voice had a road-rash rasp, years of whiskey and whatever else he used to wash down the taste of violence.

Damron smiled, all teeth, zero warmth. “Slater. You lose a bet to show up in this shithole?”

Slater laughed like a dog bark. “Just following the stink. Didn’t know the Bloody Scythes were so hard up for pussy they’d date outside the species.”

The other Dire Straits snickered. Carly didn’t flinch. She just smiled and said, “Cute. But the grownups are talking.”

Slater’s gaze went cold, then colder. “Careful, sweetheart. I might decide to teach you some respect.”

“Gonna teach me the alphabet, too?” she shot back. “I hear Dire Straits boys drop out by third grade.”

Slater looked at Damron, not even hiding the threat. “You let your bitch talk to me like that?”

Damron drained his glass. “Only when she’s right.”

The mood, which had started tense, pulled itself taut enough to hum. Slater’s hand moved to the table, palm down. His knuckles were dusted with old scars and new scabs.

Slater leaned in. “How about you and me step outside, clear the air.”

“Why waste the trip?” Damron said.

He saw the punch coming. Slater telegraphed it, like he wanted the audience to get their money’s worth.

Damron waited, calculated the speed, the angle.

Then he slid left, grabbed the incoming fist with both hands, and used Slater’s momentum to pull him across the table, smashing his face into the pitcher, beer and blood and glass raining down. Slater howled, clutching his nose.

The second Dire Straits member, a rangy meth-fueled stick figure with a rat’s mustache, lunged at Damron’s back. Carly moved faster. She snapped up a full glass and drove it straight into the man’s temple. He crumpled, hands flailing for purchase, but all he got was splinters.

“Holy shit,” Carly said, looking at the broken glass in her hand.

“Stay low,” Damron told her, just as Slater staggered upright, blood streaming. Slater came in again, swinging wild. Damron let the punch graze his cheek, used the opening to bury his knee in Slater’s solar plexus. Slater doubled over, breath gone.

Two more Dire Straits closed from the pool table. One had a cue stick, the other a chain pulled from his belt. Damron squared to meet them, spitting blood.

Carly was out of her seat now, sliding behind the bar with the bartender. The bartender pulled a sawed-off from under the counter, pumped it, and set it on the bar as if to say: “Please, motherfuckers, make my night.”

The Dire Straits weren’t fazed. The one with the cue stick jabbed at Damron’s gut. Damron caught the end, twisted, and snapped it with both hands. He used the jagged end to slash upward, catching the man in the jaw. The cue-wielder yowled, clutching at the cut.

The chain guy tried to loop Damron’s neck.

Damron ducked, grabbed a chair, and smashed it into the guy’s knees.

The man went down with a sound like a tree splitting.

The chain clattered to the floor, and Damron kicked it under a table.

The last Dire Straits member, the one still standing, had been content to watch until now.

Maybe he was new, maybe he was smart. Either way, he weighed his odds and turned for the door.

Slater was still breathing, but only just. He staggered upright, wiping blood and beer from his face, and went for his waistband. Damron didn’t wait to see what he was reaching for. He surged forward, slammed Slater into the wall, and drove an elbow into his throat. Slater gagged, eyes bulging.

Damron pressed his mouth close to Slater’s ear. “You ever talk to her like that again, I’ll cut your tongue out and mail it to your mom.”

Slater tried to nod. Damron dropped him.

All this took less than a minute. The bar was silent, except for the wet cough of the guy with the busted jaw and the high-pitched whimper from the chain man, who was pretty sure his leg was broken.

Carly watched from behind the bar, eyes wide, glass in hand. She didn’t look scared. She looked… fascinated. Like she was watching a time-lapse of a forest fire.

The bartender, emboldened, leaned over the bar. “You want me to call an ambulance?”

“Fuck that,” Damron said. “Call their mothers.”

Slater’s crew limped out, dragging their wounded. The leader stopped at the door, turned back to glare at Damron. “This isn’t over,” he spat, then staggered into the lot.

Damron surveyed the carnage, then looked at Carly. She met his gaze, face unreadable.

“You okay?” he asked.

She set the broken glass down, shook her head slowly. “You’re insane.”

He wiped blood from his nose, grinned crooked. “You picked me, darlin’.”

She laughed, raw and honest, like she was still drunk on adrenaline. She slid out from behind the bar, heels clacking on the sticky tile. “Buy me another beer?”

He pointed at the shattered pitcher, then at the bartender, who shrugged and poured another round. They sat down in the ruins of their booth. He leaned in, low, so only she could hear. “You scared?”

She considered it. “Not of you.”

He liked that answer. Liked her. Liked the way her hands trembled but her chin didn’t.

She reached for his hand, squeezing just hard enough to sting his bruised knuckles. “Next time you warn me?”

“Next time, I’ll try.”

She squeezed harder. “Liar.”

He didn’t disagree.

They finished the second pitcher mostly in silence, Damron flexing his bruised hand and watching the clock over the bar. The bartender swept glass and blood into a single heap, side-eyeing Damron like a guy who’d just seen a rabid coyote lick its balls and grin at him.

“You good?” Damron asked, voice low.

Carly’s hands shook so little it was almost imperceptible, but he saw it anyway.

She looked at her own knuckles—one was cut, just a scrape, but it was leaking red down the line of her index finger.

She dabbed at it with a cocktail napkin.

“You break the pitcher or my date?” she said, the joke landing with an audible thud.

He reached across the table, took her hand, and inspected the scrape. “You’re lucky,” he said, “it’s only skin.”

She pulled her hand back, but not before his thumb had grazed her palm, soft as a prayer. “I’ve had worse,” she said. She wasn’t lying.

The front door slammed. The bartender, arms crossed over his chest, nodded at Damron. “You planning on paying for the damages, or just drinking all my beer and trashing my place?”

Damron reached for his wallet, peeled off four twenties, and laid them flat on the table. “That should cover the glass and the bleach,” he said. “If not, call the club.”