Page 105 of The Fates We Tame

King laughs. “Because I was worried she’d try some entrapment-type shit on you while you had no memory. Didn’t want her spinning some yarn that you had proposed the night before and now couldn’t remember like some shitty rom-com.”

I focus on pulling Penny into memory. She was a favorite of mine. But not more than a friend with benefits. “I remember her. Things are coming into focus more.”

“Let’s keep it that way. I put the club before a brother the other day. That wasn’t right. I need to know you’re fully back in before we leave tonight. Not one foot in, one foot out.”

I look at King. “I’m in. I believe in the man I was before. He steered me here.”

He squeezes my shoulder, and I follow him into the night.

27

SWITCH

The ride to the docks takes an hour. Halo had us weave off the highway and overshoot the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine terminal. It’s standard practice when we’re doing a weapons pickup from the docks. Along with different days of the week and times of night.

Sticking to routine in our line of work is a recipe for disaster. Makes it easier for the FBI to track us, or worse, our enemies to ambush us.

I’d give anything to be on my bike tonight.

Clear sky.

Full moon.

Even though it’s cold for mid-November.

Soon it will be too cold for these runs to be fun.

But as we approach our entrance into the docks, the skin on the back of my neck prickles.

I don’t understand if this is true foreshadowing, if I really feel like something’s off.

Or if I’m simply out of my depth, doing something I feel ill prepared for.

This is my first outing with the club since the accident. Loss of memory has taken away the value of experience. I feel like a plumber sent to do an electrician’s work with the wrong toolbox.

“It’s too quiet,” Vex says.

Bike brake lights come on in front of us. Clutch and Halo pull up alongside King and discuss something. I see Saint looking up at the large dock building to our left.

The docks look deserted. But I can’t recall what they previously looked like. “Isn’t it always?”

“We pay a lot of people to turn the other way when we ride in. So, there’s always someone. It hasn’t been the same since Jasper Haven, our contact, was killed. Now we have this new guy. Dougie. Doogie. I don’t remember. He reached out to the club. Checked out as Haven’s brother-in-law. Said he knew about the extra money Haven made. But I don’t trust the guy as far as I can throw him.”

“You think he’s bad.”

Vex shakes his head. “Worse, I think he’s too good. I feel like the very first time he’s picked up by the cops, he’ll confess the shit out of everything to avoid going down.”

The bikes slowly begin to move again, and I take in the docks at night, with their tall cranes and lifting gear illuminated at the very top. The occasional muted light eases our path and reflects off the water.

We pull up near a container, and King quickly dismounts. There is a number-combination lock on it, and King enters the code quickly.

Vex reverses toward the container until we come to a stop. In the side mirror, I see Bates pull the container door open.

I jump out and unlock the rear doors to the van.

It strikes me that if any of this goes south, Vex and I will be the ones taking the fall. We’ll be the ones in the van with a shitload of weapons. All the more reason for me to be vigilant. I look around, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.

I reach for my gun, more to check it’s there than seeing anything to point it at. It rests reassuringly in its holster.