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WRAITH

PRESENT DAY

I pull my bike to a stop at the diner on the edge of town. Rain batters me, and the last hour of the ride has been nothing short of treacherous. I’m soaked through to the bone, but the cold can no longer reach me.

I push the door to the diner, and the little bell rattles above me. A flood of thoughts overwhelms me, memories of the million and one times I’d hear that sound and then within seconds, Hallie would be in my arms.

Now the fucking bell is a dreary reminder of what we once were.

What I once had.

If Ma, my mother-in-law, didn’t own the place thanks to a silent partner loan from me, I wouldn’t even come here anymore. There are too many memories wrapped up in the white tabletops and stools next to the counter.

Ma begged me, pleaded with me, on the day of the funeral. Said we were the only two on the planet who understood the loss, that I couldn’t just disappear from her life.

Hallie was carried by my brothers in the Outlaws, while I walked in front carrying Lottie’s little white casket in my arms. Last time I ever held my baby girl.

Only one casket was put in the ground. I lifted my baby girl out of the perfect white casket lined with ivory silk and put her in the stiff arms of her momma.

Kissed ‘em both one last time, closed the lid, and buried them with my heart.

They’re on my mind today. Over the past two years, I’ve personally closed down the Denver, Colorado, chapter of the Midtown Rebels Motorcycle Club. It’s hard to find new members when the old ones keep getting murdered. But I’m still running down loose ends as I find addresses for those who were members. Yesterday, I killed a man who went nomad after the first three deaths.

Fucking coward.

Now he’s weighed down with concrete at the bottom of a lake, making his peace with the fishes.

I remove my helmet as I step inside, immediately ambushed by the smell of ground beef and apple pie and coffee. Condensation runs down the inside of the windows as heat hits my cheeks in waves.

“Axel,” my mother-in-law says when she sees me. “Close the door and come in out of the rain.”

The diner is cozy, but there’s a weariness in the gently worn leather of the booths and the stoic faces of the patrons.

Little glass rainbow suncatchers hang from the ceiling by the windows. On sunny days, they send multicolored lights all over the ceiling—all Hallie’s doing because she loved rainbows. But on a day like today, without the sun behind them, they look as dead as I feel.

“Ma,” I say as I bend to kiss her paper-thin cheek. She’s the only one who uses my real name anymore. And I call her Ma because it was what Hallie wanted. Guess I’m now the only person who will call her that, so to take it away and pretend we’re nothing to each other would be cruel.

“Oh, you’re freezing. Let me get you a coffee. Floyd made meatloaf. You want some of that too?”

“Sounds good. Just got back and don’t have anything in the fridge.”

Ma taps my Sergeant at Arms patch but doesn’t ask me any more questions. “Go take your seat.”

I head to my regular booth, the one farthest from the window. There’s no way I’m leaving my ass a sitting duck for any trouble that comes down Main Street.

Thankfully, no one is there. I tug off my jacket and hang it on the hook, then sit, wet road gear and all.

Can’t face getting out of the waterproof pants only to have to wriggle back into them in an hour.

A cup of coffee slips in front of me. “Thanks, Ma.”

“I didn’t know how you take it. Do you need milk? Half ‘n’ half?”

The voice isn’t Ma’s. It’s soft. Soothing.

I look up and get caught off guard by the black-haired beauty staring back at me. Her skin’s so pale and smooth, it’s almost ethereal. “Half ‘n’ half, please.”

“I’ll be right back,” she says with a smile.

The diner uniform is laid-back. But her jeans hug her ass, and the black T-shirt with the diner logo on it fits her perfectly. She’s got those perfect high tits. Nice and round, but not too big.

First time I had sex after Hallie died, I almost fucking cried. Missed her softness and warmth beneath me. Missed the way she’d run her fingers through my hair as I lay spent, my head on her chest.

Tried to find something that felt like it with a club girl to ease the loneliness.

Instead, I kicked the poor bitch out of my clubhouse room because I couldn’t face spending the night with a body that wasn’t Hallie’s.

Got better at it over time, because a man has needs, after all.

Sex is sex.

But I’ve never felt a connection to anyone ever again.

Never kissed a woman. Never let one sleep next to me in my bed. Never took one to our home.

My home.

Two years on, I’m capable of acknowledging a hot woman is worth fucking.

New Girl is petite. Looks like a stiff breeze would knock her over. Bet she’d squeeze the everlasting shit out of my cock.

She laughs at something Ma says as she hands her the carton. It’s a pretty smile.

Always thought Hallie’s was the prettiest smile, and I’m mad at myself for a millisecond for admiring what New Girl’s face is doing.

“Margie said to hand you the whole thing.” She places it down on the table. “Guess you like your coffee sweet, huh?”

I add an exceptionally generous dollop. “Not a lot of sweetness elsewhere in life.”

She sighs wistfully. Her tits lift at the gesture. “That’s the truth.”

Must be the long black hair that makes her eyes so blue. Or the pink of her lips. All cool colors that make me think of thunderstorms and lightning bolts.

“Well, enjoy your coffee.” She heads to another booth and begins clearing the table as I wrap my hands around the steaming mug.

My fingers ache, a slow and steady throb as blood finally flows back into them.

The new girl is efficient with her movements and her smiles. She’s graceful in the way her hips sway and her arms move, but there’s a tightness and tension in her shoulders that reveal she isn’t as relaxed as she would like us to believe she is.

A bell rings as she hurries to the kitchen, and a few moments later, she reappears at my table holding a generous serving of meatloaf and mashed potatoes that make my mouth water, plus a side of mixed vegetables I could do without.

“There you go,” she says, slipping it in front of me. “Can I get you anything else?”

I shake my head. “What’s your name?”

“Raven,” she says.

“That a nickname because of the hair?”

She runs a section of hair through her fingers. “Kinda. I was supposed to be called ‘Natasha’ until my dad saw my hair. Said it looked like a raven’s wing.” She shrugs, then smiles as if embarrassed. “The blue tone is thanks to my hairdresser. Is Wraith your name?”

She tips her head towards my patch.

“It is. What brings you to our little town, Blue?”

I don’t miss the way she looks nervously outside the window. “Decided it was time for a new chapter.” She’s about to say something, then catches herself. “Enjoy your dinner.”

I watch her until she disappears from sight, headed to the kitchen.

The meatloaf cuts perfectly, and I scoop it and some mashed potatoes onto the fork and then eat it like I haven’t seen food in days. Took me thirty-four hours round trip on a bike. Six overnight stops at shitty motels.

Revenge gives me an appetite.

I know it puts a strain on my club when I fuck off for days at a time, but I can’t rest knowing there’s someone out there who saw a defenseless woman and child and decided killing them was the only option.

I wonder if he thinks about what he did that day. Know he sure as fuck must be looking over his shoulder, waiting for the day I find him, given the deaths that precede me.

I continue to make my way through the food, even the vegetables because I know Ma will give me shit if I don’t.

“You doing okay?” Ma asks, holding her own mug of coffee as she slides into the booth opposite me.

“Same shit, different day,” I say.

The new girl catches my eye again, and I can see Ma’s face change. “Stay away from her, Axel.”

I look at my mother-in-law. “Watch your tone, Ma.”

“It was only the two-year memorial of our precious girls last month.”

Ma never once blamed me for what happened that day. It might have been easier to move on if she had. Instead, she met me with compassion for the loss. Some days, I think that makes her a saint. On others, it feels like a leash around my throat.

I put my fork down. “Don’t need you telling me that. I came here for some food, not a motherfuckin’ lecture.”

Ma sighs. “Fine. It’s just…I got some feeling about that girl. Blew into town, and I gave her a job. That night there was blood around the moon.”

I roll my eyes. Ma has always thought she has some kind of sixth sense. She’d call Hallie and say she’d done her tarot cards or that the full moon was moving into her seventh house. “You know I don’t believe in that bullshit.”

Ma looks over where Raven is furiously wiping down the counter. “She arrived with two suitcases and a little boy about five. Who only has two suitcases and a little one? Living in that skeleton of an apartment the Dobsons have above the hardware store.”

I know the one. Can’t be more than two rooms with solid walls and a watertight roof.

“We all have our stories. If she’s arriving with a kid and only what she can carry, she must have good reason. You ask what it was when you hired her?”

Ma shakes her head. “She’s a good girl. Hard worker. Offered to do her first shift for free to show me what she can do. Hired her on the spot. But I don’t want any drama she might bring spilling on to you.”

For a second, there’s a protective beat in my chest, but I bury it. Last thing I need is some clingy damsel in distress looking to me to pay her bills and be a baby daddy to some kid who isn’t mine.

But everything that happens in my town is an Outlaw problem.

And I can’t help but think that Raven’s gonna bring trouble.