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EMBER

A s I watch Atom ride away, I realize this is how my mom must have often felt.

That the club forces you to put it above everything else. And when the chips were down, I picked my father over her, because I picked my horse over her too. And while I love Lemmy with all my heart, I can see why it put a gap between us.

As a child, I didn’t see it. But as an adult, I do.

And I make a commitment to put that right once all this is over. I’m gonna drive down to see her with Atom and make amends.

First, I need to speak to someone who isn’t going to like what I have to say.

It rings for so long, the video call ends, and I redial. He can try to ignore me, but I’m done with being at the bottom of his list.

“Not got time for this now, Em,” he says when he finally answers.

“You do or I’m done.”

For the first time in my memory, my father looks…old. Perhaps worn is a better word. Tired. Exhausted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means this will be the last time you put whatever else you’re worried about above me.”

He shakes his head. “Em, look, I’m busy. You blew up the fucking club, I got dissent in the ranks, and you seemingly know about the issues we’re?—”

“How about the issues we’re having, Dad? I have come so far down your list of priorities. You never even wanted me, you just wanted to win. And for that, I hate you. So, you will sit your ass down and listen to me, for once.”

A frown forms on his face, etching grooves into his forehead. “Don’t fucking talk to me like that, Em.”

“Like what? We aren’t father and daughter. Because if we were, I’d be telling you how happy I am with Atom, and you’d be happy I’m happy. You’d be asking Atom to come over for dinner or something. You wouldn’t be threatening him and believing the absolute worst in him. You’d be happy for the two of us.”

I see him look to someone beyond his phone and shake his head. “Gimme one minute,” he says to whoever he is talking to.

One minute.

It’ll either be enough, or it won’t.

“Em, you disrespected me. I didn’t want you hooking up with one of my men. Puts me in a tough spot.”

I take a deep breath. “Dad, you can either choose to hear what I’m saying, and we might have a foundation for rebuilding some semblance of a relationship, or you can speak to me as Butcher and shuffle me in your deck of people you command, in which case, I’ll end this call. You told whoever that was to give you a minute. A single fucking minute. I’m talking about you and me and how you let me down, Dad. You get to choose, right now, what you want. And by your metric, you have about thirty-seven seconds to decide if I’m important enough to you to change.”

Dad looks like he’s about to yell, but then he abruptly stops, takes a deep breath, and rubs his hand across his jaw as he grinds his teeth.

“I’m listening,” he says finally.

“I can’t continue the relationship we had. The one where you kinda cared if it was convenient and didn’t interrupt your other plans. The one where you suddenly cared because I was part of a problem the club and town were having. I need you to be my father. And I need you to believe me that Atom is not at fault here.”

Dad’s eyes flash with frustration. “He went against my word.”

“And you went against your word when you married Mom and then screwed hundreds of club girls. Should I have thrown you out then as unfit for purpose? He loves me, Dad. And I love him. He’s a good man, and you know it. And I don’t know whether you’re overwhelmed by what’s happening, or stressed out at the state of the club, or just fucking pissed because you feel a man you loved—and, yes, you can admit you love him like the son you never had—went against his word. But you can make your peace with him. He’ll look after me, and I intend to live a long and happy life with him. It’s your choice whether you want to be in it.”

I need to know this now. Before Atom can get there with the proof that it wasn’t him, it was Rocco. Lev. Whatever.

I want Dad to make a call based on his true feelings. Because if he fights me now, then comes back later after he’s heard the full story, I’m not sure I’ll be able to forgive him.

“Em, it’s hard to let go of what you believe.” He tugs a hand through his hair, then looks beyond the phone again. “I said give me a motherfucking minute. Walk in here again while this phone is still in my hand, and I’ll tear your fucking legs from your body.”

I don’t know who he is talking to, but I feel sorry for them. They may well have just been given all the anger and frustration he really wants to aim at me and Atom.

“Dad,” I say quietly. I realize he’s trapped in a swirling vortex. Overwhelmed, maybe. Not that he would ever admit it.

“I trusted your safety to the men of the club. The ‘hands off’ wasn’t just so they wouldn’t fall in love with you, but so they wouldn’t hurt you either. How am I supposed to keep you safe from Atom if you won’t listen?”

The hard shell I built around my heart since this morning shows signs of cracking. “You don’t need to keep me safe. I’m an adult. I can do it myself. And Atom is a good man. You’re holding on to the reins too tight.”

“I don’t need horse analogies from my daughter.”

“Here’s the thing, Dad: I think you do. You know what happens when you hold a horse’s reins too tight? It makes the horse tense. Makes them try to fight against the hold. And while they’re doing that, they can’t hear your commands. They try to resist you, often doing the opposite of what you need. Sound familiar?”

Dad slumps back in his chair. He doesn’t speak, but he bites down on his lower lip as he nods.

My heart races, and I let my head drop back, looking for inspiration in the angled ceiling of Atom’s home. By my reckoning, my time might soon be up.

“I didn’t keep the horse to win,” he says finally.

“What?” I’m surprised by the statement.

“Lemmy. I didn’t keep him to win. I kept him so you’d stay, so I could keep an eye on you and keep you safe in a way your mom couldn’t. I was worried if you went off with her and that wet leaf of a man she married, that if you got into trouble, they wouldn’t be able to help. I’m sorry. I should have let you go. Celine was always a better wife and mother than I was husband and father.”

It sucks the energy out of my anger. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugs helplessly, but I see something akin to remorse in his eyes that gives me a flicker of hope.

“I’m over my minute. Please, make it right with Atom. Work with him on a solution to get us through this. And when it’s done, let’s talk about how we fix this between us, so we have a friendship as adults.”

“I still intend to kick Atom’s ass for touching my daughter, but that’ll be as your father. And he’ll take it like a man like he’s supposed to. But I’ll make it right within the club and as his president.”

“Thank you, Dad.”

“Love you, Em.”

“Love you too.”

I fire off a quick message to Atom. I don’t know if he’ll read it before he enters the clubhouse, but it’s important he knows.

Me: Spoke to Dad. He’s going to make it right.

I place my phone down on the kitchen counter. There’s nothing to do but wait.

And waiting is something I’m terrible at.

So, I open my laptop and start making a list of all the things I’m going to have to do to get the bar back on its feet as quickly as possible. I can reopen the bar, first, worry about the kitchen, later.

The plan starts to take shape. I call Jamie, to understand the process of getting the funds and hiring the contractors. My first choice is to work with the original contractors, as they know how everything was done, from the electrics to partition walls.

After a long conversation with the owner of the company, I loosely plan a reopen date in three months. The bands I’d lined up were understanding when I cancelled. Most waived the cancellation fee. Those that did, I rebooked.

I change the wallpaper on my laptop so it says, Ember Up!

The shift from fear and sadness to action is empowering and keeps my mind from wondering what happened at the clubhouse.

When I finally lift my head from my work, it’s early evening, and I’m the kind of bone-tired that comes from a good day’s work. Yawning, I stretch my hands over my head.

My phone vibrates and there’s a brief message.

Atom: I’m okay. It’s gonna be a late night.

Maybe it isn’t the detailed explanation I was hoping for, but it’s enough. I want to be awake when he gets home, so I head to the bedroom and lie down on the bed, tugging Atom’s pillow to me. It smells of him, a comfort.

All I need is a nap for an hour, and then I’ll think about what I need to make for dinner. Something that will be easy to reheat when he walks in. I think about what we promised each other earlier as we made love in the bathtub. The home, the family, the life.

I stroke my hand over my stomach and realize I’m here for Atom’s breeding kink. I’m ready for kids and a stable life, which must include, well, a stable.

Maybe I breed Lemmy with a mare, too, so my kids ride his kids. I feel like there’s a certain kind of perfection to that.

It’s dark when I finally open my eyes, and I’m utterly disoriented. I stretch my whole body out, hands reaching for the headboard, toes pointing towards the wall. My back arches, and a joint somewhere cracks, my shoulder, maybe.

I tap around on the side table for my phone and see I’ve been asleep for four hours.

Gently, I make my way to the edge of the bed, shuffling my butt until my feet touch the floor. The wood is cool to the touch.

I try to think about the food I saw in Atom’s pantry, earlier. Maybe I’ll make a soup, something with lentils and bacon that will become hearty and thick. But maybe it’s too hot outside for soup and I’d be better grilling the bacon and chicken on the barbecue.

As I walk to the front door to turn on the light, I see a flickering neon-green line flash across the pasture.

It takes me a moment to process what I just saw.

It looks like one of those invisible lines in museums, like, if you break it, an alarm will go off somewhere.

But then, the line appears again, and this time, the end of it appears as a singular dot on the wall of the kitchen.

My heart sinks, and I gasp when I realize what it is. There’s a laser or weapon sight marker being aimed at the house.

I immediately drop to the ground, lower than the windows, and crawl to my boots before shoving my feet into them. I’m going nowhere barefoot.

Once I have them on, I grab my phone and shakily send a text to Atom.

Me: I just saw the flash of a laser sight pointing into the kitchen.

I copy paste it to Dad and Wraith.

I glance up to the hook I took the truck keys from earlier, but see they aren’t there. Shit. Where did I put them when I came back from the clubhouse?

I don’t even know where Atom is. For all I know, they’re in Denver right now, their backs against the wall, unable to check their phones.

Another dot appears on the wall. Two of them.

Overwhelm clouds my judgement for a moment, making it impossible to think of what to do next. I can’t have just got the life I always wanted, only for it to be ripped away from me.

“Get to the gun,” I whisper yell at myself.

My knees ache as I crawl to the bedroom, trying to stay beneath any windows. When I reach it, I pull it to my chest in shaking hands, grateful I have some form of defense.

“Think, Em,” I say. I don’t have time to waste. Trying to find the keys feels futile.

There’s a rear door next to the kitchen. It leads to a shelter up against the walls of the property, where stacks of wood are lined neatly up in organized rows of thick and fat logs that progressively get thinner. Next to it are two large tubs of kindling.

I could leave that way, but I have no idea if the house is surrounded. In the dark, I can barely see the edges of the property. It’s about half a mile to the main ranch properties. I could run. Get to Wheeler or Atom’s grandpa.

Or, I could get to Lemmy and ride down to the clubhouse.

I crawl to the door. One of the green dots is moving carefully over the wall, as if the person is looking for movement. It’s hovering right on the door I need to escape through.

How could they have found me?

Wait.

If the bug was Rocco, then what else did he do?

I think back to what happened that day.

The men came. There was a fight. We had a whiskey to get over the shock while I called the police. Radcliffe came and interviewed us briefly, but given he has no love lost with the club, he stayed no more than a perfunctory four minutes.

If Rocco placed a bug in the club, maybe he placed one in my living room.

But what did he hear?

Maybe mine and Atom’s conversation in the hallway. But would he really care all that much? Afterall, I know now he wasn’t actually interested in me.

We slept that night, and then he left in the morning, and finally, Atom, then my father, arrived, and then…

I couldn’t call down to the bar because I couldn’t find my phone, but I found it in the purse I had…the day Rocco came to the clubhouse.

Fuck.

They know exactly where I am. They must have put a tracker on my phone.

So, I do the only thing I can. I trust myself and my love of Atom’s ranch. I trust the paths Lemmy and I have taken over the years.

I wait for the green dot to move off the door, take the gun, and run. I’m not naturally athletic, but adrenaline fires my legs forward. It’s hard to suck in air as I keep to the tree line. Panic and fear rush through me, especially when I hear the first bullet whoosh past me and hit tree bark.

I run past the fire pit where I told Atom I was going away to college in the hope he’d beg me to stay.

There is shouting behind me, but I resist looking back. It will only slow me down. Then I hear distant engines.

The stable is a truly beautiful sight when it comes into view. “Lemmy,” I shout before I even reach the door. “Lemmy.”

When I crash through it, I hear him whinny. I unbolt the stall, and climb on, bareback, no saddle or bridle.

“Go, Lemmy,” I say, ducking low, as I hold on to his mane and use my knees to guide him out of the stable.

He tosses his head around for a moment, but then settles to the task at hand. I lie low against him, feeling his strong muscles move beneath me.

“Take me to Atom,” I say. “Run, Lemmy.”

And as we bolt from the stable, it’s Atom I think of to help me stay strong.