Page 24 of Slaughter
The miles blurred together. Highways and back roads, truck stops and dive bars, nameless towns that all looked the same. I rode through rain and heat and the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that made my hands shake on the handlebars. But I kept riding. Because stopping meant thinking. And thinking meant facing a truth I wasn’t ready to face.
That Julie was gone. That she wasn’t coming back. That the woman I held that night at the pond had been nothing more than a figment of my imagination, a ghost conjured by grief and whiskey and the desperate need to feel something other than pain. But even as I tried to convince myself of that, another truth was growing inside me. A quiet and insistent truth that was becoming impossible to ignore.
I needed to go back. Back to Lawton. Back to the Owens Farm. Back to that pond where I had felt her, smelled her, tasted her. Because something had happened that night. Something real, tangible, and undeniable. And I needed to understand what it was.
The pull grew stronger with every mile I put between myself and Oklahoma. It was a physical thing, a tether wrapped around my chest, tugging me back toward something I couldn’t name.
At first, I fought it. I rode east, then north, then west again, trying to outrun the feeling. I told myself I was being ridiculous, that there was nothing waiting for me in Lawton except more pain and confusion. But the pull didn’t weaken.
If anything, it grew stronger. It whispered to me in the quiet moments between towns. It haunted my dreams when I finally collapsed in some cheap motel room. It followed me like a shadow, relentless and unyielding.
Go back.
You need to go back.
She’s waiting for you.
I didn’t know who “she” was. Julie was dead. She wasn’t waiting for anyone. But the voice in my head didn’t care about logic or reason, or the cold, hard facts of reality. It just kept pulling. And finally, somewhere in the middle of nowhere—Kansas, probably—I stopped fighting it. I pulled off the highway and sat on my bike in the parking lot of a gas station, staring at the horizon as the sun set in a blaze of orange and gold.
I was tired. Bone-tired. Soul-tired, and I was done running.
Whatever was waiting for me in Lawton—whether it was answers or more questions, peace or more pain—I needed to face it. I needed to go back to that pond. I needed to understand what had happened that night. And I needed to know if the scent of jasmine that still clung to my skin was real or just another ghost haunting the ruins of my broken heart.
I started the bike and turned south.
Toward Oklahoma. Toward Lawton. Toward whatever truth was waiting for me there. Because I couldn’t deny it anymore.
I couldn’t outrun it.
The pull was too strong.
And God help me, I was going back.
Chapter Ten
Slaughter
The Diamondback clubhouse was alive with noise and chaos as I pulled up.
Bikes lined the gravel lot in neat rows. Chrome gleamed in the late afternoon sun, the leather seats still warm from the ride. There must’ve been forty of them at least, maybe more, all Harleys and custom choppers that cost more than most people’s cars. The machines sat silent now, but I could still feel the ghost of their engines rumbling, could still smell the oil and gasoline that clung to the hot metal.
Music pounded from speakers somewhere near the back of the property, the bass thumping hard enough to feel in my chest, rattling through my ribcage with every beat. Some classic rock anthem I half-recognized but couldn’t name. The smell of grilled meat hung thick in the air, mixing with cigarette smoke and the sharp bite of whiskey. Someone had a whole pig roasting on a spit, fat dripping and sizzling over the coals.
Brothers milled around everywhere, laughing, drinking, slapping each other on the back with the easy camaraderie that came from shared blood and shared danger. Their cuts displayed patches and colors that told stories of loyalty, territory, and violence. Some wore fresh bruises like badges of honor. Others carried scars that ran deeper than skin. Club whores draped themselves over men like living accessories, their hands wandering, their laughter high and practiced as they tried to entice someone, anyone, into their beds for the night.Makeup caked thick to hide the miles, tight clothes showing off everything they had to offer.
It was a scene I had witnessed a thousand times at the Golden Skulls’ clubhouse. Familiar. Comfortable, even.
But I wasn’t here for comfort.
I killed the engine and sat there for a moment, my hands still gripping the handlebars, my heart pounding in a rhythm that had nothing to do with the music or the crowd. The rumble of my bike faded into silence, swallowed up by the thumping bass that poured out of the clubhouse and the raucous laughter echoing across the gravel lot. Neon signs flickered in the windows, casting red and blue shadows across the rows of parked motorcycles that stretched out before me like a chrome and steel army.
I didn’t know why I was here. Didn’t know what I was looking for. Couldn’t put a name to the gnawing feeling that had been eating at me for weeks now, driving me further and further from home. I just knew I had to be. The pull had led me here. To this place, this moment, and I couldn’t fight it anymore. It was like an invisible thread had wrapped itself around my chest and yanked me halfway across the state, through back roads and highways, past truck stops and dive bars, until I found myself sitting outside the Diamondback clubhouse on a Saturday night.
I swung my leg over the bike and stood, rolling my shoulders to ease the stiffness from days on the road. Every muscle in my body ached, protesting the miles I had put between myself and everything I knew. My cut hung heavy on my back, the Golden Skulls’ patch marking me as an outsider in Diamondback territory. A few brothers glanced my way from where they stood smoking near the entrance, their eyes narrowing slightly before recognition flickered across their faces. Word traveled fast in the MC world, and they knew who I was.
More importantly, they knew I wasn’t here to start trouble. I was Shadow’s friend. The grieving widower, who had been crashing at the farm for the past few weeks, trying to pick up the pieces of his shattered life.
They turned back to their conversations, dismissing me as harmless. Just another broken soul drowning his sorrows at a biker barbecue.Nothing to see here.
