Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 118333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
When the final shot rang out, silence fell around the forest. We all watched as the last of the dirt was thrown over the coffin, and Smiler brought over a temporary cross to stand at the head of the grave. Tanner had told me that a Hangmen headstone was being made.
Smiler took a sledgehammer and knocked the cross into the ground. And I swore, with each hit of the hammer on the simple wooden cross, I saw a part of his soul disappear. The rain had lessened enough for me to realize that the drops falling down Smiler’s cheeks were not rain. But tears for the cousin he would never see again, the family member he had lost. I could no longer fight the lump in my throat at the sight of such a strong man breaking. Only to become worse when the doctor I knew as Rider came forward and put his hand on Smiler’s arm. Smiler’s hands shook as he hit the cross for the final time. Then like a dam cracking, he turned his head into Rider’s chest and agonized cries soared from his shattered heart.
It was too much. The guilt, the pain and the knowledge that it was all because of me that Slash was dead. That Smiler had lost his cousin. Tanner must have sensed my sadness, as he wrapped me in his arms. I buried my face in his cut and let the familiar scent of Tanner and leather warm me. But it was no use. I was cold. And I wasn’t sure if I could ever feel warmth again.
“Come on,” Tanner urged. I saw guilt written on his features too. Was this all our fault? Was this man dead because we had needed to be together so much? I wanted to ask Tanner, but I was too scared. I didn’t want to know the answer.
Tanner put his arm around my shoulders and took us toward Smiler. Each of the Hangmen were walking to him and putting their hand on his back in silent support. Rider had stayed beside him the entire time. We stayed back and waited until it was our turn. My lip trembled as we approached him, and as I met his haunted eyes, I couldn’t speak. Tanner laid his hand on his back.
“I am sorry,” I mouthed, and felt that I had never spoken so little for such great meaning in my entire life. Smiler didn’t answer. I wasn’t even sure if he was taking anything in right now. He looked numb, trapped in a hell from which he couldn’t escape.
Tanner guided me through the forest and back toward the clubhouse. I stared at Hades on Viking’s cut up ahead. I stared at the dark god, noose in one hand and a gun in the other. I wondered if he had taken Slash into his arms—one of his own coming home.
The sky was dark and turbulent, reflecting the somber mood of the entire club. We made our way into the bar, and brothers started drinking. I quickly realized that tonight wasn’t for quiet contemplation, but for drinking and temporarily forgetting the dangerous world these men—and women—lived in. It was to drink to a fallen brother, before the act of revenge would inevitably follow.
We sat at a table. I felt Tanner’s eyes on me. I didn’t look up. My chest was swirling with too many emotions, and I knew he would see straight through me. Tanner always had. And right now, I needed to be alone with my thoughts. He didn’t let me be alone though. Tanner lifted my chin with his hand. As soon as I met his eyes, those blue eyes I adored so much, he leaned down and kissed my lips.
I looked around the bar, at all the men and women. Smiler and Ash hadn’t made an appearance, nor had Rider. Zane was with AK and Phebe. At the funeral, the boy had never looked up from the floor. I remembered him shooting men two and three times his age, his bullets hitting hearts and heads and necks. And I wondered if he could sleep at night, or if the faces came to haunt him. AK had put his arm around his Zane’s shoulder at the beginning of the service and kept him close. That boy clung to him like a magnet.
It made me think of Smiler and Slash and how Smiler had been alone as he buried his cousin. “Where’s Slash’s mother?” I asked Tanner. “His father?”
Tanner must have understood who I meant. “Don’t know.” He ran his hand through my hair. “Smiler isn’t a talker. Don’t know anything but he was in the army. Don’t know how he came to be here. Don’t know much about Slash either.”
“He was alone,” I whispered, thinking of Smiler’s tears as he shoveled dirt onto Slash’s coffin. “He had no family with him. He has no one to love him.” Tanner pulled me close. The quiet comfort in his embrace was short lived as Tank and Beauty came and sat down beside us.