Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 50311 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 252(@200wpm)___ 201(@250wpm)___ 168(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50311 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 252(@200wpm)___ 201(@250wpm)___ 168(@300wpm)
If I go home, I give up the club. The only thing I’ve ever seen myself doing. This is all I’ve wanted, to be part of this family. If I act like nothing has changed, how do I keep doing this? How long will I keep prospecting.
Morning comes before I am ready. The noise outside of the hotel only stabs me in the heart all over again. The other brothers are prepping their bikes, mentally preparing for the ride.
Three hundred and eighteen curves in eleven miles in the mountains.
He said I’m impulsive. A new resolve comes over me. I’m going to show him. I fight my instinct to run and press on like a toy soldier. I’ll show Axel. I’ll earn my way in and one day I will out rank him.
Until that day, I’ll play the fucking part. With a new attitude, I change my jeans and t-shirt, sliding on my boots. When it’s time to put my cut on, the weight is heavier than ever before.
I keep things casual, stay quiet. We line up and I take my place in the very back with the other prospects from all the charters. In moments, I’m riding with a demon consuming my mind. The rage is all-consuming. But I use the fury to keep focused.
The curves come up fast, like the club life can be some times. There isn’t time to think, lean in and trust your instincts. A man has to be sharper than the asphalt under him. I twist the throttle into each one rather than backing off. Sometimes even scraping my pegs on the pavement. I want the danger, the adrenaline only feeding the demon that is in control.
The Tail is supposed to be a victory ride. A ride as a single unit facing all the curves as one. Except today that’s not true when you’re Axel “Double” Crew’s little brother and he has the power to stop it all.
The steady tick of the Harley-Davidson engine swallows the roar wanting to erupt from my chest. If only I could drown out the memory of my brother in that hotel room last night. The only victory I have is he is sporting a solid, swollen black eye and refuses to answer who got the best of him.
Every bend is a curse. Every moment upright going straight is a scream in my head.
The Tail isn’t for pleasure today. It’s for my fury. The mountains are a blur of green and gray, with the air sharp in my lungs, and the taste of everything bitter in my mouth. I push harder, faster, chasing something unnamed.
Respect?
Redemption?
Acceptance?
I move out of a tight turn, twisting the throttle, the back tire hitting a bit of loose gravel. Fishtailing just enough to make my heart beat even faster. I correct myself and ease into the next curve. The rhythm of the ride and the others around me pull me into line, demanding my focus.
For a few moments, I forget Axel. I forget the club. It’s me, my bike, and the road under me. In a single moment of clarity the ride touches my very soul.
Fuck them all.
No one can take this feeling from me. The freedom of the air around me, the miles beneath me.
It’s only a momentary reprieve from the darkest hour of my life. We get back to the hotel and the prospects who are being patched through are given a speech and a party. I do my part and sit through it all.
When the drinking begins, I take off along to ride the mountain town. Pulling off at one of the overlooks for tourists, I relish the quiet. The only noise is the gravel crunching under my boots after I kill the engine. The wind hits thick with everything I don’t want to feel. Yanking off my helmet, I drop it to the ground. I pace the overlook like a caged animal. The view that is truly breathtaking is eating me up inside. All the trees, standing tall and proud, untouchable.
My brother’s words play over in my head as I dig my fingers into my scalp and squeeze my eyes closed tight.
I’m not ready.
How can he say that? I’ve played bitch for almost three years. Ran every bullshit errand, did every stupid job. What else do I need to do? Give them my fucking blood? Fine, take it.
I hear the soft rumble of a bike approaching. I know it’s Toon before I even turn to look.
He’s almost thirty. He came to Catawba last year and crashed with me for a few months before getting his own place. I live in the old garage apartment my dad built for Axel before he got married to Yesnia and moved to a subdivision.
Toon is a quiet guy. He’s always calm. The colored comic book strip style artwork that covers both of his arms in full sleeves and his legs is what makes him, Toon. It’s all cartoon and comic characters from Archie and Garfield to Batman in an early eighties style drawing.