Drake nodded and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He gave Jase a small salute and headed into the clubhouse. Jase waited until Will arrived, then the two headed over on their bikes to meet up the members already at Maggie's house investigating.

While Will picked his way through the house slowly, Jase collected Maggie's meager belongings. He became distracted by the constellation of bullet holes now in residence in Maggie's bedroom. Some part of his imagination, intent on torturing him, played out the attack in a parallel universe where Maggie hadn't gotten out of the bedroom in time. He could almost see the blood splatter tossed on the walls as if by some deranged artist. He could see her lifeless body dusted in paint flecks and speckled gla.s.s glitter. Killed by some a.s.shole that had hurt her; a coward who had laid his hands on her, and hunted her down for trying to escape.

Christ. Jase tried to physically shake the thoughts from his head. His stomach felt ice cold. Will found him leaning his hand on the grated wall, eyes closed, as he tried to regain composure.

"Hey," said Will with a tap on his shoulder. "Are you alright?"

Jase turned to look at him. He swallowed a wave of nausea. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just didn't sleep well last night, and now all this."

"This is warfare," said Will. "There's no shame in admitting it's taking a toll. That's its job, to terrorize."

"Not to kill?" said Jase with some edge of dark sarcasm.

"This wasn't to kill you," said Will. He carefully stepped through the room to admire the wall alongside Jase. "I mean, had any of you died, it would have been a plus for them. But I think this was terrorism. They are trying to scare Maggie, and by extension us."

"She's plenty scared," said Jase.

"If they were just out to kill you, they could do it quieter than this, is all I'm saying. Not to undermine what you guys have just been through... but tactically, this is a bark, not a bite."

Jase wasn't sure if Will was right or wrong. It was hard to look at all those bullet holes and give the gunmen credit for anything more than homicidal rage. He realized he was in no state of mind to a.s.sess anything. He sighed heavily. "Can you-"

"Yeah, man. Go catch some sleep, I've got this under control," said Will. He gave Jase a lop-sided grin, and then headed out of the room. Jase closed his eyes and took a deep, thankful breath.

He waved off a bunch of the guys as he hopped on his bike and started down the street. The police barricade let him pa.s.s without a ha.s.sle, and in a few minutes he was parking at the clubhouse. The den buzzed with activity, as expected. Henry and Beck were both on phone calls, and Drake pounded away at his own touch screen in the corner. Other members looked over papers, maps, and had their own talks. Jase didn't bother to interrupt anyone. Truth told, he didn't want anyone knowing he was here.

Jase carefully checked the bedrooms one at a time, knocking softly, before cracking the door open for a small peek. Julie and Maggie were set up in the second one he tried, the one with a larger queen-sized bed. Both of them had fallen asleep. He left them where they lay and took up residence in the full-sized bed in the room next door. The full weight of the last few days began to hit him as soon as he sat down and he almost didn't have the energy to even get his boots off.

As he lay staring at the ceiling, the imagined image of Maggie's lifeless body kept popping up in the back of his mind, keeping sleep at bay. He told himself over and over that she was right here. She was right next door. She's right here. She's right here.

He didn't remember falling asleep.

~ Nine ~

Jase woke to find the last hours of daylight slowly melting down the bedroom window. His sleep had been a deep dive into the abyss of exhaustion, and he surfaced from it feeling better, and grateful that he felt better. Some of his muscle aches still remained, but now they were minor nuisances instead of nagging distraction. He could hear the quiet talk of a few people in the den. They must not have uncovered anything earth-shattering while he was napping or someone would have woken him up.

Jase took a few moments to stretch and use the small half-bath to splash some cold water on his face. He ran a big hand through the wild black mane that was his hair, screwed up from sleep, and decided he didn't care. He just smoothed it down a bit before heading out into the hallway.

Warm light spilled from the direction of the den, but Jase turned right instead, towards the other bedrooms. He put an ear to the door he knew Maggie was behind, listening. When he heard nothing, he raised a fist to knock, but the door swung open in front of him before he could.

Maggie started, clearly not expecting the doorway obstruction. She was still blinking sleep out of her eyes when she looked up at him, squinting. "Oh. Hi."

"Are you okay?" he said. His voice came out dry and cracked.

"Huh?" said Maggie. "Oh, yeah. Yeah we're okay. Julie wants to go home."

s.h.i.t, thought Jase. An unexpected concern. He leaned an arm on the doorway and spoke quietly. "We have to check with Henry before she goes anywhere."

Maggie gave him a fed-up look. "She's a grown woman, Jase. I've explained the risks to her. I'm not letting the MC keep her prisoner. It's me they want." Her eyes focused on something distant. "Away from me is the safest place she could go."

"If she's a danger to this operation, she's not going anywhere," said Jase, standing up straight.

Maggie glared at him, very obviously loading up the gun in her mouth to fire off a shot straight between his eyes. Her jaw clenched a few times. She gave a little shake of her head and turned back towards the room. "Go, ask your king. Pa.s.s the rule onto us peasants if it's not too much trouble." Then she closed the door in his face.

Jase rolled his eyes, instantly infuriated. He couldn't understand how he could be so worried about the life of a woman who, half the time, he wanted to strangle himself. It's not that he didn't understand where she was coming from, but did she understand his world? Did she understand the things she asked him to risk? That she had always asked him to risk?

That you always risk for her, regardless of her understanding.

He waved a hand at the closed door as he turned toward the hallway, determined to blow the feelings off. He returned to his bedroom and called Henry on his now-charged phone. As suspected, Henry was somewhere with the sheriff; Jase could always tell by the feel of the clubhouse when its master was away.

"Maggie's friend wants to head home."

"No," said Henry immediately. "She's safer here."

Jase rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I agree." He paused, scolding himself internally for his next words. "But..."

"But what?"

"Look, the more civilians around here we have to babysit, the trickier this all gets. Her car wasn't at the house for the gunmen to identify or follow home. And we have no reason to think she has anything to do with this."

"If she gets attacked on the highway between here and Eagleton, her blood would be on our hands, Jase," said Henry.

Jase bit his lip, thinking. "We can make sure she understands that. She's just a scared woman, Prez, and unlike Maggie, she doesn't belong here. If she wants to go, we should let her." He could see Maggie's face in his mind, smirking at him. He rolled his eyes and ran a hand over his face.

Henry was silent on the other end for so long, Jase checked the screen of his phone to make sure the call hadn't dropped. Finally he spoke. "Get her a handgun. Send two of the rookies to escort her at least as far as North Haverbrook. They should make a pit stop there, and if they feel confident they haven't been tailed, they can let her go the rest of the way alone."

Jase nodded. "Thanks, boss. I'll take care of it. Any updates?"

"Nothing concrete yet, I'll keep you posted." Then Henry cut the call.

Jase waited in the den with a few of the other boys, drinking coffee, until Maggie and Julie came out of their own accord. Julie's face was swollen and red, but she appeared much calmer than she had been. Tommy immediately set them up with cups of coffee and put a sweet hand on Julie's when she sat down. That kid's heart was too big for his own good. Maggie sat next to Jase at the short bar, but didn't look at him.

Jase thought about how angry he had been at her yesterday. He couldn't conjure that anger now, even when he thought about the punk blonde kid at the roadhouse with his hands all over her. The memory of that bullet-riddled wall acted like a pressure valve on his rage. It was only luck that had her sitting here next to him now, and his grat.i.tude overpowered his anger. The sensation of it felt strange.

After she had finished half her first cup, Jase said, "Julie can go, if she takes a gun and an escort. Final offer."

He didn't look over at Maggie. From his peripheral, though, he saw that she didn't right away look over at him, either. She was thinking first.

She said, "Is that so?"

"Yep."

Maggie licked her lips. He could hear it softly. "Well, tell Henry thanks for being reasonable for once." She emphasized the name, signaling to them both that she knew d.a.m.n well what he had done-and that the jab was for him.

Jase didn't rise to her bait. He sipped his coffee and then arranged for the terms of Julie's departure, putting his two favorite rookies on her escort detail. Julie was grateful but still shaken to her core. She had a fiance and mother who were waiting for her, and all she wanted was to get back to them. Jase watched their goodbye in the sinking darkness from the porch, smoking a cigarette. He gave Julie a stoic wave when she called goodbye to him, then watched Maggie as she herself watched Julie's SUV pull out of the long drive, tailed by the rookies on their bikes.

Maggie stayed still, arms crossed, staring at the empty darkness of the driveway. Jase walked up behind her slowly. He had a pa.s.sing realization that his first instinct was to wrap his arms around her, like he would have done once upon a time in this situation. He decided they were both in need of a distraction.

"Grab a shower, and then we have a date," he said to her before he took a drag.

Maggie scoffed, and only half-turned her head to look at him. "Is that right?"

"Yep. You have twenty minutes, don't be late," he said as he flicked the cigarette past her out into the drive. Then he turned back for the clubhouse without another word. He returned to the bedroom and took a short shower himself, trying to ignore the sound of the shower running in Maggie's room, just on the other side of the wall. He was determined to focus today. He wasn't going to let that nightmare delusion of Maggie's death become real.

Jase was waiting when she finally emerged. The jeans looked the same, but she had found a more cheerful green shirt to replace the gray one she had been wearing since she arrived. The dampness in her curls somehow didn't affect their charm. Jase hadn't noticed it before, but there was something different about Maggie that he suddenly became aware of-something in her eyes, on the edges of her face. Maybe it was just stress, but it seemed to him signs of her growing up. Those strange scars that only existed as ghosts, floating around people, not to be seen or touched, never to really be chased away; the same type of invisible scars he knew he carried.

She had already come to stand next to him when he realized he was staring. He turned suddenly to his coffee cup and finished it in one uncomfortable swallow. "So what's this date?" she said. Her voice was still mostly bitterness.

"You're learning how to shoot," said Jase as he stood up. "Rudy's is open for another hour, and I guarantee I can get him to give us an extra two."

"Your solution, after we've just survived a hail of bullets, is to go shoot more bullets?"

"Do you know why people get messed up by trauma?" said Jase, hovering over her. "Because trauma makes you feel powerless. That makes you scared to act, which only makes you feel more powerless. The best thing to do is get right back up and start swinging. Learn how to win the next one."

Surprisingly, Maggie's face seemed to light up at his explanation. "Alright. I'm in."

"It wasn't an option."

She gave him an unenthusiastic flip of her middle finger and headed out to the parking lot. When he followed, he found her waiting by her SUV. He hollered her name and waved his hands for her to follow him to his bike. She hesitated a moment before she joined him.

Jase straddled his bike and got comfortable. He held a helmet out to her. "We're much harder to tail this way."

Maggie gave a look to the back seat of the bike. Jase couldn't help but get a little satisfaction from the anger brewing under her skin. Her pouty lips twisted up as she tried to think her way out of her discomfort. But she finally gave up and ripped the helmet from his hands and latched it on her head. She climbed onto the seat behind him and wiggled her hips until she was settled against him tightly. He felt her arms wrap around his chest. It had been so many years since he had felt her at his back, but she still fit there as if she had been molded for it.

Sliding his protective gla.s.ses up against his eyes and starting his bike, Jase worried for a moment that she was going to feel his heart racing underneath her palms. But when Maggie's chest pressed firmly against his back, his mind became more pre-occupied with why her heart was doing the same.

~ Ten ~

Jase was indeed able to convince the manager at Rudy's Range to give them extra time to practice-for a couple hundred dollars, which Jase slipped him as he was walking up to announce closing time.

At first, Maggie had struggled with the 9mm and he tried to keep her from getting frustrated and quitting. Once the place was empty, it seemed to relax her, and the second hour's target practice was much improved. Mostly he watched her and stayed out of the way, popping up every now and then to gently adjust her form. Her resistance to his instruction got better as the night went on, too. She always used to tell him that bike rides made her calm, and the ride over had certainly seemed to make her amiable.

During the last half-hour of their time, Jase made her put away the 9mm. He rented a shotgun similar to the one of Henry's that Maggie had left by her bedside. She loved the feel of the little Bersa in her hands, but her eyes widened a bit at the huge rifle as he handed it to her. "I heard I can break my own shoulder if I f.u.c.k this up," she said.

"You're not gonna f.u.c.k this up," he said with a laugh. "Just relax." He took a few seconds to crack the barrel and instruct her on its reload. "Put the b.u.t.t up to your shoulder."

Maggie made a little noise when she lifted it, surprised by the weight. She shifted around to get it settled. Jase came around from behind her and nestled the shotgun b.u.t.t into her shoulder with one hand. The other arm reached around and helped her hold the barrel steady.

Jase realized he was more or less wrapped around Maggie as he had been by her on the bike. Her warmth radiated into his chest and arms. The little voice that was normally supposed to be on top of situations like this was suspiciously silent.

Jase leaned down with his face next to hers. He could smell her shampoo and body wash, and that scent beneath that was purely her own. He said softly, "Lean into it. Got it? It won't kick as bad as you're imagining." He began to move his hand off the barrel to see if she had the weight balanced.

"Yeah," she said back, almost a whisper. He could see her eyes flitting around, uncomfortable. Her breath came in shorter reps.

Jase cleared his throat and unwrapped himself from around her and backed away. He put Maggie's ear protectors back down so she didn't have to move, then replaced his own and gave her the go-ahead tap on the shoulder. Maggie hesitated a few seconds, and then the shotgun blasted. The paper target hanging just a few feet away nearly shredded in half as the air filled with the acrid burning of the sh.e.l.ls.

Maggie laughed as she lowered the rifle and pulled her earm.u.f.fs off. "Oh, let's definitely do that again."

Jase laughed at her and handed her two more sh.e.l.ls for her to reload. Maggie kept going until the gun felt too heavy to safely practice with; her arms just weren't used to the work of absorbing the firearm's energy yet. They left Rudy's with a few minutes on their clock to spare, and both immediately decided they were in no mood to return to the clubhouse, or to sleep.

"We should go to the ridge," said Maggie after a few minutes of brainstorming. "You could teach me how to throw a punch."

"That's not a bad idea," said Jase, though he only meant the second part. The ridge wasn't just any hang out; that was his and Maggie's place. He had actually made himself stop visiting alone, because he always felt like s.h.i.t afterward.

Already, he could feel their connection slipping back into old territory, into habitual comfort. Ever since he drove away from the clubhouse with Maggie against his back, the night had felt just like the old nights, when she was his. The smart thing would be to do some self-defense training at the clubhouse, he knew. At least somewhere people would be around, and he wouldn't be put in a position where he might do something else that made him sorry.

But Maggie was already on the bike, helmet on. She waited and watched him. And the feeling of seeing her there was far stronger than any warning bells going off in his mind. He climbed on and smiled to himself as she wrapped against him again.

After a quick stop to grab some beers, they rumbled up the dark and winding trail through the low hills towards the ridge. It wasn't a far stop from the town, but the curve of the path made it longer, cutting through the high desert forests and up into the cooler mountain air. The ridge itself was little more than a half-moon of clear s.p.a.ce that looked out over the sparkling lights of both LeBeau and Howlett, with a dark swath of country farmland set between them. Jase pulled his rumbling bike into the vacant s.p.a.ce. He killed the engine and waited until Maggie hopped off.

He let them both get a beer in before adjusting the headlamp of his bike to give them a little bit of light to work with. Maggie had a mischievous smile and began to hop around a little on her toes.

"Okay now, here's the thing," said Jase as he rolled his shoulders. "You and I have very different body types, so the same fighting style isn't going to work for both of us."

"Did you have to learn, like, the jerk style of fighting?" said Maggie with a scoff and a smile.

"Aha, see, you thought you were gonna hurt my feelings," said Jase, raising a finger. "You could have asked if I learned the ugly style of fighting. But you didn't-- you went with jerk. Probably because you don't think I'm ugly. So I win."

Maggie made a hissing noise and rolled her eyes in exaggerated fashion. "If you're trying to get me excited to punch you in the face, mission accomplished."

Jase grinned at her and took off his cut. He laid it carefully over the seat of his bike. "I'm a big guy. I don't really have to have much style when I fight."

"Must be nice," said Maggie, raising her dukes at him.

"Not gonna lie, it's pretty sweet."

"So for us non-giants..."

"You have to learn how to use your weight and your attacker's weight against him. You have to be a lot more tactical when you fight, and focus on weaknesses instead of big hits," said Jase. "Now, turn around."

"What?" she said.

"Spin around," he twirled his finger. "As a female, you're much more likely to be attacked from behind."