Page 52 of Crow’s Shadow

Then a flatbed pulls up to the gate at dusk, and somebody digs it up.

Grim’s on the gate when it comes, because Grim’s on the gate a lot lately. Since the mountain, he’s decided the club’s safety is something he can hold together by standing in the right place long enough.

More nights than not, the right place seems to be wherever I am.

I have a case of beer in my arms when the truck’s air brakes hiss. Grim walks out to meet a driver nobody called.

The driver won’t get down.

Grim stands at the window while the man holds a clipboard against the glass. Grim reads whatever is written there.

Then his shoulders change.

I’ve known him six years. Grim has two settings: still and stiller.

This is something else.

“Get Crow,” he says without taking his eyes off the truck. “And get Loco. Now.”

The flatbed drops its gate.

There’s a coffin on the back.

Coffins aren’t exactly unusual around here, except this one is ours.

I’ve watched Crow and Buck build enough of them to know their work. Oak. Hand-built. False floor underneath, the kind made to carry rifles or drugs under a body when the club needs something moved without questions.

One of ours.

And the coffins we build don’t come back.

My eyes find the brass plate screwed to the lid.

The case of beer nearly slips out of my hands.

Nobody in Grimstone knows that name.

Nobody except me.

Ember is the name I chose when I got here. I built her from nothing because the woman I was before couldn’t survive what happened.

But the name on that coffin belongs to her.

The girl who ran.

The girl whose sister died.

The girl I buried six years ago without ever putting a body in the ground.

Crow comes out of the crematory wiping his hands. His eyes go to the coffin, then the plate, then me.

He knows.

“Open it,” Loco says as he reaches us. “Slow.”

Crow works the lid carefully.

It comes up.