Page 31 of Iron and Ivory

"Demon." His voice comes out like gravel. That's all. Just my name.

I look at his hand.

I don't take it.

"How ya feelin'," I say.

It's not quite a question.

Something moves through his jaw. A tightening. He drops the hand slow, like a man who's been told worse things than I won't shake your hand and has learned to metabolize the insult quietly.

"Been better," he says. "Giselle's been seein' to me. Changin' the dressin', bringin' food." He pauses. "Didn't exactly have a line of volunteers outside the door."

Diesel moves before the sentence is even finished. Not toward Butch, just shifts—weight forward, chin coming up, and when Diesel speaks it ain't loud but it cuts through the room like it cost somethin' to say.

"The only reason you're standin' in this room right now is because Legion carried your shot-up ass back here himself." His voice is flat. Controlled. The kind of controlled that's more dangerous than yellin'. "You wanna talk about who came to your door? Maybe start with thankin' Dusty. Because he was part of that too. And while we're at it—Giselle is Dusty's woman. Not yours. Not a resource you get to co-opt and then use as a grievance."

The room doesn't breathe.

"I know where you woulda ended up," Diesel says. Quieter now. "Same red dirt as the rest of 'em."

The silence that follows that is the kind that has weight.

Butch holds it. He doesn't flinch, doesn't look away, doesn't do any of the things a man does when he's about to fold. His jaw is tight and his eyes are on me—not Diesel, me—and there's something in them that isn't fear and isn't aggression exactly. It's something rawer than both.

"That's not fair," he says.

Still lookin' at me. Still not blinking.

"Every man in this room knew what Brick was doin'." He says it even, careful, like he's been holdin' it back for nineteen days and finally has somewhere to put it. "Every. Man." His eyes move around the room once, just once, then come back to mine. "Including Diesel."

A beat.

"I woulda stood with you. I didn't like what he was doin' any more than the rest of you. And I get it, Legion. You get to be self-righteous. You weren't here." He leans in to this fact. "You. Weren't. Here."

"No," I agree. "I was in prison doin' time for traitors."

"We were all in prison, Legion. Every single one of us." He looks at Diesel now. "Legion and I were on the same run when I got shot. The same. Run. If I was so important to Brick, if I was such a little loyal soldier, why the hell did he put me on that run, Diesel?"

He's got a point. And he knows it. Because I was there. I thought Brick was tryin' to get me killed. But maybe he was trying to get all of us killed. Me, Dusty, Butch, and Crow.

Because all of us are still here.

"All right," I concede. "I'll give you that one. But… we still gotta vote." I raise my voice. "I call church. Right here, right now."

For a moment, everyone is still. Then Diesel yells, "You fuckin' heard your pres. Church, now!"

Immediately, men are on their feet. Chairs screechin' back across concrete, boots heavy and purposeful, nobody askin' what goes where because they all know—this ain't the first time we've made church outta nothin'.

It's the sound of order bein' imposed on chaos and I stand in the middle of it and let it happen around me.

A few minutes and it's done—three tables end to end, long enough to lay a man out on if it came to that, chairs arranged in front of 'em in rows that ain't quite straight but are close enough.

"Uh… Legion?"

I look at Dusty. "What?"

"Should I… leave?"