Page 33 of Iron and Ivory

Maybe more than one somebody.

Maybe me.

I look at Diesel.

Diesel looks at me.

Nobody's hand is up.

Then Dusty stands up.

Nobody expected that. Not me, not Diesel, not the room.

A prospect on his feet in church is technically an offense.

Nobody says a word.

"Butch is a good man," Dusty says. His voice shakes a little at the start but evens out. "My girl, Giselle, she likes him." Dusty looks over at Butch, and actually fuckin' winks at him. "Not like that Butch, don't get excited."

Someone laughs in the back of the room.

"She likes him though," Dusty continues. And he's lookin' at me now. "She told me he was worth saving. And she gets these fellings sometimes, ya know? Like a feeling." He leans in to the word the second time around. "It was her idea to help him, not mine. No offense, Butch. I was a bit busy. But anyway, that is just me sayin'…" He blows out a breath. "This club needs all the good men it can get and I think Butch is good, so… I vote yes."

It's the dumbest, bravest, most correct thing anyone has said in this room in weeks.

The spell breaks.

There's grumbling—real grumbling, the kind that means this is irregular and I don't like it—but three seconds later a hand goes up in the back. Then another. Then another.

And then all of 'em.

Every hand in the room.

Diesel exhales through his nose. "Motion carries."

I look at Butch.

He's still standin' exactly where he was. Same posture. Same jaw. But somethin' went out of his eyes—not weakness, just the specific tension of a man who'd been preparin' to receive bad news for nineteen days straight, and just found out it wasn't comin'.

He won't say thank you. That's not how this works. He won't look at Dusty, won't acknowledge the room, won't do a single thing that names what just happened.

But his shoulders drop maybe an inch.

I look at Diesel. "Next order of business."

"We need officers," Diesel says. "You gotta choose."

And that's the moment it lands.

Not when I shot Brick. Not when I walked out of church with blood on my boots and thirty-six bodies to account for. Not when the vote came back and Diesel said my name like a title.

Now.

Standin' in a room full of men who are lookin' at me like I'm the answer to somethin'.

Badlands President.

That's me.