Page 151 of Shatter

I wipe them on my jeans and fold my arms and unfold them again.

"Relax, brother." Ulf nudges my boot with his. "You walked into a fish plant alone with a knife in your sock. This is nothing."

"This is different." My voice comes out tight.

"Why?" Ulf cocks his head.

I don't answer.

I don't know how to explain it.

Twenty years, I've been a man without a name.

Breckett Hale, who doesn't exist, and Hakon, a road name borrowed from a grandfather I barely remember.

Espen, who got cut off a backpack in an airport with a pair of silver thread scissors.

Behind the door, twenty men are deciding whether I get to be somebody.

The kirkja door opens, and Tor stands in the doorway.

He looks at me for a long moment.

"Get in here, Hakon." He jerks his chin.

Not prospect, Hakon.

My legs carry me through the door.

The room is packed, every chair full and brothers leaning on the walls, and every face turns to look at me when I walk in.

Tor walks to the head of the table.

There's a folded square of black leather sitting on the wood in front of his chair.

He picks it up.

"Unanimous." Tor holds it in both hands. "Even Emil."

A few brothers laugh, but I can't.

Heat floods behind my eyes so fast I can barely see him.

Tor shakes out the leather.

It's a cut.

New and stiff, the smell of it filling the room, and on the back, stitched in thread I've spent over a year earning, the full colors.

The rockers curving above and below the helmet over crossed axes.

Raiders of Valhalla MC, Tallahassee.

No prospect patch.

Tor holds it out, and I stare at it.

For a second, it isn't the cut in Tor's hands.