Page 18 of Bones and Ashes

I kill my president. I put a round between Brick Ransom's eyes, and I watch him fall, and I feel nothin'. Nothin' at all.

I kill Brandy too, his little FBI pet, his hangaround who was never really a hangaround, and I kill others besides.

Because they did not meet my loyalty threshold. Because they broke the code. Because blood in means blood in and if you flip, if you betray, there's no exile—there's only what comes next.

And then I find out I can't meet my own loyalty requirement either.

That's the punchline. That's where God leans back in His chair and really fuckin' laughs.

I held every man around me to a standard I cannot hold myself to. I demanded silence and I kept secrets. I demanded brotherhood and I loved a woman more than any patch. I demanded blood in, blood out, and my blood's been divided since the day I was born—half Kane, half somethin' else, half ruin, half whatever Eleanor Ashby thought she saw through that lens.

It's… a lot.

I take another pull of whiskey and I let that word sit there. A lot. Like that's adequate. Like that covers thirty-two years of contradiction and carnage and quiet desperation. Like "a lot" is a sufficient fuckin' summary for the life of Legion Kane.

It's not. But it's all I got.

Then… this fucker shows up with my face.

He hasn't even come over yet. Maybe he's got no plans to come over. Maybe he thinks I'll go to him.

I won't.

So he's over there, sittin' at my club bar, drinking whatever the fuck he's drinkin'. His blond hair mockin' me, the backside of his cut mocking me. A rocker screamin' Sons of Dust in Old English letters curved across his shoulder blades. And underneath it—centered, proud, and deliberate—that goddamn logo.

The dervish.

That fanged snake with the dust devil tail.

Coiled and spinnin' like it's alive.

Like it's breathin' the same air as the rest of us.

Barin' its teeth at me from across the room.

Every fang a message.

Every twist of that cyclone tail a warning.

Diesel's sittin' next to him. A bit sideways in his stool, like the guy is the most interestin' fucker in the room and Diesel just happened to end up there by accident.

He'll side an eye at me every now and then. Just a flick. Just enough. Then he lifts his chin, a fraction, the way he does when he's tellin' me something without openin' his mouth. A whole sentence in a quarter inch of movement. I got him. I'm workin'. Don't do anything stupid.

I get it. I do. I understand what's happenin' and why it's happenin'.

But that don't mean I can't be petty mad about it.

An unexpected laugh huffs out of me as I look down at my drink and give my glass another twist.

God, I am dramatic today.

Someone slips into the booth across from me and when I look up, I see June. Cat-eye sunglasses still on. Hiding the pain in her eyes.

She sighs.

I sigh.

We sit. Turning a little to watch him.