Page 19 of Bones and Ashes

"You didn't know, did you?"

"June. Don't even start. You goddamn well know I didn't know."

"Well," she says. "I knew ya never talked about nothin'. But if you think I know—anyone knows—what the hell is goin' on in that head of yours? Nah. Legion, please. Your mind is a locked fuckin' box."

I nod. "Yeah, I guess. No, I didn't know." Then I look at her face. "I knew Brick killed my father. Eleanor Ashby told me that years ago."

June actually laughs. "What?"

"Yeah. She… apparently… was in love with him. And he… apparently… chose my mother instead."

June slides her sunglasses down her nose. Bloodshot eyes stare back at me. "What?"

I nod, but don't elaborate. Just watch her mind spin.

"So… that's why you're so involved with those people?"

It occurs to me now that no one in the club actually knew why I've been attached to the Ashby hip since birth. Why it took me so long to patch in.

Diesel knows some of it. He told me, when I was in the hospital, that he followed me once. He didn't say anything else, but I was in the Mayo Clinic comin' back from death. And I used to take Eleanor to the Mayo Clinic for treatments those years before she died. So he had that connection.

I was there with her.

Not here with them.

"It's a long story, June. And I'm not sayin' it's not interestin'. It is, actually. But I'm not tellin' it today."

She settles after this statement. Leanin' back. Opening her shoulders, kickin' her little booted feet out under the table until she bumps into mine. Then she crosses her arms. Defenses back online. Her sunglasses are still halfway down her nose, so her look comes off a bit contemptuous.

"I was pretty mad at you," she says.

I nod. "Yeah, I know."

"Not because you didn't come by. The girls came. That was enough because I was packin' it up anyway. I can't live on that farm without him, Legion."

I nod again. "Yeah, I know."

"And if you're not gonna tell your story, then I'll just tell mine. Obviously, Bruiser is my father. He became the SOD president when Matthias never came back."

My eyes open a bit wider at this revelation.

"That's right," June says. "Your father was our prez. And his father before him. Bruiser was the vice. And Laz was just a little bean in his mother's belly at that point. You're the same age."

"I gathered."

"His mother died early too. He kinda grew up as my baby brother, if I'm bein’ honest. And I might as well be. There's no point in keepin' this secret no more."

I huff some air. "There was a point at one time?"

"Typical revenge plots," she says. Simple as that.

"And now?"

"Well, Brick is dead. And you did it. Wrong son, maybe. But right outcome, so it hardly matters. The scales have been balanced."

"Is that why you're here?"

"That's why we're here, Legion."