Most of all, I wouldn't have to see the pity in people's faces whenever they saw me, or hear the frustration they'd try to keep out of their voices when I couldn't keep up with them. I didn't want a life of being publicly accommodated and privately hated.
The fact was, I just wasn't strong enough for that.
There was a part of me that protested this line of thought. It said quitting was still something cowards did, no matter what the excuse was. It told me I may as well not have even bothered to escape from Tommy if I was ready to just give up and die now. It said that plenty of veterans had come home after a lot more had been taken from them—there were quadruple-amputees, guys who couldn't even wipe their own asses anymore, but they'd still found ways to make life worth living for themselves. It also insisted that instead of focusing on what I couldn't ever do again, I should be making lists of things I could still do and maybe even things that I'd never thought of trying before.
It said that instead of giving up, I should do what I always had and fight.
Well, maybe I'm fucking tired of fighting. I grew up fighting my old man whenever he'd get drunk and try to beat my mother or sisters. I spent every day of my goddamn childhood fighting the kids in the school yard who were bigger than I was. I fought my way into the War Reapers and then fought anyone who had a beef with them. And when I did a stretch in Joliet for a bar fight where I drove a guy's nose back into his brain and put him in a coma, I found plenty of people behind bars to fight too. Looking back on my life now, it feels like one big never-ending brawl.
And where did all that fighting get me? I went through life thinking of myself as some kind of gladiator. I thought the fights would bring me glory and honor and all that crap, and when the world saw me, they'd see me as a mighty warrior and respect me. Now I've got no glory or honor. I'll never taste my fucking food again. I'll never make love to a woman again. I'll never even stand up again. And when the world sees me, it'll see nothing but a pathetic cripple.
All I wanted to do was lie down and die. I didn't even give a shit whether there was an afterlife waiting for me. I'd never been big on religion and besides, if there was anything after death and it was like everyone thought it was, I figured I'd probably written my ticket to hell during my first year as a Reaper and I'd made my peace with it.
I heard the front door of the Nest open. Giggles put his medical magazine aside and got up. “I'll see who it is,” he said. I nodded and he walked out.
It's probably Giovanni and the rest of his guys, I thought. They've wiped out all the Reapers who went after them and now they've come to kill whoever's left and burn this fucking bar down to the ground. Maybe Tommy is with them. Maybe he'll carve a few more pieces off me first, just for the hell of it. Why not?
I waited for a long moment, hearing voices in the bar. Giggles walked in. He looked strange and it took me a second to realize why.
Giggles was smiling.
“Those sons of bitches did it,” he said. “They actually won.”
The rest of the Reapers came in behind him, laughing and talking over each other excitedly. It sounded like the lot of them were trading memories of what had happened that night—gunfights, explosions, and all the other cool stuff I'd missed by being stuck in this chair. It was good to see them, but knowing that I'd had to sit out the most awesome smack-down the Reapers had ever delivered still made me sad. More than anything, that drove home the point that I would never be a real Reaper again.
Bard walked into the room with a bottle of whiskey and Nic followed him, carrying a tray full of shot glasses. Both of them almost looked giddy, which made sense after all the adrenaline rushes they'd probably experienced tonight. As Bard poured the shots, I leaned over and touched Nic on the arm gently. He leaned in, grinning at me like I was my old self. “What's up, buddy? Hey, we did it! We beat 'em! Can you fuckin' believe that?”
I picked up the piece of chalk from the table next to me and wrote on the blackboard. “Your girl?”
Nic laughed and nodded. “She's safe, man. She's pretty shaken up from all this shit, but she's gonna be fine. She's sitting out in the bar. I'll introduce you later. First, though, we had something we needed to bring around the back for you. Kind of a Reapers-only thing.”
I must have looked confused because he patted me on the shoulder. Then he actually leaned over and kissed me on the forehead, which made me feel weirdly embarrassed. “You'll see, man.”
Giggles put his hands on Nic's shoulders firmly, leading him over to a chair and forcing him down into it. “You'd better let me patch up those holes in your sides, Nic, or the only thing you'll be seeing is the inside of a coffin.”
Nic lifted his shirt up and Giggles examined a pair of stab wounds in Nic's side. “Hmm. Missed everything vital, at least. Good. I'll stitch them up for you.” Giggles got a needle and thread, preparing to get started.
Bard climbed up on top of a table, raising his glass. “Gentlemen! A speech, if I may.”
There were a few amused groans from the other Reapers, which got the others laughing.
Bard chuckled. “Don't worry, I won't talk your ears off too much. I'll just say that what we did tonight, brothers, was nothing short of legendary. We went up against a formidable force with superior firepower, numbers that dwarfed our own, and worst of all, plenty of time to prepare for us. We could have hidden behind those odds, but instead, we defied them and we won. We triumphed in the face of our very extinction. How many MCs can say that? How many people?”
Some of the Reapers nodded and grunted agreement.
“Now, those of you who never served in the military like Boomer and I did might not know what a bunker buster is,” Bard continued. “It's a type of bomb or missile used to penetrate impenetrable targets. But tonight, each and every one of you can look yourselves in the mirror and know that you've added a new definition to that term.”
“Hell yeah!” Boomer roared.
“That's all I'll say, except for this,” Bard said. “Years from now, you will remember this night, and so will every man who stood and fought beside you. You'll roll up your sleeves and show your scars, and you'll say, 'I was there.' Your names—Boomer, Nic, Sperm, Ditch, all of you—will ring out in the history of this MC. And believe me when I tell you that every new Reaper who gets his patch from this time forward will curse himself for not having been with us tonight!”
The Reapers all applauded, cheering and slamming their fists on the tables. Bard took his shot and the others took theirs too. Nic reached over with a shot glass and I opened my mouth wide, tilting my head back so he could pour it directly down my throat. It burned going down, but at least I swallowed every drop.
My beard felt oddly wet and I thought I'd managed to spill some whiskey after all. Suddenly, I realized that wasn't it at all. I was crying.
Well, goddamn. Looks like the tears came after all.
“And now,” said Bard, stepping down from the table, “we do honor to the toughest man in this room. Growler, you've survived more than any of us possibly could have in your position. You are everything that a Reaper should be and more. And we made you a promise, didn't we?”
I nodded, surprised. No. There's no way. They couldn't have possibly managed that. It was nice of them to say they would but I certainly never expected...
The back door opened and two Reapers walked in, breathing heavily and dragging a taped-up black tarp behind them. Once they had it inside, they hauled it upright and dropped it into a chair. I noticed that whatever was in it looked large and appeared to be thrashing against the thick plastic. I heard grunts coming from inside.
Bard reached over and yanked a long strip of tape off the plastic. It parted to reveal Giovanni's fat face, sweating and jerking from side to side. There was a piece of duct tape over his mouth.
I looked up at the other Reapers with tears still streaming down my face. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
As Bard removed the rest of the tarp and secured Giovanni to the chair under him, Nic handed me a very familiar knife. Its blade was long and thin and the handle was carved ivory.
Just what I wanted, I thought.
“I know your left hand isn't your best,” Nic said. “You want some help with this, or...?”
I shook my head violently and pointed to myself with the blade.
Nic laughed, nodding again. “Cool, I thought so. He's all yours, man. We'll give you some privacy, but don't worry, we'll be in the next room if you need us.”
I nodded. Of all the reasons I could possibly have wished for my tongue back, there were none more important than that moment, when I wanted more than anything to thank him. I had no idea what Nic had been through that night—I'd hear the stories later many times, as Bard predicted—but I knew how much easier it would have been for him to just finish Giovanni off and leave him there instead of going to all this trouble.
But he'd done it anyway. For me.
Because I was his brother.
Once the other Reapers left the room, I held the knife in my hand, admiring it in the light. Now that it wasn't slicing me to bits, I could really appreciate how beautiful it looked. The weight felt good in my hand.
I looked into Giovanni's bulging eyes as they filled with tears. I thought about his bullshit opera singing and his pretentious fucking movie references. I thought about all his phony-baloney intellectual hot air I'd had to listen to while I was taped to that chair and how it was almost worse than the torture itself had been.