Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 35499 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35499 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
And I'm part of that now.
"Do you understand what I'm telling you?" Mama Jo asks.
I nod slowly. "I think so."
"Good." She stands straighter. "Now put on those boots. No one in this club walks around barefoot. Makes us look like we can't provide."
I reach down and pick up the boots Brandy left. They're well-worn but solid. Black leather with silver buckles on the sides. I slip them on, and to my surprise, they fit perfectly.
"Thank you," I say quietly, not sure if I'm thanking Mama Jo, or Brandy, or all of them.
Mama Jo just nods. "The vote's done," she says, glancing at a clock I hadn't noticed. "They'll be out soon."
My heart skips. The vote. Legion. Whether I can stay or have to leave without him.
"You're in," she says.
"How do you know?" I ask.
Something that might be a smile touches Mama Jo's lips. "Because if it went the other way, Savannah Ashby, I wouldn't be wasting my time with you."
Relief floods through me so suddenly I feel dizzy. I'm staying. I'm in.
This place is… home.
"Now," Mama Jo says, picking up the denim jacket and holding it out to me. "Put this on. When they come in, you should look like you belong."
I take the jacket, feeling its weight, the history woven into its fibers. I slip it on over Legion's t-shirt. It fits like it was made for me.
Mama Jo looks me up and down, then nods once, satisfied.
"Almost there," she says. "Almost."
CHAPTER 12
My name has always been plural.
Legion.
For we are many.
My mother named me after demons cast into swine. After spirits that spoke as one voice. Tonight, the many have spoken for me. A democracy of demons choosing mercy when they could have chosen exile.
The brand on my chest pulses with my heartbeat. Still infected. Still raw. Blood brotherhood isn't supposed to be clean.
The hall's quiet follows me like a ghost as I exit, lighting up a smoke. I pause, inhale, blow it out.
Forty-seven patched brothers.
Thirty-nine said yes.
Eight said no.
The numbers in my head feel like bullets left in a magazine after a firefight. Each one measured. Each one a threat or a promise.
Diesel walks beside me, quiet, like me. That's why I like him. That's why he's my number one, no matter what.
I'm a thinker and he's a thinker too.
Problem is… there's a thing called over-thinking. And that's what I'm doing now.
Eight.
Eight.
Eight men said no.
I push open the door to the bar and the light hits me like judgment. Not the burning kind. The kind that shows you exactly what you are, scars and all.
Do the objections of eight men really matter when thirty-nine agreed?
Yes. Yes, they do.
Savannah will stay. She will be protected, even by those eight.
But there's always a cost. Always a debt.
I've never owned anything worth having that didn't eventually get taken away.
Not this time.
When I walk into the bar, everything stops. Not because of me—I'm just a vessel now, a conduit for what comes next.
She stands in the center of the room, transformed.
Savannah. But not Savannah. Not the Ashby princess I've known since she was twelve. Not the Instagram queen with the practiced smile. Something else entirely.
The denim jacket hangs off her shoulders, a single patch above her heart with the Badlands logo. Her feet, bare last night while she stood trembling, now anchored in biker boots. Her hair's pulled back, messy but deliberate.
The Sharpie marks on her chest peek out where the t-shirt cuts low. PROPERTY OF DEMON.
My claim in black ink.
God I love her. She's worth everything to me. And even though I couldn't say it last night or it would've turned out different this morning, if she left, I would've left with her.
I would’ve taken my chances.
Maybe they really would kill me. It’s happened before. I haven’t seen it, obviously. It took me thirteen fucking years to earn my patch for reasons I won’t get in to. And that means I never really belonged. There were always secrets between me and my Badlands brothers. Prospects get left out of business like that.
But I would’ve risked it. I would’ve hoped that I had the respect from enough of them that I’d be the one to walk away clean.
I love these men like brothers. Brick, maybe even like a father.
But there will never be another Savannah Ashby in my life.
Mine.
Today, though—I don't have to think about that.
Only eight, I remind myself.
Only eight.
Savannah is neither Ashby nor outsider now. She's something undefined. Something dangerous, for sure.
My eyes trace the edges of her silhouette, seeing in her the same war that's etched across my skin—the angel and the demon locked in eternal combat.
"You good?" I ask, walking towards her with my hand out, ready to touch what's mine.
She nods once. Doesn't smile.
Smiles are for cameras and liars.
I feel the brand on my chest throb in time with my pulse. The angel's sword piercing the demon's heart—the war I carry everywhere.