Page 11 of Open Road

Behind me, Janie’s hands shift. Not the fear-shift from the overpass, something deliberate. Her fingers find my forearm for half a second, confirming the position, confirming Rose is held, and then go back.

She says nothing.

Neither do I.

The city gathers around us. The I-10 interchange and Jacksonville proper, the St. Johns River somewhere east in the dark, salt, old mud, and the particular smell of a river that’s been a working river for a long time. The streets off the interstate are empty at this hour, a few gas stations still lit, a diner running its neon for nobody, a hospital lot with the night-shift cars sitting quiet. The city at four in the morning is a different city from the one people think they live in.

At 4:19 a.m., the compound gates appear.

Already open.

Creed’s word. No confirmation call, no radio check, no ceremony. He said, ‘gate’ll be open,’ and it is. Twenty-two years of that, and it doesn’t get old.

The brother on gate duty is Feral. By the set of his shoulders, he steps back and lifts his chin, those pale eyes moving across the bike, across Rose and Janie, taking longer than necessary on Janie. I lift my chin, and when he clocks my expression and moves his eyes along.

Smart enough, Feral. When it matters.

The compound at this hour is the version most people don’t see.

Yard lights at half. Two bikes in the workshop bay that weren’t there when I left, Scout’s and Winchester’s, by the profiles. Light burning through the common room window, something low on the sound system, Zeppelin from the registerof it, someone still up with a beer, a hand of cards, or nothing in particular. Someone is always up. A house with men who don’t sleep clean is never fully quiet.

I pull the Softail in and cut the engine. Silence comes down fast. Out here, there’s nothing to replace the motor noise except the odd nightbird and the distant tick of cooling metal.

Rose doesn’t wake. In and out, steady.

Janie’s hands stay at my sides for one more second, then she lifts them off.

I swing off the bike first and take Rose before Janie has to manage the dismount and the kid at the same time. Rose makes a sound in her sleep, something between a question and a complaint, and settles against my chest, her face pressed into my cut, one fist wrapped around the lapel. My sunglasses are still on her face at their thirty-degree angle.

I don’t take them back.

The common room door opens.

Winchester comes through first. Jeans, no cut, and a beer in his hand he hasn’t touched, been sitting, thinking, doing the Winchester version of processing a situation. He takes in the scene without announcing himself. Me, a sleeping three-year-old against my chest, and Janie stepping off the Softail with her bag over one shoulder, pulling her hair forward on the left side, her eyes running the same assessment Winchester’s are, except hers is threat-based, and his is something quieter.

Winchester’s face gives nothing back.

Scout appears over his shoulder.

Scout’s face gives everything at once. He looks at the kid, Janie, and then me. At the three of us in relation to each other. His mouth opens, and approximately eight sentences compete for exit at the same time.

“Don’t,” I say.

He closes his mouth, then he opens it.

“Still don’t.”

He holds up both hands, steps back inside, and mutters something at Winchester. The word ‘explain’is in there somewhere, and Winchester says nothing at all, which is Winchester saying he’s not getting involved.

Smart man.

Reaper is in the yard, over by the workshop, far enough into the shadow that a civilian wouldn’t clock him. Reaper’s stillness has a particular quality, not the stillness of a man doing nothing, but the stillness of a man who has decided to stand exactly there, which is different. He doesn’t speak or move toward us or away. He takes in Janie, the kid against my chest, and me, then nods once.

In twenty-two years, I’ve learned that Reaper’s silence is not the absence of opinion but the presence of something that doesn’t need saying. Right now, what it’s saying is ‘understood.’Whatever isunderstoodin this particular situation covers it in full.

The door opens again.

Devil, Creed’s woman, comes through, barefoot.