Page 18 of Priest

My reflection looks back at me from the dark glass. Tired, yes. Sadder than I want to be. But still here.

A life in this town could be mine.

A job that respects me. Friends who care if I’ve eaten before they know my whole history. A child who will never have to wonder whether they were wanted.

I straighten my shoulders.

“This is yours,” I tell my reflection. “All of it.”

The words don’t feel brave.

They feel true.

Tomorrow, I’ll hang curtains.

Tonight, I’ll unpack one more box.

It feels like progress.

6

Sadie

Sadie doesn’t go back to the clubhouse.

She learned a long time ago that places like that only feel safe until they don’t. Instead, she drives until the Saints’ territory thins out into nothing—until the buildings give way to dark stretches of road and flickering signs that promise vacancies by the week.

The motel room smells like stale smoke and bleach. The kind of place that never quite feels clean, no matter how many times the sheets are changed. She locks the door. Slides the chain. Checks the window even though she knows it won’t matter if someone really wants in.

Only then does she sit on the edge of the bed.

The mattress dips under her weight, springs whining in protest. Her hand drifts to her stomach without her telling it to. Not a caress. Not comfort. Just instinct, like she’s checking that the ground is still there beneath her feet.

She hates coming here.

Every trip away from the clubhouse leaves a mark. A gap someone could notice. A question Ghost could start asking. Sooner or later, one of them will wonder why the pregnant widow keeps slipping off alone, and follow her to a motel on the edge of nowhere.

Her phone buzzes.

She flinches so hard it nearly slips from her hand.

JOKER

Her pulse spikes. She lets it ring once. Twice. Answers on the third.

“Took you long enough,” Joker says, his voice sliding through the speaker like oil.

“I answered,” Sadie says, keeping her voice even.

Calm is currency.

“And you left Saints territory to do it?” he asks.

Her jaw tightens. “I can’t keep sneaking off like this. Someone’s going to notice.”

“Then stop sneaking off.”

She goes still.