Page 43 of Hell and Halos

We already said our goodbyes to Badlands. Club's been dead to us for days now—maybe longer, if I'm honest, maybe since the first time I understood what kind of machine I was feedin'.

We hit every building the same way.

Diesel takes the left side, I take the right, and we don't talk because there's nothin' left to say that we haven't already worked through.

When we meet up again in front of the clubhouse, we embrace. Just for a moment. His arms hit my back like iron, like a debt bein' settled, like the last page of somethin' long and brutal finally bein' turned.

"You take care, brother," I say.

"I will," he says back.

"Tell everyone I'll see them soon. And…" But I don't know what to say. "And… it's all gonna be fine."

We part, steppin' back, lookin' each other in the eyes.

"It's been a hell of a trip being your number one," he says. "You came in here, Legion, and everything changed. It was like… you were a force of God or somethin'. I've been a member of this club since I was sixteen. Almost twenty years of my life. And never, not once, did I ever think I could change things. Then this guy walks in and rips the whole world apart."

I snicker. "You are vastly overestimatin' me, Diesel. I had nothin' left to lose when I got out of prison. It was all gone. When all the things you love are gone or ruined, the only thing left is yourself. I did all this for me."

He offers me his knuckles, and I hit 'em. Then he says, "Alone, Legion, is the way we come in and the way we go out. Every single time, without fail. And when you think of it that way, you're the only one even here. If not for you, then who?"

Before I can sort that out—before I can even find the right fuckin' words to give back to a man who just handed me somethin' that heavy—he flicks off a lazy two-finger salute. Then he turns and heads toward his Charger without lookin' back.

The Charger's door opens and shuts with that heavy, solid thunk of American steel, and then the engine roars to life—loud and angry, the way Diesel likes everything. The sound rolls across the empty compound, bouncin' off the cinderblock walls and the corrugated steel and all the ghosts this place is holdin' tonight.

He pulls forward slow. Headlights sweep across me like a searchlight, and for a second I'm just standin' there, pinned in the glare, squintin' against the white.

Then he salutes me again through the open window. One more time. Lazy and casual. Final. Like closin' a book he's not ever gonna read again.

And I watch him roll through the open gate, taillights bleedin' red into the dark, gettin' smaller and smaller until they're just two pinpricks on that long unmarked road. Then nothin'. Just the wind. Just the dust settlin' back down where it always fuckin' settles.

Just me.

Standin' here in the middle of all this quiet like it's a sentence I gotta serve.

My phone buzzes. It's been doin' that all night.

But I don't even bother lookin', because I'm not done here yet.

I go inside the clubhouse, coverin' my face with my shirt so the fumes don't knock me out, and take one final look around. I told Diesel I'd do this place myself. For a moment, I wonder if there's anything left up in room 3 that I might want to salvage.

But there isn't.

There's nothin' here worth keepin'.

Not even the memories.

There are three Molotov cocktails on the bar waitin' for me like little soldiers. I take two and walk back to the armory—which is empty, no one leaves guns and ammo behind—and I light one bottle, then toss it.

The whoosh is familiar now. Same sound every time. Like the whole buildin' takes one long breath in and then just fuckin' gives up. And there's nothin' left to see or wonder at by this point, no reason to stand here watchin' the orange crawl across the corrugated steel, so I just turn and leave.

I hit Brick's office next.

It was never mine. Not for a single goddamn second. I sat in that chair a handful of times and every time it felt like wearin' another man's skin. There's no trace of me in that place at all, so I've got no attachment to it. None.

But I take off my cut and throw it on the floor. More symbolic than anything.

Everyone else left theirs in the church. Piled up like garbage. Like a fire, like everything else.