Justice (5 page)

Junior was smart, which was a scary combination with his other traits. His smarts might also help him keep our group together. If he kept his head straight he could get us pointed in the right direction. Again logic and misguided hope was giving me another reason to stick around. Maybe Junior would turn things around.
 

I knew the hope stemmed from the fact that I didn’t want to be on my own. I didn’t want to leave and face this world as a lone wolf. My mind cooked up a million reasons Junior might be a better leader than his father. But deep down inside I knew it was time to go. Even if Junior turned the group on the right path, he still hated me. I would never feel comfortable around my brothers with him as the leader. I would never be accepted. It was either exist on the fringe, or leave.
 

I went to my sleeping berth. I wasn’t allowed to bunk in the main area where the weapons and the women were stored. I had lost that privilege when I refused to dish out a beating to a civilian who was caught taking more food than his daily allowance.
 

My berth was in the secondary living area in the former coffee shop next to the main building. They had knocked down a wall, and it was a crumbling mess of sheetrock and hanging electrical wires. They used the kitchen in the former coffee shop as the food prep area. The nasty thing about it though, was that the connecting wall was from the bathrooms in the grocery store. Between the bathrooms, now abandoned because of the lack of running water, and the smell of the old food, it was a nasty area. I didn’t know what was worse, the smell of old piss or rotted food.
 
My sleeping area wasn’t prime real estate that was for sure.

Looking around the ten by ten area I called my personal space, it was rather pathetic. A few sheets strung up between walls and a window. I didn’t have much to my name. I had my weapons, which I was still allowed to carry as long as I had my colors on. I kept my weapons on me at all times, my .357 nestled in my belt and my .22 in my boot. I also had a machete attached to a loop that I had fashioned on my belt and I let that hang at my hip and kept it close at hand when I slept. In my berth I had a few books that I didn’t want to part with, a couple pictures of my friends from college and the MREs, Meals Ready to Eat, I had been stashing for the last couple of months. I kept those hidden under a blanket and fashioned as a side-table, as if it was a crate that I kept things on. We weren’t allowed to hoard food.

I removed the few items I kept next to my bed and pulled the blanket off of my stores and added an MRE to my growing collection.

When out on patrol each brother was given two MREs for every twenty-four hour patrol period. I had made a habit of only eating one of the MREs in that timeframe since their high calorie count could sustain me for the day. I also had been stashing canned goods I found in houses, along with other items in different areas around the neighborhood. I was required to turn in any food that I found, and in exchange I was given a “food credit” from the club. These food credits, or creds as they were called, could be cashed in at any point for extra food, females, alcohol, drugs or weapons.
 

For each patrol and watch I completed I was given creds, but the perk of doing the dangerous, off-base work was that you got
 
to take food with you. This translated to a lot of food creds. I wasn’t going to pay for sex and I abstained from liquor and drugs which would inhibit me, which left weapons. I hadn’t amassed enough creds for a new piece, but I was getting there. The downside of amassing a lot of creds was that it became pretty obvious I wasn't spending them and the brothers had become suspicious. They didn’t understand why I wouldn’t take a girl or a hit.

I tried blending in better after I noticed the suspicious looks. In the last month I came up with a plan. I was using my food creds on girls, one girl in particular. I would act like part of the group, even if it went against all my principals. It was too little, too late, though. My unwillingness to indulge was obvious to the others and it painted me as an outsider.
 

A throat cleared behind me and I threw my blanket hastily down on top of my stores and turned quickly to face whoever was behind me.
 

It was Jazz, who’s probably the only brother I trusted in the club. But it wasn’t by much. Jazz was in Junior’s inner circle, a place I could have been also, if I had learned to play the game better. I was never good at politics, or keeping my mouth shut.
 

“Your girl was the one that escaped,” he said with no preamble.
 

“I thought it was Senior’s property, the Hispanic chick,” I said casually and I slipped my hands in the pockets of my jeans to hide that they were shaking from almost being caught with the food.
 

“Three got out. Senior’s bitch, your girl, and the other new one that came in with Senior’s property. Those three were the only ones that got out. Made a fucking mess as they were leaving too.”

“How did they kill Senior?”

“Senior’s property gutted him with his own knife. He was naked so she probably got him while he was on her. She let him bleed out and die. They took out Parrish at the door and shot and killed Fatz in the street, looked like they ran him over with a vehicle after. He was a fucking mess. I don’t know where they got the vehicle so quick, or the weapons. Junior wants to talk to you about that.”

“Me, why me?”
 

“You made a point of claiming that skank, even though you didn’t have property rights. Junior just wants to ask you about it,” Jazz said icily.
 

“I haven’t been at base for the last couple days, I don’t know what he wants from me,” I said, but I followed Jazz out of my area and into the main building. You didn’t argue when the new president summoned you.

Jazz led me straight to Junior’s private area. It was only a bunch of tarps strung up between shelving from the grocery store, but it was bigger than the brothers’ areas and he had a sofa in the corner and an actual mattress on the floor. He also had a coffee table set up to the side and was using it as a make-shift seat at the moment. Eagle was sitting on the sofa and he had another brother, one of his father’s enforcers, Pink, standing up in the corner with his arms crossedtJazz tell ya?” Junior asked as I walked in, straight-forward as usual. He looked up at me, a smirk on his face. He didn’t look like he was mourning his father’s loss at all.
 

“That the girl Melinda escaped, yeah, he told me,” I nodded.
 

“Yeah, that bitch got away. They broke the lock to the back room and she distracted Parrish from the front door. You got any idea how she would be able to do that?”

“None, Junior, I never really talked to her, if you know what I mean.” It was a lie. I never had sex with Melinda and I actually liked her company, which was why I had begun to use my food credit to “buy” her for the night. I thought it would help me blend in better and give her a reprieve from the other men.
 

“See, I don’t really know what ya mean, ‘cause rumor was you never fucked her.” Junior leaned forward, his blue eyes glinted white in the lantern light. Some of the women said he was attractive, but I didn't see it. He was fit and he liked to show it off by wearing tight black tees, but he was too hard looking, his tattoos too prison-like, his hair too greasy. He was the epitome of what I hated about this club.
 

“Bullshit,” I spat. The lie tasted vile in my mouth, but it was necessary. I had learned quickly how to lie convincingly with this group. Junior was different though, at times he saw right through my deception. “Who’s ever talking shit to you, Junior, they don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“Jigger’s old lady overheard that slut saying you let her sleep, didn't touch her.
 
Plus, there ain't any sounds coming out of your berth when you get her back there. Sounds like y’all were up to something other than fucking, and with her escaping that’s pretty suspicious,
Rebel.”
He accentuated my name.
 

The name he gave me. Coined as an insult, rather than a compliment. In his eyes I was never one of the group. I was always rebelling against the system, the club. The club that he loved. I talked of college and a life with a real job. That was strange for Junior who only saw himself as the future president of the Southern Clan. To him I was different, a rebel, and the name stuck. When you rebel against the rebels - what does that make you?
 

“It was one fucking time. She had some kind of cold and I didn’t want to get that shit. Who the fuck is up against my berth listening? That's fucked up, Junior. I never helped those girls escape, I had no clue, I wasn’t even here. I was with Bear.” Junior looked at me and then he looked at Jazz who nodded. All the cursing and lies tasted wrong in my mouth, but it was an act I had to maintain. I didn’t like to use foul language, just as much as I didn’t like to lie. I had tried to transition from my MC lifestyle when I was away at college. It was pathetic that I slipped back into it so easily.
 

“Fine, you were gone, out on watch,”
 
he scoffed and rolled his eyes like a child. Junior hadn’t been on watch, once.
 

“Protecting this place, Junior, which is what I do every fucking day, more than the rest of this drug using-” It was too much, I stopped in mid-statement. I let my mouth get away from me all the time and it was dangerous with Junior.
 

“You always did have your fucking nose up in the air, Rebel. Better than the rest of us, college boy,” he sneered. “No drugs for Rebel, no fucking either. Might as well be a fucking priest. I don’t trust you, never did. You shouldn’t have ever gotten those colors. I told Senior that, but he didn’t listen. It was only because of your daddy that you got in. Your daddy should have taught you some fucking respect.” He stood up and I knew I was screwed from the look on his face. He walked over to me and before I could react, he punched me in the gut.
 

The hit was hard and it made me bend over in reflex, gasping for air. I stood up quickly and faced him. I couldn’t allow myself to show weakness to him. He never could take me down in a fight and he knew it. There was a reason he had his enforcer in the corner.
 

“You’re tough, I’ll give you that. I don’t know if you had anything to do with those girls taking out Senior. I don’t think I’ll ever know, so I don’t trust you, but you have your uses. Move your berth. You’re going to take over Red’s job guarding the fucking children. I’m wiping all your creds. No more women for you, Rebel. Hang out with the little kids and learn some respect. Maybe one day you can earn those fucking colors you wear. No more patrols either, you’re on lockdown. Fuck up again and I’m stripping you. You’ll be a fucking civilian.”
 

With one move Junior had effectively neutered me. I was now in with the children. I wouldn’t be able to leave the base, unless special permission was given and I would barely be able to leave the kids’ area. Red was the oldest member of the club and he had been given the job because he couldn’t do much more. It was a shit job. A job that would usually fall to the women, but no one in the club trusted the women enough to let them carry. And the children needed to be protected.

I walked out of Junior’s area without saying a word. He knew what he was doing. If he suspected me of any kind of malicious behavior then he had me where he could keep me in my place. The kids’ area was always under guard with a constant rotation of brothers. It would be the first place the civilians went if they were to break free, so they had to have it watched. There was always a guard inside and one that rotated at the back door. The one inside acted as the nanny and watched the women that were allowed to come in and tend to the kids.
 

It was a shit position. I was now the glorified babysitter.
 

FIVE | Amphibious Ass-Kicker

Trivox was a production facility about five miles from our compound that had produced vehicles for the U.S. military. They specialized in armored land and marine vehicles along with a few weapon systems. It wasn’t a huge facility, but we were hoping that they would be stocked with a good base of weaponry.
 

Our group hadn’t even considered scavenging in the manufacturing plants that ran along Lake Pontchartrain since most of them were full of tools and materials that we wouldn’t be able to use. They held nothing sustainable like food or water, but we had forgotten about Trivox. Weapons we could use.