Fate walks in looking at all the pictures and notes, shoving his hands in his pockets, his mouth set in a grim line as he takes in the gruesome scene in front of him. He doesn’t love that I’ve taken it upon myself to stop this serial killer, but I know he won’t stop me. He knows exactly why I’m working so hard.
It turns out that Brad was a serial killer. He had been killing any woman who decided to go out with him, using charm to seduce them into getting in his car, where he could take them to a secluded spot before having sex with them and then slicing them up. He wasn’t an ugly guy, and he laid on his sweet talk thick, as I witnessed that night with my sister. But something disturbing in him drove him to do these horrific things.
Before he even asked the girls out, he stalked them, planning what to say to get them to go out with him. Fate found that out once he got ahold of his address. His room looked similar to what my office looks like right now. Raven was his fifth victim—and last.
That’s why I’ve made it my mission to find this new killer. I know exactly how the families of those victims feel in their sorrow, knowing they might’ve stopped them from leaving with him, keeping them from their awful demise. I need to put a stop to it. I later found out that Fate and the other Royal Bastards had surrounded Brad in the forest and killed him that very night as I was in the clubhouse. I still to this day hate that I couldn’t do it myself, knowing that getting shot in the face was too quick of death for such a monster.
I had nowhere to go after that, so the club took me in. I spent the rest of my teenage years in the clubhouse. The Royal Bastards took me in when I had no one else, teaching me the ways of living this life, how to ride a motorcycle, what it means to put in hard work. Five years of training before I actually knew about anything illegal going on for club business. They even paid for my sister’s funeral and took all the money from the things I sold off, putting it away for me.
When I turned eighteen, I prospected into the club and took the name Raven, after my sister. It seemed like a fitting way to pay tribute to her.
Honestly, it took a while to respond when people called me that. When I heard it, my heart would start to anxiously beat when for a moment, I’d forget she was dead, thinking that someone was actually talking to her. Until reality put its cold hands around me, and I realized this isn’t a dream, she’s never coming back.
“I know how you get around December. Another dream?” Fate asks, looking me over. I must look as bad as I feel. I can only imagine the dark circles hanging under my eyes. “I heard you yelling again. You did it last night too, and the night before that.”
Every time I closed my eyes last night, it was the same thing coming to my mind, even when I tried to think about anything else and watch TV. Hell, I even tried to read a book. But sure enough, as soon as I closed my eyes I saw the blood spilling onto the snow. I saw the light being extinguished from Raven’s eyes. I saw the pure evil in Brad’s eyes as he chased us down, heard the terrifying roar of his rage. It’s what I see every time and I hate it. Benadryl, Ambien, melatonin, marijuana, alcohol; I’ve tried them all to help me sleep and still end up dreaming of that horribly secluded area he drove us to that night.
“I wish I had been the one to kill him,” I mumble. I hate when he wants to talk about it. Even after all these years, it should be getting better, less baggage for me to carry, but I refuse to let it go. If I let it go, I’m letting Raven down. I told her I never would let go. I deserve to feel this, think about it, and have these haunting dreams. I was there and did nothing. She jumped in front of me at the last second, and it should’ve been me who took his knife. I should be the one buried six feet under.
“Man, we’ve been over this a thousand times. You were just a kid. It wasn’t your fault your sister died. He was angry you were there because you threw off his meticulous plan. That didn’t make him kill her, Raven. He had that in his mind the moment he laid eyes on her, and you know it. You don’t deserve to keep beating yourself up about it.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t realistically know, but it doesn’t get easier Fate. It seems heavier every year.”
For years, the dreams didn’t just come in December. It was all the time. Waking up in the middle of the night, terrorized by the look on Brad’s face, the sneer as he cut her. It wasn’t at all like his previous murders, and he didn’t get to relish it, take his time torturing her. I still, all these years later, have no idea how I was able to escape. Sometimes I feel like I should just have stayed and let him stab me.
The guys know I’ve been here for over two decades, but only Fate really knows why. The older generation of the club, the ones who were there that night, all retired a long time ago. Now Fate is Prez and I’m the VP. How things have changed.
“Time for Church,” he claps me on the back before walking out. I want to stay in here and see if I can find anything that I might be missing. I have to be overlooking some minor details, but no one gets to be late when Fate calls church. Clicking off the light and sending darkness across the room, I know as soon as church is over, I’ll be right back in here, looking, obsessing over catching this killer.
We all start to file into the chapel. It’s a big room with pews, unlike most conference rooms MCs use for Church. Church isn’t really a church, though, except for Sundays when Wrath holds actual service for those wanting to attend. It’s where the club comes together to talk about issues, business, and other things relating to the club. The giant glass window is lit up with the early morning sun, casting bright colors in the room, making it look like it’s sacred, and I guess to us, it really is. The glass is a skull with a crown with flaming motorcycles coming out of its mouth, instead of an angel or something holy. Fate stands at the podium, lit up by the light coming through the colorful glass. For a second, he looks deadly with his piercings and tattoos.
I look around the room at our crew and how much it’s grown over the years. Counting Fate and me, there’s twenty of us here. Thrasher brought in his old Army buddy Rodi to prospect. He still hasn’t thought of a good road name yet, and he doesn’t know the guys all that well, but he’s learning. Luciano is still wearing his apron over his cut. He was clearly in the middle of cooking something. Hell, even Cape is here, which is a surprise because he’s usually out and about. Dice and Trucker are knocking each other with their elbows for more room on the pew, Holiday is brushing his thick mustache, and Charm is clean his nails with a pocketknife, typical pretty boy.
A bunch of others are sitting there literally twiddling their thumbs, looking like they are sitting in a math class wishing to be anywhere else. Everyone is mumbling until Fate lifts and then lowers his hands, silently telling us to shut the fuck up—only Fate’s rule is not to cuss in here. He doesn’t yell it out and he doesn’t need to. The movement alone has all of us Bastards sitting silently. I’m to his right, waiting for my turn to speak.
“Has everything been done in preparation for our trip tomorrow?” Fate starts, going around the room, checking off things everyone needed to handle before they could head to Vegas.
Vault, our treasurer, is the first to speak. “Yes, sir. I’ve got a fresh round of savings and Christmas bonuses that should be hitting everyone’s accounts tomorrow.”