Chapter 10: The Choice
At five minutes to six, the parking lot outside went dead silent. No trucks passed on the highway. No radios played from the neighboring rooms. It was the kind of quiet that feels heavy, like the seconds right before a lightning strike hits the ground.
Jax stood up from the table. He walked over to the small closet by the door and pulled out his heavy leather riding jacket, the one with the club insignia ripped off the back, leaving a ragged, lighter-colored outline in the grain. He didn't put it on. Instead, he tossed it onto the unmade bed like it was trash.
From his belt, he unbuckled his heavy hunting knife and laid it right beside the old faded photograph on the table.
"Jax?" I whispered, standing up from the cot. "Are we running?"
"No, Leo," he said, turning to look at me with a steady, hard light in his eyes that hadn't been there when we walked into the diner. "We ain't running. Running implies we did something wrong."
A heavy knock rattled the door frame—not Pete this time, but someone heavier, pounding with the flat of an open hand.
"Jax! Time's up!" a voice shouted from outside.
Jax walked over to the door and threw the deadbolt back with a sharp metallic snap. He pulled the door open wide, letting the pale evening light flood into the cramped motel room. Standing on the pavement was the club president himself—a man named Vickers, older than Jax with graying hair tied back in a greasy tail and a face like leather left out in the sun too long. Two other bikes idled behind him, their headlights cutting twin beams through the dusk.
Vickers looked past Jax, his eyes locking onto me standing by the table, and then down at the knife and the jacket left on the bed.
"I see you made your choice, brother," Vickers said, his voice cold as winter ice.
"My name ain't brother anymore, Vickers," Jax said, his voice steady and calm. "And I ain't riding with you. Tell the boys if they want to settle this, they can do it here in the dirt, away from the highway."
Vickers stared at him for a long, tense moment, searching Jax's face for any sign of weakness. Finding none, the older man gave a slow, disgusted shake of his head, spat a stream of dark tobacco juice onto the gravel, and backed away toward his bike.
"You're dead to us, Jax," Vickers said quietly over the roar of the engine as he threw his leg over the saddle. "Don't ever let me catch you on this side of the county line again."
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The bikes tore out of the parking lot in a cloud of dust and burning rubber, leaving nothing behind but the smell of exhaust and the quiet hum of the night wind. Jax watched them disappear down the blacktop until the red tail-lights were just pinpricks in the dark. Then he closed the door, locked it tight, and turned around with a small, almost invisible ghost of a smile pulling at the corner of his beard.
"Come on, Leo," he said, picking up his car keys from the table. "Let's go find some decent food that doesn't come out of a greasy paper bag."
