Chapter 13: Burning the Past
The dust from the Reapers' motorcycles had barely settled before Jax turned sharply, walked back into the cabin, and slammed the heavy wooden door shut, sliding the rusted iron deadbolt into place with a definitive clack. He leaned his forehead against the rough timber of the door for a long moment, letting out a long, ragged breath that sounded like air escaping a punctured tire.
I crawled out from behind the woodstove, my legs shaking slightly from the adrenaline surge, and walked over to where he was standing. "Are they coming back?"
Jax straightened up, his face set in a hard, resolute mask, though his eyes were softer when he looked down at me. "Not tonight. Red’s got a clear line on the switchback road from his ridge, and those boys love their shiny chrome too much to risk catching a lead in their engine blocks in the dark. But Vance was right about one thing: we can't stay up here forever. This cabin was a good place to catch our breath, but it's too isolated. If they decide to burn us out while the snow's still holding off, we'd be trapped."
"Where will we go?" I asked, a sudden cold knot forming in my stomach. The thought of leaving the mountain cabin—the first real home we had shared together—made me feel like the ground was shifting under my feet again.
Jax walked over to the small wooden table in the corner where my old jacket and Sarah's faded photograph were resting beside a tin mug of cold coffee. He picked up the photograph, his calloused thumb gently tracing the edge of the worn paper where a much younger, cleaner version of himself was holding me as a newborn baby under the summer sun.
"Somewhere far from here," Jax said softly, his voice steady and calm. "Somewhere the Reapers don't have a clubhouse in every county. Down toward the coast, or across the state line where nobody knows our names, our faces, or what club I used to ride for. We're going to start fresh, Leo. Just you and me."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, heavy iron key—the key to the old, battered pickup truck that Red had helped him tow into the shed behind the cabin three weeks ago. Then, with a slow, deliberate movement, he walked over to the open door of the woodstove, where the orange embers were still glowing softly in the dark iron box.
"What are you doing?" I asked, watching him closely.
Jax didn't answer right away. Instead, he reached into his leather vest—the old, black leather vest with the Iron Reapers rocker patch still stitched across the back that he had kept tucked away in the bottom of his duffel bag like a shameful secret. He held the heavy leather up in the dim light of the cabin for one final second, looking down at the embroidered skulls and iron chains that had defined his entire adult life—the violence, the brotherhood, the whiskey, and the endless miles of highway asphalt.
With a quiet, heavy sigh, he rolled the vest up into a tight bundle, shoved it directly into the open maw of the woodstove, and pushed the iron door shut.
I stood in silence, watching through the small glass window of the stove as the dry leather hissed, curled, and caught fire, sending up a bright, greedy burst of orange flame that devoured the patches, the studs, and the emblems one by one until there was nothing left inside except a glowing heap of gray ash and melted metal.
Jax stood there watching the fire burn down until the glass cooled, his face illuminated by the dying embers. He looked older in that light, but for the first time since I had met him at the diner, he also looked completely, perfectly weightless—as if a heavy iron chain he had been dragging behind his motorcycle for thirty years had finally snapped and fallen away into the dirt.
He turned around, walked over to me, and placed his warm, heavy hand on my shoulder, giving it a firm, reassuring squeeze.
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"Pack your bag, kid," Jax said, a faint, genuine smile breaking through his dark beard. "We've got a long road ahead of us, and the sun's coming up in the morning."
I looked down at the faded photograph in my hand, then up at my father, and for the first time in my life, I didn't feel like I was holding onto a ghost anymore. I nodded, zipped up my old jacket, and turned toward the door as the first pale light of dawn began to paint the mountain peaks in shades of gold and silver.
