“Yeah.” I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know Axe, hadn’t talked much to him before. There were too many people in Benicio’s house and I felt claustrophobic. I wanted to tell Axe to go away, to leave me alone.
“Blaze will be fine, you know. Just a shoulder injury. It’s minor.”
“Yeah, I know that,” I said.
“You did good today, honey,” Axe said. “Taking your father down.”
“He was never my father.”
“No, I guess he wasn’t, was he?”
I paused, thinking. “You were in the military.”
“Marines.”
“You ever kill anyone?”
Axe nodded. “I was a sniper.”
“Did you feel bad about it?”
“A couple times, yeah.” He paused. “Not for the bad guys, though.”
I looked over at him. “I thought I would feel guilty about killing Guillermo, but I don’t. Is it wrong that I don’t feel bad about it?”
Axe shook his head. “Guillermo was one of the bad guys. And he shot at Blaze. You’ve got nothing to feel bad for. You were just protecting your family.”
I was, wasn’t I? Blaze was my family.
The sound of Blaze's voice as he talked to Axe snapped me back to the present.
“I’ll have to keep a look out at Stanford,” I said. “I’ll see if I can find a chick for you, Axe.”
Axe laughed. “Yeah, you do that, girl. You get me some rich doctor chick or something. Thanks, but that shit’s not written in the cards for me.”
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with rich chicks,” Blaze said. “This one’s going to be a rich lawyer and keep us all out of prison.”
Later, he pulled me away from the crowd and put his arms around me from behind. I leaned back on him, my head against his chest. “Thanks for all of this, Blaze,” I said.
“It’s nothing.”
“You know I’ll miss you,” I said.
“You know I’m going to be up there checking on you.”
“You mean that in the least creepy and possessive way possible, right?” I asked.
“Well, I’ll have to keep the Stanford boys away from you.”
“I think I’m perfectly capable of doing that myself, you know.”
“I do know that,” he said.
I liked doing my own thing, having my own space, and Blaze knew that. But I also liked knowing that he was looking out for me, especially after all the shit that had happened at the beginning of the summer. I'd heard that Billy was somewhere in Europe, and while I suspected some of the guys might wind up having a chat with him, I also didn't know if he'd even return. I'd seen a magazine article about him possibly going to rehab.
I looked out over everyone from my vantage point here with Blaze’s arms wrapped around me. These people - this fucked up, dysfunctional family - was mine. My upbringing was unusual, and now the family I had chosen was even stranger. Still, they were mine.
I wish I could say that Benicio had swept in and somehow become the father I never had. The truth was that I liked Benicio, but he wasn’t my father. Nevertheless, I could see in him the man my mother loved. I think Benicio loved her still. And he was a good man, as far as criminals go. He was the kind of man my father was not, the kind who would do certain things but not cross other lines. He didn’t mess with women and children - had a rule against trafficking or running girls. In this kind of life, the biker life and the one in which I’d been raised, those kind of principles meant something. Those kinds of principles meant you were a good man.
That was as good as it would get for me. I had no illusions that Benicio would ever become something he was not, that he would trade a criminal lifestyle for a civilian one. It was the same with Blaze. They were strong men who knew who they were. I loved Blaze for that, and I respected Benicio for that. I won’t say I loved Benicio like a father. We were not there yet, and I wasn't sure if we’d ever get there. But I did respect him.
There was no fallout from shooting my father. Benicio, with his network of resources, simply made it all go away. His physician took care of Blaze, and Blaze was healed up in a matter of weeks. I had waited expectantly for a month after the shooting to be hit with a sudden wave of guilt, or remorse, or sadness. I waited for the PTSD that never came, expecting to wake at night with nightmares and cold sweats. But it seemed that Guillermo had left nothing in his wake, not even a ghost.
I think that by the time I killed Guillermo, I was already all cried out. When I killed him, I thought I would mourn for him, that I would grieve for relationship that I had lost. But the truth was, it was a relationship I’d never had. I’d been gone for a long time. I had run back to him in a fit of desperation at the beginning of the summer, but I was running toward a fantasy, someone I imagined my father to be.
I leaned harder against Blaze. “I’m finally home,” I said.
Blaze squeezed me tighter. “We both are.”