“I know you can, but he’s an asshole. He doesn’t play fair.”
“It’ll be fine,” Hull said. “I’ll go kick his ass, he’ll slink off to lick his wounds, and I’ll do what my father would have wanted me to do. You worry too much.”
Rebecca sighed. “I worry for the both of us since you don’t worry at all.”
Hull laughed and kissed her. “Some things never change,” he said. And then, right there on the couch, they made love again.
The Harris plant was an old factory on the outskirts of Oklahoma City that had long been closed down. It was on a dusty and desolate road, and the cops never went out that way. It was the perfect place for a brawl.
Hull and Rebecca both rode their bikes, side by side, down the empty highway. They pulled into the plant’s lot. Once it had been paved, but now it was broken and mostly gravel. The plant itself stood behind the lot, a giant long dead, the windows shattered and the gray paint peeling.
Jason was there already, along with what looked like all of the Hammers. Hull parked and Rebecca parked next to him, both throwing the kickstands of their bikes down and climbing off them. Hull was wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt, and Jason was decked out in full Hammer’s gear: chaps and a black leather vest with their sigil on the back.
“Let’s just go,” Rebecca said, keeping her voice low. Hull shook his head, turned to her, and kissed her.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too,” she replied, and then he turned and made his way into the center of the circle that was forming. Jason stood in the center, the circle made up of the club. Rebecca made her way to the front and stood next to Gloria.
“Rules?” Jason asked after Hull was standing in front of him.
“You tell me,” Hull replied.
“No weapons. Punches, kicks. Fight like men.”
“Do you know how a man fights?” Hull asked, and a soft titer rose in the crowd.
“Are you ready to get your ass kicked?” Jason asked, putting his fists up.
“Let’s go,” Hull said, and he stepped forward. The fight was on.
Hull landed the first hit, and then the second, both powerful punches to Jason’s body. Jason could scrap, but Hull had learned how to box while he was a Navy SEAL. Jason was worried about his face and left his body wide open. Even after only two hits, he would have a massive purple bruise on his ribcage the next day.
Still, Jason wasn’t a slouch. He had no finesse, but he was powerful, and he landed a skull-rattling punch to Hull’s jaw that sent the man backpedaling and kicking up dust from the gravel.
“Let’s go, bitch,” Jason said, and he stepped forward, swinging at Hull’s head again, but Hull ducked under the punch and brought his own fist up, slamming it into Jason’s jaw and sending the man sprawling. He tried to get up, but Hull was upon him, pinning him down and slamming his fists into his head, his neck, and his chest. It hadn’t been much of a fight.
When Hull was sure Jason was done, and he could tell just by looking at him—the man’s face was a sea of red and purple and blue, his eyes already blackened, blood pouring from a broken nose and a mouth now missing a few teeth—he got up. “I win,” Hull said, and about three-quarters of the crowd began to cheer.
Rebecca had been tense, worried, but now it all fell from her, and she smiled and began making her way toward Hull. He grinned when he saw her and opened his arms to her. He didn’t see Jason standing up behind him, rushing forward as he pulled something from his pocket. Others saw it, and they hurried to stop him, but they weren’t fast enough. Jason held a switchblade, and the blade flashed out from the handle with a glint of silver and an audible clack. And then the blade was buried in Hull’s back, just before the first of the bikers reached Jason and wrenched him away, throwing him to the ground.
“No!” Rebecca yelled out as Hull fell to the gravel. She dropped beside him, pulling his head up into her lap. She had no way of knowing at that point, but a doctor would later tell her that the blade had pierced both his kidney and his lung. It had been placed in the worst spot it could, and Hull had no hope.
He was looking up at her now with glassy eyes.
“He’s a fucking cheater,” Hull said, and he tried to smile but he couldn’t. Perhaps he knew there was nothing to smile about, that there was nothing anyone could do to keep him alive.
“You’re fine,” Rebecca said, hoping against hope. Not far away a couple of massive bikers were holding Jason down, kicking the shit out of him. She thought they might kill him, pissed off about his cowardice, and she found herself hoping they would.
“I love you,” Hull said, his voice shaky and sounding as if he were far away.
“I love you too. Be quiet. Someone will call an ambulance.