Free Gang Up: A Bikerland Novel by Nadia Nightside Page B

bang—which had been as much a surprise to him as anything in his life—his heart had begun to soften. Considering what peace terms he might set out to live side-by-side with the Family.
    And then that bitch had ruined it all.
    No way would there be peace now. Not any time soon, anyway. Now, there was too much pride at stake. The sister of the Family’s leader? No way. Not even if they split leadership between the two men—Troy and Case—like Brall had heard.
    Across the camp grounds he waved to Carthage. There was a man who could sort all this out. Always with a plan. Always with something smart to say, even if he didn’t look it. Large, black, with a wide flat face that looked like a mountain torn open. A crude man himself, Carthage knew all the crude angles to get things done. Normally, if a woman was indoctrinated into the Cauldron, she was indoctrinated, and that was that. There hadn’t been any sort of turning-back process for as long as the Cauldron had been around.
    But what if a woman was sick? Wouldn’t they be obligated to leave her out then? Oh sure, cure her if they could cure her. But the Cauldron was for the strong. Not the sick or the elderly or the weak.
    And in Abigail he saw a sickness to be sure. A sickness of the mind that afflicted her every action, that poisoned even the air she moved through. It stunned him that he had not been able to see it before. His idiot lust had blinded him.
    She was crazy, sure enough, and crazy didn’t have a place in the Cauldron. Foolhardy, sure. Brave, definitely. Mean, callous, vicious, and dangerous—all of these had a place.
    But the Cauldron was built on a bedrock of discipline, and discipline had no place for crazy for crazy itself had no place for discipline.
    Carthage approached through the camp, walking through the various shanty tents and tall spiraling piles of wood that the Cauldron used for its signal fires. The Sooner crew—hard soldiering men from Oklahoma that Brall trusted as steadfast shock troops in the thick of battle—hailed Carthage as he walked past. With those men, Brall soon would be ready for war. A few days at most.
    Bikes rumbled down the trail. A convoy, most like, though Brall had not heard of one leaving that day.
    Strange.
    At the head of the group was Troy—the lieutenant from the Family. His gun out. Brall could see it all happening before it did, useless foreshadowing that preceded the action itself only by moments. Not enough to be heard. Not enough to change anything. Only enough to feel helpless.
    Two bikes rushed forward and knocked Carthage around in the road. Chains swinging out like thunderbolts. A pipe, reading at easily fifty miles an hour, hit him in the leg. Somehow he only fell to a knee, swearing and promising revenge. The next bike hit him in the head. Like clockwork they went, knocking him down. Troy swept by and shot him three times in the back and then all seven of them drove out into the wastes.
    Their bikes motored into the distance and Carthage was left motionless on the ground. Dead or dying. No way around it.
    Brall grabbed Garner. A stout man, long burn scars down one side of his face. He was fast and able as any on his bike.
    “You bring me a head from them,” Brall pointed to the trail of dust behind Troy and his men, “or you don’t come back here.”
    Garner nodded and in less than a minute he and six others were off.
    Brall, though, stayed behind. Everyone understood. It wasn’t just to grab Carthage’s barely alive body and get it out of the road—though there was that. It was in case there was another round of attacks. The Cauldron would need leadership present. There was a protocol to every eventuality.
    And whether Garner succeeded or not, there was another protocol the Cauldron was now apart of. With the indoctrination of Abigail, they had hit the Family. The Family had hit back.

Chapter 13:
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    R obin snuck out from the Compound on her own—with Abigail nowhere to