Chapter One

Stopping by the roadside diner to get out of the cold, wet weather had seemed like a good idea at the time. It was only in retrospect that Jax thought it might have been one of the worst decisions of his entire life.

They were still some forty miles east of New Orleans, dog-tired and almost out of money. Mason trudged along beside him without complaint, but Jax needed to stop soon and let him rest. He needed to maybe get some food in him too.

After the trucker they’d hitched a ride with in Birmingham the day before left them on the side of the road outside of Bay St. Louis, he’d found a door left open on a bathroom at a closed roadside gas station and spent the night on the floor, with Mason’s head on his lap. All Jax knew for sure, or at least according to the trucker, was that if they kept going on this road, they’d wind up eventually in New Orleans, a little over fifty-five miles away. If they could make it there, Jax was hoping they could do what the trucker told him, find one of the huge service stations that catered to long-distance truckers and hang around long enough to catch a ride farther west.

Jax had never been to the western part of the United States. He’d never been much of anywhere outside of Piedmont, Alabama, the small town where he was born and raised. He didn’t know anybody out west either, but he’d decided on it as a kind of general destination that last, desperate night before they left. He and Mason had shaken the dust of the little town off their feet,and Jax hoped he’d never have to see it again. Jax would have left Alabama years ago if it hadn’t been for his little brother.

Staying in Alabama obviously wasn’t an option, and they had no other close relatives to speak of. Mason said he’d always kind of wanted to see some real cowboys, and it might be nice to see some of the places Jax had only read about or seen on TV, like the Grand Canyon. Maybe he could get a job someplace out there or even a couple of jobs and get Mason back in school. If any of the towns he traveled through looked promising, he could find them a cheap room to rent after a while. Anyway, heading west was a place to go, and he needed some kind of plan to keep from going crazy. It was scary enough to be on his own with no money and an eight-year-old brother who had to be fed and cared for. Throw in no place to hide, and the terror he felt threatened to choke the breath out of him.

This morning they were both pretty hungry, but Jax wanted to try to wait until suppertime to eat anything and save his money. He needed to find something for Mason, though. The last time he’d checked, he had seventeen dollars left, plus some change in his pocket, not nearly enough to splurge on a bigbreakfast. But when he’d seen the diner on the side of the road, he thought it wouldn’t hurt to go inside, use the rest room and maybe get Mason a butter and jelly biscuit and a glass of milk—maybe a cup of hot coffee for himself. At least it would give them a chance to rest for a while and warm up.

It was only October, but even in the south, rainy days in the fall could be cold and miserable. Jax found them a booth near a window in the back and waited while a nice older lady took their order. All around them, people were eating biscuits, gravy, eggs and sausage. Mason never said a word, but Jax saw his eyes stray toward a big plate of pancakes the waitress carried by, and for the hundredth time Jax wondered if he was doing the right thing.

The smells made his own mouth water, but he stuck to his guns and ordered only a biscuit and a glass of milk for Mason and coffee for himself. Coffee really wasn’t his favorite drink, but it was hot, and he loaded it up with cream and sugar. On the table next to the sugar packets was a little basket with crackers. When Jax figured nobody was looking, he ate a couple packs of those and took as many as he dared to stuff down in his pockets, along with the little packs of jelly sitting in their little metal container. He couldn’t help noticing that someone had left the waitress a five-dollar tip and stuck it up under the basket. The whole time he sat there, watching Mason wolf down the biscuit, his eyes kept straying back to the cash.

It was when he was on his third cup of coffee, and the waitress was beginning to look at them funny, that he heard the sound of motorcycles pulling into the parking lot outside the small cafe. A few minutes later a group of about fifteen people came in, most of them wearing the same kind of black leather jacket. On the backs of the jackets was a name—Sons of Darkness, and a picture of a vicious, snarling wolf. Jax allowed himself a little smirk at the name.

The ones with the jackets were big, tough-looking guys, all of them seeming to be somewhere in their twenties or thirties. There were maybe three girls and a couple of young guys too, not wearing the jackets, but who had been riding on the backs of the motorcycles.

The man who seemed to be their leader came in first and swaggered over to a table in the middle of the dining room to sit down. He was tall and muscular, like the rest, with shaggy black hair partially covered by a blue bandana. When he came in the door, he was pivoting his head like he was looking for someone, and then his eyes lighted on Jax with a surprised expression, almost like he recognized him, though Jax was sure he’d never seen the guy before in his life— he would definitely have remembered someone like him. The thing that made Jax most uneasy was how the surprise on the man’s face quickly turned to distaste, almost anger.

The guy was joined at his table by two of the others, while the rest spread out wherever they could crowd around a table or a booth, and the man shifted his laser-like gaze away from Jax. None of the bikers were doing anything in particular, not causing any trouble, but the room seemed smaller with all of them in it, and a thick tension hung over the café like a pall of smoke. It wasn’t long before the other patrons felt it too, finished their meals and got up to leave.

Jax continued to sit there, fiddling with his coffee cup, knowing they needed to leave, but dreading going back out in the rain. Mason had begun to doze in the warm air of the café. Jax wished for the hundredth time he’d grabbed a warmer jacket for himself and Mason the night they’d left. He’d been in such a panic he hadn’t been thinking straight. He thought longingly of the heavier jackets hanging in their closets at home. As it was, both of them had only the clothes on their backs.

Feeling uneasy, he glanced back up and saw an intense gaze directed at him. The big biker guy was staring a fucking hole in him, and it was making him really nervous. The last thing he needed to do was attract the attention of some kind of motorcycle gang. The guy probably didn’t like the way Jax looked, with his piercings, eyeliner and shaggy hair. When he’d washed his hands in the café bathroom, he noticed the dark smudges his eyeliner had left under his eyes, and had tried to wash it off his face. Had he missed some spots? Jax knew his appearance was probably a red flag to a tough guy like that. Then again, what the hell did he care what some jerk he’d never seen before and would never see again thought about him?

Growing up small and different-looking, not to mention gay, in a small southern town full of good old boys hadn’t been any picnic. Jax had stopped growing at five foot six, and his body was whipcord lean, but it wasn’t only his size. He normally wore something similar to what he currently had on, black skinny jeans with boots that laced up almost to his knees, with a tiny, stacked heel. They were his favorite boots, and he’d bought them for himself at Walmart three years before.

He was wearing a black hoodie with an alternative band logo on the back, one of his favorites, and he even had piercings in his eyebrows and one in his nose. Overall, his style was not exactly the norm for Piedmont, Alabama. He used to try to fit in when he was younger, wearing camo jackets and ballcaps, but it never really worked. The last couple of years, he’d given up the ugly, tacky clothes his peers wore and embraced his differences, wearing the clothes that better suited his personality. He’d decided anybody who didn’t like the way he looked could just go fuck themselves.

Anyway, he knew from the interested glances he was getting from a few of the bikers that his style had been noticed and no doubt frowned upon. They weren’t giving him dirty looks exactly, but more speculative, interested. Jax hunched over his coffee and tried to ignore their narrow,appraising glances. The last thing he wanted to do right now was attract anybody’s interest. Tucking his floppy blond hair behind his ear, he chewed on his bottom lip nervously. The intense glare the biker dude with the bandana was still giving him made him uneasy and though it was still coming down hard outside, Jax thought maybe he and Mason had better take off. Draining his coffee, he looked longingly at the five-dollar bill.

Jax wasn’t a thief, but the temptation to take the money was almost overpowering. He had to take care of Mason, and he was almost frantic with worry. He was full of other feelings too, that he’d pushed way down deep where he didn’t have to look at them too hard. He needed to move though, so he buried them a little deeper to take out and look at later on when he wasn’t so tired and scared. Right at this moment he had to do whatever it took to survive. He didn’t mind going hungry himself, but he didn’t want Mason to suffer if he could help it. He bargained with himself, thinking maybe he could borrow the money, and then when he got his job out west he could put five dollars in an envelope and send it back here to the café with a little note apologizing.

As soon as the waitress had her back turned to him, taking an order at one of the bikers’ tables, he slipped the five-dollar bill out from under the basket and into his pocket. Then he quickly got up, motioned to Mason to follow him and started to make his way to the door. It was as he was passing the big biker guy’s table that it happened. A strong hand stopped his progress by grabbing onto his wrist and holding him there.

“What the hell? Let me go,” Jax cried o ut, pulling frantically away from the big hand that gripped him. Beside him, Mason grabbed his other arm, his face alarmed. The man held on to Jax seemingly without much effort at all, and glared up at him. The waitress, who had been taking their order, looked nervous and cast a glance over at the cashier in case they needed to call somebody for help.

“What is it, Jax? What’s the matter?” Mason asked beside him, his little face full of fear. Jax was trembling, but he glared back at the guy, refusing to le t him see he was scared. “I said, let me go, damn you.”