Fading Hope by Carter Steele

Author:Carter Steele
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2020-04-21T04:00:00+00:00

5

Landon

One Hour Before

“You want… out,” Brock said, repeating what I had said back to him.

“Yes. I want out. If this cycle is just going to go on forever, if the constant petty battles, violence, and senseless power struggles are just going to result in endless trouble, I want out.”

“Fuck,” Brock muttered as he put his head in his hands.

I didn’t enjoy seeing my brother suffer like this. If there was a way to retain the brotherhood without adding the violence, I not only would never leave the Savage Kings, I would take up the active mantle in supporting it.

But that was like saying if there was a way to eat donuts without getting fat, I would never stop eating donuts. It was impossible to separate the two; I couldn’t have the Savage Kings without having Anarchists who wanted to topple us. And so, before they’d ever get the chance to knock us over, I’d knock myself out.

I knew this wasn’t going to be secret for long. In fact, there was a decent chance news would spread before an hour had gone by. But once I left, Parker, Zane, Petey, and all of the rest of the Kings could say whatever they wanted. As long as it didn’t affect the bond that Brock and I had, then we were good.

“Do you really, really want to do this?” Brock said. “You know that leaving the club isn’t like canceling a newspaper subscription. It’s not that easy.”

“Yes, I am aware,” I said. “Brock, you know this isn’t a rash decision. You know it’s been on my mind for years now. I just wanted to see Vulture killed, and now that he has, well… I can’t really say it’s changed anything. If nothing else, it’s made me more certain of my desire to quit.”

“Fuck, I know, I know, it’s just… it’s going to be tough not having family in there, you know.”

That was the first thing Brock had said that actually made me feel a little sad to be leaving the club.

“I can see that you’re one hundred percent serious about it, so… well, you know that once you leave, you lose your Vice President privileges, right? And your voting privileges. You won’t be anything more than a common citizen to the club. And actually, you may get grief from the rest of the club as a result.”

“I’m aware.”

Again, it wasn’t like I hadn’t thought these things through.

“Look, we’re wasting time,” I said. “Just take my patch. I’ll walk out. I’ll meet you once a week or so for drinks or coffee, but I can’t be a part of this anymore.”

“And what are you going to do for work?” Brock said, desperately trying to salvage me. “You know we won’t be financially supporting you anymore. Your work for the club won’t be paid because, well, you won’t be in the club anymore and you won’t be doing work for us. It’s not like you have a college degree in your back pocket.”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” I admitted.

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