liked my life, but it didn’t”—he pressed his hand over his sternum and rubbed— “it didn’t offer me any contentment. I started on this path because I wanted answers.”
“Did you find them?” Forge asked.
Jude closed his eyes, but he couldn’t speak. Not yet.
After a beat, Forge took a breath. “I was prospecting for a club. My brother and a couple of his friends were patched in. He’s like fifteen years older than me, so it was kind of all I knew.” When he went quiet, Jude looked over at him. This close, he could see scars on the left side of his face and down his neck and patchy skin on his hand where it had been clearly sewn together. “We were never close. Ridge was pretty much estranged from my parents by the time I was born—and I didn’t really blame him, but he got me in. He probably figured the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”
“And did it?” Jude couldn’t help but ask.
Forge laughed. “I’m still not sure we even came from the same tree.” He pushed his fingers through his hair, then turned around to lean his back against the fence. “I still got into all that shit. I thought it was what I was supposed to do, you know? Shoot up whatever they gave me, fuck whatever landed in my lap that night, finish any errand they gave me.” He rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. “I figured if I hung on long enough, they’d eventually want me to stay.” Jude watched his hand drift to the brace at his waist that was holding his leg on.
Jude sucked in his breath. “Is that when…?”
Forge’s gaze followed Jude’s to where his hand was resting, and his mouth twisted in a half-smile. “We were on a run—this club was into some heavy shit. Trafficking drugs, weapons,” he shrugged. “People. It was raining, and”—he blew out a heavy puff of air—“I don’t think the guy in the truck saw me before he hit my bike. He pinned me between his truck and a semi. I was dragged for…god knows how long.” Forge’s head tipped down, his gaze on his boots. “I don’t remember much. I was in a coma for about two weeks. Came to with my entire fuckin’ leg gone, face all scraped up, half the skin on my arm missing. Ridge was there for a while—probably just waiting to see if I was gonna live or die. A couple weeks after I could stand on my own, and I wasn’t shaking too much from my withdrawals, the hospital gave me some shitty starter wheelchair and a fat bill and told me good luck.”
Jude squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think about what life would have been like for Eliah if he’d been treated like he was not worth saving. When he looked back at Forge, his heart constricted at what he found. No bitterness, no anger. Just a sort of resignation to his own fate.
“I got back to my place only to find it locked up and all my shit in boxes. Couple of the other Enforcers were there, asking for my cut.” Forge tugged on the end of his, like an absent gesture, and Jude’s gaze settled on the patch that read Sgt-At-Arms. “I wasn’t any use to them if I couldn’t ride.”
“That’s bollocks,” Jude muttered.
Forge’s eyes lit up with his grin. “Yeah, it fuckin’ was. But I didn’t know what the fuck to do about it, so I just…left. There was this old church that took up a charity for me to get into rehab. It wasn’t half-bad, if you don’t mind the whole talkin’ in tongues shit. Tried to heal me a couple times, and I realized they really were waiting for God to grow my leg back or something.”
Jude couldn’t help his grin, even as he shook his head. He never did understand the faith healers—the sort of damn-near pagan-ritual hysteria of the religion that gripped the States. “I take it that failed.”
“Up to now,” Forge said with a wink. “At least with my leg. The rehab got me clean though, and I was grateful for that.” He went silent a long moment. “I probably never would have looked at another club again if it weren’t for Smokey. I went to work in an auto shop, started modifying my bike so I could ride with my leg. I guess word spread, and he showed up one day with