98 - Jasper

*Amos, I trust you. Believe it or not, I always have. And I’m proud of you. I think you’re the right person to raise my children if Keisha and I can’t. - Jasper*

Although Camille was grateful that her brother and club brothers had flown down, she thought that the invasion of their home would be a little much for three grieving kids. Glancing over at Darkness, she could tell that he had the same opinion.

“Critter,” she used his road name to let him know that she had something important to say.

“Umm, yeah?” he asked, and she could hear the confusion in his voice.

“I love you, and I am so damn glad that you guys are here.”

“Love you too, Worm,” he chuckled. “But I hear a but in that statement.”

She laughed as she turned into the neighborhood that Jasper and Keisha’s house was in. “But I think we need to give these kids some time before the Saints invade.”

“Oh, yeah, totally. What? Hang on, Camille.”

His voice became muffled as he covered the microphone to speak with someone else. She was able to catch a few words here and there. There was something about a cabin and then he laughed, and she clearly heard “Of course, she did.” After a few more muffled words, he came back to his conversation on the phone.

“You’ll never guess what kind of car our mother reserved for us.”

Laughing, Camille stopped at an intersection, waiting for a few cars to pass before turning onto the road that they needed to go down. “Just going to throw this out there, and I could be wrong, but I’m going to say a Jeep.”

“Oh. My. God.” He asked with feigned surprise. “How did you ever guess?”

“It just spoke to me,” she said dryly as she turned.

“Yeah, a Wrangler –“

“Of course,” she agreed with her brother.

“- and one of those pickup things.”

“Pickup things?” Darkness asked as Camille slowed down for the curve just before his brother’s house.

“He means the Gladiator,” she explained. “Chris, we’re here. I’ll send you the address when we’re ready for you to come over.”

“Sounds good,” he agreed solemnly. “We’re going to go find our cabin. And that bitch better have air conditioning. Fuck it’s hot down here.”

She pulled into the driveway and placed the Jeep in park. “Love you, Chris.”

“Love you, too, little sis.”

Using the controls on the steering wheel, she ended the call and angled her body towards Darkness. “Do you want me to wait out here? Or go in with you?”

He unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned over to cup her cheek before kissing her. “I love you.”

Reaching up, she threaded her fingers into his beard, “I love you.”

“I’m so glad that you’re here with me. That you’re here for the kids. That you had the foresight to talk to someone and plan for becoming a mother figure for kids nearly your age.”

Leaning in, she kissed him again. “I’ll be honest, it helped me to deal with Brute’s death. I needed something else to focus on and Carly let me. Until she didn’t.”

“I think I like Carly, and I don’t think that I’ve ever even met her,” Darkness admitted as he leaned in for one more light kiss.

They both jumped when someone tapped on the window behind Darkness. Laughing, he turned and saw Vin standing outside. Camille unsnapped her seatbelt and turned off the engine as they both opened their doors and stepped out.

“Grandma just called, dad passed away about five minutes ago,” the teen said as Darkness pulled him into a hug.

Camille’s phone rang and she grabbed the device out of the holder. Seeing Dr. Catherine Devereux on the screen, she caught Darkness’ attention. “I need to take this. Why don’t you guys go inside, and I’ll be in in just a minute.”

Darkness could sense the difference in her demeanor and nodded. She watched them approach the house as she clicked the button to answer the call. She did not hide her anger when she answered the phone.

“This is Camille.” She opened the back door and let Tink jump out.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said. “I was overridden.”

“By who?”

“Administration,” she said in a soft voice.

“No. I want to know who. I need a name.”

“Keisha’s family has a lot of pull,” it almost sounded like she was covering her mouth to keep others from hearing what she was saying, “and they demanded that he be taken off life support.”

Camille took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Did the kids get to say goodbye?”

“I … honestly, I don’t know, but I don’t think so,” she said with her voice dropping to a whisper. “Don’t hang up.” In her regular voice, the doctor said something odd. “Love you too, mom. I’ll talk to you later.”

After a moment, Camille activated the recording feature on her phone. She listened angrily as Dominique’s voice was ordering people to move out of the way and to release the body. She muted her microphone and left the program recording the call and headed inside the house. She found Darkness sitting on the couch with Vin and Mitch on either side of him and Nicki on his lap.

“Babe, I need your phone, please.”

Shifting, he produced it from somewhere, and she was not sure where. Even when she accepted the other phone, she never took hers away from her ear. With his phone in her hand, she walked back outside as she scrolled through his contacts.

When Celt answered, she was barely hanging onto her temper as she listened to Dominique on the other end of her phone.

“What’s up, my man?”

“Damn do I ever wish you were here.”

“Oh, hey, Camille,” he sounded a little too happy in her opinion. “Wish granted.”

“What? Chris didn’t mention that you were here.”

“Yeah, he left several of out of his little list.”

“Who all is here?”

“Me, Bam Bam, Duke, Rino, Dax and Chowder.”

She pictured each of the men as he slowly named them. They all worked for his family law firm or were involved in law enforcement in some way. Duke was a noncommissioned peace officer with the school district. Bam Bam worked in the courts. Rino and Dax worked for the O’Malley family law firm. Chowder was a cook at the county jail.

“Celt, what’s going on?”

“I can’t say anything.”

“Celt…” she drew out his name and he chuckled.

“Camille, your mom thought that it would be best if I was here –“

“Shawn.”

He sighed. “Day after tomorrow, the presidents will have to go file a missing person’s report.”

She fell silent as she contemplated what that meant. They had purposely sent everyone in the club that had taken an oath to the courts or to uphold the law. A missing person’s report would be filed.

This meant only one thing. Someone was going to die. And if she were to guess, it would be a brother. There were very few things that could get a brother killed by the club. And it had to be a unanimous decision.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” she admitted. “Keisha’s mother got them to take Jasper off the life support and the kids did not get to say goodbye. Plus, they were told over the phone.”

A sound behind her had her turning to see Darkness approaching with a scowl.

“Vin just got a call from Destiny and she’s on her way to get the kids.”

“The hell she is,” Camille declared as she opened the back door to her Jeep and grabbed a binder out of the back seat pocket. She then grabbed Tink’s bed and tossed it into the back. “Go get the kids. Celt, meet me at the hospital. Bring Bam Bam.”

It was crowded with all five of them, and a dog, crammed into her Jeep. At the hospital, she got out and took Tink and her binder with her. Leaning through the driver’s side window, she gave Darkness a quick kiss, before she promised the kids that they would be okay.

Celt handed Darkness a piece of paper as Vin moved to the front passenger seat. “This is the, um, Sid called it a cabin, that we’re staying at.”

Vin leaned over and looked at the paper. “That’s a lodge up on the lake.”

“Can you get him there?” Celt asked and Vin nodded. “No GPS.”

Darkness nodded and pulled away as the Saints pulled on face masks that had the O’Malley, Tulley and Burch logo on them. The two men in suits and well-trimmed beards led the way inside. Their temperatures were checked, and they were given hand sanitizer before being directed to the offices.

Bam Bam found a seat out of the way. Celt was the smooth talker. Bam Bam was the legal muscle.