“What’s wrong with you? You were fine, and then you just weren’t.” His head dipped, his eyes bright and knowing. “When your brother mentioned whoever that Mercy person is – that is a person, right? And not the dog? I honest to God can’t tell.”
She felt her lips form a smile, but she was deep inside her own head, somewhere back behind her face and whatever mannequin expression it managed to propel toward him. “I’m just tired,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong.”
“Okay, clearly, I don’t know jack shit about all this biker nonsense” – a part of her recoiled against that phrasing – “but I know you well enough to know that something’s up. It was like someone flipped a switch back there at the…the…”
“Clubhouse.”
“Yeah.” He reached for a lock of her dark brown hair and gave it a little tug. “You’re not yourself.”
Maybe, she thought bitterly, you don’t know when I’m being “myself.” You wouldn’t like me if you ever saw the real me.
Reading this chapter was an exercise in what my mom likes to call giving myself some grace, because I wanted to rewrite the entire thing. I wouldn't change anything that happens, that's all fine and necessary, but I very much wanted to change the way I describe all of it. I think that's going to be something that plagues me through the read-along. It's been ten years, and I'm a stronger, better writer now...but now is not the time to invest time and effort into the herculean task of rewriting this monster. I'm choosing to see it as a net positive that, ten years later, I've grown enough as a writer to see where I would tighten and adjust my old work.
Anyway. Chapter Two introduces us to some more major players, chiefly Maggie and Carter. The queen is busy getting the clubhouse set up for the big party, and we also meet her fellow old ladies. It was a little surreal to see Ava thinking of herself as not being one of them: she's still unattached to a Dog here, and after ten years of writing her as Mrs. Lecuyer, it's startling to go back to the time before.
I said in the FB group last week that I think Maggie is one of the characters who changes the least over the course of the series, and I definitely stand by that statement. As much as I love writing characters who struggle, and who overcome, and who learn about themselves and their families in the process, this ragtag group of characters needs a rock, and that's Mags. I don't think she ever lets anyone down over the course of ten books...although, to be fair, Aidan's a little bummed after LHM for obvious reasons. He gets it, but it still stings.
Speaking of struggling, poor Carter's in a not-great place here in Chapter Two. His dreams of a bright future have been shattered, and he's more than a little lost in life, searching for a purpose. I think that's something that attracts men to outlaw MCs in real life - that need for a purpose, feeling out of options and shut out from society - and it's something I tried to bring to life with Dartmoor. No one successful and well-adjusted prospected with the club, though many of them ended up that way after patching in.
Anyone reading Fearless for the first time probably feels bad for Ronnie at this point. Ava isn't acting like herself - or she isn't acting like the version of herself Ronnie has always known. Chapter Two is the beginning of the end for them: every second spent in Knoxville she feels more divided, and his insistence that something is wrong only makes her resent him more. In this chapter, we see Ronnie starting to push back against her emotional whiplash.
Of course, knowing what I do about Ronnie, it's hard for me to feel too bad for him.
In Chapter Two, we "lay eyes" on Mercy, but we don't see Ava interact with him. It was important to me that he stand out physically in his scene to really drive home what a blow the sight of him is for Ava. I'll admit, and I think it's obvious in the glimpse we catch of him through Ava's eyes here, that I did not initially envision Jason Momoa when crafting Mercy. There's only a tiny handful of characters I had actors in mind for from the start, and Mercy wasn't one of them. But my friend Lisa mentioned him in the early days of Dartmoor, and it caught on quick with readers. At this point, I think Jason's the universally accepted head-canon, and his real-life personality is a good fit for Mercy.
Comments, questions? Drop them below, or head over to the FB group to join the book club discussion! Grab a copy of the book if you haven't and read along with us!
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