See You in Valhalla

by MariaLisa deMora

  Focus back on her mark, she batted her eyelashes, face turned far enough towards him that he could see her smile. Sell it, she thought. Make him think you want it. His mouth opened, and she was already gearing up to agree when their forced transaction was interrupted by a racket from up the hallway. She heard muffled shouts in at least three languages, and doors slammed, the loud reverberation of metal impacting against stone walls rolling through the air and shivering through the cot underneath her.

  Nerves prickled throughout her body, and she whirled to stare past the bars, as far up the hallway as her position allowed. The men in the chairs had all turned in the same direction, their faces going pasty white, and she noticed something she hadn’t seen before. Each of them bore a mark on his wrist, a black slash across the thin skin. She’d seen the same marks before, but not on men. It had been branded into the upper arms of children rescued from a sex farm.

  Finally. In her mind, the connection she’d been looking to make for six long months came clear.

  The air turned heavy and then left in a whoosh, traveling up the hallway towards the disturbance.

  Carly threw herself from the cot, leaving it clanking and swaying behind her as she scrambled into the corner of the cell, dragging the scant protection of the mattress behind her.

  The air caught fire a few moments after she’d huddled in on herself, arms holding the mattress around herself protectively as she pushed into the angle created by two walls.

  The flashover only lasted a few seconds, still long enough to have the fabric on her back nearly hot enough to smolder, the exposed skin on her body stinging. Echoing effects of what she assumed was a blast were deafening, and when she turned and pushed the mattress out of the way to look at the hallway, she saw the stark results. The three men were still upright in their chairs, clothing burned away and exposing the restraints she hadn’t realized were holding them to the flaming chairs. Their mouths were open in screams, long, thin warbles of sound that dug into her ears, setting up a resonance in her head she knew she’d never completely get rid of.

  A man stepped into view, hulking shoulders eclipsing the light coming from behind him. He eased around the men and grabbed the door of her cell, giving it a hard shake even as he hissed in pain. Pulling back, he lifted a massive boot and kicked twice, the hinges of the door giving way finally.

  Carly licked her lips and stood staring at the opening for only a minute. She turned her gaze to the man and lifted her chin in response to his similar movement, then tried on a grin that felt much too small for her lips. “All this, for me?”

  “Get over here.” His gruff demand caused a hot burning at the backs of her eyes, and Carly slowly slid her lids closed as she blindly walked into his arms. His mouth was beside her ear a moment later, and over the dwindling screams of the dying men, she heard him say brokenly, “Sister, I’m sorry.”

  “Nope.” Fingers clutching at the back of his shirt, she shook her head, rough fabric dragging in the tears streaming down her cheeks. She knew what he was going to say, because it was the same guilt she’d have carried if it were him lost and locked up in a place like this. He’d be feeling responsible, and she needed to nip this in the bud before he tried to take on more than what was truly his. “You found me. That’s all that matters.”

  “Carly.” The single word carried so much pain, and she hated to hear it.

  “Ryman, I’m alive. Everything else is recoverable.” She shuffled backwards a step and peered up into his face, noting the new lines etched into his features. Gaunter than the last time she’d seen him; his hair and beard were unkempt. She knew it was because he’d spent all his time between then and now looking for her. There was a raised ridge of tissue that ran under one ear and down the back of his neck. Her lungs clenched at the sight of the red, angry, and very new scar. He didn’t have that three months ago. During her abduction had been the last time she’d seen Ryman. For twelve long weeks, her recurring dreams had reminded her every night that she’d been taken as he lay crumpled on the floor, his head covered by a wash of red. He got that protecting me. “Got anything for me?”

  He stared at her for a long moment as the sounds of fighting in the distance diminished and ended. Whatever he’d seen in her face had been enough, because he nodded and shrugged out of a backpack, slinging it across his chest to access the compartments. In short order, he handed her a Glock, then a rig for her shoulder along with a Sig Sauer, and finally a bundle of fabric wrapped around something heavy. She backed to the cot and looked down, then gestured towards him with a flip of one hand.

  “Got a camera?” He nodded and hesitated before he took a step inside, leaning back almost immediately and looking up the hallway. He waved once, which she took to mean his guys had won, then stalked towards her, pulling out a phone. She pointed to the flat metal surface exposed when she’d moved the mattress. He aimed the device and triggered it, the blinding flash startling her as it revealed the scratches in the paint and metal. Names and dates, and cryptic letters describing the details around why she’d recorded the information. “It’s him, and this proves it. It’s him, Ryman. With the marks on those men’s arms, this is everything we need.”

  “Jesus, Carly.” He grabbed the metal cot and held it still, moving to take more pictures of the additional information.

  She stripped efficiently, dragging the clean clothing over her body. She’d hoped to hide the still-healing wound from Ryman but knew she’d been unsuccessful when he cursed lowly, the sound harsh in the quiet surrounding them. Without looking over her shoulder, she told him, “Knife, nearly a month ago. I’m okay, Ryman.” She used the ragged clothing she’d discarded to wipe her feet, standing on top of the boots he’d provided to pull on the thick socks, then the boots themselves. The holster rig was last, and she shrugged into it, rolling her shoulders a couple of times to settle it into place before tightening the straps. Glock in hand, she took a final look around the cell, this twelve-by-sixteen room that had been her entire world for far too long. Suddenly, the few minutes that had passed since Ryman kicked in the door seemed an eternity, and she was overwhelmed with the need to get out, get away. “Ready?” Her voice wasn’t steady, but fortunately Ryman ignored that telling quaver, answering her with a grunt as he moved ahead of her towards the hallway.

  “You’re alive.” She didn’t know if he’d intended the words as positive reinforcement or a promise, but she took them at face value, a reassurance her partner of three years needed to get past the knowledge that she’d been abducted and he’d been left behind for dead.

  She hadn’t been able to save him, either.

  “We both are.”

  Three

  Neptune

  “Hold on, hold on.” Laughter interspersed with the words, light and free. “Hold on, dammit.” More laughter, and on the TV screen, the group of men clustered in a group paused, lofting the chair with the man installed like a throne. “Put me down already.”

  “No way.” Shouted agreement with the denial was also liberally sprinkled through with laughter. “You’re in the king seat, brother.”

  “All right then, if you’re gonna do this thing, do it up right.”

  Neptune watched the face of the man in the cheap plastic lawn chair, smiling as Gibby made a show of lifting his arms, proving trust of the men holding him high. Like a little kid at an amusement park, he danced his hands through the air, swooping side to side as the chair moved, just as if he were in the front seat of a roller coaster. Hair blowing into his face, Gibby shouted for a beer—and when it came in an underhand toss, caught it easily. The top popped with a loud hiss, froth bubbling out and over the men below him.

  Through the shouted insults and laughter, Gibby’s voice was clear as he called out, “Fuck, I shoulda shook it. Christened all your asses.”

  Neptune paused the video there and stared at the screen.

  Wide smile stretching from ear to ear, Gibby looked as easy and relaxed as if he’d been floating down the ri
ver in an innertube. Nothing about his face said he was poised for a crash six feet above the ground. There was no stress, no strain, and no fear on his features. There was only trust. A deep and abiding trust in his men, his brothers, the members of the club he’d chartered.

  Neptune hung his head and stared at his hands clasped between his knees, remote wedged between his palms. It was a week after the wake, and he was back in Gibby’s house, sorting through what remained. Which was proving to be a lot.

  The club had come together the previous few days, finishing with the Borderline Freaks portion of the things Gibby’d left behind. Those artifacts were all gone, cleared out, in storage at the clubhouse waiting for an appropriate way to display the founder’s roots that had given their club life.

  Now it was just Gibby’s personal items, and Neptune had taken it on, turning away all offers of assistance, needing this chance to say goodbye to the best friend he’d ever had. He’d known Gibby for years and loved him like a brother through all of those.

  Until half an hour ago, he’d have said he and Gibby knew each other inside and out, stem to stern and back again. The video he’d been watching had been one of a dozen on a thumb drive Neptune had found on Gibby’s nightstand. They were all from club events.

  He glanced down at a book on the coffee table in front of him, then back up at the screen, trying to reconcile the man he’d known with the one depicted in the images bound inside that book.

  One was the free and easy biker, club president and mentor, driving force behind all things BFMC.

  The other was a starry-eyed newlywed, doting father, and complete stranger to Neptune.

  Hidden in a box within a box underneath Gibby’s bed, the photo album had been buried underneath layer after layer of loose images. Pictures of the club, faces growing younger with each exposed layer, until he’d found an image of Gibby without a vest. There was a hearse in the background, a tent in the grass with lines of chairs underneath, and row after row of granite stretching off into the distance.

  In the foreground of the picture was Gibby. Palm resting on the handlebars of a bike, he was straddling the seat. This version of the not-yet-old Gibby was staring straight at the camera, a girl of maybe fourteen balanced in front of him. He looked stricken, but the agony plain on his face held nothing on the little girl’s. She looked enough like Gibby to make the connection easy, even with her red-rimmed eyes that spoke of deep pain. On the back of the picture was a date and one word: Carly.

  Inside the photo album was a linear record of Gibby’s life before the club. High school graduation, prom king with an arm slung around a girl who’d appeared in a multitude of other images in those pages. The pretty girl from prom was even more gorgeous dressed all in white, lilies held low in front of her swelling baby bump. Basic training, first deployments, rotations home for leave. Neptune’s throat closed as he looked at Gibby’s face in profile, eyes closed as his lips pressed gently against the sweet curve of a baby’s head, pink bow in the background.

  There were jumps in the timeline, the baby going from infant to her sixth birthday within a couple of pages, luminous blue eyes and a snaggle-toothed smile staring from across the top of a peppermint cake. The images skimmed her childhood, pool parties followed by awkward poses in formal dresses alongside hulking jocks. Then a picture of the girl, little no more, dark hair pinned in a severe bun that went perfectly with her fatigues, arm around Gibby.

  Neptune clicked around on the laptop he’d connected to the TV until he found the file on the thumb drive he wanted. Not a video, but an audio recording; the timestamp was just over three years ago.

  “Daddy.” Crisp and clear, just that one word held affection enough for a lifetime. Neptune closed his eyes. “I’ve got a chance to make a difference. It’s him, Daddy. I know it is. I can do this. I know you won’t like it, but it’s what I want to do. Remember that, okay? This is my choice. I’m going to be out of touch for a while.” She paused, and her voice was huskier when she continued. “Probably for a long time. Don’t look for me. I’ll let you know when it’s safe for me to be in contact again. It’s… This is my choice.” The emphasis on those last words wasn’t lost on Neptune. Clearly Gibby would have lost his mind at whatever she’d been planning. “My handlers said they’d take care of telling you, but I know you, Daddy. You’d have come looking for me anyway. I can hear you now, telling me, ‘Damn, Carly, you got some balls on you.’ I can make a difference, Daddy. I have to do this. I’ll be safe as I can be, I promise.” Her voice wavered for the first time when she repeated herself. “I promise.” There was another quiet pause, but the recording continued, so Neptune kept listening. “So this is for those birthdays and Christmases I might miss. Father’s Day, too. Happy Christmairthday, Daddy. I love you.” As with the previous times Neptune had listened, what followed was the hiss of dead air, then a click, and the recording ended.

  Gibby had a daughter. Who, if the statement about her handlers was correct, had gone undercover on some kind of sting operation more than three years ago. Whatever it was had been serious enough that Gibby had erased any mark of her in his house. Neptune remembered the first time he’d come to his president’s house for dinner and silently noted the empty places on the walls. He suspected those places had once been filled with some of the images he’d found inside the box.

  Gibby had a daughter.

  It struck him suddenly that he’d set the state police looking for her. Neptune found himself seized by an uncharacteristic hesitation, unsure in that instant if he should call Putnam and wave them off. He could have a quiet conversation and disclose what he’d found here today, but what if that only spurred the man onward? If he claimed to have found her himself, would that be enough to throw the man off the scent?

  If whatever she was doing was dangerous enough that Gibby had wiped her from his life, never breathing a word about her, was it possible Neptune had put her into the very danger Gibby’d been trying to save her from?

  He heard a rattling sound from the back of the house and made a mental note to plan on a prospects’ day at Gibby’s. He could set them to the task of trimming up the bushes and tree limbs and preparing the house to sit empty. Even if Gibby’d left it to the club, Neptune was damned if he knew what to do with it. He couldn’t even think of selling it, not with all the memories every member had of this house and meals sitting at the same table as their president. Moments that mattered to the men, those of being seen by and having their company valued by a man they admired.

  Glancing around, he realized it had grown dark as he’d sat here, night falling outside, stretching shadowy fingers into the room. Even the computer had gone to sleep, leaving both screens dark.

  The rattle came again, sounding more metallic, a scrape and drag that had his hair standing up on end. Someone was trying to break in. Wouldn’t be a BFMC member. They all knew where the extra key was, and Neptune was pretty sure he hadn’t locked the front door anyway. Whoever this was, they were attempting a stealth entry at the rear of the building, and the anger bubbling inside him ensured he’d be foiling whatever plans they had.

  Not on my watch.

  Soft-footing it up the hallway, he paused in the doorway leading into the kitchen to listen, rewarded by a hushed indrawn breath from the mudroom. It was followed by a stealthy click of the door seating into the latch. They’re inside. A darker shadow crept along the floor, stretching halfway across the room. He held still and watched; something about that shadow was disquieting in a way he didn’t understand. It lengthened and thinned the farther the form got from the window allowing the moonlight, and it felt somehow frail to him.

  A figure appeared in the doorway and stepped through. Shorter than he’d expected; their shoulders seemed narrower than they should have been. Then, something in the way they moved told him the truth. A woman.

  Chin up, he took a step into the room and clipped a curt, “Hey.”

  She whirled to face him, fine features exposed for only an instant
in the uncertain light, yet he still recognized her. Red-rimmed lids held the same luminous blue eyes she’d shared with her father.

  “Carly.” She stiffened when he said her name but didn’t deny it, instead retorting with an angry-sounding curse.

  “Why are you in my father’s house?” Her demand was brittle, shards of pain laced through the broken sounds. “Who are you?”

  “Hey, I’m a friend of your dad’s.” Neptune swept the wall with his hand, finally connecting with the switch for the overhead fixture, flooding the room with light and pushing back the shadows. “I’m a friend.”

  “I don’t have any friends here.” She was blinking in the sudden brightness, pale cheeks showing the shining tracks of recent tears. “Just my dad.”

  “You’re Carly, right?” Her chin lifted as her shoulders arched back, stance forming an almost perfect parade rest that spoke volumes to her continued involvement with the military. “Gibby’s little girl?” Fuck, does she even know?

  His fears were put to rest with her next question. “You know…knew my dad?”

  Neptune nodded, taking another step into the room, holding one hand down low. He touched his chest with his other. “Yeah, he was my best friend. Carly, I… We tried to get in touch with you.”

  “So I heard.” She shuffled back a step and put her hip against the edge of the counter. “Until two days ago I was unreachable.” Her neck sagged, head hanging low, hair in a tumble around her face. “I came as soon as I was notified.”