“You do a bit.” Cathy gave a wide smile. “Here, I'll take it. Go on through. Nitro knows the way.”
Nitro led them through the modern, immaculate, un-bikery, house to a large garden filled with bikers and their families.
It was a fucking party.
Nitro looked down and gave a rueful grin. “Didn't I mention it was a party?”
“No. Not a big fan of being hustled, Nitro.”
“Half an hour. If you hate it, we'll leave.” Without waiting for an answer, he put a hand on her shoulder and guided her towards a figure on a swing at the bottom of the garden who was projecting 'moody teenage goth' like anything. “Come and say hello to the birthday girl.”
The girl looked up and scowled as they approached. Apparently, Nitro was oblivious to her mood as held up the package. “Happy Birthday.” He swung on the swing frame. “If you want your present, you're gonna have to smile.”
“Fine.” She sighed and showed her teeth.
“I guess that's the best I'm gonna get.” He handed her the package. “Sorry it ain't wrapped in fancy paper, it only came yesterday.” He turned to Mouse and grinned. “This is Mouse.”
The girl didn't look up from the package. “Hi.”
Nitro rolled his eyes. “Mouse, say hi to Jules, who, any second now, is gonna throw her arms around me, an' tell me just how much she loves me.”
Jules removed the last of the brown paper and gasped. “Oh my God! Bram Stoker's Dracula!” She picked up the old book and sniffed it. “Wow, Nitro.” She jumped from the swing and threw her arms around his neck. “You're the best.”
Nitro laughed. “It ain't a first edition or anything, but it is pretty old, an' the cover's cool. I thought you'd dig it.” Gently, he pushed her away. “Careful with the PDA, darlin', big brother is just itching for an excuse to kick my ass. Me an' Mouse are gonna get some beers.” He kissed her cheek. “Go back to your sulking.”
Mouse wasn't a hand-holder, but the feeling of his strong fingers wrapped around hers was reassuring as they crossed the manicured lawn to a cool box surrounded by a clutch of bikers. There was clearly some kind of hierarchy at play, and it was obvious that Nitro was way down the pecking order. He nodded respectfully. “Brothers.”
The man with the President patch stepped forward and clapped Nitro on the shoulder. “Good of you to grace us with your presence.” He nodded toward Mouse, who still had her hand clasped tightly in Nitro's. “I assume this is the reason you missed church last night.” He grinned. “You're racking up the fines, my brother.”
“Yeah, I'll settle up tomorrow. An' I'm sorry, Prez. I forgot church had been called a day early.” Nitro squeezed her hand. “Kinda got distracted.”
The President shrugged. “You didn't miss much. Have a word with Carter, he'll fill you in about next week's run.”
It was as though she wasn't there. Neither the man who was wearing the President patch, nor any of the assembled men, had acknowledged Mouse directly, and Nitro had, at no point, introduced her. He'd taken a couple of cans from the cool box, and then engaged in conversation with a huge biker wearing a SAA patch. If it wasn't for the fact that he was still holding tightly to her hand, she'd have thought that he'd forgotten about her presence entirely. Why he was still holding it so tightly wasn't exactly clear. Maybe he thought his touch was reassuring, but Mouse suspected that it was to prevent her from escaping. Certainly, if she hadn't been completely intimidated by the burly men, hard-bitten women, and the weird protocol, she'd have freed herself and got her arse out of there.
This was a barbecue to celebrate a kid's fifteenth birthday—something that families all over the globe did—and everyone was happy and relaxed; even the moody teenager was comfortable in her miserableness. But even if this had been your average Joe Bloggs and his family, Mouse would have felt out of place, and here, other factors were in play.
Trapped and ignored, she surreptitiously watched the people as they interacted with each other. The hierarchy of the men was easy to see—they wore their rank on their chest—but the women were trickier to figure out. She'd assumed that Cathy was the President's wife, and that Jules was his daughter, but she'd been wrong. The wife of the President was a down to earth, middle-aged redhead with a loud laugh and enormous chest. Like her husband, she was at the top of the tree—albeit an inferior one—and the other women jockeyed for a place within her inner circle. Mouse had been careful to avoid making eye contact with her; being trapped with a bunch of misogynist arseholes who ignored her was infinitely preferable to being rescued by their wives who wouldn't.
A hand on her arm shook her from reverie. “Could use a hand in the kitchen, love.” Cathy smiled. “Let her go, Nitro, she'll be fine.”
Nitro looked down and raised an enquiring eyebrow. Mouse forced herself to smile. “I'm okay.”
He bent and kissed her cheek. “I won’t be long.”
Cathy took Mouse's arm and led her back into the house. “Nitro didn't tell you about the party, did he?” She handed her a bread knife and pointed to a pile of baguettes on the work top. “Can you make a start on those?”
“Okay.” Mouse began splitting the baguettes. “And no, he didn't say anything.”
“But you knew about the club.”
“Yeah.”
Cathy took a salad bowl from the fridge. “Is it a problem?”
Mouse looked out of the patio doors. Nitro was still talking with the group of men, while the women and kids occupied the chairs on the shady side of the garden. “Are you married to a Freak?”
“Yeah, but my old man is banged up and isn't going to be out for a long time. The club looks out for me—makes sure the mortgage gets paid, and keeps an eye on Jules—and my eldest is VP, so I'm as involved now as I was when he was out. This... thing, today, is really just my way of saying thanks.” She smiled. “You didn't answer my question.”
Mouse laid down the knife. “Yeah, it's a problem. I'm gonna go. Tell Nitro.... Tell him whatever. Thanks for the beer.”
She'd expected Cathy to try to talk her out of leaving, but she'd just nodded and walked with her to the front door. “Try and work things out with Nitro. He's a sweet boy when he lets himself be, and he likes you.” She kissed Mouse on the cheek. “Take care.”
~oOo~
Nitro turned as a hand touched his back. “S'up, Cath?”
“Mouse has gone.”
“Shit. Okay, thanks.” He downed the last of his beer, and grinned apologetically at his brothers. “I guess that's my cue to leave.”
Carter folded his arms and sneered. “If you spent less time chasing skirt, and more time with the club, you might actually get an officer's patch.”
Nitro pulled himself to his full height, which was still at least an inch shorter than his VP. “Yeah. Maybe I could have yours.”
“Now, now, brothers. How about we stop the pissing contest before it starts.” Biff, who towered over both of them, took a step forward, and rested his hand on Nitro's shoulder. “Say goodbye to Jules before you go, you're the only one of us she'll crack a smile for.”
“Sure thing.” He nodded to Denny. “Boss?”
Denny grinned. “Be at the club at ten next Saturday. If you're late, I'll double your fine.”
~oOo~
Most people would consider walking out of a party with no money, or means of getting to her home, a hundred and twenty miles away, as stupid. Mouse, however, wasn't most people. She wasn't sure whether Nitro would come after her, but, as was the case of many estates like this, the development was intersected by alleyways and cycle paths, so she should, in theory, be able to get to her destination without using the main roads.
Of course, she'd never actually been there before, and there was a good chance she'd get a bit lost. But the sun was shining, and she doubted Nitro would waste much time looking for her. A basic understanding of how these developments worked meant she knew she was walking in the right general direction. Estates like this consisted of low-priced social housin
g and more upmarket, private homes; all she had to do was keep her eye on the houses. The nearer she got to the retail parks and industrial estates, the poorer the area got, and the closer she got to her destination. Cathy lived in the centre—middle management row—not quite the 'executive homes' that looked out over open countryside, but not the high-density, rental homes that edged the motorway. Although she'd hit a couple of dead ends, the narrowing of alleyways and lack of outside space told her she was on track.
She was heading for a squat in a disused church in central Bristol, about five miles away. Hopefully, she'd be able to bum a lift home or, if not, it was a bed for the night—she could hitch hike home in the morning.
In the distance, she could hear the unmistakable sound of a Harley, and it seemed to be getting closer.
Shit.
In front of her was a road. The road she would've walked along, if she'd taken the obvious route.
Bollocks.
And at the end of the alley, a stupid chopper pulled up. Its owner removed his lid and folded his arms.
Bugger.
“Pretty fucking rude, Mouse.”
“No, actually, I wasn't. I said goodbye to Cathy. As she was the only person who'd acknowledged me, I didn't think anyone else would notice I was gone. Rude would have been to drop someone in the middle of a bunch of strangers and then ignore them.”
“I wasn't ignoring you. Fuck, Mouse, you're a big girl, all you had to do was wait until I'd done talking, an' we could've gone... or stayed. If you coulda got that stick outta your ass, you might've even enjoyed yourself.”
“No I wouldn't.” There didn't seem to be any point in trying to explain. Nitro would never understand how the dynamics of that little soiree had freaked her out. She was an Anarchist; her world was egalitarian. She could never be comfortable in his.
“I'm sorry, Nitro. Not for walking out—that is all on you—but I should never have let it happen in the first place.” She swallowed. “You said that if we didn't make each other happy, we should go our separate ways. I think we should do that.”
Nitro dismounted and took a step towards her. “You make me happy, punk.”
She fucking hated this about him: the way he controlled the situation. Mouse wasn't sure exactly how he did it—a combination of machismo and vulnerability, maybe—but she did know that he knew exactly what he was doing. She squared her shoulders. “There are two people standing here, and one of us is far from happy. Let's just call it a day, huh?”
“If that's what you want.” He took another step. “C'mon, I'll take you home.”
Oh, no. She wasn't going to spend two hours on the back of his bike. She wanted as many miles between them as possible. “It's okay, I'm going to stay with some friends. I can walk.”
“Okay.” He walked back to his bike and pushed it onto the path before grabbing their lids.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving my bike somewhere safe. Don't want it getting dinged while I'm walking with you.”
“Don't be a dick.” Mouse sidestepped him and crossed the road to an alley on the opposite side.
“Not being a dick.” He caught up to her. “This looks like a pretty dicey area, jus' keeping you safe.”
There seemed little point in arguing, so, with her chin in the air, Mouse upped the pace, and kept on walking.
For half an hour, they walked in silence. Despite keeping her eyes fixed firmly in front of her, Mouse was acutely aware of the man at her side. And she didn't believe, for one moment, that he wasn't faking that limp.
The alleyway opened out onto 'A recreational area to enhance the local environment' or, patch of muddy grass with a broken swing and a burned out car.. Mouse headed for a bench—even vandals have to sit down sometimes—and sat down.
“You got any of that weed?”
Nitro pulled a bag from his boot. “Yup.” He sat next to her, and laughed. “Kinda thought you'd've caved or we'd got to where we were going before now. How far is this place?”
“We're nearly halfway, so you're fucked whichever way you turn, biker boy.”
“Fuck, Mouse. Why didn't you say something?”
“I assumed you weren't stupid enough to walk all the way to the city centre.” She squinted at him. “Your leg really is hurting isn't it?”
He shrugged, and began to roll a joint. “Some vicious little punk kicked me in the shin a while back. It's still a bit sore. Why d'ya run out on me, Mouse?”
She looked at her hands. “Your friends—you—hurt people for money.”
“Sometimes we do it for fun.”
“I don't doubt it. And it's not just that.” She sighed. “I don't want to be with a Freak, Nitro.” She took the joint from him. “Come on, I'll walk you back to your bike, then you can give me a ride home.”
“Sit down, Mouse.” She turned and raised an eyebrow, and he grinned. “Please.”
“You won’t change my mind.” Mouse sat back down and passed him the joint.
Nitro shrugged and pulled a face. “How about you listen to what I have to say, anyway.”
She didn't want to. “The floor's yours, biker boy.”
He grinned and kissed her on the eyebrow. “Sorry, I couldn't resist.” He took a long pull on the joint. “When I was ten, I was gonna play for Man Utd. I was gonna play for England. I was gonna win the World, fucking, Cup.” There was a bitterness that Mouse had never heard before. “I dunno if I'd've ever achieved that, but I was captain of St Barts Junior School, an' I was going places. Then my mom decided to fuck some guy at her work, an I found myself on the other side of the world, where no one gave a shit about 'soccer' an' the kids who played 'football' were big scary fuckers who liked beating on skinny little kids with dorky accents. I was in a shitty little town in Nevada, with no friends, an' nothing to do. But what we did have, was space—lots of it—so my dad got me a dirt bike.” He grinned, “things kinda got better after that.”
He passed her the joint. “When I was around thirteen or fourteen, I'd blown off school, an' gone out on my bike as usual. It was real quiet, an' I figured no one would notice me if I rode along the highway. I lost it on a bend, an' ended up kissing the asphalt. The guy who found me, an' slapped me upside the head, before dragging me back home, was a Freak. He'd scared the shit outta me—my dad too—but I thought it'd be cool to be like that.”
He leaned back and stretched his leg out in front of him. “Then this happened. The guy who ran me down was drunk, but he was a deputy an' the son of the Mayor. So despite the fact that he'd dragged me twenty feet along Main Street before leaving me for dead in broad daylight, there were a dozen people who swore, under oath, that he was somewhere else.
“While I was in hospital, the local chapter of the Freaks did a toy run. I was too old for all that shit, an' was still pretty fucked up, but one of the ol' ladies came an sat beside me for a while. I don't remember what we talked about, just that I thought she was real pretty, an' I kinda forgot about it. About a month later, the dude who hit me was killed in a wreck, an' when I got home from the hospital, the Freaks had built a ramp so I could get my wheelchair into the front door, an' converted the garage into a bedroom.”
“You think the Freaks killed him?”
“I dunno. If they did, it would've been for more than just that. I was glad he was dead, though.”
“And that's why you joined the Freaks?”
“I guess. They were kinda around after that. Missy, the ol' lady, took an interest in me, an' made sure I had everything I needed—it was her who got me into reading. My dad's insurance wasn't great, but the Freaks raised money for therapy an' for a decent leg. They showed me how to adapt my bike, an' when Missy saw my drawings, got me an apprenticeship at a tattoo parlour. I was a scrawny kid with no friends, an' I thought my life was over before it began. It probably woulda been had it not been for the Freaks. They've been part of my life ever since.”
Mouse wasn't sure why he'd told her his story; it hadn't changed her mind, an
d she didn't think that was what he was trying to do. She stood and, without waiting for him, started to walk back to his bike.
Nitro caught up and put his hand on her shoulder as they walked. “I love the club, Mouse, an' I owe it a lot, but I've seen what happens when brothers put it ahead of everything else.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I ain't like that.”
She knew he didn't really understand, and that she'd never really be able to explain it to him. She tilted her head. “Will you take me to Bath? There are some people I'd like you to meet.”
“Sure.”
She grinned. “Oh, and you keep forgetting to limp.”
10
Mouse hadn't elaborated about why she wanted them to go to Bath, and Nitro hadn't asked. He'd figured he'd find out when he got there.
He realised, now, that taking her to Cathy's place had been a mistake. He'd wanted her to see that The Freaks were more than just a bunch of misogynist thugs, but all he'd done was reinforce her preconceptions. He still didn't think that this was insurmountable—it was a glitch was all. Given time, Mouse would see that these were good people, and he knew they would accept her into the family.
They were good together. More than good.
All he had to do was make Mouse see.
They hadn't talked much as they walked. Mouse hadn't been in a talkative mood, and the bruise on his shin had felt like an egg as it rubbed against his prosthetic, and was starting to piss him off. He hadn't wanted to be abrupt and snappy with her, so he'd shut up.
She seemed to prefer it that way.
He didn't know the area around Bath well, but as they rode through countryside that could only be described as verdant, and villages that were almost too picturesque to be real, he vowed to return and explore further. Mouse directed him along hedge-lined roads that were narrower than some of the sidewalks back home to a dilapidated farmhouse at the end of a well maintained track. Before he'd even killed the engine, Nitro was aware of figures approaching, and they didn't look exactly friendly.
Mouse grinned. “You might want to take off your cut, biker boy.”
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