by Voss, Deja
Gavin pounds on the storm door. The screens are busted out of every window of the dingy place, porch falling in, if I didn’t know better, I’d think this was the same place Josie and Lena grew up in. The smell is definitely similar, maybe just a hint more acrid, like someone is currently in the process of smoking a crack pipe.
“I told you I’d have your money by the first!” a piercing scream rings through the open window. “Get the fuck outta here, Bubba. I’ll get a PFA on your ass.”
“Gina?” I ask. Helena had said she’d found Jesus according to her father, but that must be slang for intravenous drugs, cuz when I catch a glimpse of her through the window, I can barely believe the girl standing before me used to be the pretty young woman who danced in Esther’s club.
“I told you!” she screams.
“I’m outta here,” Gavin says, shaking his head. I grab him by the back of the t-shirt.
“Gina, it’s us,” Gavin says. “It’s Brooks and Gavin. From high school? From the ranch?”
“Oh my God,” she whines, her demeanor instantly changing from screaming banshee to downright polite. “Give me a minute. I wasn’t expecting company.”
“This is gonna be fun,” Gavin says sarcastically. Five minutes and a lot of pounding and shuffling around later, and she pulls open the door. Her frame is skeletal, her hair tucked up in a sloppy bun on her head, and her eyes are sunken in. It’s hard not to stare at the track marks on her arms, but I can’t tell if they’re more repulsive than the dog shitting on her carpet behind her as she stands in the doorway.
“You wanna come in?” she asks.
“No,” Gavin says, holding his hands up in the air.
“Whatever,” I say. “We were just dropping by to see what you were up to. We’re reopening the ranch this weekend for a rally, and thought you might wanna make some cash.”
I don’t think anyone wants to see her dance in this condition, but that’s not the point. The point is, I need everyone to think she’s dancing this weekend. Especially her dad. She is the bait that’s going to bring him right where we fucking need him, right up onto our home field. I don’t care if she ever sets foot on that stage, so long as she’s the headliner of our event.
“How much cash?” she asks, looking over her shoulder nervously.
“Does it matter?” Gavin asks. I swat him in the stomach. I know he wants no parts of this girl, she’s nothing but trouble, but you catch more flies with honey.
“How much do you need?” I ask.
“Well, probably a lot,” she says. “My dad’s gonna be pissed. Probably take my allowance away if he finds out. He didn’t like me dancing there. Said I was ruining my life and trashing the family name.”
“But living in this shit hole and stabbing needles in your arms isn’t?” Gavin says under his breath. I shoot him a look, and he walks away.
“I’ll get you whatever you need, babe,” I say. I pull out a hundred-dollar bill from my wallet and hand it to her. “Don’t be stupid with this. I need you in one piece Saturday.”
“I’ll be good,” she says. “I promise, baby. I miss dancing so much. Working for Esther was some of the happiest times of my life. I feel so bad about what happened.”
If only she knew. Hell, maybe she does. I don’t want to get into all that with her, though. I just need to keep my eyes on the prize. I’m sure everything will come to light soon enough. Three more days of pretending.
“I’ll send a car for you at five,” I tell her. She’s already texting away on her cell phone, probably chomping at the bit to get her next fix. It’s sad on one hand, seeing a pretty girl get herself hooked on the junk, but I don’t have time to pity her. I sure as shit can’t save her. Esther already tried, and look at what happened to her.
“Fuck…” I say to Gavin, trailing off, as we walk down the road to our bikes. “Talk about a train wreck. Girl really let herself go.”
“She’s a cunt,” Gavin says, shrugging. “Got my sister killed. Fucked my club all up. If we didn’t need her I’d probably help her overdose myself.”
“You’re a sick fuck,” I say, knowing that I probably would’ve been saying the same thing right now if it weren’t for Helena. Hell, I probably would’ve already dealt with her and her father. I’ve been on a killing spree for the last year, and now that I’m actually getting down to the root of the problem, I don’t want to kill anymore.
I just want peace. For myself, for my club, for my dead wife, for my future wife.
Three more days.
Chapter 29
Brooks:
“What are you thinking?” she asks, her pretty feet resting in my lap as we sit out on the porch swing, our nightly ritual. Sun is barely setting, the summer air is thick and humid, the mosquitos are out in full force.
“I’m thinking it’s a fucking shame we don’t get to rally this weekend. You know how badly I want to get you on the back of my bike?” I can’t believe I’m saying it, and yet I mean it. The last year, I never pictured myself being able to ride with another woman, but now, I want nothing more than to take her out and share with her my favorite thing in the world, the freedom of the open road.
“I’ve already been on the back of your bike, goofy,” she says. “You don’t remember? The first night I stayed over, you drove me back to my car.”
“That doesn’t count,” I say. “I didn’t like you then.”
She slides away from me, shooting me her best dirty look. “I didn’t like you then, either,” she teases. “I thought you were a creep.”
“Yeah well, you’re a cop,” I say with a smirk.
“Well, you couldn’t get a boner,” she laughs.
“Yeah well, you hadn’t seen a boner in over ten years.”
“Dirty mountain man,” she says, poking me in the ribs with her toe.
“Old lady.” I pull her into my lap, grabbing her chin in my hand, kissing her pretty lips so hard she gasps for air.
“Is that supposed to be an insult?” she asks, batting her eyes. “Because I thought that was like the ultimate title around here.” She was definitely my old lady, through and through. Everything about this woman is perfect, down to the way she makes me laugh even though I’d forgotten how over the year.
“It’s only an insult if you’re a sane person,” I say. “Go get your boots on. I want to go for a ride.”
“Alright,” she says cheerfully, jumping up from the swing like she’s a puppy I just asked to go for a walk. She disappears into the house, and I head to the garage. I did almost forget about that day that she rode on the back of my bike to the clubhouse. I feel like so much time has passed since now and then. Every day with her goes by with the blink of an eye, but it’s easy to forget how far we’ve come.
How much she’s done for me.
How she’s got me feeling like myself again. I don’t spend every day wishing that I was dead, hungry for blood, destroying my life and the life of everyone around me. All I want is what I’ve always wanted, to live life on my own terms, take care of my family, love my woman, ride my bike, and not worry about the drama of the world below this mountain. Now, thanks to her, it’s all happening again, and it’s happening so fast.
My jaw drops when she joins me in the garage.
“I don’t think we’re gonna make it out of the house,” I say, sizing her up. She’s got on these tight leather pants that perfectly cling to her thick athletic thighs and bubble ass. My jeans are starting to feel a little tight. Her bright green tank top stops just above the crease in her tits, and it’s taking everything in me not to just bury my face in ’em and call it a day.
“You know green has always been my favorite color?” I ask, for lack of any other words that don’t sound stupid.
“Mine, too,” she says, slipping into her leather jacket and zipping it up tight before I can argue. “Why are you looking at me like that?” She laughs nervously, avoiding my eye contact.
“Like what?” I ask, licking my lips.
�
�You hate it, don’t you?” she asks. “Fine. I’ll go change back into my other clothes.” She turns for the door, and I grab her arm. She starts cracking up, and my face feels red and hot.
“You were the one that said I couldn’t get a boner,” I say with a shrug. “You can wear whatever you want. You can wear nothing at all. You’re still fine as hell. Just, I never seen you like that before.” She knows exactly what she’s doing, and I don’t hate it.
“Fire that thing up,” she says. “The bike I mean. We’ll worry about your boner later.”
Just like that, her arms are wrapped around my waist, face pressed into the middle of my back, clinging to me like we’re two puzzle pieces perfectly meshed together. She squeezes her thighs against mine. I don’t think she could get any closer, and I don’t care. It just feels right. Right this moment, I don’t think life could get any better. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, and so is she.
We ride into the setting sun, ride through the hills til we hit the highway. Ride into the night until I have to stop and get gas and she paces the parking lot on wobbly legs. Ride around in the dark, through the backwoods, swerving through potholes and watching for deer out to graze. I love living in the mountains where we don’t have to worry about waking anybody up. We could ride til the sun came up if we wanted.
We’re free. Free from whatever shit storm we had to weather to get to this point. Free from her job, my job, our lives, the looming terror that we were going to have to face, the dread, the notion that everything I’ve known my whole life is about to change, even if it is for the better. We can just ride, the two of us, a man and his old lady, the most natural thing in the world, and nothing else matters.
Tomorrow would bring a whole new set of problems, but tonight, she was all mine. We were the only people that mattered in this world. The dark woods are lit up with fireflies and the dewy tree branches that hang down across the roads hit us in the face as we travel back up that mountain, but it doesn’t matter. It feels right. I feel like I’m finally home again.
Chapter 30
Helena
I kiss Brooks extra hard when I leave for work this morning. I lingered in bed until the absolute last minute I possibly could, wishing that I could just blink and all this would be over and done with. Wishing we could wake up tomorrow exactly like this, only without the weight of what has to happen today.
Scared shitless is an understatement. This overwhelming dread has just been building and building and my stomach churns as I make sure Josie is packed up and ready to go downtown with me.
“I don’t understand why I can’t just stay here,” she whines. “It looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
I haven’t filled her in on the specifics of this weekend, all she sees is rows and rows of motorcycles and campers all over the mountain she now calls home, bikers drinking keg beer and barbecuing while bands blare all night long. It does look like it’s going to be a lot of fun. It looks exactly like it’s supposed to look from the outside. Knowing that these people, even the ones I don’t know personally, are kind of my family now, I’d love nothing more than to just hang out and rally. I’d love nothing more than to be Brooks’s old lady arm candy, the most powerful man in the Mountain Misfits MC, original legacy, original chapter. Instead, for now, I get to be a cop.
I need Josie as far away from whatever is going to happen tonight as possible. She’s staying over at one of her childhood friend’s houses, but she’s not too thrilled. I know she’s seventeen. I know I treat her like a baby, but I’m just making up for lost time. She doesn’t need to be here when shit hits the fan. I might not have protected her in the past, but I’m doing my best to now.
“Please, whatever you do, be safe,” Brooks says to me, pulling me tighter to his body as I linger in the doorway, my brain telling me to go, but my body knowing better. “If anything happens to you, Helena, I don’t know…” he’s whispering in my ear, trying not to alarm my sister. He’s just making me more and more nervous. I try to fight back these tears. I need to be tough today.
Because today, no matter what happens, I know I will have gone down doing the right thing for once in my life. Every time I stifled my urge to speak out against an injustice done to myself or one of my fellow sisters in blue, every time I just accepted that the powers above me were right, and I just needed to keep my head down and let them do whatever they wanted to do, every time I left my sister in the hands of a monster, or let my dad push me around… today I was going to make up for that. Today, with the help of the MC and the FBI, we were finally going to put Esther to rest, and hopefully give my tiny town a police force they deserved, and not some corrupt good old boys club.
I mouth “I love you” behind his back as he hugs me tight. I know he can’t see me. I don’t even know if it’s the right thing to say. I know that I do, and I know he cares about me, and if anything bad happens to either of us today, I would be devastated if he didn’t know it, but bringing myself to say it sounds so final. Like this might be the end.
It’s not going to be the end. It’s going to be ugly, it’s going to be tough, but we’re going to get through this.
I can’t stop crying on our drive into town. First, it’s just soft tears as we head past the clubhouse, the giant banner hanging outside reading “Gingerbread Ranch Grand Reopening Celebration” “In Memory of Esther Boden-Harrison 1981–2018” is written below in cursive lettering. We framed the whole rally as a tribute to her life. We promoted it everywhere we could get our hands on. News stations, radio stations, local social media, everyone knew the strip club was about to be back in business, and the town definitely had mixed emotions about the whole ordeal, the church folks were twisted up but the guys at the police station didn’t seem to mind. Apparently, they had been regulars at the place back in the day, one of Esther’s ways of keeping the local force in her pocket.
I had been sitting in the squad car with the chief when a local radio station was interviewing Gina about her return to the pole and the reopening of the ranch. The timing couldn’t have been better. I dug my fingernails into my thigh, trying not to whoop with joy as I watched Chief Sanderson pound his fists on the dashboard.
“What’s wrong, Chief?” I asked. “Was that place a lot of hassle to y’all?”
“Shutting that place down was the best thing I’d ever done,” he said before slamming the radio off and peeling out onto the highway. He never said another word to me about the incident, but I could read between the lines.
My tears turn to outright sobs as we hit the gate at the bottom of the hill where Tank and Clutch are keeping watch. I just want to turn around and go back to the life I love with the man I love, my sister here safe with me. I know if I don’t just go to the station and get this over with, though, that will never happen.
“You’re doing it for Esther,” Josie says, dabbing at the tears on my face. “I don’t know what it is, but I know you wouldn’t be doing it unless it was really important. I just wish you’d let me help you.”
She starts to cry, too. It’s the first time I think I’ve ever seen her do that. In all the trauma she’s been through, she’d always been stoic, strong, maybe a little angry, but never sad.
“Don’t cry, Jo,” I say, squeezing her hand in mine. “You don’t have to help me. You have a bright future ahead of you.”
“Stop saying shit like that,” she says, laughing through her tears. “You sound like you’re dying.”
The truth is, I might. I don’t know how this whole ordeal is going to go down. I do know that the chief has instructed us to bust into the club tonight, guns blazing. According to him, every single person there is a murderer, sex trafficker, or escaped felon. Everyone, except his precious Gina, of course.
It’s so disgustingly unprecedented, but it’s the only way.
The FBI has infiltrated the ranch already, and supposedly they’re trained for situations like this. I’ve been instructed to keep my mouth shut, ride along, and when we get
there tonight, do whatever it takes to disarm my fellow police officers. All we need to do is show Sanderson’s intent, squeeze him for a confession, and we can all go home unscathed.
We know that’s not how these things work, though.
“I’m not dying,” I say to Josie. “Nobody is dying. You be good for Mrs. Baker, and I promise I’ll pick you up first thing tomorrow morning and take you back to the rally. I’ll even sneak you a beer or two if you promise not to go out looking for a biker boyfriend.”
She giggles and rolls her eyes at me. “Helena, everyone knows that Sunday is the lamest day of a rally. Everybody is hungover and packing their shit up. Why you gotta be such a cock-block?”
I pull into the driveway, park my Jeep, and hug her tight. “Don’t say shit like that in front of the Bakers, please? I don’t want them to take you away from me.”
“You and the guy who kidnapped me?”
“Especially don’t say that,” I laugh. I smell her hair, running my fingers through it. I kiss her face. I don’t know if this is what being a parent feels like, but I do know I’d do anything for this kid, and I want to hold on to this moment for as long as I can.
“You better text me as soon as possible,” she says. “I want all the details.”
“You sure about that?” I tease. “I mean, kid-free house for the night, you know what’s up.” She sticks her finger down her throat and rolls her eyes at me. It’s easier to joke than to face the actual truth. In a few short hours, there are going to be swat teams everywhere, guns blazing, and who knows how much other collateral damage.
I need to get back to her in one piece. I need to get back to him. I need him whole. I want to spend the rest of my life with him, and I’d like that to be longer than just today.