Long Way Home

by Katie McGarry

  “I first kissed you here,” he replies like that’s an appropriate response, but it’s a dream and I go with it.

  “We did a lot more than just kiss here.” Happiness swirls within me at the memories of stolen moments I thought would last forever. We did a lot of firsts in this back field. Too many to count. None of it rushed. All of it slow. Teeny, tiny baby steps because I was never ready for too much too fast and Chevy was patient, always patient as if he was just as scared as I was to go any further than we had before.

  Chevy’s smile widens and it’s that mischievous dimpled one that continuously dared me to go along with one of his crazy schemes. Smuggling hot cookies out of Olivia’s kitchen when we were seven. Lifting Cyrus’s Reign of Terror cut when we were ten. Pickpocketing Eli’s keys so we could go joyriding in his truck before we had our licenses.

  Can’t take much credit. Chevy was the mastermind with the fast hands. I was the lovely assistant who helped with the distraction, but I loved being part of the action.

  I reach out, stretching because I miss touching him so much, but his smile fades and his expression darkens. “Violet, wake up.”

  Fear seizes my lungs as storm clouds gather in the sky. Chevy grabs ahold of my arms and yells, “Wake up!”

  My eyes snap open, a haze of morning light barely lightens the basement room and the air is knocked out of me as I’m being shoved to the concrete corner. Scuffed black boots in front of me, and when I look up, Chevy has his back to me, arms out, the handcuffs dangling from his fingers.

  Nausea races up my throat. They’re returning and this is all Chevy has for weapons.

  I push off the floor, and as I stand, Chevy presses back so I’m flush against the wall. “Stay behind me.”

  I rub my eyes to wake myself as four men enter the room. All of them from last night. Fiend marches in behind them like a victorious general. Two men fan to the left, the other two to the right. Fiend stays near the door in the middle and sizes Chevy up. “I heard you were wily, but I had bet you couldn’t bust out of cuffs. Guess I was wrong.”

  Chevy says nothing and Fiend makes a show of leaning as he looks at me. “Have a nice sleep?”

  I don’t break eye contact as I follow Chevy’s lead on staying silent.

  Fiend hikes up the waist of his pants. He has a belt on, but his gut is overbearing. “This is how it’s going to play out. McKinley, you’re coming with us. We need to talk about your club.”

  “I’m not a member, and even if I were, I don’t speak for the Terror.”

  “Your grandfather is the president of the Terror. I have faith you can handle this negotiation.”

  “Nothing I do or say holds any weight in the club.”

  “I disagree. President’s grandson does hold weight. Especially when it’s his life on the line.”

  “You got something to say, say it,” Chevy spits out. “But I’m not leaving her.”

  Fiend’s eyebrows rise. “You mean Violet? We know who she is and who her father was to your club. Just like we know who you are and what she means to you.”

  My gaze snaps to Fiend’s and he catches it, then winks. Chevy shifts, obviously uncomfortable with the exchange. Uneasiness gathers in my stomach in rolling waves. In the car, Fiend kept reaching over like he was going to pull down my shirt. Twice he almost succeeded. He stole my bracelets. Stole my necklaces. Stole Dad’s watch. Touching parts of me I wished he hadn’t in the process. I suck in a breath in order to contain the dry heave.

  I went full-on crazy when he touched me and I kicked the hell out of him. Then Fiend hit me. Several times. I tried to fight back, but he was bigger than me and I thought he was going to keep going until I died, but the man in the front seat barked an order at Fiend to back off, for me to shut up, and the asshole retreated to his side of the backseat and went silent.

  It’s funny how my body throbbed, but I felt no pain. How blood trickled against my skin, but there wasn’t an ache. I don’t know what any of that was about, but I do know both men scared me, I’m still scared and I want more than anything to go home.

  I didn’t tell Chevy all that really happened. He’s already sacrificed enough to save my brother. I’m not sure if I’ll ever tell Chevy. Not sure if I make it out of this I’ll ever tell anyone. I just want to leave here and pretend none of this happened.

  “This can be easy,” Fiend says. “You come with us and she stays here. If it becomes hard, it’s because you made it hard. Anything that happens to you is by your choice.”

  Such a bullshit answer. “My choice is to leave.”

  Fiend offers me a fake sympathetic shrug. “Not my call to make. But I’ll tell you what, if it makes you feel better, I’ll stay behind to keep you company. Finish what we started last night.”

  Heat rushes to my face, dizziness overwhelms me and, this time, I bend over when I can’t contain the dry heave. An arm around my waist, and when I glance up, dark concerned eyes meet mine. It’s Chevy, and as he takes in my reaction, stone-cold anger replaces the concern. He quickly returns his attention to the men who stepped closer at the lowering of his defense.

  “I’m okay,” I whisper and shove him away from me. To protect him. To protect us.

  “Let’s go, McKinley,” Fiend demands.

  Chevy stretches out his arm again. “No.”

  Fiend nods, the men are in motion and Chevy backs up, pinning me to the wall again. Fiend reaches to his back and all the air rushes out of my body. There’s a gun in his hand and he’s pointing it at us—at Chevy.

  “Move or I’ll shoot you,” Fiends says like he’s bored. “That leaves her alone with us. Your choice.”

  My pulse pounds violently in my veins. Chevy promised to protect me, but I don’t want him dead. “Go with them.”

  “No.”

  “Go with them, Chevy,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “I’m not leaving you alone.”

  And I need him alive. If he cooperates, they’ll let him live. It’s obvious they have a message for Chevy to give and I’m just the person they’re using to control him.

  The guy to the left lunges at Chevy. He raises his arm to fight, leaving an opening, and I watch as Fiend keeps the gun trained on Chevy, but aims it lower, to Chevy’s leg. Maybe Fiend’s going to injure Chevy, ruining his chances of walking, playing football, and if that doesn’t bring him to submission, Fiend will then torture me to make Chevy break.

  I’m stronger than this. Bigger than this. If this is how it’s going to be, I’ll go down fighting. I’ll be the wild and crazy girl my father loved. My throat burns at the thought of him. At the thought of leaving behind my mother, my brother. Not sure how the two of them will exist without me there to push them along.

  The club will take care of them. The club might never let them learn how to survive on their own, how to be their own person, so my mother and brother will never thrive, but they’ll eat, they’ll sleep and I hope to God the club will learn their lesson from what happens to me and Chevy and they’ll protect the people I love the most.

  Chevy’s throwing punches and they’re throwing punches back. He’s losing, he’s bleeding and he grunts in pain. Chevy hits a man so hard that he falls limp to the ground, but then two other guys tackle him and Chevy’s head hits the concrete. His head rolls forward with the impact and there is red streaming from his skull.

  The blood drains from my face, but I push my feet forward, toward Fiend. Hoping somehow I’m faster. Hoping somehow I can turn the tables.

  Fiend’s eyes widen as he realizes I’m heading for him, and he turns the gun—in my direction. Chevy screams my name and right when my eyes close, as I understand I’m not going to be fast enough, there’s a loud bang and I suck in a breath.

  Then oddly I let out that breath in the silence. My heart beats in my ears. Again and again and again and I
inhale, the air feeling cold in my lungs. I reopen my eyes and look down at my body. Expecting to see blood, waiting for the pain, but there’s nothing.

  “What the hell is going on?” a raspy voice demands. An older man with gray hair, a real-life Mack truck with legs, barrels into the room. He heads toward another new man with a scar on his face who has Fiend pushed up against the wall. His hands around Fiend’s throat like he’s willing to crush the life out of my enemy.

  The gun is out of Fiend’s hand and the man with the scar offers it to the older man.

  The old man points the gun in Fiend’s direction like it’s a finger and not a loaded weapon. “Did you just shoot a gun at her? Are you insane? She’s Frat’s girl.”

  My feet become strangely planted while my head floats as if it’s curiously light. As I turn my head to find Chevy, the entire room spins. Is the enemy of my enemy my friend?

  “Let him go,” the old man says.

  I throw my arm out, searching for a wall to stay upright and instead discover a warm hand. A solid arm around my waist and then there are beautiful dark eyes. “I got you.”

  My hand goes to Chevy’s face and I gingerly touch his eye that’s swelling, the bruises forming on his face, the blood flowing near the corner of his lip. “I’m sorry.”

  This is my fault. Maybe we gave up too easy at the car. Maybe we should have run into the woods. Maybe I should have yelled at Chevy when he stopped his motorcycle to help. I should have pushed him away then. I should have known that I’m cursed and that I’m only capable of hurting everyone I love.

  “Get him out of here,” says the old man.

  The guy with the scar lets Fiend go and the two men who were fighting Chevy grab Fiend and drag him away. I blink several times and lean into Chevy’s body as my mind has fractured.

  “What’s going on?” I whisper to Chevy, but he only shakes his head. His fingers tap twice to my side and I straighten. Two fingers tapping. It’s a childhood code. He’s telling me we’re in danger, and considering the past few hours, it scares the hell out of me that we’ve somehow fallen into a deeper hole.

  The old man hands the gun back to the guy with a scar on his face, then scans me and Chevy as if he’s perplexed. His blue eyes tell me he sees all, knows all—a god to many in his world. “I’m going to apologize, but I know it won’t sound like much. I’m—”

  “Emily’s grandfather,” Chevy cuts him off. “You’re the president of the Riot.”

  Realization causes me to curl my fingers into Chevy’s shirt. This is the man whose daughter, Meg, left him to be with Eli when she fell in love with Eli over eighteen years ago. The man who has tortured the Terror since the day Meg left. Then when Eli’s life in the club proved too much for Meg, she left Eli for good as well, taking their daughter, Emily, with her. This past summer, Emily and Eli reconnected, and Emily and my best friend Oz fell in love. Those newly cemented relationships burn the Riot up and they’re holding a grudge.

  The old man cocks his head. “I am. The name is Skull and I know who both of you are. There’s been a gross misunderstanding, and I only learned that you had been picked up by Fiend about thirty minutes ago. Came straight here when I found out. I had no idea about the conditions you were taken under or how you were being held. Again, my apologies.”

  I don’t believe him and obviously neither does Chevy. “Then let us go home.”

  “We will,” he says. “But why don’t we get you upstairs first. Let you clean yourselves up, get you some food and then me and you will call Eli together. How’s that sound?”

  Sounds like heaven, but by the way Chevy and I grasp each other, we’re both aware that we’re mere steps away from descending into hell.

  CHEVY

  MY ENTIRE BODY THROBS, but I ignore it as I watch Violet enter the bathroom. She’s slow going in. Shuffling her feet. Most of it in reluctance to face what’s waiting for her in there, also could be because they kicked the hell out of her last night by the road in order to make her kneel. She has a limp and I can’t help but wonder if they did damage to her knee.

  I don’t think she notices. I don’t think she feels any of the pain from the bruises on her body. Too much in shock. Too damn headstrong. What the hell was she thinking gunning for a man ready to shoot her? I rub the back of my head, feeling my own head wound. I know what she was thinking. She was trying to protect me, trying to take on the world on her own...again.

  Violet’s knee gives, she trips and I shift to the balls of my feet to catch her, but she remains unaware, recovers and keeps moving. Not sure if I’m grateful Violet’s numb to the pain or if that scares the hell out of me more. If we survive this, how are either of us going to snap back mentally?

  Violet looks behind the bathroom door, then hobbles to the bathtub and peeks behind the light blue curtain. We’re upstairs now, but there’s no window in this bathroom. Still no escape.

  She glances at me to let me know that, at least in the bathroom, she’ll be safe.

  In the basement, Violet dozed in my arms, did that thing where she dreams but stays somewhat conscious. Could tell by the way she jerked and murmured. Even with the seminap, the circles under her eyes are black against her pale skin and the bruises are overpronounced.

  “You can take a shower if you want.” The president of the Riot, Skull, is by my side, acting like we’re out-of-town guests. “Towels are under the sink. You’re safe now.”

  “Take your time,” I say, meaning if there’s a lock on the door to use it, shatter the glass of the mirror and use it as a weapon and hide in the bathroom until help hopefully arrives.

  “I’m not taking a shower.” Violet holds eye contact with me. “Just using the bathroom.”

  “Take your time,” I repeat, and Violet nods before shutting the door. There’s the click of a lock. Good girl. Got to admit I could pick that lock in seconds, but it’s better than nothing.

  Skull inclines his head down the hall, away from the bathroom. “Why don’t we go in the kitchen? Give her a few minutes to regroup, get you some food.”

  Considering we were kidnapped, he should be offering to call the police. I’m not stupid enough to mention that. Not stupid enough to think this scenario is over. There are no pictures in the hallway. No personal touches in the kitchen we passed on the way here. No color to the walls. This place is nothing more than a dump house—a place to lie low, a place to hide, a place to take people you kidnap or want to kill. “I’m staying here.”

  “Come to the kitchen and we’ll call Eli. Faster we make that call, faster you two go home. You and I both know she’s not coming out unless she knows you’re on the other side of that door.”

  I want ten-foot-thick concrete walls between Violet and the Riot. For now, a door will do. I knock on it. “I’m going to the kitchen. Stay in until I come back.”

  “Okay,” comes her muffled response.

  Skull goes first, I follow and weigh my odds of making it out of here with Violet if I were to knock the hell out of him from behind, but figure there’s a wall of cuts surrounding the house. We enter the kitchen and I’m surprised when no one else is there. House feels too empty and that’s eerie.

  “Take a seat.” Skull pulls out a folding chair from the cardboard table.

  I choose to lean my back against the corner that leads to the hallway so I can keep an eye on Violet. “I’m good.”

  He shrugs. “Your choice. Before we call Eli, there are a few things we need to discuss.”

  Skull looks over at me as if waiting for my permission to continue, but I say nothing. He eases down at the table in the compact kitchen and kicks out his legs. “Look, I did send out my guys to find you, but they misunderstood my instructions. I told them to tell you that I needed to talk to you. To convince you to come with them. Not kidnap. Just for us to talk.”

  My eyebro
ws rise and the action causes a slice of pain. “We don’t have anything to talk about.”

  Skull sighs, then leans forward, drawing his legs in and rubbing his hands together. “Son—”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “You turn eighteen soon,” he talks over me, ignoring my response. “And the way you’ve been groomed, I’m betting you’ll have the shortest prospect period in the history of your club or you’ll have a full-blown cut on you by the time the clock strikes midnight on your birthday.”

  Not seeing how that’s his concern.

  “Before that happens,” he continues, “I only felt like it was right to let you know some pertinent information. There’s a detective from Louisville who has been digging into our past and he seems intent on talking to your club, too. Because of that, I think you should know before your club does. Give you a chance to protect yourself.”

  He’s talking in code, in circles, verbally waving his right hand to keep me from looking at his left. My eyes flicker down the hallway and the bathroom door is still closed, light still peeking out from the cracks.

  Some of what he’s saying is true. There’s a Louisville gang detective who’s been trying to nail the Riot MC and the same detective talked to some members of the Terror in hopes of us being able to supply them with information. I’m in the dark on whether or not the Terror can or have helped.

  “I liked your father, Chevy, and for what he did for us, you deserve to know the truth before you have the Terror’s colors on your back.”

  Did for them? There’s a ringing in my ears as my world narrows in on him. My dad died before my birth, and I’ll admit to not knowing much about him other than family ramblings about Thanksgivings and Christmases, but I know my father was Terror through and through. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Your father may have had Terror colors on his back,” says Skull, “but he was loyal to the Riot.”

  Violet