by Jadyn Chase
My adult brain examined the design at the same time my child self shrieked in fright at the sight of these men. That patch didn’t look like any Los Diablos symbol I knew. Who were they?
My mom charged around the doorway yelling, “Josiah! Josiah!”
One of the intruders caught her by the hair and wrestled her off her feet. He wrenched her onto the kitchen table and crammed a gun against her head. Another ear-splitting boom ripped the house apart.
I didn’t wait around to see anymore. I bolted for the only hiding place I could think of. I dove behind the couch and scrambled into the space between it and the wall. I used to hide there when Dad and Chopper and I played hide and seek together.
I scurried into the hole and did my best to make myself invisible. The men chattered in a strange language. I held my breath waiting for them to leave, but to my horror, one of them appeared right in front of me.
My adult awareness kicked in. He was Asian—Chinese. I didn’t understand about that kind of thing back then. He crouched in front of the hole and thrust a long arm into my hiding place. He grabbed a fistful of my shirt and jerked.
I kicked and screamed, but he towed me out and held me down on the floor. I bit and scratched, but he overwhelmed me with his strength. I couldn’t get away. He towered over me, grim and terrible and utterly unmoved by my terror.
I grappled for a hold of his wrists. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he would do to me. He would probably try to kill me the way he killed my parents. Tugging at his arms did nothing so I shifted to his jacket. I put out my hand to grab it and beheld that curious dragon symbol on the upper chest lapel.
This dragon definitely had an oriental cast to it. Tufts of what looked like hair sprouted from its head and jaw. It rippled in a circle and a banner underneath displayed a series of Chinese characters along with the English word, Longtails.
I couldn’t grab hold of him. I had to stop him from killing me, but I couldn’t reach him. I rotated my arm up toward his face. He caught my wrist and started to force me down on the floor. I burst into a panic and flailed at him with everything I had. I screamed at the top of my voice. “No! No! Get off me! Let me go! Leave me alone!”
Powerful hands restrained my whirling limbs. A deep-throated voice thundered in my ear. “Morgan! Morgan! Take it easy. It’s me. Wake up! It’s me, Brayden!”
My eyes snapped open and I stared at him. He sat on the edge of the couch holding me down against my manic efforts to fight him off. For a fraction of a second, Brayden and the safe house and my dad and Chopper and all the past and the present existed simultaneously in my mind. I saw it all, then and now. I’d been dreaming.
He lowered his voice to a hush. “Easy, girl. Take it easy. Everything’s all right. You’re safe.”
I became aware of him pressing down on top of me to restrain my convulsions. His strong hands stopped me from fighting. His chiseled face hovered inches above my eyes. His words soothed my racing heart. I was okay. I was with him in this house. No one was coming after me to kill me.
“You had a nightmare,” he whispered. “It’s over now. You’re okay.”
All at once, I couldn’t cope with any of this anymore. I burst into tears and tried to cover my face with my hands. “They killed him, Brayden! They killed my father!”
“Shhh,” he murmured and his arms folded around me. “It’s all right. It’s gonna be all right. It’s over now.”
“They killed him!” I shrieked out all the fear and alarm from my dream. “I was right there! I saw the whole thing. They killed him right in front of me.”
He craned forward and his weight crushed me holding me down. He kissed my hair. “You’re safe now. It’s over.”
I couldn’t stop screaming in agony. If I could only scream loud enough, maybe I could make the universe hear me. Maybe it would understand just how much I hurt. “They killed him, Brayden! The Longtails killed my father.”
Brayden froze. He held me still for a second. Then he reared back and narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure?”
“I was there!” I screeched. “I saw the whole thing. They killed my dad and my mom and they almost killed me. I got into a fight with one of them. He was wearing his patch. I looked right at it.”
The memory flooded over me one more time and I dissolved in tears. I curled in on myself and Brayden closed me in his arms. He stretched out next to me on the couch while I sobbed into his chest. Whatever happened in that house between the Longtails and me, he was here. I was safe with him.
8
Brayden
I pressed my lips against Morgan’s hair. She fell asleep in my arms after crying her eyes out for more than an hour, but I dared not peel myself away.
So the Longtails killed her father. Los Diablos lore put the blame on La Muerta. We never suspected the Longtails.
This changed everything. The Desperados taking her prisoner never made any sense in the first place. Now the pieces started fitting into place. If they found out who she was or if one of them even caught a glimpse of her tat, they probably captured her to sell her to the Longtails. No other explanation fit the evidence.
I should get up. I should contact Carlos and tell him about this, but I couldn’t pry myself away from Morgan. She felt right in my arms. No one else could comfort her with this information. I was all she had.
She smelled good there under my nose. Every time I kissed her hair, I hoped I could impress some comfort and peace into her brain, into her being. Maybe no one would ever be able to do that again, but at least I could try.
She huddled in my arms making herself small and vulnerable. That was the first time since I first found her that she let herself show the slightest weakness. She worked overtime fighting everybody away. Now I understood why, but she didn’t fight me away—not anymore.
I resolved to stay here on this couch as long as she needed me. When she woke up, she might retreat behind her granite façade. I could handle that. For right now, she could hold onto me. She could sleep protected by one person who knew and understood what she was going through. I wouldn’t take that away from her.
She breathed easier with me here. Maybe I fooled myself into thinking I could change things for her, but I held this moment too precious to leave.
Over her head, I observed the dawn growing lighter outside. If she was right about the Longtails, they would be a thousand times more dangerous to her than The Desperados ever were. I had no reason to doubt her. She didn’t wake up screaming from that nightmare for the fun of it.
She breathed a gentle sigh in her sleep. A brief wave of tightness swept over her before she relaxed. When she did, she cuddled closer. She slipped her arms around my ribs and laid her ear against my heart.
Without meaning to, I lifted my hand and stroked her hair back. Could this be the same woman I cursed and fumed at yesterday? I knew too much about her now to stay mad at her.
The supple warmth of slumber faded from her and she rippled her body down the couch. She threw back her head and I came face to face with her countenance shining with inner light. Her cuts and bruises couldn’t disguise it. Her eyes drifted open and she looked up at me.
A feeling akin to reverence inundated my awareness. For a second, I didn’t know what to do. I glanced down at her mouth. I wanted to kiss her. Her lips quivered and her pupils dilated in those bottomless pools of her eyes. I melted against her and bent down.
At that moment, a screaming alarm blasted through the building. It cycled to a calamitous pitch and stayed there. It blared its piercing ding into my ear and made me leap away from her.
I ripped myself off the couch. Morgan floundered out of the blankets. “What’s going on?” she bellowed.
“It’s the perimeter alarm!” I yelled back. “Someone must have crossed the barrier.”
“Who?” she cried. “Who would do that?”
“I don’t know?” I thundered. “Probably the Longtails.”
Her eyes popped. That’s right, girl. Time to w
ake up and smell the coffee. I seized my phone. God damn it, Brayden! I should have contacted Carlos when I had the chance. Now he’d have no idea what the Longtails had to do with this.
I navigated to the security cameras and the bottom dropped out of my world. Dozens of black-clothed figures swarmed over the wall. How the fuck did they get past the guns? It didn’t matter now.
“What’s going on?” Morgan bellowed.
I seized her by the wrist and yanked. “Come on! We don’t have much time.”
I jerked her across the room when, out of nowhere, machine gunfire exploded through the glass doors. Broken splinters sprayed into the room. Morgan ducked for cover and screamed, but I didn’t have time for that shit.
Men poured through the shattered door. I caught one glimpse of four figures all wearing yellow bandanas covering their faces. They leveled their guns at us and opened fire.
I made one desperate lunge for the hallway. Morgan followed me in a crouch. I thanked Holy Mary and all the saints I had a girl who could move. I dove for the nearest bedroom. The instant I reached the doorway, a blast of buckshot hit the wall next to my head.
I dodged to avoid it and my skull cracked against the door jamb. Morgan collided into me. I made another last-ditch rush for the room and hauled her in behind me. I swung the door shut and another barrage of lead splintered the wood in front of my face. They would break through that door in a matter of seconds.
Morgan stuck close to my side. I wheeled around and measured the room at a glance. I shoved her out of the way and charged for the closet as another crashing shot punched a hole in the door.
Morgan shrank close. “Can’t you fight them? Can’t you shift and fight them that way?”
“In here? It’s too small and every one of them is a dragon, too. One against dozens? I wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“What are you going to do?” Another explosion splintered closer to the knob. One more and they’d be on our asses.
I concentrated all my attention on the closet. I opened it and slid back hangers of suits and ties and overcoats. I found a panel on the back wall and flattened my hand against it.
A greenish light scanned down my palm and pinged. The panel popped away from the sheetrock and I grabbed it as though my life depended on it. My life did depend on it.
I pulled the panel forward and the whole wall folded out in front of me. The hanger rail swung down to reveal a hidden alcove stacked with weapons. I took hold of the nearest assault rifle and snapped back the magazine. It was fully loaded exactly the way it should be.
I hefted the thing to my shoulder and took hold of a rocket launcher in my other hand. I swiveled around.
Morgan gaped at me with wide eyes. “You can’t fight them. They’ll cut you down.”
Another shotgun blast hit the doorknob. “I don’t plan to fight them. I just have to slow them down.”
“What do you mean?” She barely whispered now.
I shifted the rocket launcher to my left hand and got out my phone. “Go to the beach house. The Longtails don’t know about it. You’ll be safe there.”
“What are you talking about?” she croaked. “I’m not leaving you here to die.”
I stuck my hand into the closet and pushed my fingertips against the alcove’s upper left-hand corner. It pivoted inward to reveal a hidden tunnel burrowing through the wall. “Get out of here, Morgan. That’s an order.”
“No, Brayden!” she cried. “Don’t ask me to do that.”
I shoved my phone into her hands. “The beach house address is in my email inbox. The code for the phone is Cinco de Mayo. Get to the beach house and don’t look back no matter what happens. Understand?”
Her lip quivered. “You can’t do this, Brayden. You can’t ask me to leave you like this.”
“I’m not asking. I’m telling you. Now get in there. Hurry.”
She still didn’t go, so I pushed her around me. I backed her into the opening, but she wouldn’t take her eyes off me. “I can’t, Brayden! I can’t leave you like this.”
“Go, Morgan.” My heart and soul wanted to yell at her, to roar in her face to run while she had the chance, but my voice wouldn’t obey me. I could only whisper. “Go now. Please.”
“Brayden….,” she whimpered.
The last shot shattered the doorknob and the door smashed aside. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to do this—all of it. I darted forward and kissed her. I didn’t dare linger there. I ripped off her and gave her one almighty push toward the tunnel.
The next instant, I wheeled around. I dropped the rocket launcher into my right hand and fired. The rocket screamed out of the tube and hit the Longtails charging into the room. A colossal explosion blasted the room apart. The impact flung me back against the weapons rack and I slumped to the ground, but that only played into my hands.
An enormous dust cloud billowed before my eyes. It blocked my view of the enemy, but it worked just as well to hide me from them. I scrambled onto my knees and shut the tunnel entrance. I didn’t see Morgan anywhere so she must be gone. I could only hope she didn’t choose now to screw me.
The panel folded closed and all those guns gleamed out at me, rosy and ready for destruction. Just then, a shout drew my attention back to the business at hand. I took my position in front of my weapons cache. I slotted another rocket into the tube and trained my assault rifle on the doorway.
Within seconds, another five Longtails emerged from the smoke and rubble. Their black shapes stabbed through the dust and I opened up with my weapon. I peppered them with machine gunfire.
The alarm blared in the background, but I no longer heard it. One thing occupied my mind: stay alive. I had to stay alive long enough to cover Morgan’s escape. Nothing else mattered.
The very instant she told me the Longtails killed her father sealed my fate. They would attack—if not here, then somewhere else. They would never quit. Whatever reason they had for wanting to kill Morgan, they would hunt her down no matter where she went. They probably wanted to silence her as the last and only witness to her parents’ murder.
I mowed down the last Longtails. For a second, no more appeared, but I held myself alert for the inevitable assault. They wouldn’t attack The Zone without a considerable force. They disabled the defense system somehow, so they must have planned this.
How they found out where Morgan was, I couldn’t fathom. None of that mattered anyway. I put my hand into the cache for a few spare rockets and came up with two. That left me three rockets all up.
I took advantage of the lull to scope out my options. Los Diablos never designed this collection to ward off a full-blown invasion. It only provided enough firepower to hold the fort until reinforcements arrived. If the Longtails disabled the guns, they probably circumvented that, too. I couldn’t hold out any hope that help would come in time.
Never mind. I long ago made peace with giving my life for the club. Now was my chance. I lived a good life. I had a good time with my friends. I played some music and drank some beers and smoked and rode a cherry bike. I could hang up my hat now and cash in my chips.
I stuck the remaining rockets into my belt and faced the now-empty doorway. Where were they? Where would they come from? No doubt they were gathering their resources for an overwhelming assault.
While I stood there bracing for Armageddon, a high-pitched whine whistled through the living room outside. What was that? A pounding explosion followed and the edifice shuddered to its foundations. What in the Christ were those bastards doing out there?
At that moment, another spiraling shriek rent the air. A rocket coiled into the bedroom. I barely had time to realize what was happening before it struck me in the sternum. A sickening thump resounded through my insides and I crumpled to the floor.
I must have passed out for a second because, when I blinked the stars out of my eyes, my spirits sank when I saw Longtails streaming into the room. They rushed me in a mob. I lunged onto my knees groping for my weapon, but the first man
through the door wound back his gun and slammed the butt into my face.
I folded in a pile at his feet and a dozen other Chinese surrounded me. They aimed their weapons down at me and cursed me in their own language. I gazed up at them trying my best to blink the confusion and pain out of my head. What was happening? Why couldn’t I get my body to move?
One of them pulled down his bandana and revealed his round face. He knelt next to me and shoved his gun barrel into my mouth. I couldn’t think of anything but Morgan. She was safe. They wouldn’t find her. Only Los Diablos knew about that house. She could leave the area. She could find her relatives. She could forget all about Los Diablos.
9
Brayden
I moved my eyes away from the Longtail’s face. I didn’t need to look at him. I saw Morgan instead. I relived the moments when I hated her, the moments when I held her, the moments when I knelt over her in that cell and saw her destroyed and near death.
I could live in those memories. I could find peace in them. I didn’t have to care anymore that the Longtails killed me in the end. I did my duty to Los Diablos. I sacrificed my life protecting one of our own. No man could ask for more than that.
The enemy’s knuckles tightened on the trigger. He clenched his jaw to fire when the ceiling collapsed behind him. Sheetrock and timber caved onto the invaders’ heads and a monstrous red dragon broke through the roof. It landed a few feet away from me seething in preternatural power.
The Longtails spun around. A few raised their weapons, but none of them bothered to fire. In a fraction of a second, the nearest one erupted out of his skin. He launched higher and higher. His neck stretched to a grotesque length and golden wings spread from his back. A magnificent golden dragon reared to face the intruder.
One after the other, the other Longtails shifted, too. They popped off the floor to confront their foe. In a fraction of a second, they surrounded him screaming and lashing their tails in rage.