Lion

by Jessie Cooke

  Lion finally had to pull his gaze out of Doc’s for a second. He was shaking inside. It took him a few seconds to pull it together and then he said, “Hawk told me he’s leaving.”

  Doc looked sad and another wave of anger flooded Lion’s veins. He’d had so much respect for Hawk. How could a man betray his best friend, and all of his brothers? How could a man turn out to be so different from the man Lion thought he loved and respected? “Did he tell you why?” Doc asked.

  Lion nodded, slowly, but Doc looked like he was waiting for more. Lion finally said, “I’m sorry for what he did to you.”

  Doc chuckled, but his eyes still looked sad. “You don’t have to apologize for Hawk, or anyone else, son, but thank you.”

  “The thing is, I’ve always wanted to be a Skull. I promised Hawk I’d wait until I was eighteen, but I just don’t see the point in keeping promises to him now…not after what he did. I’m tough, and I’m loyal, and…”

  “You want to prospect for me, kid, I’ve got no argument with that. It’s getting late, though, so why don’t you go on home for tonight and we’ll talk tomorrow?”

  Lion’s heart was racing. “Really?”

  Doc laughed. “Really. Come back tomorrow around noon and we’ll get the process started.”

  “Thank you, sir! Thank you so much.” Lion stood up and the manila envelope moved in his back pocket, reminding him that there was one other thing he’d gone to the ranch for. He reached back and pulled out the envelope and laid it on the desk in front of Doc. “Hawk gave me that, but I don’t want it. Maybe you can use it, maybe it will help a little, with what he did to you and all.”

  Doc frowned, picked up the envelope, and looked inside. Lion had looked on the way out to the ranch. It was full of hundred-dollar bills. He didn’t count it…but he knew it was a lot of money. Doc held it back out to him and said, “Hawk obviously wanted to make sure you and your grandmother were okay. Take it, kid, and use it wisely.”

  Lion had taken it and put it back in his pocket. It was still there when he turned onto the road that led to his house and smelled the smoke. It was there when he saw the flames licking at the roof of their house and crawling up the red door causing it to bubble and pop. As he dropped his bike and ran toward the porch that was alive with flames and already caving in in places, the envelope fell to the ground. Lion stepped on it, racing toward the structure that had thick, black smoke billowing from every opening. Windows were exploding and the long fingers of the fire were reaching out in the night, trying to claim more of the oxygen it needed as fuel. Lion grabbed the knob of the red door and his hand immediately felt like it was on fire. He let go with a gasp and then wrapped his hand up in the bottom of his t-shirt and used it to protect his hand. The knob turned easily but he had to shove hard against the swollen door to open it. As soon as he did, a cloud of smoke assaulted him and filled his lungs as his hair and eyebrows had already begun to singe. His eyes were watering and he couldn’t see anything.

  “Me Maw!” he yelled, but to his own ears it sounded like a whisper. The fire was so loud, crackling and raging and eating up everything in sight. Lion took a step toward the kitchen, and one of the overhead beams broke loose and fell down in front of him, catching the living room carpet on fire. He burned his leg as he jumped over it and pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen. It was dark in there, and hot, but the fire hadn’t made it there yet. He called out again for his grandmother and wiped at his eyes trying to see. “Me Maw! Are you here?” There was no answer. He felt like his chest might explode from the combination of the smoke and the thought of her being in the back of the house, in one of the rooms that was engulfed in flames. He turned to go back into the fire and something caught his eye. “Me Maw!” His grandmother was lying in the floor on her back near the pantry. Lion knew he didn’t have much time before the fire reached the kitchen and the gas supply to the stove and water heater. He didn’t take the time to check if she was breathing. He just scooped her up into his arms and took her out the back door. That door led to the side of the house, adjacent to her garden and his shed. He didn’t stop there in the yard. He kept going, carrying her into the thicket of trees that surrounded the property. The whole time he could hear things cracking, breaking, and exploding behind them. He was coughing and beginning to feel lightheaded. He felt like his own lungs were on fire, but he kept going. They were about a mile from the house where the county road started, before he stopped and laid her down in the grass.

  “Me Maw, it’s okay now. You’re going to be okay.” Even as he said it, he knew it was himself he was lying to. She hadn’t taken a breath since he picked her up. Lion didn’t know CPR, but they had covered it in his health class at school. He bent down and tried breathing into his grandmother’s mouth, the whole time sobbing, and stopping occasionally to yell and scream and rail against God or whoever it was that fucking hated him so much.

  He woke up in a puddle of sweat, his hand and leg aching and his lungs burning, just the way they had that night. The nightmare was a familiar one, but one he hadn’t suffered in a while. “Fuck you, Hawk,” he whispered into the dark room. “Fuck you for making me remember all this shit.”

  “Hey.” Madison was sitting in the great room on one of the couches by the big fireplace. She’d just spent half an hour on the phone with her mother. She had finally told her mother her suspicions that Hawk was sick, and Bella had done her best to ease her daughter’s worries. She reminded Madison first that Hawk was not a young man. He had just turned sixty-five years old. He’d lived a hard life filled with alcohol and drugs, and too many other abuses of his body to count. Bella wasn’t being harsh, but she wanted her daughter to be prepared for the inevitable…her father wasn’t going to live forever. She’d asked Madison if she wanted her to try to talk to Hawk, but Maddie knew that would only piss him off, so she said no. Now she was debating if her mother, her father, and everyone else was right, and she should just go home and leave things she had no control over alone. She looked up at the sound of the voice and before she caught herself, rolled her eyes. It was Luger. She hadn’t seen him since the night of Dax’s party, and she’d been happy about that.

  “Hey,” she said. Luger smiled and said:

  “I had the eye-roll coming, and then some. Can I sit?” Madison wanted to say no, but the place was full of people so at least she was sure he’d keep his inner asshole in check. She shrugged and he sat. “I wanted to apologize for the other night. I was out of line. There is no excuse for it, but just so you know I had smoked a lot of weed and I’d been drinking all day so…”

  “So your excuse is that you were drunk, or high, or whatever?”

  “Yeah, I guess that is an excuse, huh? I’m just sorry. I’m honestly not usually an asshole.” Madison doubted that. From what she’d learned in her adult life, alcohol didn’t change your personality, it just removed the inhibitions that often kept you from showing it.

  “Okay,” she said. “Apology accepted.”

  He breathed out a “whew,” and then smiled again and said, “So Walt and I are going to a party tonight…”

  “No,” Madison stopped him. “Thank you.” The look on Luger’s face and in his eyes told an entirely different story than his fake words and forced tone of voice as he said:

  “Oh, okay then. Have a nice evening.” He stood up, still glaring at her in a way that made her extremely uncomfortable. She nodded and pasted a smile on her face that she was sure would annoy him and said:

  “Sure. You too.” She turned her head toward the television then, dismissing him, and she heard him stalk away. She knew she’d just made an enemy, but she didn’t care. No one would be stupid enough to try to hurt her under her father’s nose, and while she was a guest of the ranch. She knew enough about how they lived to know that much. Soon, she’d be gone and she wouldn’t have to ever see the creepy biker again anyways.

  10

  Harley pulled the bike over to the side of the road and Madison climbed off.
They were pretty far out of town and the country was pitch black around her. She’d brought a flashlight, though, and she’d dressed appropriately for a short hike. When she pulled off her helmet, Harley took hers off and said, “I still don’t feel right about just leaving you out here. At least let me take you up to the house.”

  “Nah, I’m okay, I promise. He’s not going to be happy to see me, and I’d rather not get you involved at all. If I knew where this place was, I would have just called a taxi to bring me out. Thank you, for doing this. Cody’s not going to be angry with you, is he?”

  Harley laughed. “Nope, because Cody is never going to know about this. I acted like I was just making conversation last night after we’d polished off a bottle of wine together. I asked him if he remembered when Lion first became a Skull. Cody was six years old and he was already living here with Doc and Dax. He said he remembered him as a prospect, and he said he remembered him being the saddest person he’d ever seen. When Cody asked Dax why Lion was so sad, Dax told him because Lion’s house had burned down and his grandmother had died. I guess at some point Dax had taken Cody out for a ride, and he’d pointed out this road that led up to where the house used to be. When Cody asked me why I was so interested in Lion, I told him the truth, sort of. I told him you had been asking about him and I thought you had a little thing for him.”

  Madison smiled. “It wouldn’t matter how I felt about him, he’s made it clear how he feels about me.”

  “Then what are we doing here, Maddie? Why are you out here in the dark, determined to see him?”

  “I told my dad to have Jace make arrangements to buy that house in Phoenix. I’m going home. But I need a favor from Lion before I go, and this seems to be the only way I can reach him.”

  “Alright, you have your phone to call me, though, if you need anything, right…a ride back or anything?”

  Madison smiled at Harley. She’d really come to like the other woman and it had been a long time since she’d had a close female friend. She was going to miss her, and Ian, when she went back to Phoenix. “I will. I promise.” Madison turned toward the gravel road that ascended before her. Harley didn’t know how far up the house was, but it wasn’t visible from where they were. There didn’t seem to be anything lit up ahead. She switched on her flashlight, stuck her other hand in her pocket, and looked from side to side as she walked. She heard Harley’s bike fire up when she reached the first crest and she turned back around and waved at her. She wasn’t sure if Harley saw her or waved back; all she could see was the chrome glinting in the moon as Harley drove away.

  Madison’s thought raced as she walked. Lion wasn’t going to be happy to see her, but the only way she was going through with leaving was if he promised to keep an eye on her dad, and call her if there was anything she needed to know. She had thought about asking Harley to do it; that would have been easier. But Harley had an old man, a toddler, a job…and she was a woman, which gave her much less access to people and places than Lion would have. He was the only one of the bikers she knew well enough to ask, and since he already knew more about Hawk than he wanted to let on, he was the perfect one.

  She kept walking, cresting another small hill and then another. She was at the top of the fourth crest when she saw a light in the distance. It was faint, but it looked like a light from a window. It took her fifteen more minutes of walking from that point before the entire house came into view. It was a cabin really, built out of what looked like some of the trees that grew around and behind it. It was small, but cute and cozy-looking with a front porch and a bright red door. Madison saw the largest pile of firewood she’d ever seen, stacked on the right side of the house as she stepped onto the porch. The porch light wasn’t on, but there was definitely a light on in the house, shining through one of the two small windows in front. She raised her hand and was about to knock on the screen door, when a shirtless, pants-less Lion pulled it open with a wild look in his eyes and a gun in his hand.

  “What the fuck?” He pushed open the screen and looked around, maybe for a car or other people. “How the hell did you get here?”

  “I hitched a ride,” she said. “Can I come in?”

  “Jesus Christ, you do have his DNA. You’re insane.” Madison didn’t respond to that and after several long seconds of silence, he finally lowered the gun and pushed the door open wider. As she walked inside he said, “Did Hawk bring you here?”

  “No. He doesn’t know I’m here.” Madison was looking around the small space. There was a couch and two chairs that looked handmade out of logs, a coffee table made of the same wood, and a little stone fireplace. There were no pictures or photographs and only thin cushions on the furniture that looked like they’d been bought at a discount store. The space was neat, but it was sadly…empty.

  “Then how? Who else knows where I live? I know Dax didn’t bring you here.”

  “Why is it a big secret? Are you a CIA agent or something?” Lion rolled his eyes.

  “I just like my fucking privacy. I don’t like people banging on my door in the middle of the night.” Madison really looked at him then. His eyes were bloodshot and his normally messy hair was all over the place. He looked like maybe he’d just woken up.

  “It’s nine-thirty.”

  “And?”

  She sighed. “Lion, can we just sit for a minute? I’m leaving tomorrow and I won’t ever darken your doorstep again. But…before I go, I have a favor to ask.”

  “Sit.” She sat down and he continued standing. “What makes you think I’d do a favor for you?”

  “Because you owe me.”

  He snorted out a laugh. “How do you figure?”

  “Because what you told me after we had sex that night…you should have told me before.”

  Lion frowned and sat down in one of the chairs that faced the couch. Running his hand through his beard he said, “Why?” Madison found him so odd sometimes. His “why” didn’t sound argumentative, it sounded genuine…like he honestly couldn’t figure it out for himself.

  “Because something like that is important to a woman. We don’t, as a general rule, partake of casual sex as easily as men do. Lion, since the first day I got on the back of your Harley, I’ve felt something for you, and I think you knew that. So having sex with me and then telling me it was only going to be a one-night stand was akin to taking advantage of me.”

  His eyebrows went up and he sat back in the chair and folded his arms across his bare chest. Madison was trying not to look at his body. It was incredibly sexy and she didn’t want to lose her focus. “So, I took advantage of you…because you wanted more than just that one night?”

  “No, I didn’t. But you didn’t know that.”

  He laughed. “What I think I know is you’re going to frame this however you have to in order to get what you want.”

  “Fine. Look at it however you want.” She took a deep breath and changed tactics. “Lion, did you know that when I was almost two years old my kidneys failed?” She could tell he was right on the verge of saying something sarcastic, but he bit it back and just shook his head instead. “Well, I was. It had something to do with circulation problems that they didn’t know I had and before they found out, my kidneys had started to shut down. My mom…who had never told my dad about me…wasn’t a match to be a donor. I was in the hospital for over a month while they looked for one and they told my mom she should prepare for me to die. So she called my dad…Hawk. Do you know what he did?” Again, Lion shook his head. “He flew to Vegas that same day and got tested. When they told him he was a match, he didn’t ask any questions…he signed the papers to donate one of his kidneys, did the surgery, and never looked back. Never once did he ask for a DNA test…” Lion smiled and she saw his body shake with a silent laugh. “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing. I mean, maybe it wasn’t obvious then…but I don’t doubt you’re his kid for a second.” Maddie rolled her eyes at him and went on.

  “My point is, only a good man would do that�
��a really good man. So whatever it is that has caused him to earn a bad reputation in the club, and with you…well, I just think there has to be some kind of misunderstanding. The man who saved my life is not a bad person, and Lion, I don’t want him to be sick or die alone.” Madison’s eyes filled with tears and she tried to blink them back. Lion was staring at her face and she didn’t want to cry in front of him.

  “So you want me to follow him around and report back to you?”

  She reached up and dabbed at the corner of her eye. “Not follow him, per se…just watch for anything strange or unusual.”

  Lion laughed again and said, “Where Hawk is concerned, that’s 24/7.”

  She sighed again. “You know what I mean. Out of the ordinary. I promise I won’t call and bug you…just promise you’ll call me, if you see or hear anything I should know.” Lion looked away from her, at the wall behind her. He looked like he was thinking over what she said. Finally, he pulled his brows together and said:

  “Do you have to have dialysis when you only have one kidney?”

  Madison thought that was an odd question but she said, “No…not unless there’s something wrong with that one kidney. Why?”

  He bit the corner of his lip, sucking part of his facial hair into his mouth. For some reason, Madison found that incredibly sexy and the butterflies fluttered in her belly and for a second, she lost her train of thought. “I followed him for a few days this week.”

  Madison was shocked. Lion had expressed over and over that he didn’t care and he wasn’t going to get involved. “Why?”

  “I don’t fucking know,” he said, looking and sounding genuine as he said it. “You just got in my head and so I followed him to see what he was up to during the day. He doesn’t have a lot of responsibilities at the club. When he came back…anyways, Dax doesn’t give him a lot to do. So I followed him around and most of what he did was old man bullshit…but then he went into this medical place, a dialysis clinic.”