by Evelyn Glass
Seeing the burnt out husk of the clubhouse as he drove up to it was an odd experience. He was twisted between surprise, gratitude, and horror. What in the world had happened? The Scorpions and the Titans had existed in quiet tension since the end of World War II. Those vets had come home and founded two clubs for the men who couldn’t seem to find their way back into the rows of pretty houses with picket fences and jobs that needed ties. Who didn’t feel like themselves unless the wind was in their faces and they knew they could pick up stakes and move whenever they needed to.
Whatever flames had taken the building under had been put out, and there wasn’t much left but rubble and the bare bones of the old warehouse. There wasn’t much heat coming from the building anymore. The fire department had come and gone, leaving the area taped off and barricaded. The street lights gave him some visibility, but not a lot. He parked his bike and dismounted, then just stood, staring at the wreckage of the old clubhouse.
He wanted to pull out his phone and try to find some news coverage, see if anyone had any idea what had happened. If they were thinking arson, it seemed unlikely the building would be unguarded, but how much effort would the cops put into figuring out what had happened to a bunch of thugs? He knew how he and his kind were thought of in the civilized world. It was part of why he’d become so reluctant to bring Emma any further into this than she already was.
He stared at the building and thought about how he could disentangle her from this web. Was there any way? Or was the game already over? Was she already a target?
“Is that you?”
The quiet, feminine voice behind him made him spin on his heel. A small woman was standing under the streetlight, her arms wrapped tightly around her narrow frame. It took him a moment to remember her name — Naveena Sen. She’d been a year behind him in high school, and while they had never been friendly, they’d nodded at each other across many different classrooms. Her parents had immigrated from India by way of England, but she’d been born here.
“Naveena,” he said.
“Dean Patterson,” she said. He could hear a waver in her voice, a kind of ragged edge that made him think she’d been awake for hours longer than she should have been. She took a few steps toward him, and he could see that the makeup under her eyes had run. She had probably been crying. Her long, curly brown hair was tangled. That was all he’d noticed before she flew at him.
He braced himself for a slap, but he didn’t expect a solid punch to the stomach. She knocked the wind out of him, and he folded over in a gasp, his stomach aching and his diaphragm paralyzed for a moment.
“What the hell,” he managed to wheeze out as he put down one hand to keep himself from falling to the ground. Naveena was standing over him, her hands in tight, white-knuckled fists, but she didn’t look like she was about to hit him again. Yet.
“This is your fault,” she said, and he could hear the tears crackling in her voice now. “This is all your goddamned fault. You and your stupid Titans.”
There was a weird moment in his head where he wasn’t entirely sure if she was insulting the club or him personally, and then the air made a more coherent path back to his brain, and he managed to wake up a little more. “I don’t know what happened here, but the Titans had nothing to do with it.”
She put a hand on his shoulder and pushed. It took nothing to push him over, and Naveena had a lot more than nothing backing her up. He landed on his ass, and as much as he hated to admit it, it was a little easier to breathe down there.
“Who the fuck else would be messing with the Scorpions? I stayed here because it was safe, you piece of shit. The Scorpions are too strong to have enemies so the only ones fucking with them would be you. You and your stupid club.”
Her words were not making any sense to him. He tried to pull himself back together. “Naveena, I’m sorry, it’s been a really shitty couple of days. I don’t know who burned you guys out, but it wasn’t us. Or if it was, I didn’t sign off on it, and I’ll do my damnedest to hang up whoever did. What happened? Can you tell me?”
She was quiet for a long moment, and he wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. He wouldn’t put it past her to hit him again or drag him up to his feet. She sat down, across from him, her head sinking down into her shaking hands. He worked on getting his breath back, and then reaching out carefully, touching her shoulder. She shook off his touch, but she looked up at him.
“I wasn’t here,” she said. She didn’t look at him, directing her gaze over his shoulder. “I was at work. Someone threw a bottle through the window, straight into the — Well, it doesn’t matter now. But there was an explosion. A few people got out. Some didn’t. The cops — the cops don’t believe that it was an attack. They say that we must have done it ourselves.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the night air ran through him. There was something going on, something much deeper than he’d realized. When Mia and Abbey were taken, he’d thought it might have to do with him, or perhaps someone looking for leverage on the Night Titans. When Fred was killed, he’d thought perhaps Fred had been trying to relay information about the club, or something else that was happening. That there was some other story he hadn’t heard about yet. But now, this attack on the clubhouse as well?
Someone was trying to start a war. It could be someone on either side or someone outside of the group. But it wasn’t going to be pretty, whatever it was. Because someone was trying to start a war, and someone else would have to stop it.
“Naveena,” he said, quietly. “I need a meeting with Marv.”
She shook her head. “Even if I gave a shit about you, Dean, I couldn’t do that. Who am I? None of the guys here give a shit about me.”
“Can you tell me where to find him?”
“Can’t and won’t. You get a twofer.”
He clenched his jaw and fought back the urge to scream. She had probably lost people she cared deeply about today. Shouting or hitting her wouldn’t help her — or him. “I didn’t have anything to do with this, Naveena, but I’m going to find out who did, and I’m going to make them pay. Okay?”
She glared off into the distance, but she didn’t argue with him.
“Do you have somewhere safe to go?”
She pointed into the wreckage, without saying a word. What was there to say really? He wanted to see this girl safe, but he was also itching to get on the move again. This puzzle was a hell of a lot bigger than he’d thought, and he needed to bring it to a close as soon as possible. Before more innocent people were hurt.
“Give me your phone,” he said. She handed it to him without any real contact, and he opened up the notes app, tapped in an address and a passphrase. “Go there,” he said. “It’s a motel. You can stay the night, sleep safe, and then get in touch with me in a few days, at that number. I’ll make sure you’re okay.”
He thought about trying to make her promise that she’d do as he said, but what was the point? She didn’t owe him anything. He didn’t owe her anything either, but she truly believed that he was putting her in danger. This was the least he could do.
She took the phone back out of his hand with a little bit of a yank, but she didn’t immediately delete the note. She stayed on the ground, her gaze focused on the squatting black horror of a building as he stood. He didn’t quite run back to his bike, but the heels of his boots made a double time clack as he rushed back. As quickly as he could, without giving in to the rising panic, he mounted the bike, kicked it into gear, and sped back towards the safe house. Where he hoped Emma would still be, peacefully asleep.
If he’d put her in even more danger, he wasn’t at all sure he’d manage to forgive himself.
Chapter Fourteen
Emma
When the door shut, Emma stirred, but it wasn’t enough to wake her up. Not until she stretched, and her hand brushed over the second pillow. The one which should have held a second, sleeping head. Dark, tousled hair, round, wide-set eyes, and a smile, even in sleep. He could’ve been
watching her, or still been resting, ready for her to wake him with a carefully positioned hand or mouth. Or anything, really, other than clearly not present.
She opened her eyes and saw what her exploring fingers had already found: a pillow that didn’t look like it had been slept on, sheets that hadn’t been disturbed, and a cold, empty space beside her in the bed. It shouldn’t really be surprising. It wasn’t like they had some kind of commitment to one another. He’d probably gone and slept on the couch or something.
Only it was still dark out, and she hadn’t been asleep for long. And there had been that sound. Like the door had just been opened and closed. That was what had woken her up. Where the hell would he have gone?
She sat up in bed, clutching the sheets to her breasts. It was very different, being naked in a strange house that she didn’t really know instead of naked with a man that seemed to light her body on fire. She felt odd and exposed now. It didn’t help that she’d been in such a state when Dean drove them through town that she didn’t really know exactly where she was, or how to get back to home.
He wouldn’t just abandon her. That wasn’t his style. She pushed away the fact that she barely knew anything about him, and focused on the sense of him, which had been her guiding light all through this catastrophe. He seemed to care very much about his sister in law, and about his daughter. A man wouldn’t care that much about those two women, and then dismiss her out of hand. He wouldn’t have left her somewhere she could get hurt. She needed to believe that. As hard as it might be.
There was a bureau in the room. She tugged the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around herself to see if someone had conveniently left behind some generic women’s clothing. The place seemed to be well stocked from what she’d seen of it. Clothes didn’t seem to be outside of the realm of possibility.
She managed to come up with a plain T-shirt, jeans that would fit her hips, and underwear that were still in the package and therefore didn’t feel too freaky to put on. No bra and her clothes weren’t in the bathroom. That was okay. They’d been filthy. Vomit. Blood. Had there been blood or had that just been her imagination? Thinking about it made her stomach roil, and she decided she didn’t need to go that far down the mental path.
She did find her phone, where it must have fallen out of her pocket, under the lip of the vanity in the bathroom. She snagged it with the tips of her fingers and tugged it out. It was off. Thinking back, it had been since Dean had shut it off in Abbey’s apartment. Heat ran back through her, thinking about how he’d pinned her against the door. But it wasn’t entirely the good kind of heat. Yes, the man was amazing in bed and pure luxury between her thighs, but what the hell was going on? Why had he left her here?
The phone took a moment to connect, then started beeping frantically as a truckload of notifications rolled in. It took her a moment to get to them. She’d gotten tons of calls from a number she didn’t recognize, and a mess of texts from Cassidy. The calls made her nervous. Who would call her phone, a bunch of times, when she had no idea who they were? One call was a random butt dial or a missed number, but this person looked like they’d tried to reach her every half-hour for hours. And there were messages too.
It wasn’t sensible, but as her anxiety spiraled up her throat and choked off her air, she tapped the delete button a bunch of times, pushing the messages out of her phone and out of her attention. That was going to just be how it was, she decided. There was absolutely no need to think about who was doing that. Who was trying to reach her.
Her fingers were shaking as she tapped into the texts from Cassidy.
Girl, where are you? Is everything okay? The daycare was trashed.
Seriously, are you okay? I’m super worried. Text me.
Emma, whatever’s going on, you can trust me. Get in touch.
There was more, but it was all along the same vein. She dialed Cassidy’s number, but after a couple of rings, it just went to voicemail.
“Cassidy, it’s me, call me,” she said. And found herself looking around, feeling like the walls around her were just a little more sinister than they had been before.
She pulled up the GPS on her phone, and after some poking, found that she was outside of town, near the commercial district, but a solid half-hour drive from her apartment. She bit her lip. She could call a cab, of course, though she didn’t have her purse anymore. She had left it… somewhere… That’s right — back at the daycare center. Her credit card information was on her phone, and she thought there was a cab company that would let her pay by tap. She’d just have to remember which one it was.
There was a beep, and a text from Cassidy showed on the screen. Sorry, I’m out, can’t talk. Where are you? Are you okay? Did someone hurt you?
No, Emma wrote back. It’s too crazy. Can you come get me? I think maybe I need help.
Of course, the reply came back in less than a minute. Where are you?
Emma typed in the address. After a moment, the screen flashed again.
There’s a park, just a block from where you are. Can you get there? I’ll meet you at the bench, near the toddler play area.
It was a good idea. Dean had called this place a safe house. What were the odds that someone was watching the place, protecting them? If Cassidy just showed up, they might hurt her, or try to keep her contained, or something else equally dangerous. Getting out first would be better.
She wouldn’t be able to go out the front door, though. She made a quick circuit of the small building. There was a back door that led onto a porch. She’d have to hope for the best.
I’m on my way, she typed and then paused for one last minute.
She didn’t believe that Dean would have left her here if he thought she was in danger. But she also didn’t think that he knew what was going on, not anymore. Not with the way he’d reacted when he saw that dead boy. And the biggest problem was that he wasn’t talking to her. If he would open up and tell her what was going on, she would be able to trust him. Like this, where he was keeping secrets and not trusting her back, how could she possibly believe him?
Nope. She wasn’t going to sit around waiting to be rescued. Absolutely not. She’d get to Cassidy, find out what had happened so far, and then figure out what in the world to do next.
###
The grass was cold on her feet. It was a warm night, and there was absolutely no way she was going to try walking in the heels she’d worn to the garage. That just seemed like a dumb idea, top to bottom. Better to risk cutting her foot on something. It was a pretty clean neighborhood, all things considered, so it didn’t seem too risky. Comparatively. She walked on the grass, between sidewalks and neat duplexes, townhouses that had attached garages and small yards. The embodiment of the modern middle class.
She’d grown up in a place that had tried so hard to be like this and had focused more on looking good and rarely on being good. As long as everything looked perfect, no one cared what went on behind closed doors. That had been the hardest thing to understand when she’d finally broken free, that she could actually begin to trust people who represented themselves in a certain way. Before she’d been forced to search every sentence, every thought, for a hidden motive. Now, if she was with the right people, she didn’t have to think that way. It had been odd, but it had become refreshing.
She and Cassidy had become friends when they were both in school. Cassidy was working on her Masters in Education while Emma was pursuing a degree in Social Work. They’d crossed paths in an early education classroom focused on motivational research. Cassidy’s family was Dominican and Korean, and the two had bonded over being the only people of color in most of their classes. When Cassidy had gotten the job at the after-school center, she’d recommended Emma as another potential recruit from their program. Without Cassidy’s earnest endorsement, Emma wasn’t sure she’d ever have made it through the door.
Neither one of them talked much about their early lives. Cassidy’s parents weren’t together anymore, and Emma knew that Cassid
y was responsible for at least one of her younger siblings full-time. She hated that she was dragging her friend into this mess, but it seemed safer than calling a taxi and hoping for the best. At least she was meeting Cassidy a little way away from the safe house. Hopefully, that would insulate her from some of the potential fallout when Dean came back and found out she left.
She didn’t think he was the type to react that way, but there had been plenty of things she hadn’t thought before.
The walk to the park Cassidy had mentioned was short. The night was warm and pleasant, and though her feet were a little chilly from dew, she was warm enough. She found the toddler playground and the bench that faced it and sat down to wait for Cassidy.