by Naomi West
Fuming, seeing red, Cutter hung up the phone. He sprinted back to his bike, clearing the parking lot in no time flat.
Chapter 35
Liona
They'd already gotten about half-way through their game and Squirrel still hadn't touched his beer. It was maddening, and she was having a hard time being inconspicuous by checking the progress on his drink. Finally, she decided she needed to come up with a different plan. Something else that was maybe more direct. Maybe she could make him a sandwich or something, and slip it into that? Or, some other bit of lunch? She gripped her pool cue tighter, twisted her hands on it, and shook her head to herself. That wasn't going to work, not at all. She took another drink of beer, hoping the alcohol would calm her nerves.
“Your shot, little lady,” Squirrel said, walking around to her side.
“What am I again?” she asked, feigning ignorance.
“Stripes,” Squirrel said with a sigh. She'd already asked two times before.
She walked around to the other side and, cue in hand, leaned down to line up her shot. She needed to hurry up and get him drugged somehow, but she was out of ideas. The drugged beer had been her moonshot, her plan so crazy it might just work. But now she decided, as she shot the cue ball into a nine up against the rail, her original plan wasn’t going to carry through. She also realized, as the nine bumped off the rail in a completely unintended direction, that she kind of sucked at pool still.
“Your shot,” she said as the nine rolled to a final stop in the middle of the table. She walked back around the table to her old spot. She grabbed her beer, grumbled to herself, and slammed back the last of it in frustration. She kept her empty and went to head into the kitchen.
“Grabbing another beer?” Squirrel asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “You need one?”
“Hardly touched mine,” he said, holding up his beer. He shrugged and offered it to her. “Not in much of a drinking mood. Why don't you just take mine? Hate to see it go to waste.”
Her eyes flickered from his to the beer. She shook her head a little. “No, I'll just grab another one.”
“Think I got cooties, or something? Didn't even take a sip of it.”
She shook her head, laughed a little. “Well, it's kind of warm, isn't it?”
“Not really,” he said, running the tip of a finger through the condensation gathered on the side. “Still near as cold as when you pulled it out.”
“Well, I wouldn't want to take your beer,” she said quickly. “That's all.”
“Does seem a touch rude,” Squirrel replied with a laugh as he nodded his head. “Know what's really rude, though?” he asked as he took a step forward. “Lacing somebody's drink. Liona laced my beer. Didn't she?”
“What?” she asked, furrowing her brow and trying to pretend to be shocked by the accusation.
“Little lady,” he said, taking another step forward, “you think I don't know when my beer smells funny? I been drinking that piss for years. Years, I tell you. Now, here. Have my beer.”
Her eyes widened in surprise, and she shook her head. She put her hands out in front of her, defensively, and took a step back from the advancing biker.
Squirrel advanced. “Know who else wants you to take a drink? Mr. West does, that's who.”
Wyland? What did he have to do with this? “No. No, no, no,” she said, the words tumbling from her mouth like a waterfall as she backed away.
“Don't worry, you made it easy on yourself. Instruction from him was to beat you black and blue if I had to. Said he didn't care one bit. Enjoy myself even. I ain't no woman beater, though.”
She backed into a chair, almost stumbled to the ground, but managed to stay upright and kick it away. She lost her grip on the empty beer bottle, and it tumbled to the floor and shattered. “Squirrel!” she shouted. “What are you doing? You can't be working for him! You're a Vanguard!”
“Known his daddy for a while, but Wyland's got me working for him, now, little girl.” With beer in hand, he advanced on her double-time, corralling her back into a corner.
She stopped as her back and heels hit the wall with a soft thud. In the understatement of year, this was not going the way she'd planned in the beginning. “Squirrel, please, you can't do this. What about Cutter?”
“What about him?” Squirrel asked with a shrug. He advanced, coming closer and closer with each step. “Now drink.”
Smalls could help her. That was it. “Smalls!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Help!”
“Smalls!” he screamed right along with her, his voice pitched to a false falsetto as he waved his hands around in a mockery. “Help!” The biker just laughed, laughed so loud and freely she could see his mouthful of rotted teeth. “Oh, little girl, he ain't gonna here you. What do you think that broken pool cue was all about? I knocked that fat bastard out when you went to Cutter's room, then locked him in his bunk.”
Liona's hope began to fly away, just like a bird released from a cage. Her eyes began to fill with tears, clouding her vision. “What kind of man are you?” she sobbed. “You're a fucking monster!”
“Gotta make a living somehow,” he said. “Now, drink.”
He edged closer. She could see every little piece of stubble on his chin, every individual hair. If she'd kept the pool cue, she would have had something to defend herself with. If she'd managed to hold onto the empty beer bottle, she could have protected herself. Now she had nothing. Just her tears, and her obstinacy.
“No,” she sobbed, shaking her head. “I won't.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Didn't wanna do this,” he said, mild regret in his voice. His hand shot out, fast as lightning, and slapped her hard across the mouth.
Pain flashed in the jaw, the kind of pain she'd almost grown used to under Wyland. More tears filled her eyes, but this time she knew they were tears of anger. She cried out as she stumbled to the side with the force of the blow, but she picked herself upright. Squirrel closed in on her, shoving her backwards as he swept her legs out from under her.
She went down in a thudding tangle of limbs, tears streaming down her face. She looked up, saw the blurry form of the biker standing over her, the beer still in hand. She drew herself away from him, curled up into a fetal position to try and protect herself from the rain of kicks and punches she'd grown to expect. Instead, he reached down and pulled her over onto her back. He came down on top of her, straddled her chest with his superior weight.
She struggled against him, kicking and screaming now, as he snatched up a flailing wrist with one hand. She tried to fight him, but his grip was like rebar around her arms.
With one knee, he pinned her wrist to the rec floor. Calmly, he switched the beer from one hand to the other and grabbed her clawing hand. “Stop it, little girl,” he yelled through gritted teeth. “Only gonna hurt yourself more, you keep fighting this.”
She reached up for his face, her fingers searching for his eyes. Squirrel grabbed her hand, yanked it back down to the floor, and slammed his other elbow into it. She screamed out in a surprised yelp of pain, and he took the opportunity to pour the laced beer into her mouth. She sputtered and shook her head, spraying the beer everywhere in a fine mist.
He grunted and slapped her again, harder this time. “Open your mouth,” he yelled. “Open it!”
Spilled beer covered her face, soaked her hair, and had gone down to the front of her shirt. It filled her nose, gagging her.
“Open it!” he yelled again.
She clamped her lips together and shook her head from side to side. He reached down and pinched her nose, shutting her nostrils. She screamed in closed-mouthed protest, her wordless yell like a trapped animal. She thrashed violently, trying to buck him off, but it was no use. He was too big, too heavy for her. His fingers and thumbs were like a vice, gripping her nose closed, shutting off her air.
“Come on, little girl,” he drawled. “Just one drink.”
Finally, she gasped out, desperate for breat
h. He took his opportunity when he saw it. He shoved the beer bottle to her lips and began to pour. Liona struggled and gagged as the cold, acrid-tasting liquid flowed into her mouth and filled it. She choked on it at first, but even choking on it wasn't a defense. She could feel it flowing down her throat, slowly making its way to her belly.
With most of the beer gone, Squirrel took the bottle away from her mouth. He stayed on top of her, though, and kept her hands pinned by her side. She shook her head some more, tried to gag herself. Without any free fingers to stuff down her throat, she knew that was almost impossible. The worst part, though, was that the struggling with no air had already helped her earlier beer along. She could feel herself becoming lightheaded, detached from this world and its worries. A sense of warmth and blessed confusion was filling her body.
“There you go,” Squirrel said, his voice almost congratulatory. Before she could think to close her mouth again, he was pouring the last of it down her throat.
She hated herself suddenly for not having tried harder. She should have just run out the front, and not tried to do this foolish ruse. If she had, maybe she would have been miles from her. After all, it had worked with her wedding, hadn't it? Time as a concept seemed to fade, and the world simultaneously slowed to a crawl and seemed to rush past her. Squirrel stayed on top of her, though, his eyes fixated on Liona's as hers began to droop and shut.
There was no shame or anger, or even a will to fight. No Wyland West, no Desmond Hawes or his alter ego Cutter, and no Vanguard. A moment later, just before her world went dark, she heard a familiar voice.
“She out?” the voice asked.
“Yes sir, Mr. West,” Squirrel replied.
“Good.” Then, the sound of a gunshot, followed by three more in rapid succession. “Cutter never should have trusted a rat.”
After that, there was just blessed darkness, and deep, unbroken sleep.
Chapter 36
Cutter
Cutter slammed into the front door of the clubhouse at a dead sprint. He hoped against hope that he wasn't too late. He still couldn't believe he'd been tricked so easily by Wyland, been conned into letting his guard down like this. He shoved through the doors, and the old, familiar smell of gunpowder filled his nose. He ran through to the rec room, calling for Liona, Smalls, Squirrel, anyone. Only silence answered him. He rounded the corner into the rec room, his feet pounding the floor, and came to dead stop. He looked around, eyeing everything, until his gaze fell on a crumpled form sitting up against the wall. Squirrel.
Cutter called out to him as he ran over, but it was clear even from this distance that he was dead. His shirt was covered in blood from a group of tightly spaced gunshots in his chest, and a long languid trickle began at the corner of his mouth and ran down his neck. Sticky thick blood covered his hands, had pooled around him on the tile. Just beyond him lay an empty beer bottle, tumbled over on its side.
“Squirrel?” Cutter asked again as he knelt down next to the corpse.
No response from the cracked lips. No blink from the cool, glassy gaze of the eyes. Cutter stood up, leaving his brother there, and went over to the bottle. He picked it up, smelled it, wrinkled his nose in disgust. There was something off about the beer, a kind of smell that was too skunky to be just beer. He took the bottle and went over to one of the tables in the rec room, set the empty down, and looked at the shattered beer bottle there. Almost no liquid was mixed on the tile with the shattered amber glass. So, it had been an empty, too.
Next, his eyes glanced up to the pool table. Two cues leaned precariously up against the side. That was a particular pet peeve of Smalls's. He hated it when you leaned the sticks like that, complained about how it warped them over time. It looked like Wyland and whoever was with him, had come in during the game. They'd struggled, maybe? Squirrel hadn't given up, so Wyland had him executed?
That would explain the broken bottles, and the flipped over chair next to the table. Cutter shook his head. Something about this whole setup seemed off to him. He walked over to the pool table, tapped the nine ball and sent it into a nearby pocket. Whoever had been playing had just barely missed.
But, then a thought occurred to him. Where the Hell was Smalls? Surely, Wyland wouldn't have taken him along with Liona. Would he? That was when he heard it. A muffled pounding, back in the bunkhouse. He picked up one of the pool cues from where it leaned against the table and, grasping it in both hands like a makeshift club, headed off to the find the source of the noise.
The noise grew louder as he stalked down the hallway, deeper and deeper into the bunks. A thudding, thumping sound like a shoulder or a boot on the wall. It could be Smalls, locked away by Wyland for whatever reason. Or, hell, it could be one of Wyland's men. If he had men, of course. He gripped his cue tighter, his knuckles white, as he crept down the hallway.
As he got closer to the source, he realized it was coming from Smalls's bunk. He padded down the silent hallway till he reached just short of Smalls's door. “Smalls?” he called, his voice booming in the tomb-like silence.
There was more thumping and bumping, clearly on the other side of the door. Cutter reached out with one hand, the pool cue still gripping the other, and twisted the nob. He flung the door back and stepped away, ready in a heartbeat to start swinging at whoever came out.
Nothing burst out at him, though. Instead, there was a muffled cry for help from just inside his second-in-command's room. “Cutter?”
At least, that's what he thought he heard. He poked his head in through the door, taking it in slices, and looked around. There, tied up in a chair with a gag in his mouth, was Smalls, his eyes open and pleading for Cutter to untie him.
“Goddammit, Smalls,” Cutter muttered as he tossed the cue aside and drew his pocket knife. He went over and tore the gag off began cutting the bonds from his wrists.
“Cutter, man,” Smalls said, “I'm so fucking sorry. That bastard Squirrel attacked me and must've put me in here.”
“Squirrel?” Cutter asked. “Squirrel did this to you?”
“You'd just left, and Liona had gone back to your room for something, then all a sudden Squirrel just starts wailing on me with his cue stick,” he said as rubbed his tender, previously constrained wrists. “Messed up my leg and beat me unconscious. Woke up in here, all tied up. Heard some gunshots, then a bunch of guys talking.”
“They got Liona,” Cutter said, cutting right to the point, as Smalls leaned down and started to untie the bonds around his ankles. “And Squirrel's dead, shot to death.”
Smalls glanced up at him, winced, and shook his head. Cutter returned the look. Squirrel had been there brother, even if he had ended up being a real rat in the end. “So it was all bullshit, then? The meeting, all that?”
“Wasn't even there,” Cutter said, groaning. He wanted to curl up in a ball and die. Not only did they have the woman he loved, they'd killed one of his brothers. And he still didn't have any evidence to ruin Wyland.
“Well,” Smalls said with a sigh, “not only all that. But, Wyland's got help.”
“Help? Who? The cops?”
He shook his head. “Bolt Riders.”
Cutter shook his head and ran a hand down his face. Shit. “How the fuck did he get them?”
“Dunno,” Smalls said.
“Are you sure?”
“Heard 'em through the walls, man. Recognized one of their voices. Who else is gonna have that many bikes with 'em?”
“Any idea where they took her?”
Smalls frowned and shook his head again. Cutter turned and kicked the wall, putting a hole in. He cursed and wiggled the tip of his steel tip boot free. “Well, he did mention something. Dunno who he was talking to, but it sounded him important to him.”
“What was it, brother? Anything can help.”
“Something about Memory Lane.”
“Like, taking a trip down it?”
“Yeah, maybe.” Smalls shrugged. “I dunno.”
The gears pulled together in C
utter's head. Wyland had mentioned the same thing, or something similar, over the phone to him, towards the end of the conversation. Then, it clicked. What had been their most important experience growing up? Where had they all first met?
“The old high school,” Cutter said. “It's the only thing that makes sense.”
“Really?” Smalls asked, making a face. “He'd go back there, you think?”
Cutter shrugged. “Got any better ideas?”
Smalls grunted. “No. I just know the guy's an asshole.”
“You said he's got the Bolt Riders with him, huh?”
“Yeah,” Smalls replied “We can't get past all those guys. Can we?” he asked as he went to stand.
Cutter lunged forward and caught him, his reflexes fast as ever, as Smalls's leg gave out on him. “We?” he asked. “Ain't no way with that fucked up leg of yours.”