HARDCORE: Storm MC

by Zoey Parker

  A fat brown squirrel landed on the grass and looked up at him, twitching its nose.

  Bones let out an uneasy laugh, tucking his gun away again. “Go bury your nuts someplace else, will ya? It ain't safe here.”

  He walked back to the porch and rapped on the window again. When Missy came into the living room and slid the window open, he said, “False alarm. Sorry.”

  “No problem,” she replied. “Thanks for checking it out.”

  “It's what I'm here for,” Bones grinned, tipping his hat.

  “Do you want a bowl of chili, or a beer or something? I mean, you're just sitting out there...”

  “Nah, I'm fine,” Bones said. “If I've got my hand on a beer or a bowl, it'll make it harder to reach for my gun in a hurry if I need to. Thank you, though. Maybe put some aside for me to take home when Keith gets here, huh?”

  “You got it,” Missy said, smiling. She slid the window shut again.

  Bones was preparing to settle back into the chair again when he heard another rustling sound, this time behind the house. He started to reach for the window to tap on it, then thought better of it.

  If I'm going to spook them every time a chipmunk crosses the yard, Bones thought, this is gonna be a long night for all of us.

  He stepped off the porch and pulled out his gun again, keeping it low. He placed his feet in the grass carefully, making sure he made no noise at all. A light breeze drifted past and he sniffed the air out of habit, trying to detect the scent of unfamiliar cigarette smoke, cologne, or human sweat nearby—any sign that someone might be stalking the house. There was nothing but the faint aroma of chili from inside the house, and the flowers in the neighbor's garden.

  As he poked his head around the side of the house, he saw a pair of gleaming eyes over a pointed snout and sharp teeth. The 'possum hissed at him once before retreating under the house with a flick of its wiry, worm-like tail.

  Bones sighed, tucking his gun away in his waistband.

  A split-second later, a thin, strong wire looped around his throat and constricted from behind.

  Bones gagged and struggled, reaching behind him for the gun. Before he could grab it, a rough hand snatched it away and his legs were kicked out from under him. He sank to his knees, clawing at his neck as he felt the wire sink through his flesh. There was a hot spurt beneath his right ear, and he realized that his jugular had been severed. A moment later, he felt a towel wrap around his neck and shoulders to catch the blood.

  How could I not have smelled them coming? Bones asked himself, trying to get a look at the men behind him. They wore ski masks, but Bones could see an oily substance smeared around their eyes and lips. It was special forces issue, made to neutralize the skin's natural odors. He recognized it. He'd worn it numerous times when stalking his prey through the desert.

  Fuck me, he mused. They really are soldiers after all.

  Dark blooms appeared at the corners of his vision, and he felt himself getting light-headed. The world cartwheeled away from him giddily, and all he could think was, No war, I'll never get to have another war, everything just ends here for me on some stupid fucking suburban lawn. And no gunshots or explosions, Christ, everything's so goddamn quiet...

  Then the curtains closed over his eyes, and the last thing he ever felt was grass on his cheek before his body was swiftly dragged off into the night.

  Chapter 24

  Hunter

  Hunter stood in the kitchen with a towel around his waist and peered at the smoldering rectangular lump of burned plastic, oozing gloopy-looking gravy and pink chicken-juice onto the bottom of the oven. It smelled like a fire at a chemical factory and he coughed, waving the fumes away from his face with an oven mitt.

  He'd been at the Knife for almost forty-eight hours straight, and even though he hated the idea of leaving it, Keith had convinced him to at least head home for a shower and a couple hours' sleep before he went crazy from exhaustion.

  “You're no good to us bugged-out an' half dead, Hunter,” Keith had told him, “any more than Cain's any good to us all busted an' drugged-up. You gotta see that, man. Go take care of yourself so you can take care of us.”

  Hunter saw the logic of that, even if he didn't want to. He reluctantly agreed and started to ride home, then remembered that there wouldn't be any leftovers waiting for him in the fridge since Missy was at Cain's. He'd been so worried about going up against Gaspar that he hadn't eaten, and now his hunger was gnawing at him.

  He stopped at a convenience store and chose a boxed frozen dinner at random—a rubbery-looking chicken breast with a pasty wedge of mashed potatoes and some brown sauce. When he took it home, he turned on the oven, unboxed the tray without bothering to read the directions, cut a slit in the clear plastic film, and left it to cook while he went upstairs for a shower.

  When he emerged from the steamy bathroom, he had no idea why the smoke detector was beeping or why the place smelled like a gas station caught fire.

  And why would I? he thought grumpily, the acrid smoke of the burned tray filling his nostrils. I've made TV dinners before, and that's all the directions said to do. How the fuck was I supposed to know different ones had different directions, and not all of them have the plastic that can go in the oven?

  A blob of potato, still half-frozen, slowly plopped down. It was followed by several charred flakes, still glowing as they drifted down.

  Hunter slammed the oven shut, then kicked it for good measure.

  He slumped down at the table, rubbing his empty stomach and looking at his cell phone. He hadn't realized how hard it would be to have Missy gone, even for such a short period of time, and he felt like a helpless idiot. He'd always enjoyed having her around to take care of him, but he'd also largely taken her presence for granted and figured he'd be able to do things for himself if it ever came to that.

  Well, his first night of it, and he'd damn near set the whole place on fire.

  Hunter picked up the phone and dialed Missy. He knew he couldn't tell her to come home—Cain needed her more than he did. But he felt a sudden desire to hear her voice, even if she was breaking his balls or complaining about babysitting Cain. He knew it was dumb for him to feel so sappy, but in that moment, it didn't matter. They'd been almost inseparable since childhood, and it just didn't feel right to be in their house without hearing her voice. Besides, the attempt on her life earlier had shaken him up more than he'd wanted to admit.

  Missy picked up on the second ring. “Hey, Hunter,” she said.

  “Hey yourself,” Hunter answered, trying to sound gruff. “How's the patient?”

  “Oh, he's a delight,” Missy answered. Hunter could almost hear her rolling her eyes, and he smiled. “He's just been so relentlessly cheerful and upbeat, I keep telling him that he should get a job writing greeting cards.”

  “Well, just remember to go easy on him, okay?” Hunter replied. “He's goin’ through a lot of bad shit right now. Besides, you've never even broken a bone.”

  “Not true,” she retorted.

  “Fingers don't count,” Hunter said, remembering the time Missy fell out of a tree when they were kids and landed on her index and middle fingers, snapping them.

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Because they don't,” he answered. In the background, he heard what sounded like several large dogs barking. “What is that? Do the neighbors have a pit bull or somethin’?”

  “No, that was just Cain,” she said. “He didn't remove the feet right, so now the 'dogs' are barking.”

  “That shouldn't count!” Hunter heard Cain call out in the background. “I got distracted by the phone!”

  “Yeah, and the patient suffered for it, buddy!” Missy called back, apparently holding the phone away from her mouth. “Now move your piece back three squares.”

  Hunter frowned, then shook his head. When it came to Missy, he'd learned long ago that not everything had to make sense. “So everything's quiet over there?” he asked. “Bones is still out front?”
/>
  “Yeah, he was about an hour ago,” Missy said. “Let me go check.”

  There was a long pause, followed by Missy's voice, sounding uneasy. “Um, I don't see him there now...”

  Hunter sat bolt upright. “What the fuck do you mean? He's not there?”

  “Calm down, calm down!” Missy insisted. “He probably just went around back to check something out.”

  “He's supposed to let you know every time he does that!” Hunter yelled. “Goddamn it, he's supposed to call me if he even thinks he sees or hears somethin’ worth checkin’ out! He sure isn't just supposed to be wanderin’ off on his own like some kind of asshole!”

  “Here, I'll go out and check to see if he's there...” Missy began.

  “The fuck you will!” Hunter snarled, bolting upstairs for his clothes. “You keep that door shut and locked, you understand me? You do not go outside, no matter what. I'll have Keith there in a couple of minutes.”

  “Okay, Hunter,” she said. There was no mocking in her tone now, just quiet efficiency. “I understand.”

  “Good,” Hunter said, ending the call. He yanked on his shirt, jeans, boots, and cut, stomping down the stairs with his phone in his hand.

  As he locked the front door behind him and ran over to his bike in the driveway, he dialed Keith. The phone rang, again and again and again, and Hunter was about to give up when Keith finally picked up.

  “Hey, sorry, Hunter, I was...”

  “I don't give a fuck,” Hunter said. “I need you to get your ass over to Cain's, okay? Don't stop for nothin', just get the hell over there now. Take Arnie an' Tallboy with you. I'll meet you there.”

  “You got it, boss,” Keith said, hanging up.

  Hunter got on his bike and revved it, riding off toward Cain's house for the second time that day.

  He thought about Bones strolling off when he was supposed to follow specific protocols, and Keith staying behind to take a leak while Cain got smeared across the pavement—and now dicking around doing God-knew-what instead of answering his damn phone when they were under attack.

  Hunter's blood boiled. Bad enough the Eagles were up against such impossible odds, but since when had his own men become so half-assed and unreliable? Apart from his VP, Keith and Bones were his two highest-ranking officers, and now he didn't even feel like he could trust them anymore. He'd asked for Arnie and Tallboy because they were big and tough, but neither of them had ever proven themselves particularly focused or resourceful, either. Tinny was smart and dependable, but he was more useful as a medic than a fighter.

  Which just left two people Hunter really felt he could depend on at this point—his veep, who was barely able to stand up, and his sister, who wasn't even a patched member.

  His thoughts turned to his conversation with Missy at the breakfast table days ago, when she'd told him she wanted to do more for the club. She was right when she'd said she could ride and shoot as well as any Eagle, and for the first time in his life, he found himself wishing there weren't rules against women becoming members. Maybe that had seemed like an important bylaw when his father had helped found the club, but his father hadn't lived long enough to see the badass his daughter had grown into.

  She did make short work of Hernandez's cockroaches at the Shop-N-Stop, Hunter thought. That was damned impressive.

  Well, first things first. Hunter would wait for Cain to heal up, and together they'd figure out how to come at Gaspar. After that, he could learn how to do more stuff around the house for himself, and then give some more thought to Missy's future with the Eagles.

  Assuming Cain and Missy are even still alive, he thought, pouring on the speed.

  Chapter 25

  Hunter

  Hunter's bike roared into the driveway just as Keith, Arnie, and Tallboy pulled up.

  “Fan out,” Hunter commanded. “Search the whole property—the bushes, under the house, everything. I wanna know what happened to Bones.”

  As the Eagles split up to inspect the exterior of the house, Hunter's boots thundered up the front steps and he banged on the door. Missy opened it immediately.

  “Did you see anything?” Hunter asked her as he entered. “Hear anything? What the fuck happened?”

  “I don't know,” she said. “He was sitting out there, I went back to the kitchen, and when you called he was gone.”

  “Did you notice any headlights outside, or flashlight beams? Anything at all?”

  “I'm telling you, I didn't see anything!” Missy insisted. Her eyes were dry, but her voice was quivering slightly. “If I did, I would tell you, but he just fucking vanished!”

  “Seriously, Hunter, there wasn't anything,” Cain chimed in.

  “I didn't ask you, goddamn it,” Hunter spat. “What the hell would you have seen or heard, huh? You're half out of it on pills!”

  Cain's mouth snapped shut and he lowered his head. Hunter felt himself consumed with rage, and he knew why he was snapping at Cain—because he needed him sharp, he needed him now, and there was nothing he could do to make that happen. So Hunter was taking it out on the poor bastard, even though it wasn't his fault.

  Before Hunter could take a deep breath to calm himself or try to fumble out an apology, there was a knock at the door. The three Eagles stood in the doorway morosely. “We didn't find anything,” Keith said. “No blood, no spent cartridges, not even footprints or drag-marks.”

  “Get back out there and check again,” Hunter demanded. “You must've missed something. These aren't fuckin' ghosts we're dealing with, here. They're just men, and men leave traces. Find something! Now!”

  The Eagles exchanged worried looks and dutifully tromped back out to take another look. But from their expressions, it was clear they didn't expect to find anything.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do?” Hunter wondered aloud. “If Gaspar's gonna just keep sending people here to try to take out Cain...”

  “If they'd really wanted to kill Cain, they had a chance to do that after they took out Bones and before you guys got here,” Missy pointed out. “Or Gaspar would have just sent a few car-loads of his men with machine guns and shot the whole house full of holes. But since he's sending a guy or two at a time instead, it seems more like he wants to rattle you. And if Bones were here, I'm betting he'd tell you the same.”

  Hunter nodded slowly. The whole thing made a twisted kind of sense to him. “It seems like our best move is to get everyone to the Knife—you two included—an' hole up there.”

  Missy shook her head. “That could be just what Gaspar wants. Maybe he figures if he picks off enough of the people who are closest to you, you'll get paranoid enough to pile everyone into the clubhouse, bunker-style. Then he can launch a few grenades into the place and wipe all the Eagles out at once.”

  “Well, what the fuck should I do then?” Hunter asked. “He's got me backed into a corner!”

  “Seems like Gaspar's going full-on terrorist with his tactics, right?” Cain said. “So why not do the same? Split the Eagles up into multiple cells around town, including here. Make it so he can't possibly hit one without the others knowing about it and mobilizing in minutes.”

  Hunter thought this over. Separating his people like that sounded borderline insane—they were an MC, not the Viet Cong, and guerrilla fighting had never been their style.

  But it seemed like Gaspar was well-acquainted with “their style,” and he'd already shown how capable he was at making it work against them.

  It looked like the Eagles would simply have to adapt or die.

  “Okay,” Hunter agreed wearily. “I'll have Keith, Arnie, and Tallboy each choose about three guys, an' I'll take the rest. My team will stay at the Knife, Keith's team will hang out here in your garage, an' Arnie an' Tallboy can take up positions in the eastern and southern areas of town. From this point forward, no Eagle will ever be out of another Eagle's line of sight. We'll all try to keep our heads down an' make it through this next week without losin' anyone else.”

  Hunt
er's cell phone rang, and he looked at the caller ID.

  It said “Bones.”

  Hunter hit the Accept button. “Bones? Where the fuck are you?”

  The voice that answered was a nasal drawl with a slight Mexican accent. “Not to worry, ese. Your friend is quite close to you. In fact, he's on his way right now.”

  A pair of headlights flashed twice outside and Hunter ran out of the house, peering up the street. A black car with no license plates was approaching. As it sped past, the rear window glided open and something round was tossed out. It bounced once on the pavement before rolling to a stop at Hunter's feet.

  It was Bones' severed head, wrapped in clear plastic.