Craving Trix

by Nicole Jacquelyn

  “Yeah, that’s gonna happen,” he replied nastily. “Let me try and understand why you’d want to get rid of my kid.”

  My jaw clenched and I wrapped my arms around my waist. He’d never see it. The man who had always known everything about me couldn’t see past his own shit to notice that I was crumbling. There wasn’t anything I could do. He wasn’t going to forgive me.

  “I’m gonna go home,” I finally said, my eyes watering. “I’ll see you there later… or not.”

  I turned and grabbed the bowl I’d brought with me and moved toward the front of the house, Cam’s silence beating at me like a sledgehammer.

  He went to the back door and stepped outside as I was grabbing the sweatshirt I’d worn this morning and walking toward the front.

  When I got to the screen door, I stopped.

  Everything stopped.

  The sound of metal on metal met my ears and then a solid thunk. Then again. Then again.

  I’d heard that before.

  “Someone’s here! Whose car is that?”

  “I’m going to drop you out the window.”

  “You start running toward the clubhouse.”

  “You DO NOT stop.”

  I stumbled away from the door, trying to shake the confusion from my head.

  “I don’t care what you see.”

  “You absolutely do not stop until you get to Papa, Gramps or Vera.”

  “Do you understand?”

  “Do you understand?”

  “Do you understand?”

  “Run, baby. GO!”

  I spun on my heel and ran for the back door without understanding why I was doing it. I needed him.

  Papa.

  I needed Papa.

  I hit the back door at a run.

  I saw him as soon as I hit the porch.

  Oh, God. There he was.

  “Papa!” I screamed, diving for him.

  Chapter 13

  Cameron

  It all happened so fast that later, I would wonder if the sequence of events I remembered got somehow jumbled in my memory. I wished I could forget it.

  Casper announced that he’d knocked Farrah up again, a smug smile on his face, and I couldn’t keep our news in any longer. My eyes met Dragon’s as I told them Trix was pregnant, too, then watched as he stomped toward me. My parents were a couple feet away, sitting in a rocking chair, and Brenna was chasing after her man to calm him down when the sliding glass door behind me slammed open.

  I didn’t even have time to turn.

  Trix’s shoulder hit me hard as she rushed past and I didn’t have a chance to grab her before she was flying off the porch, hitting Dragon’s chest as she screamed for him.

  Her voice was so goddamn high-pitched that it was almost a screech, and thank God he braced himself, because she hit him hard, wrapping her body around his torso.

  The backyard went completely silent aside from the radio playing softly in the kitchen window.

  Then everything seemed to happen at once.

  Slider pushed Lily onto Gram’s lap as he and Poet rose from the table, while Dragon’s eyes widened at whatever Trix was murmuring over and over again against his neck.

  Will glanced at his brothers, who’d been jostling each other near the horseshoe pit, and Leo pushed past where Cecilia was standing near the base of the oak tree in the backyard, his face full of confusion.

  And then—

  Fuck.

  Men came around the sides of the house. There were only three of them. Christ. Only three.

  But it felt like so much more.

  We weren’t prepared.

  We were fucking sitting ducks.

  The first shot wasn’t loud. Maybe that’s why it took us a second to realize what was happening. Maybe not.

  It didn’t really matter.

  They were indiscriminate.

  I pulled my piece as Slider and Poet flipped the picnic table on its side, shielding Lily, Gram and Vera behind the wide, wood planks. Dragon shoved Trix at me as I fired at the man on my right, missing him as Trix’s shaking body hit me. I threw her down behind me, against the wall of the house, as my ma dropped to the floor, crawling up beside her. Casper fired at the man on the right and took him down, but we couldn’t get a clear sight on the fuckers on the left because of the angle of the house.

  Mick went down first. Christ. He’d pushed Tommy behind him as they tried to find some cover, but they hadn’t been goddamn fast enough. I wasn’t sure if Tommy was hit, but he was beneath his younger brother, screaming and crying as Mick’s huge, limp body refused to move.

  Grease scooped Rose up and practically threw her to Cecilia behind the tree, and I could just barely make out my sister’s feet as they tried to hide. That fucking tree wasn’t big enough.

  Will was shooting back, and I watched as his body jerked, but he didn’t go down.

  Poet and Slider were firing back from their perch in front of the table, but they barely got a shot off before Slider went down. The picnic table was shredded as one of the men swung his weapon in a long arc.

  I ran toward the edge of the porch as Grease roared, and I caught sight of Callie falling to her knees in the yard.

  One of the men went down, his weapon spraying indiscriminately through the carnage.

  “Leo!” Trix screamed as my ma wrapped her arms and legs around Trix’s body, forcing her back against the porch behind me.

  Then the last man fell.

  And all around me, all I could hear was screaming.

  “You alright?” I asked Trix as I ran to her. She nodded vaguely, staring out into the yard.

  “Okay, Ladybug?” Casper demanded. “Call nine-one-one.”

  We jumped off the side of the porch and paused.

  I didn’t know who to go to first.

  Cecilia stumbled around the tree, her face so white it was nearly blue, carrying Rose, whose feet nearly reached the ground. Her hand was grasping the back of Rose’s head to hide her face, but both looked unhurt. She stumbled forward and then stopped, as if she didn’t know where to go.

  “Lily,” Casper murmured, running toward the mangled picnic table.

  “Sheets, Ma!” I yelled at her as I raced toward Callie. She was on her back in the middle of the yard, Will trying to stem the blood pouring from her chest with his t-shirt.

  I dropped my cut in the dirt and ripped my shirt off my head as I went, adding it to the blood soaked one under his hands. “You got this?” I asked frantically as I dropped down beside them.

  “Yeah,” he choked out, tears running down his face. “Micky.”

  I turned toward where Grease was bent over his sons and watched as the big man sobbed, picking Mick’s limp body up off the ground and staggering to his feet.

  Tommy stood shell-shocked behind him, his face completely blank.

  Grease came toward us and fell to his knees, laying Mick beside his mother, who was unconscious, but thankfully, still alive.

  Cecilia and Rose met my ma on the porch, and she pushed them toward Trix before dropping the phone and running down the stairs toward Casper, who was screaming for help.

  I ran.

  Fuck, I ran so fast I barely felt my feet hit the ground.

  Lily.

  As I circled around the back of the picnic table, I couldn’t breathe.

  Vera and Gram’s bodies were in a heap, and beneath that heap was Lily. She was completely silent, and her eyes were wide and unblinking.

  “Lily? Baby?” Casper asked frantically, pushing Vera and Gram’s bodies off of her. They were gone. Completely ripped apart by bullets.

  “Daddy? Where are you?” Lily asked in confusion, her arms waving around in front of her.

  “Right here, baby. I’m right here.”

  Farrah made a mournful noise in the back of her throat as Casper gingerly picked Lily up out of the gore.

  “I can’t see you,” Lily said dazedly.

  “I’m holding you, Lilybug,” Casper said gently, standing fro
m the ground with my baby sister in his arms. “You’re alright. Daddy’s got you.”

  I glanced around me and noticed Poet sitting silently beside Slider’s body, wrapping his t-shirt around his thigh, tying it in a tight knot.

  “Shit,” I hissed, running for him.

  “I’m alright, boyo,” he said achingly. “I’m alright. Go to my daughter.”

  I turned slowly, my stomach hollow, and caught sight of Brenna and Dragon bent over Leo.

  As I got closer to them, I noticed they’d turned Leo on his side as he choked.

  “You’re okay, son,” Dragon said gruffly, his hands steady on Leo’s head as Brenna used her body to brace him. “Just breathe. You’re alright.”

  Brenna was in her bra, and her shirt was wrapped around Leo’s face as he jerked and tried to pull away.

  “Calm down, baby,” Brenna pleaded, her voice shaking. “You’re okay, Leo. Help is coming, son.”

  Leo jerked hard and I caught a glimpse of his mangled face, the skin of his cheek almost completely severed from his jaw.

  “I’ll hold him,” I said quickly, my hands shaking as I fell to my knees beside Brenna. “You go by his head.”

  We switched positions as I heard multiple sirens in the distance.

  “Hear that, little brother?” I asked, leaning down near Leo’s ruined face. “Cavalry is almost here.”

  Leo choked as he tried to reply, then without warning, passed out completely.

  I leaned back on my heels and looked around the backyard. Jesus.

  “Hulk!” Poet yelled, getting my attention. He was still sitting on the ground beside Slider.

  I stood up and jogged toward him, noticing the way his face had paled in the last few minutes once the adrenaline began to wear off.

  “Will’s out on parole,” Poet said sharply, glancing over to where Will and Grease were bent over Callie. “Get his piece, wipe it down, bring it to me.”

  I nodded once and ran to Will.

  “Gun, brother,” I told him quietly, reaching out.

  His eyes didn’t leave his mom as he handed it to me.

  I ran back to Poet and dropped the gun in his lap. “Don’t have nothin’ to wipe it down with,” I murmured.

  Before I could say anything else, he was unwinding his shirt from the wound on his leg so he could use it to wipe Will’s prints off the weapon.

  “The fuck are you doin’?” I asked incredulously.

  “I got this—you go ’round the house. Make sure we’re all clear. Fuck. Bullets stopped flyin’ and we started panickin.’ Stupid.”

  I stood from my crouch and glanced toward the back porch to check on my girl. Cecilia, Rose and Trix sat huddled together in a little group, the older two watching the scene before them in horror as they shielded Rose with their bodies.

  How the hell had this happened?

  I jogged around the side of the yard and hit the left side of the house, finding the shooter Casper had taken out less than a foot from the corner of the porch. Casper had got him once in the neck and twice in the chest.

  I moved silently around the front of the house and found a light blue pickup and two street bikes parked haphazardly behind the rest of the cars in the gravel driveway and cursed. Between the radio and everyone talking and laughing and yelling over each other, we hadn’t even heard the two crotch rockets pull up. It was insane.

  When I hit the far side of the house, I could see ambulances and multiple police cars flying up the driveway, and I knew I had just seconds to make sure the men were dead before we were fucking overrun. I stopped abruptly when the bodies came into view.

  Because there weren’t two.

  There were three.

  And the third was so fucking beat up, I had a hard time recognizing him.

  “Hulk,” he groaned, reaching out a hand that was still clutching a pistol. “Help.”

  I glanced at the men a few feet away. One of them was lying in a huge pool of blood in the packed dirt and the other was facedown, a bullet hole in the back of his head.

  “Woody,” I said, sighing as I dropped to my knees beside him. “Put it down, bud.”

  His fingers slowly loosened around the grip of the pistol.

  “The fuck?” I asked, taking in his wounds.

  It looked like he’d been sliced with a knife up and down his arms and his face was so swollen I had no idea how he was awake and talking. He also had matching gunshot wounds in each of his shoulders. I wasn’t even sure how he was still moving his arms.

  “Caught me last night,” he mumbled, tears rolling down the sides of his face. “Didn’t help ’em. Swear. Didn’t help ’em.”

  “I know, bud,” I soothed, glancing behind me as the vehicles started parking and doors started slamming. “You don’t know anything, alright? Men picked you up, beat you up, dragged you here. That’s all you know, right?”

  “All I know,” he said in agreement.

  I’d just set my piece on the ground when two officers came around the side of the house.

  “Hands where we can see them!” one of the cops yelled as I lifted my arms up by my head.

  “I’m unarmed. Shooters are down,” I yelled back.

  I’d never in my life been so happy to see a fucking cop.

  They swarmed into the yard like locusts, feeding off our misery. I got it. I understood that taking care of multiple gunshot victims was probably both incredibly hard and a rush like nothing else.

  I was just glad they were good at what they did.

  The cops were on us, asking questions and trying to work out some sort of timeline, but those of us who weren’t hurt just watched anxiously as the paramedics did their thing. Farrah must have given a pretty clear account of what had happened when she’d called, because there were more than enough ambulances in the driveway. Within ten minutes, most of them had sped off toward hospitals, leaving a few of us sitting on the back porch, surrounded by blood and body bags.

  “What happened here?” a plain-clothes cop asked me. He was new. He hadn’t been there in the beginning as they’d patted us down.

  “Having a barbeque,” I told him gruffly. “Men came around the house, started shootin’.”

  “And you returned fire, correct?” he asked, bracing his hands on his hips.

  “Tried to.” I laughed humorlessly and gripped the back of my neck. “Don’t think I hit nothin.’ Too much happenin’ at once.”

  I glanced at Trix, who was completely still, sitting in a rocking chair to my left.

  “You have any idea why someone would target your family?” His voice was grating, and his insinuation clear.

  “None at all,” I told him flatly. “I need to get to the hospital.”

  “We’re going to have more questions,” he warned.

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  It wasn’t my first rodeo. I’d been held, booked and questioned so many times I could do that shit in my sleep.

  “One last thing,” the cop said before he turned to walk away. “Why would someone target Mark Eastwood?”

  “No idea.”

  The cop walked away and I turned toward Tommy and the girls.

  “Cam?” Cecilia asked quietly, her face swollen and blotchy from crying. “Why was he talking about Mark?”

  I stared at her for a minute, wondering what was going through her head, but like always, I didn’t have a fucking clue. When she was a baby, she was easy to read, but the older she got, the more mysterious my sister became.

  “He was here,” I said slowly.

  Dad had ordered her to stay put, and for once, she’d done as she was told. She hadn’t been around the side of the house, or even back into the yard. She’d stayed right there on the porch with Rose, Trix and now, Tommy. Waiting and watching.

  “What?” she whispered, her eyes widening as they filled with tears. “No, he wasn’t. He was—”

  “You got somethin’ to tell me?” I snapped, watching her closely.

  “It wasn’t him, Cam,” sh
e cried. “It wasn’t him. He’s on club property. They couldn’t get to him there. It wasn’t him.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I hissed. We’d been looking for that boy for weeks.

  “He was staying at the back of the property,” she confessed softly. “He had a tent and everything.”

  I closed my eyes and dropped my head forward, squeezing the bridge of my nose with my fingertips. Goddammit. They’d taken him right off club grounds.

  That fucking back entrance we’d ignored for years had been breached.

  “He was here,” I repeated, opening my eyes again. “Got no clue what the fuck you’ve been up to, but I don’t have time for your shit right now.”

  Cecilia winced and wiped her palms over her eyes, a gesture that reminded me how young she still was.

  I glanced to the side and went silent as a couple paramedics started picking up the body bags and putting them inside the back of an ambulance. One by one, they took them away.

  “Let’s go,” I finally called out to the others. We no longer had reason to stay at the house. “We need to get to the hospital.”

  Chapter 14

  Trix

  My neck snapped back and forth as he shook me, but I didn’t make a sound. He didn’t like it when I was noisy, so I was very, very careful to stay quiet. He was saying something about toothpaste, but I couldn’t understand him.

  Where was my mama?

  I tried really hard not to look at his angry eyes as he talked to me in the mean voice, and eventually my eyes wandered to the far side of the room, where my door was.

  Mama. There she was.

  I tried to stop the whimper. I kept my mouth sealed shut, but somehow the sound came out my nose. Oh, no. He didn’t like it when I was noisy. I peed my pants like a little baby as my mama ran into the room.

  “Ma’am, are you hurt anywhere?” the EMT asked, pulling me into the present as he crouched down in front of me. “Ma’am?”

  “I’m fine,” I replied hoarsely, unable to meet his eyes.

  Chapter 15

  Cameron

  I grabbed Trix’s hand and pulled it to my chest as soon as we’d climbed into her car. She was okay. Thank fuck. If they’d hit only a few minutes earlier, she would’ve been in the yard, directly in their line of sight. I swallowed hard and kissed her fingertips, meeting her eyes for just a second before turning on the car.