by April Lust
They had made a quick stop at Rudy’s place to leave Rocco with Hannah, to pick up more weapons and to put together a lie for the cops about where they had been when the attack on the clubhouse went down. Then they had left civilization behind to make use of a long forgotten road.
He followed the pale back of Phantom, who no longer wore a prospect’s patch. He held a hand out, nearly the color of the moon in the sky, and all three of them brought their bikes to a halt. He could hear the fading echo of their engines through the valley.
“What’s wrong?” Kellan demanded.
Phantom pointed. Kellan followed the line of his hand and then cursed. The road was gone, washed out with the recent rain. A ribbon of a river slithered over the rocks and into the trees. It wasn’t particularly wide, but just wide enough to keep them from being able to cross it on their bikes. Kellan cursed again.
“We’ll have to walk.” Rudy clapped a hand on Kellan’s shoulder. He dismounted and tucked the bike into the dark line of trees, not bothering to cover it up. It wasn’t likely that anyone was going to come up this way, and even if they did, it wasn’t likely that they’d steal a bunch of bikes. Kellan didn’t care if they did. He’d give up every bike he’d ever built if it meant getting to Emma in time.
In time? In time for what? What if she was already dead?
“What’s the plan, president?” Rudy asked after the bikes were abandoned. He distributed a bag of weapons to each of them. They were easily thirty pounds each, maybe more. Kellan barely felt it.
“We get Emma,” he responded. “We kill Gabriel and his freak brother and we get Emma.”
The three of them tromped carefully across the murky ground. Their boots slid across damp mud and slick silt. The smell of wet animal and pine wafted up around them. They had to go slow, slower than Kellan wanted to. Their boots weren’t made for walking on muddy ground.
“How?” Phantom wanted to know.
Kellan felt an unexpected shot of anger rock through his body. He took another step and nearly fell. “We kill them, we take her.”
Rudy gripped his elbow. Kellan tried to jerk out of it. He stumbled and both men went cascading into the muck. It didn’t smell like clean mud, like the kind you might find at a playground or even in a backyard. This was the kind of mud that mixed old road with dying trees. It was the scent of a trees death, and maybe an animal, too, and Kellan went face first into it.
The anger became fire and he swung. His fist connected with Rudy’s face. Rudy swung back and got him in Kellan’s injured hip. Then they stopped swinging. Their bodies wrestled against one another. Twigs and dirt caked in their hair and on their skin.
Kellan knew he was in trouble. Rudy was a bigger man, stronger, and had grown up with a father who liked wrestling. A father, Kellan knew, that Rudy had lost to raining bullets and angry men. The man had reach, skill, and anger on his side. But Kellan had Emma.
“Get off me!” Kellan was saying. “Just get off me!”
Rudy howled, wordless and angry. His face was all twisted up with emotions Kellan didn’t know the man had in him. Rudy could be serious, but rarely angry. This was angry. This was the monster of a good man pushed past anger and well into wrath. Kellan didn’t care. It was all his fault.
Rudy slammed him into the ground, and the air whooshed out of his lungs. Kellan reached out with one hand and wrapped it around the prominent lump in Rudy’s throat. He was squeezing hard enough to make the other man cough, but neither of them gave in. Rudy slammed him again and again, until all Kellan could feel was deep sharp pain thrumming through his back.
“It’s your fault!” Kellan shouted when he punched his free fist into Rudy’s side, aiming for the kidney. He must have hit or, or at least got close, because the bigger man jerked on top of him.
The crack-boom of a gun going off cause the two men to freeze. They both jerked their heads towards the sound. There Phantom stood with the big 12 gauge that Vinny had used at the bar, the barrel of it smoking in the cool night air. He pumped it again.
“Stop.” The single word was low and carefully enunciated.
“Man, what the hell are you doing?” Kellan demanded.
“We don’t have the time.” Phantom leveled the gun at the two of them. “Get up. Now,” he added when they hesitated.
Rudy and Kellan held up their hands. Rudy stood up first, and then offered a slick, muddy hand to Kellan.
“Emma needs us.”
“She wouldn’t need us if not for him,” Kellan spat. He hadn’t even known he was angry about it until he words were coming out of his mouth.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Rudy demanded. “Gabriel took her. Not me.”
“Where was she, Rudy?” Kellan demanded. “Why wasn’t she at my place?”
Rudy didn’t answer for a minute. All Kellan could see was deep cherry red creeping up his neck beneath the patchwork layer of drying mud that caked everything. His hands clenched and unclenched and Kellan knew that he was thinking about swinging.
“Go ahead,” he snapped.
“I didn’t know she’d run off,” Rudy snarled.
“I thought you knew her. I thought you two were all big and close and everything because she spent so much time with your family. I mean, hey, I guess it’s not your fault. It’s not like she’s ever run away from things before…oh wait, that’s exactly what she does.” Kellan snapped back. He stepped up, jerking his chin towards the sky so he could look Rudy in the face rather than the neck. “She runs when she can’t take it anymore.”
“You didn’t have to do what I said.”
Kellan couldn’t argue that. “You’re right, I didn’t, and that makes this my fault, too. I was stupid enough to think you knew her better than I did. I mean hell, I’ve only really talked with her for what, a month? Maybe six weeks? I don’t even know.”
Rudy dragged a dirty hand over the cleanest part of his jeans, and then down his face, ridding it of a large portion of the muck. It sloughed towards the ground with a wet plop and the three of them stood there in the following silence.
“Do you love her?”
Kellan sighed. “I don’t—”
“Man, don’t fuck with me right now, do you love her? You are about to go charging up a mountain in the near dead of night with nothing but a load of guns and three men to use them. Those don’t seem like the actions of a man who isn’t in love.”
He wasn’t wrong, Kellan realized. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
“Then let’s figure out how we are going to do this, because it isn’t going to help Emma at all to have us charge up there and then die.”
Phantom knelt in the wet dirt and drew out an impressive map. For the next thirty minutes the three of them put together a plan of attack. Kellan used his bandana to wipe the worst of the mud off of his own face and redistributed the weapons so the man who carried them had the ones that worked best for him, and the plan.
“How long of a walk do you think we have?” Kellan asked. The evening had become nighttime, and it was only going to get darker. It would be a small factor in their favor when they got to Gabriel’s little mountainside estate.
Phantom glanced over his shoulder, towards a path that only he could see. “Three hours, maybe four.”
“Nine,” Kellan said. “By the time we get there Emma will have been in that house for nine hours.”
Rudy stood up. “If he had wanted to kill her, he would have left her in the house to watch it burn. She’s alive, and she probably will be for a while. All we have to do is hurry.”
“And stop punching each other in the face,” Kellan offered.
“And stop punching each other in the face.” Rudy nodded once. “Though, to be fair, you throw a terrible right hook.”
“Whatever.” Kellan followed after him. “You have a thick face.”
The small band of men fell into step with one another as they made it up the mountain. It was a grueling hike. Kellan’s leg was already hurt and his shoulder was ac
hing beneath the bandages, adding the thirty some-odd pounds of weapons on top of that, a steep incline and pure unadulterated exhaustion and it was going to be four hours of hell.
He tried not to think about how many more steps, how many more minutes he would be out here. He turned his thoughts to Emma.
He’d send her to school when the fall came around. She could go and learn about all the animals in the world and how to make them feel better. She wouldn’t have to work while she studied, he’d make sure of it. If he could manage it, he would make sure she had her own place up there, too, so she wouldn’t have to worry about her roommates messing with her stuff or distracting her. Maybe he could get her a pet to keep her company. Not Rocco, that mutt would get into everything, but maybe something small like a gerbil or something. Did she like gerbils? He couldn’t imagine Emma not liking an animal that was plunked down in front of her.
His thoughts slid back to the conversations they had shared between bouts of fornication. She had always liked to talk while they were resting.
“I want to have one of everything,” she’d said, her creamy thighs still straddling him. His hands had danced up the sides of her body, still craving the weight of her breasts in his palms.
“Everything?” he had asked her. “Like, what? Half of Noah’s Arc?”
Her laugh had been so bright, so alive and brilliant. Her nose had crinkled and her breasts bounced in his hands. “I guess so.”
“I dunno.” His hands had worked across the tips of her nipples, making her hips rock in response. “A whale is gonna take up a lot of space. I’d hate to clean that tank.”
She had rolled then, flopping languidly to one side and looking at him. It was that moment that he realized just how beautiful she was. Not just hot, she had been hot since she was sixteen and started to fill out, but really beautiful. It was the kind of beauty a picture didn’t capture, but the kind that came when your heart was so big that other people couldn’t help but care.
“Okay, fine, realistically, I’d like to have a small zoo. A dog, a cat, a bird, a snake.”
“You like snakes?”
She nodded. “I like animals.”
“You don’t mind feeding them those tiny little mice?”
She had fixed him with an amused smirk. “I work in a vet clinic. I have fed feeder-mice to big ol’ snakes before.”
He had rolled on top of her, hungrily crushing her sleek body to his. “That’s hot.”
Another bright laugh. “I am not going into the psychology of that.”
His lips curled into a smile as he hiked up the side of the mountain. He hadn’t been lying when he told Rudy he loved her. It wasn’t just how good she felt when he was sliding into her, or the moans she could whimper, or the way her pretty mouth could curse, he loved her.
And Gabriel had her. Who knew what he or his creepy little brother were doing. Kellan remembered the way Michael had watched her when they had crashed the wedding. It had not been a good look. It had been the same sick look his dad had given the cougar.
Kellan’s feet couldn’t carry him fast enough.
Chapter 17
It could have been hours later, or minutes. It was impossible to tell with the unrelenting shine of the lights. Her pale skin had long since gone red, and then burnt under the oppression of the UV lighting. The bottle of water was long since empty, and all she could do was huddle on the ground with her head beneath the small square of shade that the plastic chair offered.
When the door opened she didn’t flinch. She just lay there and waited for whatever was going to happen next.
Kellan was dead, what did anything else matter? He wasn’t coming to get her. There would be no white horse, no last minute rescue of a cavalry of bikers. Long dry tears had made lines on her face. He had been at the club, and there had been no survivors of The Saloon shooting.
Leon was dead. It was a little too close to losing a second father. That tall guy with the grizzly bear beard and the kind words. Rudy, her surrogate brother and friend of so many years. Vinny, who had taught her how to punch. Handsome Joe and ever quiet Phantom. They were dead, all dead. Had Hannah been there too, Emma wondered. What about Samantha? It was far too easy to picture the long legged girl sauntering up to try to meet with Kellan only to get shot.
The idea of it brought no comfort to Emma. She might not have liked the woman, but she didn’t want her hurt. All Emma wanted was to go back in time and tell Kellan to shut up and hold her. Maybe then he wouldn’t have been at the clubhouse; maybe he would have been home safe in her arms. Kellan would never be in her arms again. If the heat hadn’t stolen her tears, she would have cried again. How could she have been so dumb? She knew Gabriel was looking for her.
It was the sound of heels clicking on the floor that finally had Emma looking up. It was the legs she saw first. Long, carefully waxed legs, poised in a perfect line. Emma’s heart made a sudden leap. She sat up and saw the rest of the woman.
“Samantha?” Emma struggled to stand up, but dizziness hit her and she slithered into the plastic seat. It was soft, too soft beneath her body, as if slowly melting. Maybe it was. “What are you doing here?”
“God, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.” The bitterness was thick enough to dance on.
Emma’s head spun. She wasn’t sure what to think of it. Her thoughts were stuck in the molasses of her brain. Every time she tried to follow one she got stuck. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you?” Samantha walked a little circle around the chair. “God, it’s hot in here. I don’t know how you can stand it.”
Emma blinked. She couldn’t stand it, not really, but she hadn’t been given much of a choice.
Samantha waltzed over to the door, the pinprick tap of her heels echoing in Emma’s head. Her manicured hand tapped on the door. It swung open. “Hey, can we turn down the lights? I mean, I love a tan as much as the next girl, but this is pretty much ridiculous.”
A moment later two of the three the lights flicked off. Emma whimpered with relief. Without the heat bearing down on her she began to think.
“You…” Her throat was dry and scratchy. She swallowed and tried again. “You’re working with them?”
“Ding ding.” Samantha waved a flippant hand, several expensive rings glittering on her fingers. “I mean, come on. What did everyone expect me to do? Wait around forever for Kellan the Idiot to come around to what was sitting right in front of him? Oh please. I know what I’m worth.”
Emma wasn’t so sure about that, but she didn’t have the energy to argue. “What happened?”
“What happened? I went to play for the other team. Oh, not chicks, sorry, sweetie, I don’t swing that way, and if I did, I’d go after someone who had a little more pride in their appearance, you know?”
Samantha bent just a little and plucked a flake of skin off of Emma’s face. Emma winced. She felt the tacky sensation of blood moving down her jawline.
“I mean, look at you,” Samantha continued, “you are just…there. Okay, fine, you’ve gone to college, but so what? With enough money anyone can do that. So it’s really whatever. But anyway. I guess I came up with the idea at the wedding. I mean, there you were, wearing some outdated dress and some hag hairstyle and what was I supposed to do if Kellan was willing to take you as a wife? I mean, I tried, don’t get me wrong. I really tried. I offered him everything you weren’t willing to do, but I guess you will do pretty much anything.”
The pain in her cheek brought Emma’s thoughts to a pinpoint focus. “You didn’t just tell my mom about the funeral, did you?”
“Maybe you are smart.” Samantha’s smile was a twisted impersonation of glee. “Things didn’t go exactly as planned. You were supposed to run away from your mommy and into the waiting arms of Gabriel’s men. But no, you had to do what you always do and make things more difficult first, right? But I did some quick thinking and got Ramon to come get you. It nearly worked, too, but no, Phantom had to be super creepy and w
atch everything. God, I wish I had been there to shoot him. He pretty much ruined everything.”
Emma closed her eyes and let her thoughts come together. Her head wasn’t hurting as bad as it had been. That was certainly a good sign, right? “What else did you do, Samantha?”
It was easy bait, but Samantha took it. “Oh, I started telling Gabriel about all the meetings. Every time the club got together. This shooting thing was supposed to happen weeks ago, but Kellan has been…indisposed.” She sneered until her pretty face looked like a bad representation of herself. Or maybe it was more Samantha than the pampered look that she was always wearing.