by Jackson Kane
“You got it, Clyde.” I smiled groggily, stretching. I emptied the bag of beauty supplies that I’d picked up at the convenience store onto the bed. “All this makeup... I’m going to be so glamorous.”
I had to pretty myself up quickly.
“Don’t have too much fun, Bonnie.” Remy grabbed the water bottle and a pack of cigarettes, then winked at me on the way out the door. Remy somehow had the forethought to pack my skimpiest outfit. Knowing him, the devious bastard probably had this planned well before we even left Santa Fe.
Forty-five minutes later, one of the Lobos headed inside to use the bathroom. I signaled to Remy and ran down as fast as I could.
I was a mess of poofy eighties hair, teary-eyed mascara, yoga pants, and bra-lessness, under an obscenely low-cut blouse. If anyone I knew saw me, they probably wouldn’t recognize me, but that was the point.
Remy extinguished his cigarette, and crept around the back of the van while I drunkenly meandered near the fat biker sitting in the driver’s seat with the door open. When he predictably cat called at me, I walked toward him and laid on the heavy flirting.
“Whatchu need, mommie?” the fat biker cooed at me.
“I’m lost. Do you know how to get back to Michael’s restaurant? I just got into a fight with boyfriend.” I channeled my inner walk-of-shame from my earliest college days. I groaned a little on the inside at my terrible performance and hoped the outfit alone would be distracting enough.
With all the subterfuge Remy had me do, at some point, I really should look into acting classes.
While I rattled off fake laughs and feigned drunken small talk, Remy had pried open the van’s gas tank door and dumped the liter of Coca-Cola in. When I saw him walk away, I took Remy’s cue and thanked the “big strong biker-man” I was talking to, then stumbled around the building.
Once out of sight, I dropped the character, headed to our room, and cleaned up.
Remy joined me shortly after.
Later that morning, we left with the two dozen or so bikers bound for Leslie. We had to keep this strike force relatively small. There was nothing illegal about a few hundred bikers riding together, but that always tended to draw the feds and that was the last thing the Lobos wanted to have to deal with.
This wasn’t supposed to be an army assault, this was a tactical execution. We rode with the best the Lobos had to offer. The baddest of the bad. We were a prison riot on wheels. I didn’t know if the Lobos had kill teams of their own, but if they did… those were the guys that were all around us.
Bones had the road captain wave us up and position us up front next to him. I was sure it was so they could keep an eye on us in case Remy tried to run.
When we were about ten miles out from Leslie, I carefully pulled the phone from Remy's pocket. I found the draft text message he’d written to Tee before we left and hit send. All we could do now was pray that Tee was able to come through for us.
Leslie was a small, but spacious flat town with a handful of well maintained brick and stone buildings. With plenty of vacant lots being developed, it was apparent that the wheels of change, although slow, were turning in Remy’s home town. Despite the progress of industry, there were parks, public art in the form of sculptures and paintings, and a few covered gazebos for gatherings. Almost every store front window had handmade signs with the date of some social event, most likely from an elementary school. The charming town was well cared for by its residents.
There was this wonderful sense of community here. I really liked that.
The rolling tide of bikers thundered through the main drag in the center of town. It was odd, bordering on creepy how empty the town was. Very few people were on the street or driving around today. I wondered how far that sense of community went. Had the Steel Veins been so well-regarded here that the town’s people heeded the warning from the club and stayed inside today?
Remy had assured Bones that the mother chapter, Deadeye’s crew, would show up early in the day to help with the set up for the annual. We were supposed to get there right after they arrived. That way we’d have hours before the rest of the chapters showed up.
The Lobos plan was to ride into the parking lot, kill anyone outside, then storm the building with the heavy guns out of the van. They would wipe out both Deadeye’s and Top’s chapters, then be halfway back to New Mexico before the rest of the Veins reinforcements could arrive.
It was a scary, good plan. Of course it was, because Remy was the one to think it up.
Remy’s old clubhouse came into view and I understood why it was probably easy to have such sway over a quaint little town like Leslie. The clubhouse was basically a brick rectangle with a chain-link fence surrounding the property, nothing really to look at.
It was the location that was brilliant. The clubhouse was on the outskirts of town, out by the railway station, in the industrial district. The Veins could show up to, and support, all the town’s events, but also keep the grittier, day-to-day stuff out of sight and out of mind for the residents.
Leslie probably viewed the club as their hidden protectors.
When we got close to Remy’s clubhouse, everyone pulled out their pistols. Bones glanced over to Remy just before we pulled in. He was checking to see if Remy really had the nerve to raid his own clubhouse. If he saw any doubt on Remy’s face, I was sure he’d have nodded to Spyder, who rode directly behind us, and we’d have been gunned down in a heartbeat.
Remy matched Bones’ gaze, then pulled his bike into the lead.
There were two Veins in the parking lot that were caught on their way back into the building. I didn’t recognize either of them from the nights at Muse’s, so they must’ve been Deadeye’s crew.
Remy had his gun out and firing.
They were both on the ground before Bones had even entered the parking lot.
Like a burst damn, the Lobos flooded into the open, gated parking lot. A dozen bikers set up at each exit and shot up the doors when the Veins inside tried to come out and help their fallen brothers. This was a surgical strike. Remy had planned for everything.
“¿Dónde mierda está la camioneta?” Bones scanned for the van, but couldn’t find it, then he screamed at his road captain and sergeant at arms. No one had any idea. It should’ve been right behind them. Bones called the van’s drivers, but got no answer. Then he checked his voice mail. The Lobos stood by anxiously, waiting for orders.
Bones closed the phone, crushed it into his clenched fist, wrapped it with his other hand, pressed them into his forehead, then shook violently for a few seconds. The frustration on his usually subdued face was startling.
He looked as if he would become unhinged at any moment, then he calmly relaxed and yelled out something in Spanish.
Remy and I watched him intently…Me, not knowing what he said, and Remy pretending not to know.
“The van stalled out on the highway on the way over. The engine somehow got fucked. The police showed up and now Flaco and Papa are in custody. With all our fucking heavy weapons!” Bones’ voice pitched slightly, but he brought it back under control, showing incredible restraint. He even took a deep breath before asking, “Do you know anything about that?”
“News to me.” Remy shrugged, feigning obliviousness. For reasons beyond me, Remy knew exactly what a liter of Coca-Cola could do to a vehicle’s engine. “You had guys on that all night, right?”
“Yeah. S’what I thought.” Bones’ face contracted in disbelieving acceptance. “OK. So here’s what happens now. Roughneck!”
The crowd parted, so the leathery warlock could get through. He was short and wiry, with long, stringy hair, under a faded bandana. He swam in his patch covered, denim vest. One of those patched read “Original” which probably harkened back to him starting the club. He looked like he escaped from a biker retirement home if such things existed.
“Remy is going to take the lead on the way into the clubhouse. Spyder, you and ten guys follow him in. Roughneck, you’re going to take ch
amaquita here over to the edge of the parking lot, and if anything else— and I fucking mean anything— doesn’t go as planned, you put a fucking bullet into that pretty fucking face of hers.” Bones’ tone was definitive. He wasn’t going to be too careful. Everything led up to this moment.
This was the moment he destroyed the Steel Veins.
“Roger that. Be my pleasure!” Roughneck pulled up the back of my shirt and stripped away my gun, then jerked me by my arm toward the back of the parking lot. “Let’s go, tight ass.”
My skin crawled at the old psycho’s touch. This was definitely not in the plan! Shit!
“I’ll come back for you,” Remy mouthed the words. There was nothing else he could do for me; they were already breaking off to make the assault.
I was on my own.
I had to stay alive long enough for him to get through this.
“Yer boyfriend there’ll never make it out of this alive.” Roughneck shoved me past all the parked bikes out by the dumpster, and then pushed me into the chain-link fence that surrounded the property.
“That’s not what your boss says,” I spat the words at him, emphasizing that he was no longer in control of the club, regardless of the Original patch he wore. “As long as everything goes according to plan.”
“Bones says a lotta stuff.” The old bastard waved my words away and offered up a sickly grin. “Sometimes ya gotta read ‘tween the lines.”
“They made a deal.” I ripped his hand off my arm. “You keep your fucking hands to yourself.”
“Yer a feisty twat, aintcha? Ya see yer boy over there yellin’ in the door?” Roughneck pulled the pistol out of the leather holster he wore on his chest.
I stayed quiet.
“The second he disappears.” Roughneck pointed his evil gaze and his absurdly, large revolver at me. “You do too.”
“That’s not what Bones fucking said!” I protested.
“Tween the lines.” Roughneck shrugged looking back at Remy.
“Don’t shoot!” I could just barely hear Remy yell at the men inside his clubhouse. “Deadeye, it’s Poet. You’re completely surrounded. I’ve got an offer for you that makes this whole nightmare go away. No one else needs to die. I just need to talk. Two minutes, that’s all.”
I couldn’t hear what Deadeye was saying, we were too far away.
“Dammit, I’m trying to help you! Lobos have your fucking daughter, man! I’m coming in, unarmed so do not shoot,” Remy lied, he was thinking on his feet. Kidnapping wasn’t part of the plan.
I clenched up. At least not the plan that Remy outlined.
With his hands up, Remy walked into the clubhouse, then abruptly dove to one side and was out of sight. There were gunshots, and the rest of the Lobos charged in. Then there were a lot more gunshots.
God, I hoped he was all right.
And now out here I was completely alone. No help was coming for me. I needed to handle this myself regardless of what Remy did. Before Roughneck could turn back to me, I charged him.
When we collided into the side of a nearby dumpster, Roughneck’s revolver fired over my shoulder. It was unbelievably loud. My world was nothing, but that constant “eeeee” noise. I could still see, but the sound was so jarring that I became disoriented. We toppled to the ground, then somehow he was on top of me, his hands around my throat.
His grip was shockingly strong for a man in his mid seventies. I couldn’t breathe. The more I thrashed and clawed at him, the more he squeezed. My vision started to go fuzzy and white around the edges. I tried to knee him in the groin but he laid on me side-saddle and I couldn’t get the right angle. I reached for the gun but had no idea where it ended up. My god I was going to die, strangled by an old man in a parking lot.
What would Remy do? Frantic and desperate, I jammed my thumbs into each eye. My nails punctured them as easily as if I pushed them through soft-boiled eggs. Blood and liquids ran between my fingers, down my palm and forearm. I still couldn’t hear anything, but I saw him screaming, and I know I must have been screaming too, or I would have if he let me breathe.
Roughneck still wouldn’t let go so I pushed harder. I felt my fingertips bottom out, my nails scraped against the bones behind his eyes. Only then did he finally let me go.
I gasped, taking in only as much air as I could scream out. I kicked and slid myself away from him. I rolled onto my stomach and just tried to breathe while frantically wiping whatever I could off onto my jeans. My hands were slick and disgusting, I could feel the pulp under my nails, and fought the urge to throw up. I wanted to tear my own fingers off! It was the most disgusting thing that I’d ever been forced to do. I couldn’t stop shaking.
Then I realized I wasn’t shaking. The ground was shaking. Everywhere. What the hell was that? Was this area prone to earthquakes?
Roughneck had a hand over his face, and was blindly sweeping the ground for his gun. He found it a moment later and immediately fired it in whichever direction he thought I was in. He was insane!
The bullet missed me, but only barely. This man would not stop until I was dead. I only had two options, run away and hope for the best or finish it right now.
I kicked the gun out of his hand into the fence. I ran over and picked it up.
The realization hit me like a speeding bus. I wasn’t a bystander, or an accident, or in the wrong place at the wrong time. Roughneck wasn’t trying to hurt Remy. This psychopath was trying to kill me.
Me, Star Keller, no one else.
My mind replayed the image of Rio tumbling off the truck bed after I shot him in the stomach at Muse’s place. I didn’t have the strength or resolve to finish off the dying man then, so Remy did it for me. Remy wasn’t here this time.
It was just me, a gun, and a man who wanted me dead.
I decided something that Remy probably decided for himself at one point in his life. The epiphany was the most obvious thing in the world. Everything just made sense. All the pieces fit. This was what you did to people who tried to kill you.
I would never be a victim ever again.
“No one gets to kill me.” I pushed the gun barrel into Roughneck’s back. “Not you. Not anyone.”
Calmly squeezing the trigger like Remy taught me, I watched the front of diseased old biker’s chest explode. And felt nothing beside the recoil.
My ears were still muted from that constant “eeeee” sound. I put two more rounds into the old biker just to be sure. There wasn’t any noise, so I barely flinched. The gun barrel smoked for a second from the rapid firing before being cleaned away by a gentle breeze.
So, this is what I’m truly capable of.
I exhaled, feeling the last of my timidity blow away with the dry late-summer wind. I was calm. I truly belonged in Remy’s world. It just took me this long to realize it.
Only then did I remember where I was and dropped into a crouch, booking it behind the dumpster. I had just murdered one of the founding members of Los Lobos! Angry bikers with guns would be shooting at me any second now.
I turned the heavy pistol over in my hand. I had no idea how many shots had been fired from it, and even worse, I didn’t know how to check. I could load and unload a magazine, but this was the first time I’d ever held a revolver. I tried to remember how many shots were fired, but that was useless. Too many other things were going on to keep an accurate count.
I rubbed my ears to work out the ringing from the damn monster handgun and after a few seconds, I realized that no bullets were landing near me. No one even ran up to check on the fallen biker.
Was no one actually coming after me for killing Roughneck?
Peeking my head out from behind the dumpster gun first, I was ready to fight back against anything that came my way. What I wasn’t prepared for was what I saw next.
Having temporarily lost my hearing, I didn’t hear the new bikers pull in. There must have been dozens of Steel Veins that had rode in, maybe a hundred, or more!
Of course, none of the Lobos came for Rough
neck, they were all too busy trying to save their own asses. The tail end of the firefight was brutal, the Lobos outside had been devastated. Almost every one of them had been, or was currently, being slaughtered. There were a few Lobo holdouts hiding behind bullet-riddled cars trading shots with the Veins, but in the face of such overwhelming firepower, it was only a matter of time.
With two clubs that hated each other this much there would be no surrender on either side, everyone knew that. The few Lobos left fought with the tenacity of men who didn’t expect to turn the tide. They just wanted to die on their feet.
Remy had Tee secretly contact all the other Steel Veins chapters and set up a different location for the annual, rather than their Leslie clubhouse. When I texted Tee, he took the rest of his chapter to that new location to meet all the members from all over that had already arrived. I had no idea what he told Deadeye to keep his crew at the Leslie clubhouse while they were gone, but whatever it was… it worked.
Despite Remy’s double-cross, the Lobos plan mostly worked. They came in while everyone was away and killed Deadeye’s crew. It was afterwards that everything fell apart.
Instead of having hours to deal with Deadeye, they had minutes.
I still couldn’t believe Remy’s plan worked!
Tee had all the Veins reinforcements come in and cut off the Lobos escape routes.
Most of the poisonous decision makers in the Steel Veins were wiped out by the Lobos, thus cleaning the cancer out of Remy’s club. The remaining Veins chapters were now united, stronger than ever, against a common threat.
We’re not out of the woods yet, I reminded myself. Remy still had to convince the Veins not to kill us. They sent a kill team after us for killing Rio. What would the MC do to us for wiping out the entire mother chapter?
Where was Remy? I started making my way back toward the clubhouse. I didn’t see him anywhere. He should’ve been out by now.
My throat tightened up. A million things could’ve gone wrong in that clubhouse. Remy was brilliant, but some things just couldn’t be planned for. Like him, I thought, passing Roughneck’s corpse. I resisted the urge to spit on such human trash.