ONE MORE RIDE

by Sophia Gray

  “You’re gonna be okay,” I told Stephanie in a ragged voice. “Val’s going to prison, if she’s still alive. And this little bitch is tied up.”

  Stephanie didn’t wake. Her breathing was calm, even. It reminded me of when we were kids, back when she was still Candace, and I used to sneak into her room. For a moment I was transported back to the time when she loved me. I closed my eyes and listened to the soft, even sound of her breathing, imagining that we were in the same bed. Stephanie had always been the lightest of sleepers and I’d had to be very careful as not to wake her.

  “She alright?” Kyle walked over to me and glanced down. “I mean, is she gonna make it?”

  “She’s been through a lot,” I replied sharply. “How’s Alexa? Did you see her here?”

  Kyle shook his head. “I don’t think she bought into Val’s bullshit,” he said. “Thankfully. She’s back at the clubhouse with a couple of the other girls.” Kyle let out a low whistle. “I can’t believe these tricky bitches,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said, rolling my eyes. Suddenly, all of the Jungle’s Thorns problems seemed like nothing compared to what Stephanie had just gone through. I couldn’t imagine how it would feel to know that my best friend and confidant had been working against me from the beginning. It was a devastating blow. I wondered what Stephanie would do after she recovered. She’ll probably want to get the fuck away from LA, I thought.

  Part of me was sad at that thought, and I couldn’t articulate why. Thankfully, Nick and TJ came running back through the warehouse at that exact moment, their arms loaded up with guns and assault rifles.

  “This is some of it, boss,” TJ said. He was breathing heavily and he dropped the guns down on the floor. “What do you want us to do?”

  "Get the towel and wipe down every single fucking gun in here," I said sharply. "We need to make it look like an Succubi shoot-out." I took one of the pistols and wiped it clean of fingerprints before grabbing Jessica's trussed hand and shoving the gun inside. "Hold onto this, bitch," I said with a grin. "Or don't, I don't really care. As soon as the cops get your prints off it, they'll know you were involved."

  Jessica let out a squeal of frustration and rage and I chuckled. There was something about seeing her down that really cheered me up. Val was obviously evil, she had been from the start. But I was guessing that Jessica had been the innocent of the group, someone who had really played up her cuteness.

  “You’re not gonna be so cute in prison,” I told Jessica with a smirk. “Everyone’s gonna see you for the snake you really are.”

  Jessica’s face twisted into a fearful scowl. “Fuck off,” she said in her tiny, high-pitched voice. “I don’t need you!”

  I chuckled again. “So, we need to drop the guns around here and make it look like the Succubi did, well, something bad,” I said. Val was still lying motionless on the ground. She was breathing, but blood was flowing from her leg at an alarming rate. I walked over to make sure she was breathing and was startled to see her eyes open and a lazy grin on her face.

  “You think you can take me down?” Val sneered.

  I laughed. “You’re already down, bitch,” I told her with a grin. “Now you just gotta wait for the cops to show up and take you to your new home. At least you’re already gay, you won’t have to worry about turning in the pen!”

  Val growled and snarled like a dog. I kicked her in the ribs and she started whimpering and rolling around, clutching onto her leg and looking pathetic.

  “Isaac?” Stephanie’s soft voice floated across the open air. “Isaac, are you there?”

  I rushed to her side and got down on my hands and knees. “We’re getting you out of here,” I told her softly. “Don’t you worry, okay? Everything’s going to be fine.”

  Stephanie no longer looked dazed. She looked very much aware of her surroundings, albeit uncomfortable. “I want to leave,” she said under her breath. “But first, I need to do something.”

  I nodded. “Whatever you need,” I told her. “I’ll be right over here.” I walked over to Nick and TJ who were busy setting the guns up on the floor. They’d dropped another gun near Val and they were wiping it clean of their prints, trying to make it look like she was the one who had shot Tara. “You guys almost ready to go?”

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “We gotta get another ride out of here, though. The tires on the van are blown from driving over that chain wire.”

  I swallowed. “We gotta get rid of it,” I said. “We can’t leave it. They’ll trace it to us. Do we have any rags?”

  Twenty minutes later, the guys, Stephanie, and I watched as the van exploded into a mass of red-orange flames. They licked up towards the dark sky, giving off a wall of heat that smelled like metal and oil. I had to step away from the burning van; the fire was so hot that it was making my face feel scorched and red.

  Kyle had walked into town to look for a ride back. Now, we were waiting until he showed up. I’d managed to put a makeshift tourniquet on Val’s leg to slow the bleeding, but I could tell that she was going to be just fine. In a couple of weeks, she’d even be transferred out of the medical part of prison and into the regular pen. I grinned. Revenge was a dish best served cold, but I couldn’t deny that I liked it hot, too.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Stephanie

  After I watched the van burn with Isaac and the others, I walked back inside the warehouse. Val was still tied up and wriggling at her bonds, but Jessica lay silent. I didn’t even feel like speaking to Jessica but I knew that I had to get something off my chest. As I approached her, she closed her eyes and sighed in disgust.

  "I know what you're gonna say, Stephanie," Jessica said in an obnoxious and whiny voice. "You're gonna tell me that you're disappointed in me for lying and that I should have been more loyal to you."

  I shook my head. I was starting to feel better, but I was still pretty dazed. Being tied up for hours will do that to you, I guessed. I hoped that the guys had bound Jessica and Val as tightly as she’d bound me; I wanted them to hurt just a little bit.

  I squatted down and cocked my head to the side so I was staring into Jessica’s pretty eyes. Her pale, pretty face and hair were twisted with grime and grease. Even though she looked horrible, I could imagine her turning her doe-eyed look on the arresting officer and somehow winding up with much nicer accommodation than Val.

  “I need to tell you something,” I hissed under my breath. “It’s something I thought I’d never say to you. I’m not disappointed in you, you little bitch. I’m disappointed in myself for believing you.” I shook my head, feeling like a real fool. “I listened to you, and I trusted you all those times when I thought Val wanted you out of the club.”

  "We were too smart for you," Jessica said. She smiled and I reached out and slapped her hard until she was whimpering in pain. "That doesn't hurt as much as you want it to," Jessica said. She grinned at me and winked. "Don't forget, I'm the one who hurt myself," she said. A sickening feeling came over my gut and crotch like I was suddenly the one being assaulted. "I lied about everything, and it felt good," Jessica said in a quiet, soft voice. "It felt good to be so injured and to have everyone cooing over me. You have no fucking idea how amazing that felt, Stephanie."

  I rolled my eyes. “Enough from you,” I said, standing up. “You’re always gonna be a psychopathic bitch, and as soon as the other women in prison realize that, I’m betting anything that you won’t survive that fun little experience.”

  Jessica frowned. “I’m not going to prison,” she said. “Someone will save me. I just know it.”

  I laughed. “You’re fucking delusional,” I told her. “You staged an assault that left you barren, tried to blame it on an MC that had literally nothing to do with us, and then worked with Val to murder me. You don’t think you’re gonna get convicted for at least one of those things?” I shook my head sadly. “You’ll be in prison for a long time, Jessica. And you’re n
ever going to see Val again. They’ll know better than to put the two of you together, where you could actually hurt someone.”

  Jessica smirked. “You’re not getting anywhere near me,” she hissed. “And don’t even think about it, Stephanie.”

  “I’m done with you,” I said as I wiped my grimy hands on my jeans. “I’m not speaking another word to you, even if I have to testify against you in court. I’m done, Jessica. I stuck up for you when no one else did, and I believed you because you came from another MC family. But I never should have believed a goddamn word out of your lying mouth,” I added, turning my back on her. Behind me, Jessica whimpered and cried. For a moment, the cries tugged at my heart until I was able to harden myself and keep moving.

  Val lay in a twisted pile of blood and limbs on the ground. There were guns all around her, wiped clean of the Jungle’s Thorns fingerprints. Val gazed up at me with disgust on her face. I shook my head.

  “And you, you bitch,” I said softly, walking around her in slow, lazy circles. “You really had it out for me, didn’t you? Why the fuck would do you something like this, Val? We used to be friends. We used to care about each other.”

  Val stared straight at me and I felt the same chill that she’d always managed to inspire in my body. “This ain’t about you, Stephanie,” Val said slowly. “This ain’t about what you want. It’s always been about me.” She cackled. “I’ve always wanted the Succubi. Back when you and I first became friends, and you were so desperate to find those thugs who offed your parents, well, I thought I could probably push you into behaving one way or another.” Val’s smile twisted into a scowl. “But that wasn’t the case. You were too damn good, too damn stuck to your goddamn morals.”

  I frowned. “You pretended to love me,” I said sharply. “You pretended to love me and then you fucking tried to have me killed! You would have done anything to get rid of me!”

  “That’s right,” Val said. She wriggled on the floor so she was laying on her side. Even though her position looked painful and strained, her face was free of anguish and suffering. “That’s right, I did try to get rid of you. I thought the Succubi would be better off without you,” she added softly. “I always thought you were a shitty leader. Too soft on your enemies and not kind enough to the people who buttered your bread.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Val, this is too much, okay? Just cut the shit. Why did you do this?”

  “Because I loved you,” Val said. She sucked her teeth and then spat a great gob of iridescent slime on the floor. “I loved you so fucking much. But when I realized I couldn’t have you, then I didn’t care. I wanted to make you pay. I wanted to make you suffer for not loving me, and I wanted to make the Succubi the biggest group in LA.”

  I blinked at her, suddenly feeling nervous. "Val, you know I'm straight," I said softly. "We could never have been together, you do realize that, right? I would never have loved you the way you loved me. I like men, Val."

  Val laughed. It was a sound that surprised me—both hollow and loud—and as her laughter bellowed across the room, I shuddered. I realized that deep down, even bound in rope, I was still afraid of the woman I’d once called my best friend.

  “You’re a dumb bunny, Stephanie,” Val said softly. “You may have killed the assholes who killed your parents, but I guess you never got around to looking into who they were working for.”

  A feeling like being submerged in ice water came over my body and I had to glance away. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Val grinned and laughed again. “Honey, they was working with me,” Val replied. “They was always working for me. I had to find a way to make you trust me, and helping you find those guys was so easy. I knew where they were because I was the one who hired them, you dumb bitch.” She put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “You always hated me, Stephanie. You never thought I was worth keeping around. And well, I had to do somethin’ to change your mind, didn’t I?”

  My jaw dropped. Years of pain and hurt came flooding back tenfold in my body and I shuddered. “Are you kidding me?”

  Val smacked her lips. “Of course I ain’t kidding you,” she said defensively. “I had to find a way to make you need me, to make you love me as much as I loved you.” She shook her head bitterly. “I thought if I gave you what you needed, then finally you’d come around and love me back.”

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. I couldn’t believe it. “After all this time, you had my parents killed because you wanted me to trust you?”

  Val nodded. “I ain’t proud of that, but look how far we came, baby. Look at what we built together,” she finished, sounding triumphant. “We did all this together, Stephanie. Just you and me.”

  I stepped closer. “We didn’t do shit,” I snarled in her face. “I did everything myself. And I’m gonna do everything myself again, without you.”

  Then I turned on Val and stalked out of the warehouse. As I left, a faint smile of satisfaction crept upon my face. I knew that leaving Val like that was one of the most frustrating things I could have done; she hated not being able to get the last word in after an argument. And true to form, as soon as I turned my heel, she started screaming and hollering, doing anything to get me to turn back around and face her.

  I almost wanted to spit in her face. But I couldn’t give her the satisfaction of letting her know how deeply she’d affected me.

  By the time I rejoined Isaac and the others outside, I was feeling exhausted. The day had consisted of some of the biggest adrenaline rushes I’d ever felt, and I was ready to crawl into bed and sleep for days. I didn’t ever want to think about Val or Jessica or Tara ever again, but I knew that my club was in need of some serious help and restructuring.

  We waited for about an hour until Kyle drove up in an old SUV. "This was the best thing I could find," he called from the driver's side window. "A friend of mine loaned it to me, so we're good to go."

  Isaac helped me climb in the back seat. He hadn’t spoken directly towards me, and I had a slight feeling that he was trying to avoid me, at least while the others were around. But still, I felt a pull between our bodies, like an invisible thread that was keeping us tied together, or at least tied together for now.

  What’s going to happen after today? I wondered. Am I ever going to see Isaac again? Should I leave LA and form a new MC somewhere else? Should I stay and do something else with my life?

  It was all so hard to think about.

  The drive back into town took more time than I was expecting. Kyle was careful not to speed, even though Isaac was riding his ass the whole time. TJ and Nick had escaped without a scratch, and my hands were finally starting to feel normal again. I wondered if I’d have any permanent nerve damage from how tightly Val had cinched my wrists. I probably deserve it, I thought woefully as Isaac pulled into the parking lot of the Succubi’ clubhouse. I probably deserve worse.

  To my surprise, Isaac hopped out of the car and opened my door. “Guys, I’m sticking around here for a while,” he said in a smooth, calm voice. “You can head on back and do whatever, take the rest of the night off if you want.” He winked. “I think you guys deserve it.”

  Kyle hopped out of the SUV, too. “I want to see Alexa,” he announced. “Yeah, you guys go on back. I’ll get a ride later.”

  I hated to admit it, but my hopes fell down as soon as Kyle strutted inside. I figured that with him around, there was no way Isaac was going to single me out and try to talk to me.

  Alexa ran over from the corner of the club, hugging me first and then Kyle. While the two of them were wrapped in each other’s arms and kissing, Isaac turned to me. “I assume you wanna talk to your girls, get them caught up?”

  I turned to see Alexa. Kyle’s tongue was in her mouth and she was pressing her body against his and moaning softly.

  I wrinkled my nose and turned back to Isaac. “I think they’re busy,” I said sarcastically. “I’ll have to catch everyone up tomorrow.”

  Isaac laughed. It sounded
nice—a real laugh, none of Val’s horrible cackling. “I bet,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

  Suddenly, the air between us turned tense once more. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and glanced up into Isaac’s eyes, feeling nervous. “You don’t have to stay,” I said honestly, looking at the floor. “I mean, I know you have a ton of shit to do today, too. Is your club gonna be okay without those weapons?”

  “Yeah,” Isaac said. He stretched his muscular arms over his head, making his torso stand out. I had to turn away so I wouldn’t start to blush—I couldn’t look at his delicious, muscular body without feeling painfully aroused. “We are. It’ll be rough, but this way, less competition.” He winked at me. “You’ll be able to get the Succubi up and running again. Don’t worry about it, Stephanie. Everything’s gonna be okay.”