by S. E. Jakes
“So the whole MC lives here?”
“Not all of them want that kind of closeness. But a group of them live down the road, along a regular street. Still well hidden, though.” Ryker smiled. “It was a good place to grow up.”
“I can imagine.” What I couldn’t do was shake the image of a scared little boy, like I’d once been, from my mind. “What’ll happen to Charles?”
“He’ll be all right.”
“You’ll keep him here?”
“Maybe. Maybe Sweet’s sister knows about a good family who wouldn’t mind raising a hellion. No one’s giving us foster kids. But over half of us were. The guys who started this club were four foster brothers with the same foster care mom. Tough SOBs who went to war, came back fucked up, and made a place for guys like them and the people who loved them. One of them was openly gay, so that has a lot to do with the nonjudgment around here. They don’t care who you fuck as long as you don’t fuck over the MC.”
I wanted to ask him more about the men who’d started Havoc. And why here. Because anyone who lived close to the hills where the MC was situated knew the legend. Part of it helped to elevate Havoc’s status from dangerous to almost supernaturally dangerous.
I wasn’t sure if it was a story parents told to keep their kids out of the woods and away from Havoc, or if Havoc’d started the story themselves, but either way, it was a pretty cool one.
I told Ryker that now, and he nodded and told me, “The way I always heard it was that the four horsemen of the apocalypse rode through the hills where Havoc’s compound now sits. Then it became an Indian burial ground, sacred land. Everyone was really superstitious about it, too scared to touch it, because whether or not they believed the first part, the burial ground was indisputable. And so it stayed empty for a long time, until the mayor of Shades sold it to a developer in the sixties. The land was supposed to be stripped and cleared to make room for malls and apartments and houses, a continuation of the rest of Shades Run.” He sounded serious, like he believed it, and I always had too, but I’d never heard it laid out quite like this.
“They got the equipment up here. Every time they tried to use it, something broke. One night, all the construction trailers caught on fire.” I looked around to where he’d been pointing, showing me where the trailers had been. “Everything burned, except the trees and the grass. People who saw it said it looked like just the equipment had been targeted, but there wasn’t any sign of vandalism or accelerant that would prove someone did it on purpose. The developer got spooked and decided to start small. He was going to build a couple of houses side by side, and he was going to live in one of them to show people not to be scared of an old legend. But those houses never got built. Anything anyone brought to the land went bad or broke or never made it to the site. So the developer tried to sell it for years. Until the guys who founded Havoc came in and changed everything.”
“Looks like it,” I murmured.
“My house is one of the earliest ones built. It belonged to Peter, who was one of the four original members.” He looked understandably proud of that. “Besides Peter, there was William, Finn and Darren. They came back from Vietnam, and they’d lost their jobs because they’d been gone for so long. They were broke, and the land was on sale cheap. And they knew why—it wasn’t like the guy who sold it to them duped them. But they figured, after what they’d seen during war, what the hell could be scarier than that? What could be scarier than the way they were—the way they felt?”
Was that why I felt so comfortable arriving in Havoc’s territory? But hearing Ryker explain it, the whole thing made sense. “So they moved in here?”
“In tents,” he said. “There was nothing here and since they’d heard that even the simplest structures fell or burned down or rotted, they started slow. They didn’t have much anyway. And, the way Sweet tells it—the way his grandfather told him—Finnean said that after about three weeks of sleeping in the tents and riding around the land, figuring out what they were going to do with the rest of their lives, they woke up to find crocuses blooming. It was February, still really cold, but the flowers had popped up all around them in the middle of the night. The first thing that had grown here in a hundred years or more.”
As he spoke, my gaze caught on the mess of crocuses, highlighted by the now-rising sun, in the field beyond Ryker’s house. Which didn’t make sense, since it wasn’t their season.
“They’re always here,” Ryker said. “Doesn’t matter the season—they come up, die and more follow them. It’s never ending.”
A shiver went through me, although it wasn’t a spooky, creepy feeling. I tried to imagine the guys, back from war, living in tents. Probably having nightmares, knowing they weren’t ready for society. That they might not ever be ready. “I feel like that,” I told Ryker.
“Yeah, baby, I know.”
“So from those tents . . . all of this?” I motioned to the compound, which was really endless. It was built cleverly, so many of the structures seemed to blend into the woods.
“All from those four men. And their significant others,” he was quick to add. “William was the one who suggested the name Havoc—he wanted to play off the legend and to keep people the hell away. And for a while, anyone who wasn’t part of this group who tried to come here? Their car would stall on the hill.”
“Does that still happen?” I asked. “Because I didn’t have any trouble.”
He glanced at me but didn’t answer. Just said, “William and his partner, Mark, were the first couple here. Guess that’s why no one blinks an eye around here if you’re gay or bi or straight. Doesn’t matter. Loyalty does.”
Ryker was more than loyal, his protectiveness scary, but mainly because I’d never had anything like it. Shit was always up to me. I protected Noah, and Billy. At least I’d tried.
“And who protects you?” Ryker asked when I’d admitted that.
“Before you?” I shrugged because I didn’t want to answer. Because I couldn’t. Because there’d never been anyone.
“Your parents?” I shook my head, and he said, “Sorry, babe.”
“We can’t all have a Havoc to take care of us,” I told him, although I felt like, as much as Ryker owned me, I owned him as well. But I couldn’t put that into words.
His hand rubbed the back of my neck before he slid a finger under my chin. “Havoc’s not the only thing that takes care of me. You do too. But you know that already, Sean. Don’t you?”
I stared at him. “I guess I do.”
yker’s phone woke me up again later that same night. He’d grabbed it on the first ring. “I spotted them ten minutes ago on the monitor, old man. I’m on it.”
He referred to Sweet as old man at times, which always made me laugh, although not to Sweet’s face. Mainly because Sweet had warmed up to me a bit more, even going so far as to let me drive him in the Aston Martin the other day.
Ryker was dressing. “Trouble’s coming. More trouble.”
I got dressed too. “Then so am I.”
“Sean, no. You need to stay put. I can’t worry about you and fight.”
I thought about it for a second, and I agreed. To his face. In seconds, he was out of the house and on his bike, reiterating over his shoulder for me to stay put.
But I just couldn’t. Something was really fucking wrong, and every instinct told me this time, whatever was happening had nothing to do with me. And I wouldn’t let Ryker face any kind of danger without at least trying to back him and Havoc up.
I grabbed a Sig from the drawer—he’d shown me where he kept his weapons, just in case—and I followed the trail of bikes down the hill. They were silent as ninjas, and they weren’t speeding, so I was able to keep up somewhat. I’d learned that most Havoc guys had two bikes—loud ones and quiet ones, and now I understood that need. My feet took the terrain instinctively.
Once I got almost to the bottom of the first hill, the one behind Ryker’s place, I saw a couple of cars. And although there were men gett
ing out of the cars and off their bikes . . . it looked like there were others inside of them, trying to start them.
The cars had stalled on the hills. Like the hills wouldn’t let anyone up who didn’t belong.
“Jesus Christ, Rush,” I muttered, because I was spooking the fuck out of myself.
At the bottom of the hill, there was an open circle of land, spotlit by the bikes. In the center was Ryker, taking on at least three men. Sweet was fighting too, along with a lot of the guys I recognized from hanging out here. I saw brass knuckles and knives. Figured they had guns, but for now, it appeared to be a brawl. I was still half-stunned by violence from the Army, and what was happening was violent enough to make my PTSD stand up and take notice. I stayed behind the tree line, partially because Ryker told me to stay out of it, but also because I didn’t know this enemy, how they fought, why they were attacking Havoc . . . what the hell was going on. I needed to recon.
“Should’ve made Ryker tell me how he fights,” I muttered to myself as I held my weapon down by my side. I got closer and made out the cut on one guy’s jacket. Heathens. An MC from North Carolina. I didn’t know much about them except that their rep wasn’t good. They were into meth and God knew what else.
I stood at the ready. But Havoc was a well-oiled machine, working together to take down the Heathens, and I waited for an opportunity to help, to prove I was needed for more than just patching him up afterward. Ryker’s lip was bleeding, but he was too busy slamming men to the ground to notice or care. He looked fierce as he defended his club, his family.
The wind picked up. I was about to say fuck it and go in anyway when something told me to stop. I swore to fucking Christ I heard what sounded like a galloping horse. I turned around and felt a rush of air slide by me.
I glanced back to the fight and knew Ryker didn’t need me. Not there. But somewhere.
Maybe it was Billy. Or Finn. Or those horsemen. But whatever or whoever it was, I was heading back in the darkness toward the main house. The wind picked up again, and the hairs at the back of my neck stood on end. I ran faster, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
I made a quick circle around the houses. All quiet. Woman and children went into lockdown when there was any threat on the compound They wanted to deal with it themselves, rather than risk police poking around their land.
Horses again. I hadn’t had anything more than a beer. But I followed the sounds until they faded away, and I found myself in front of Greta’s. The doors were closed, but I caught a hint of movement through a hastily closed shade.
Greta. A gun, pointed at her. A young boy. Dammit. I wanted to burst in there, but suddenly, there was another young boy next to me. He must’ve snuck out another front window. I caught him so he wouldn’t land heavily on the porch and attract attention.
The man was agitated. I didn’t have time for complicated. I picked up a loose brick and handed it to the kid. Pointed to the window. Whispered for him to wait ten seconds, throw, and get out of the way. Duck.
He agreed. I hightailed it to the back and kicked the door in as the window broke. Shot the guy in the shoulder. Greta grabbed his gun and held it on him, and I went over and tied his good arm to the nearest chair while he cursed me.
Some other Havoc guys came in, and they took the gun from Greta. That’s when she hugged me tight. I pretended I hated it, but I didn’t.
Ryker limped in at that moment. He’d given several beatings but he’d taken one as well. His cheek was swollen, his lip bloody, and he was giving orders. “The boy’s got to get out of here before the police catch wind of this.”
Greta grabbed for her cell phone. “I’ll call the marshal and get him here.”
I stared at Ryker. “Do the police cars come up the hill?”
He shook his head. “They know better—they get out and walk.”
I didn’t let him say anything else before I was out the door and down the hill.
etting arrested isn’t all that hard. I had a lot of options, but in the end, I figured that stealing a police black-and-white was the best bet to get all hands on deck. I hoped it’d give Ryker enough time to get Charles out of Havoc and giving the police a merry trip through town seemed the best way to do so.
Letting myself get caught? That part would suck, mainly because I’d have to make it look realistic. But watching the cops get out of their three cars and leave them to walk up the hill gave me a second of pleasure, because that was my in. I let myself inside one of the cars, started it easily, hit the alarms and watched them come running. They got into the remaining cars and followed me, and I made sure to keep them on the road for a good fifteen minutes.
Shades didn’t have a giant police force, so I figured I’d kept enough of them busy. Finally, I pulled over and waited.
Over a megaphone, I heard, “Get out of the car with your hands up.”
McKibbins’s voice. Of course. But I followed his directions, and then he shined a flashlight directly, deliberately, into my eyes. “Sean Rush. What a fucking surprise. Kneel.”
I did, with my hands locked behind my head. McKibbins approached me, pushed me down, holding my arms so I didn’t crash facefirst into the pavement.
“What the hell were you thinking, Rush?” he muttered as he searched me, probably pissed when he found nothing. When he pulled me off the ground to a standing position, he stared at me. “Sloppy? Or desperate? Either way, hanging out with an MC will do that to you.”
I didn’t say anything, not even when he jerked my arms roughly before shoving me into the back of the police car. I stared at the partition, the back of McKibbins’s head as he talked to his partner about how the American military really needed to take in a better grade of soldiers.
I rolled my eyes and bit my tongue for the short ride to the stationhouse. Once there, I was taken into a room, shoved into a chair, handcuffed to the table, and left for several hours.
They’d forgotten my legs. Always the first mistake. Hook, a mercenary type I’d met along the way in Iraq, had told me You can kill anyone with your legs if you know how.
He’d proceeded to show me how. And even though I’d never pull that here, just knowing I had options made me sit more easily.
Still, I fucking hated this place. It was better than the jail, where I’d made a visit to my father right after the judge’s ruling, before I went to Basic.
He was only housed half an hour from where I lived. He’d been there for ten years, but I’d only been to see him a handful of times.
He’d been seventeen when I was born. When I saw him, he’d been thirty-four, and he’d actually looked like he was living the life in prison rather than suffering. Beyond the sickly pale of his skin, he’d looked clean and relaxed. He’d even shaken hands with the prison guards.
They’d sat him down across from me and chained his hands the same way they’d done with me today.
Like father, like son.
He’d known why I was there—the prison grapevine was better than TMZ. We’d both looked between the chains on his hand and then back at the invisible ones on mine, the sentence that was to be served in the Army instead of in prison. And then we’d looked back at each other.
“You going to leave me alone with him?” he drawled finally.
The guard pointed to him. “No funny business, Kevin.”
“And turn off that goddamned two-way shit. I find out you’re listening in, I’m calling my lawyer.”
“Yeah, you do that,” the guard muttered, then closed the door behind him.
“You know they won’t turn it off. Assholes.” He spat toward the two-way mirror before looking back to me. “They said you wanted to see me.”
“They were wrong.”
“What’d you do?”
“Stole a few cars.”
He snorted in disgust. “And you got caught? Rush, I taught you better than that.”
Actually, he hadn’t, but now wasn’t the time to argue about how I was raised. “I’m going into t
he Army.”
“I heard.” He rolled his eyes. “You really fucked up.”
I fucked up? I didn’t lash out, though—remained calm and finally asked him what I’d always wanted to. “Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“All of it. The stealing. The killing.”
“Alleged,” he called toward the mirror before he turned back to me. “Come on, Rush—you know the answer as well as I do. I liked it.”
“And if they let you out?”
“I’d do it again the first chance I got.” He smirked a little. “So would you.”
I hated that he was right. “Maybe.”
“According to that asshole cop, you’re going to end up in the cell next to me. I told him no way.” My father leaned in like he was about to tell me a secret. “You know why I told him that? Because you’re too damned smart to let yourself be caged. You might be caught, but you’ll always have your freedom.”
The Army wouldn’t be freedom, but it was a hell of a lot better than jail. I couldn’t ever remember my father complimenting me. I didn’t know if I was supposed to be proud or say thanks.
“You’re smart because you’re alone,” he continued. “Worst thing I could’ve done was get myself tied down with a woman and a kid. Totally fucked me over.”
“Wasn’t all that great for me either, Dad,” I said wryly.
He pointed his finger at me. “Remember that, then. Don’t fuck it up by attaching yourself to someone because they make you feel good between the sheets for a few minutes. Always plenty of women around for fucking. Wear a condom. Don’t get distracted, and I’ll never see you here. Because let’s be honest, Rush—as much as someone could fuck you up? Because of what you do, you’ll fuck anyone up who crosses your path. You’re better off alone. Guys like us always are.”