Head tilted, Lalo froze in place, leaning sideways, one hand pressed against the wall, teasing at a memory in his head. Not his memory, but one shared with him over booze and blow. “Manzino had so much blow. A snowstorm.” A dealer who sought to heal a breach with the Rebels, Manzino had been confined to a room in their bar and treated to an experience much like he was giving to the man on the floor.
“Laid there on the floor, spitting my blood on the toes of his boots as he drilled into me. His brother screwed the pooch and Slate beat me.” Even years later, when telling Lalo the story there had been incredulity in the man’s voice, because he still didn’t understand. Didn’t know that was honor’s way, to strip all options from the person threatening you, threatening family. Honor’s way to make abso-fucking-lutely certain there were no lasting misunderstandings. Honor, something all clubs understood. Not all men, not even all members, but clubs grasped the need.
His toe connected again, muscles in his leg and back ensuring power drove it in deep. A howl testified to the success of the action. “My choice.” Rebels took from me. Las Cruces was mine. “Fury tipped the scales.” Defecting. Closing the chapter. “Burned his papers. Motherfucker burned his papers.” Mason waiting at the end of the tunnel with open arms, every person watching understanding he had just birthed his successor. When a man like Mason took in a man like Fury, you had to know it was to the benefit of both.
“Mason gained a second. Fury gets an entire fucking club.” Could have been mine. Should have been. “Mine.”
“Yeah, naw. We have all the support clubs we need right now, Lalo.” Bear’s voice boomed in his head, words once whispered at a sit-down between their clubs, now shouting loud, memories muffling the noises around him. “Diamante needs to get some age on them, man. Grasp tight to protocol, learn the history. Figure out where you want to take the club, then take it there. But, take your time and grow it right. We’ll talk then, yeah?” And the look on the man’s face. Puto. Chin up, eyes angled down his fucking Anglo nose.
“Looked down his nose at me.” Lalo bent at the waist, throat burning as he screamed, “ME!”
Legs moving, first one then the other, hands braced on the wall, he didn’t notice when his kicks began landing on the wall instead of the slackly rolling body.
***
Chismoso waited across the room, head up, watching Lalo like a hawk. Still bent double, he gripped the leather of Scorch’s vest, ready to drag him out of the way again if needed. As soon as the asshole sauntered through the door all puffed up about what the boy saw as a coup, he knew this was going to go badly. It didn’t take much to wind his cousin up on a good day, and they hadn’t seen a good day in so long, he didn’t know if Lalo would recognize one at this point.
Oscar Ibarra released his hold on the unconscious man, letting the body slide down the front of his shins to rest on the floor. He then reached up to swipe his long, black hair back from his face. Lalo had finally stopped attacking the wall and stood still, red seeping through his shirt. Hands pressed flat against the surface, his shoulders heaved with breaths that whistled in and out of his open, slack mouth.
All his life, Edwardo had been subject to outbursts of anger like this. Insanely intelligent, his cousin had plotted their course since either of them could remember. But, Edwardo would occasionally go down a wrong path, losing himself in his own rage. Oscar’s mama called them an attack of a crazy kind of rabies, likening Edwardo’s behavior to a dog struck with the fits that came with the deadly disease. Sometimes they burned themselves out fast, sweeping in and out within a few minutes, leaving his cousin drained and weak, but ready to listen to reason, mind clear of the whispers that tormented him. Oscar’s mama said in these moments her nephew was destroyed by his mind, El hombre estaba destrozado por la locura.
“Chismoso.” He heard the rasping whisper and knew his cousin had reached that quiet place in his head, a few brief moments of rational thought between the crazy. He might hate the name Edwardo had saddled him with back when they were dirty bastards running the streets of their village, accusing him of being a tattletale, not realizing it was his own behavior that most often told the tale, but he loved his cousin. Closer than brothers, they were. “Can we hold?”
Oscar’s brain slipped into high gear, running through the limited information Scorch gave them before Lalo ignited. Glancing down, he took in the broken, unrecognizable face, ripping splits in the skin swollen so the edges nearly turned inside out. On his way to Midland to catch a ride with a Diamante caging it across country, Scorch recognized a truck and trailer traveling the same direction and took advantage of what he saw as a boon. An opportunity.
He admitted both women survived the wreck on the isolated country road. He also admitted only one woman got loaded into a bus by EMTs alive. Boasting of looking into the bitch’s eyes when he pulled the trigger, watched the light leak out of them alongside the blood leaking from her body. Oscar glanced across the room, to the handgun resting next to the wall, kicked there by Lalo when Scorch pulled it from the back waistband of his pants.
The other woman was out, never saw him. Wouldn’t recognize him if she did see him, if she survived, so that wasn’t a path the Rebels could tread, trying to pin down the shooter. In Las Cruces, they kept Scorch restricted to the motel, never letting him be near the warehouse or storage unit. No eyes on him anywhere, no one to know him. Even Duck, smart as the man was, wouldn’t have a scent to follow. Which meant it was a fifty-fifty chance any trail could lead them to Lalo, or take them so far astray they’d never see their way back.
Chismoso tipped his head and met Lalo’s gaze, telling him, “We can hold.”
Waking up
Twisting in the darkness, she jerked when a gentle, warm hand fell on her shoulder. Unable to resist, she moved as directed when it urged her into the center of an open space, staggering when the supportive hand vanished, leaving her standing there unmoored and alone. Into the strict silence pressing in on her, a man’s soft voice spoke from beside her head, so close she scented an illusively familiar aftershave. "Time to open your eyes."
With a wrench she tried, and even thought she opened them, but nothing changed. Her fingers scrabbled over her face to rip off whatever blinding cloth she assumed was there, only to find nothing. Horrified, a weak wail filled her head when her fingertips confirmed her eyes were already open.
The voice came again, only now imbued with so much sadness tears pricked her eyes in sympathy as it spoke beside her ear. "Time to wake up, Brenda Bug."
Lurching to the side in a bed, she did, and immediately wished for the swaddling darkness again as pain rained down on her, stealing her ability to breathe. In opposition to the darkness from before, brilliant light now filled her vision. "She's awake," a voice said, and even pushed so far under the swells of pain as she was, she knew it was not the voice from her sleep.
Far less than awake, she thought irritably, and then tried lifting her hand. Only partly successful, she managed to scrape it along the side of her head, in an eerie facsimile of the dream, able at least to move them into view and assure herself she could see. Darkness encroached on her vision, gradually resolving into a face. A face she knew, but barely recognized.
Reuben.
No, that isn’t right.
She remembered.
Duck.
"Hey, babe.” He whispered the words as if she might have the world's worst hangover. If that was why he was speaking so softly, a night on the town might indeed be why she hurt so badly. He looked terrible. Ragged. That would be the word selected to describe his features today because he looked as if he had been through the wringer of an old-fashioned clothes washer, then left to dry with all the folds and creases left in place. Awkward and stiff, those clothes would never be comfortable worn like that and he was about as uncomfortable as he could be, she gauged, staring at him.
"Welcome back," he said, still whispering. Glancing away from him, she took in her surroundings, not surprised to find
everything looked highly technical and entirely medical. As she brought her gaze back to him, he confirmed, "You're in the hospital in Midland."
She moved her head up in the start of a nod but then froze and gasped when the movement woke a fierce pain radiating down her back and into her arms. "There was an accident," he continued and a sarcastic well duh rolled through her head. "Do you remember anything?"
He was treading cautiously, prodding at the sliver of darkness underneath that particular rock with care, in case there was a viper waiting for a carelessly thrust-in hand. Pressing eyes and lips closed, she tried to remember, thinking. Hard. Digging for the last thing in her memory, finding meals and conversations, but no shadowing of an accident cast across anything. She dug more, deeper, finding happiness and fear spread out over the past weeks. Thinking.
Then, in the very instant, just before she would have given up, just before she would have opened her eyes to look up at Duck with sorrowful negation in her eyes, just before she could have gone on breathing easy, she remembered.
Essa driving the rig as she always did, fast but with competence, her handling of the truck showing a care for the animals secured in the trailer pulled behind. Stereo volume turned up loud, she sang along with the Occupy Yourself song on the radio, off-tune but enthusiastically, making a joke of her talentless rendition. Breaking off when she glanced behind them in the side mirror, muttering something Brenda didn’t catch, but after a moment, Essa was back singing, eyes flicking between the mirror and the road ahead.
The roar of a truck coming up beside them, a big dually-wheeled pickup, mud crusting nearly every visible surface. Brenda stared as the truck pulled up even with Essa’s door, watching the passenger window lower. A man inside, not old, not young. Wraparound sunglasses in place, a bandanna tied around his head. He had on a leather vest like the one Duck wore, like she had seen on Fury and the other bikers.
“He rolled down the window and shouted something,” she said softly, Duck’s features tensing. “Diamonds.” His flinch caught her attention, pulling her out of the memory, but he made a motion with one hand for her to continue. She lowered her chin, feeling tightness from what had to be stitches in her back, the ache keeping her from immersing as deeply into the memories.
“Mica, the bitch. She took it all,” he shouted, whipping his steering wheel to the right, smashing against the side of the truck Essa drove. The jarring crash pushed them sideways in the lane, towards the shoulder, the pickup reacting dramatically to their trailer slamming back and forth. Essa tried to maintain control, braking hard, her hands clutching desperately at the wheel, muscles standing out in sharp relief in her arms as she wrestled the vehicle.
More shouting, barely heard over squealing tires. “Tell Mica, it’s time for the bitch to pay. That’s right, bitch. You’re gonna pay.” Brenda braced herself against the roof of the cab, her other hand holding tight to the seatbelt as he jerked his wheel again, using his momentum to crash against them a second time, then a third, Essa countering the hits with all the strength she had.
There was a bump, the truck bouncing up and down when the trailer’s passenger side wheels dropped off the road, running on the soft gravel shoulder. The trailer dragged the pickup farther and farther off the paved surface, the entire rig sliding at an angle that quickly grew more acute.
A tattoo on the man’s shoulder drew her attention for a moment, a grotesquely yawning skull spitting out a huge, lunging spider.
Then the trailer began its inevitable slow tip sideways, the high quality steel of the hitch holding, lifting the rear of their pickup, removing any semblance of control from Essa’s hands. Slow, but incredibly fast all at the same time. One minute they were driving, the next moment, the weight of the trailer was pushing them around like pebbles in a sandbox, shoving the vehicle this way and that.
Horses screaming, the sound excruciating to hear, the animals’ stark fear dominating the noise.
Essa screaming, pain filled and raw, echoing as if her head were thrown back, howling at the sky.
Sounds of metal bending and tearing around them, the grinding sound of the vehicle sliding on its side coming to a halt. Relief when the noises from the horses stopped, too. New sliding sounds, boots in gravel, maneuvering down the steep incline to where they had come to rest. A man shouting, “Fuck walkin’ away. Fuck Slate. I got you this time, bitch. You’ll feel this cut. Feel this fire burning in you. Losin’ to me, bitch. You ask her. Ask her. It feel good? How’s it feel, bitch?”
Breaking glass. Grunting.
Blackness. Sounds. Horrible sounds of pain, which seemed to continue on forever, trailing off only to swell again to deafening pitch.
The blast of a gun.
Blackness. Silence.
Blackness.
***
“Mason, here’s what I got. Late twenties maybe early thirties. Man has a hard-on for Mica, same for Slate. Skull tattoo on right shoulder, tarantula crawling out of it. Shouted something about Diamante before he ran them off the road.” Duck sucked in a hard breath, blowing it out slowly, shaking, trying fruitlessly to control his fury. “I think we just found out who Lalo’s prodigy is, boss.”
“Tucker.” With only one word from Mason, Duck remembered the scene in the backyard of Mason’s house. Remembered the stories of Slate using fire and iron to remove the man’s club tattoo. Branding him on the floor of a wetwork room in a St. Louis clubhouse.
“Yeah.”
***
The cell rang once and he glanced at the screen before touching it, answering the call and bringing it to his ear. “Yeah?”
“Brother.” Slate’s voice carried so much emotion Duck straightened in the chair where he sat, looking over at Brenda sleeping in the hospital bed, afraid for a moment something had happened with him unaware. “Got the news.”
“Yeah.” His answer this time was full of anger, because he had just been reminded there was nothing he could do to make this better for Bee.
“Fuck me.” Slate was silent a moment, then asked, “She okay? Gonna be okay?”
Trembling with barely controlled rage but careful of Brenda’s rest, Duck stood and stalked out through the door, turning and leaning his shoulders against the hallway wall opposite, keeping her in view. He couldn’t stand to be far from her right now. “Yeah,” he answered somewhat belatedly. “She’s gonna be fine. Nothing broken, no deep damage. She took a hard knock on the head, and got cut up by the guardrail slicing through the cab, but she’s gonna be fine.” Pulling in a breath through his nose, he let it trickle out through his lips. “Feels like my fault, brother.”
“Fuck that noise,” Slate exclaimed. “Not at all, man.”
“You sure? If I wasn’t here in fucking Lamesa, the man wouldn’t have looked this way. Not a chance. Guarantee it.” Duck fisted the hand hanging at his hip, pushing it deep into the front pocket of his jeans. “She’s sure as fuck not at fault.”
“No, brother. This is on me. Anything you need, you tell me. I owe you.” Quiet and low, Slate’s voice was pained. “Got a history with Essa, and that’s weighing on me hard and tight. Then there’s the fact if I had done what a dozen brothers urged on me back in the day, Tucker wouldn’t be upright and mobile to pull this shit. I fucked up. Hard and deep, fucked to hell and back. You and me both know Essa’s death is on me. Brenda’s wounds are on me. Any other shit he pulls, also on me.”
“Jesus, Slate.” He paused, unsure how to convince his brother of his mistake. “That isn’t right, and you know it. You didn’t patch him in, and you didn’t do the fucked-up shit he did to be out bad. Then you didn’t continue to do fucked-up shit, including not covering up his club tat. That’s on him, not you. Not me, either.” Duck closed his eyes, infusing certainty into his voice as he said, “Not on you, brother. You did what your gut called you to do. Looked at the man, looked at his history, then made a call based on what you knew and how you felt. It’s not on you that he’s hooked his wagon to a psychopath. Not you.”
“Standing, not sitting.” At his words, harsh laughter rang through the phone. “And yeah, I can be absolutely certain I won’t be thinking of you when I look at Bee. Ever. She’s soft and sweet, especially when she’s giving it to me, and you’re a hard motherfucker with a dick.” The smile that had eased the strain in his muscles crawled away, leaving only tension behind. “It’s club business, brother. If there’s anyone to claim the guilt, it’s me, because I knew. Club. Our found family. Fuck, man. I stood in the Soldiers’ house not long ago watching them gear up for war, and I let my woman traipse off in the fucking truck like we’re living a citizen’s life.”
Slate started to say something, but Duck talked over him, “But, you know what? She’s livin’, brother. So, I’d do it again. Because fuckers like Tucker? They don’t get to win. They don’t get to tear the safe from my woman’s head, giving her fear and limiting her life. We have one shot at this, brother. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, we get two. That’s where I am right now. I’m a lucky motherfucker.” He looked down at his hands, scarred and mottled with almost-healed wounds. “Watcher, he’s a lucky motherfucker, too.”
“Yeah,” Slate breathed his agreement and Duck nodded.
“Yeah, you know it and so do I. Brenda’s my second chance, man. Scars don’t bother me. Her knowing what happened does, but I won’t shield her from it, because she is that. Fucking. Strong. Strongest person I know, bar none, brother. I won’t tell her everything, but she’ll know what she needs to know. Found family, a made life. Second chances. Your Ruby, same deal. So fucking strong. My scars, the wounds I took digging up Bella, badges of honor. Bee’s scars, those are fucking war wounds, brother. I look at them, and I see only strength.”
Duck (Rebel Wayfarers MC Book 8) Page 31