Leave a Trail

by Susan Fanetti

~oOo~

  He was still feeling level and back in control about an hour later. The day was warm and sunny, the last Saturday in March, and Badger had the big doors open for the breeze and light. After he’d tended to the horses, he’d put them out in the back pasture, where they’d have room to wander. Spirit especially liked to stretch his legs and get a run in, and the near paddock was too small for him to do more than turn circles.

  Though the rest of the horses were loose in the pasture, Badger had Toby tethered in the aisle. The gentle bay had work to do today, so he was getting a full-service wash and groom. Badger had just finished hosing him down, and was shaking out a grooming chamois to wipe him down with, when he heard the crunch-rumble of a car pulling up, and he looked to see Shannon’s SUV parking in her usual spot.

  Right at that particular moment, still feeling calm and level, he could appreciate how lucky he was that he’d gotten to work before Shannon and had fixed everything he’d screwed up, and he could appreciate it without the grip of anxiety around his throat. If his brothers caught wind of him fucking up, he was, well, fucked.

  Unless Marv, the night manager, noticed that the animals were out…but no, he wouldn’t. Marv never left the main house during his shift. He sat in the office and watched Netflix, mainly. That was why he didn’t know that Badger spent almost every night in the barn. So he’d been lucky, and he was okay. He took a breath and started to turn his attention back to Toby.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw something strange, so he turned back. And saw Adrienne getting out of Shannon’s ride with her. Shit. Fuck. Shit.

  And she was headed for the barn. Double fuck. Why? Why would she even want to be anywhere around him after what he’d done last night?

  He watched her come; he couldn’t help it. No matter that he knew he should turn away, he couldn’t. She was so pretty. Hell, pretty wasn’t nearly good enough a word. Beautiful wasn’t right, either. He didn’t know enough words to know. But the morning light made a golden halo around her curly mane of hair, and she came toward him like some kind of vision, in jeans and boots and a loose, dark purple top. She was little, really slim, and mainly all he wanted to do around her was hold her. He liked her so much. More than liked her.

  He knew she liked him, too. Or she thought she did. If she really knew him, if she really saw him, she’d turn tail in a hurry.

  At first, he’d stayed in the friend zone because of Show, who’d made it clear, and more than once, that he was not okay with the idea of Shannon’s girl hooking up with Badger or any Horde.

  Now, he stayed away because Show was right. He wasn’t in Adrienne’s league. He was a fucked-up pussy with an expiration date. And he was a freakshow to look at.

  The thought of Adrienne knowing any of that, of her looking at him with disgust or revulsion or fear—Badger thought that would be the thing that was the real last straw. So he stayed away. The shock and hurt he’d seen on her face last night was better than the disgust he’d see if they got close. If he let her in.

  She had come into the barn, slowing as she approached, looking nervous. “Hi, Badge.” Her voice shook a little.

  He turned finally away and focused on wiping Toby down. “Hey.”

  “Shannon wanted to know if everything was set for the wedding.”

  “Yeah.” He might have fucked up this morning, but he was still on top of things otherwise. The fancy sidesaddle and matching tack were polished and ready to go. He thought it was really lame to go through all this trouble for a chick to ride about fifty feet to the damn porch for her wedding inside the B&B. But whatever. Not his fucking wedding.

  “Um…okay. Good. I’ll tell her.” She took a couple of steps backward and started to turn toward the doors.

  He couldn’t be a dick. Not anymore. Not after last night. “Wait.”

  She turned back. “What?”

  There were no other words queued up in his head. He knew only that he couldn’t be a dick to her. It hurt too much, and he kept flashing on the look on her face last night. And that was the only thing he could think of to say.

  “I’m…sorry about last night. It’s just…you surprised me.”

  “Yeah. It’s…whatever. No big. I just wanted to say hi. I’ll see you.” She turned again and walked with purposeful strides toward the doors.

  Without thinking about it, he went after her and grabbed her arm. “Adrienne.”

  Spinning so quickly she shocked him, she jerked her arm out of his grasp. “What? What? What is wrong with you? What did I do to make you mad? You won’t talk, you’re mean half the time when you do, and I don’t understand it. I thought we were friends.”

  It wasn’t hurt on her face now, not like last night. It was sorrow, and it did weird things to his head. He put his hands around her arms again, gently this time. “We are friends.”

  The sound she made was almost a sigh, almost a laugh, almost a sob. “Then what’s going on? What happened to you?”

  There was something in the tone or in the wording itself of her question that set Badger on the defensive. “Nothing.” He dropped her arms and turned back to Toby.

  Now she went after him, reaching out and grabbing his arm, yelling, “No! Talk to me! Quit messing with me!”

  Upset by all the sudden drama, Toby reared his head back as far as the leads would allow and stomped his hoof, upsetting the bucket of sudsy water Badger had used to wash him. It made a small mess—negligible, really, considering that there was a hose right there on the floor with which he could rinse away the suds. But Badger was high, and though his surface response was to get level, underneath was a bubbling mess. He had a hair trigger, easily agitated and pushed to his limits. Especially after the first hour or so.

  He turned on her. “Goddammit! What do you fucking want?”

  Her eyes got big, but she stood her ground. “I just want you to talk to me. I want to be close again. I miss you.”

  The crazy was in charge of his head. He could feel it, and he could lament it, but he couldn’t stop it. He grabbed her arms again—without any kind of gentleness now—and pushed her backwards until she hit the door of the stall behind her. “You want to be close? Fine.”

  He kissed her.

  He brought his mouth down hard on hers, his hands clenching around her slender arms, just below her shoulders. At first she was stiff and unyielding, her mouth shut tight, but it still made him hard to have her so close. She smelled so good. She tasted better. And she felt—God, so good. They hadn’t kissed in—shit, years. He shouldn’t be kissing her now, especially not like this. He was hurting her. He should stop. But her smell, her taste, her touch.

  And then she relaxed. Her body became supple, and, with a small whimper, she opened her mouth.

  “Fuck.” He pulled away and let go of her arms, brushing gently at the wrinkles his hands had pressed into her sleeves.

  “Badger, no.” Adrienne caught him before he could step away. Looping her arms around his neck, holding the back of his head in her hands, she tried to bring him close again. He could have pushed her off. He should have. But the crazy was in charge, and shit, she wasn’t mad at the way he’d been treating her. He didn’t understand why she wasn’t mad. Why she was still here. So he didn’t fight the downward pressure of her touch. Instead, he bent down and kissed her again. Their tongues twisted around each other, and they both groaned. He closed her up in his arms, holding her tightly, forgetting everything else—forgetting that this was wrong, that it couldn’t go anywhere, that Show would kill him, that he couldn’t let her know what he had to hide.

  It was wrong. It was wrong. He didn’t care.

  And then her hands, no longer needing to hold him to her, relaxed and slid slowly down, her fingers combing through his ponytail, dancing over his neck, his shoulders.

  His chest.

  As if her touch had electrified him—a touch he hadn’t even felt—he jumped away from her, pushing her arms and hands from his body. “God. You need to get out of her
e.”

  She was breathless and bleary-eyed. “What? Wait—what? What did I do? Badge—”

  When she reached for him again, coming close again, all he could think of was that she couldn’t touch him. She couldn’t. He backed up but got caught up in Toby’s lead. Adrienne took another step, and he lashed out, pushing her away, pushing her so hard he knocked her off her feet, and she landed hard on her ass.

  God! He was such a dick. “Adrienne…” He knew he should help her get up, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t even say he was sorry.

  “What is wrong with you?” She stood up and brushed her ass off. “You know what? Never mind. I’m sorry I tried.”

  She turned and headed for the doors again, and this time he just watched her go.

  ~oOo~

  That evening, he rode back from Springfield with Show and Tommy. Tommy had taken over Havoc’s place as enforcer, his primary task protecting Show. Even though he’d only been in the club not even a year, he was the natural choice for it—big, strong, and just…hard in some way Badger couldn’t define. Tommy was a good guy; he just liked to hit things. He was a lot like Havoc in that way, really.

  The wedding that afternoon had gone off fine. He’d worn the stupid coat and helped the fancy little prissy chick in a fluffy white dress to mount Toby sidesaddle, and he’d walked her to the porch, where her supposed knight in shining tuxedo helped her down. It was all very romantic, in a total chick flick way. He was growing to really hate weddings—not that his opinion mattered to anybody.

  He’d seen Adrienne a couple of times. She’d changed clothes, into a little flowered dress and flat shoes, to help with the wedding. Watching her with Shannon, her mom, always made his heart feel strange, and even more than usual today. For a long time, he’d been basically in love with Shannon, even though she was Show’s old lady. He wasn’t in love with her anymore—or, well, it was different, both deeper and shallower. And not nearly as…sexual. She was hot, and she was kind, and he loved her. But he didn’t dream about her anymore.

  Now he dreamed about her daughter.

  When he wasn’t dreaming about being skinned alive.

  He was such a fucked-up loser.

  He’d seen Adrienne a couple of times during the wedding, but they’d only made eye contact once—and she’d immediately turned away. Rightly so. He’d hurt her. Not metaphorically, not emotionally, but that, too—he’d actually knocked her to the ground and hurt her.

  He really was a monster.

  When she’d left the barn, he’d almost gone back to his office for his stash, but he’d fought the urge off. It had sucked, but he’d fought. Every six hours. No more than every six hours. Holding to that personal rule, he knew, was what was allowing him to keep functioning. To do his job at the B&B and in the club. He knew that if he caved to that, he might as well just snort the whole bag at a go. But his head was full of self-hate and misery, wrapped up in a binding of need, and he’d stood in the aisle, his hand wrapped around Toby’s lead, mere feet away from peace of mind, needing it so badly he thought he’d die anyway. He’d fought it off and done his job, and told himself that meant he was still in control.

  He was a little high again now, on this run, but in what he thought of as his safe zone—not so soon after a dose that he obviously looked high, unless somebody really checked, and not so close to needing another that he’d be sick. Safe.

  It had been an easy run—just to Springfield, to their contact for black market medical supplies, to set up the next order. Tasha’s clinic was legit, straight-up. She was just getting off the ground, but people in town were coming to her, and Badger knew she was building up a small but steady patient base. The Horde kept an eye on the clinic’s progress, because they’d put the money into starting it. And because Tasha was one of their own—a club daughter and now Len’s old lady.

  The clinic was legit, but Tasha also took care of the Horde, who couldn’t always go to the hospital even when they needed it—as Badger knew very well—and she was building a store of drugs and supplies that made her clinic something of a underground hospital. For that, she needed supplies that weren’t readily available to the doctor of a small town clinic. And the Horde helped her out.

  It was why Badger went all the way to St. Louis for his own…supplies. He couldn’t risk anyone the Horde worked with knowing what he had going on. They already watched him too closely, waiting for their chance.

  Once they were back in Signal Bend, Show veered off toward home, and Tommy and Badger headed on to Tuck’s. With Zeke, they were on duty there tonight, keeping the usual fracas from getting out of control. Though the town was changing, with new residents—and a few old ones—who weren’t on board with the way the Horde ran things, Tuck’s was still Tuck’s. It got rough, and the people who went there, for the most part, knew and expected that. The innocent bystanders who might straggle in occasionally got a quick lesson, and then they hightailed it to Valhalla Vin, for a quiet drink.

  It was still early enough when they met Zeke inside that the crowd—and it was a decent-size crowd—was pretty calm. There was a band, like every Saturday night, and most people were dancing. Zeke stood at the bar, leaning backwards against it, his expansive belly swelling out in front of him. As Tommy and Badger walked up, Zeke nodded, one deep incline of his head, his long, iron-grey beard sliding over that belly. “Brothers.”

  “Zeke.” Tommy leaned on the bar. “Looks chill.”

  “Yep.” Zeke was not a talker. It was rare for him to string enough words together to make even a sentence. But he was a tough old dude. He nodded again, this time directly at Badger. “Okay, Badge?”

  Fuck. Even Zeke was on his ass. “Yeah, Zeke. Good. You?” Zeke nodded again.

  Well, that had been a lively chat.

  “Beer or hooch tonight, boys?” Rose, Tuck’s wife, leaned on her elbows on the other side of the bar.

  “Just a Bud for me, Rose.” Badger had learned quickly that drinking hard liquor fucked him up fast these days. Didn’t mix with the Oxy at all. But he could do a couple of beers and be pretty okay.

  Tommy ordered tequila, and Zeke took another beer. They stood at the bar and drank quietly. Tommy and Zeke faced out, but Badger leaned his elbows on the bar, feeling the first threads unraveling. He drank his beer and breathed.

  The band finished its second set as Badger was finishing his second beer. His nose was starting to run, and his chest was starting to burn. He had about another hour. Maybe he could push it to two before he got twitchy. Maybe. The beer would help—it made him a little slow, but that slow was also calm. He waved his empty at Rose when she looked over, and she smiled and held up a finger, then served a guy at the other end of the bar.

  “Need to talk to you, Badge.”

  Billy Knox had come up beside him. They’d been friends since grade school, but relations had been chilly the past couple years, since Jerri Rae had gone into the club. Billy hated it—of course he did; his little sister spread her thighs for at least one guy most every night, and all the unattached Horde did her. Badger did her pretty often. She was hot, and she did what she was told. Maybe it was because she’d known him her whole life, but she seemed to like it when he paid her attention, and he liked that she liked it.

  Badger had stopped being such a pussy around girls since the fall, and he didn’t wait around anymore for them to come to him—like some kind of nerdy middle-school shithead. But he still didn’t like getting too bossy with them. Except when they wanted to get all touchy-feely. He wouldn’t have that.

  Billy thought Badger had betrayed their friendship banging his little sister. Maybe he had; Badger didn’t know—or care that much. She’d come to him first—and she’d been of age when she started at the club. She was twenty-one now. Her call.

  For the most part, Billy was trying to deal with his sister living the life she wanted. But he and Badger had come to blows over it a time or two. Back in the day, Billy had been stronger than him, but not anymore. Or, hell, maybe he
was again, now. Badger didn’t have the range of motion he used to.

  Rose had brought him a fresh bottle. Badger took a long swallow of his beer and turned to Billy, not knowing whether he would meet friend or foe. “Yeah, Bill?”

  “Can we talk outside?”

  He thought going outside alone with Billy could be a bad idea. “Nah. Gotta stay and keep an eye out.”

  “It’s important, Badge. Only take a minute.”

  Badger looked down at his friend—Billy was several inches shorter than his own six feet. He looked simply intent. Not threatening, but like he really did have something important to talk about. Deciding he’d stay close to the door, Badge nodded and drained his beer. The room tilted just a little when he turned and then righted. He took a deep breath, always feeling like breath was just a little harder to come by after a few cold ones. With a quick glance toward Tommy and a tip of his head to indicate where he was going, he followed Billy outside.

  And came face to face with two other men—guys he’d gone to school with, too. Wally Fisher had a length of chain in his hands. Eric Dale had a fucking bat. Eric and Billy grabbed Badger’s arms, and just that pull made his chest burn.

  “What the fuck, Billy?”

  “You knocked up my sister.”

  No—no, he most certainly had not. He always wrapped. Always. Fuck, he’d come to sometimes with the damn thing stuck to his dick—this morning, in fact. He’d been with Jerri Rae last night, and she’d been drunk off her ass. Last night. She was pregnant? What the fuck? He shook all that away, though. Not his problem. Even if she was knocked up, he knew it wasn’t his. He’d never been too fucked up not to wrap. And he knew that to be true, because he never had the good fortune to black out.

  “No way, man. No. It wasn’t me.”

  “She says it’s you.” Billy punched him in the gut. As he doubled over, they dragged him away from the door.

  He’d gained a reputation—hard earned in the Horde ring and in the Horde world—for having quick hands and feet. He fought now, ignoring the pain in his chest, and he got a couple of good licks in. But they were too many, and after three beers and with his need growing, he was too slow. They were armed, and all he had was his blade—until they’d taken it. When Tommy and Zeke beat them back and got them under control, Badger was curled up on the gravel, waiting for them to just fucking kill him.