Blaze: Devil's Nightmare MC: Book 11

by Lena Bourne

  “And it won’t be safe,” he adds.

  “I’m assuming that goes for you too. Why are you going then?” I ask.

  “Because I never should’ve left in the first place,” he says and drinks his whole cup of coffee in a couple of swallows. He sets the cup down and looks like he’s about to stand up, but I lay my hand over his arm on the table.

  “Whatever it is, you can tell me,” I say, not even sure where the words are coming from. “I can help.”

  He’s staring down at my hand over his arm, his eyes unfocused. I don’t think he’s actually seeing it.

  “It’s dangerous,” he finally says. “My family is dangerous.”

  “Then you shouldn’t go there either,” I say in a shaky voice.

  “It’s where I belong.”

  The words, “You belong with me,” are on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t say them, because it’d be too irrational to do it. I hardly know him. I hardly spoke to him before now. The majority of our time together was spent kissing and gazing into each other’s eyes. I have no right to tell him what to do or to offer advice, or make suggestions, or try to change his mind. But I want to do all those things anyway. A part of me thinks I’m the only one who can.

  “Tell me about your family,” I say in a quiet voice.

  He looks up at me and shakes his head.

  “Come on,” I urge.

  He sighs and lays his hand over mine. It’s just as cold as mine is today and I find that deeply unsettling for some reason.

  “My family is involved in a generations-long blood feud with another family in my town,” he says. “It started back at the turn of the last century when my great-grandfather killed his wife. She was from that other family and that’s how they tell the story. My side says she killed herself because she was weak. But there has been so much killing over the years since, that it doesn’t really matter how it started anymore,” he says in a dead voice. Only his eyes are flashing at me. With anger, challenge, hatred, I can’t tell. “I thought I could leave and get away from it, but that was stupid. The killing has followed me here. So I’m going back before anyone else dies.”

  He’s going there to die. I can hear it in his voice loud and clear.

  And I think I’m the only one who can stop him. I don’t just think that. I know it.

  “And I’m coming with you,” I say.

  “No,” he says.

  “Yes,” I counter. “Either you take me with you or I follow you on my own, your choice.”

  He looks so deep into my eyes I’m sure he can see right into the deepest part of my soul. It’s like I’m the only person in the world right now and it’s a very trippy feeling.

  “Why the hell would you want to?” he asks.

  “I spent my whole life waiting to die, Blaze,” I say. “Ever since I can remember, I’ve known I wouldn’t live long. And I see that same knowledge in your eyes. You’ve lived with that same knowledge, just that yours wasn’t illness-related like mine was. And I think that together, we can change all that. I think together we can find a way to live.”

  I’m not even sure where all these words came from. They’re from some deep part of my soul, which doesn’t usually have a voice at all. But it’s speaking very loudly now.

  He just stares at me for a couple of seconds, his lips slightly parted his eyes unmoving. Then he smiles crookedly and leans forward to kiss me.

  It’s the softest kiss in the world, as soft as the touch of a feather, and yet it fills me with such joy, such hope, such determination—such life, actually—that it takes my breath away. In the best way possible.

  “I knew you were a good omen,” he whispers as he pulls away.

  “Does that mean I can come with you?” I ask.

  He nods. “I’ll probably regret it before we even leave this city.”

  I smile wide. “Good, then we’ll both come back.”

  He kisses me again, and this time it isn’t as soft, but it is just as life-giving.

  I don’t know what all that about omens is that he keeps mentioning, but I do know this was meant to be. Me and him, we are meant to be.

  Pale golden dawn is washing over the wide-open desert plain as we ride out of the city by the shortest route possible. This road cuts straight through the desert, black and shimmering from the first rays of the sun washing over the world. I always loved dawn, but it has never given me as much hope for life as this morning.

  My arms are wrapped around his waist tightly even though we’re not going so very fast and we’re the only two people on this road. The only two people in the world, which is open before us with all the possibilities life has to offer.

  Even the black cloud of what he told me about the true destination of our trip isn’t marring that vision.

  How can it?

  Anything is possible on days like today.

  Even running away.

  Even living.

  My heartbeat is as steady as the rhythmic pulsing of his bike as the tires eat up the pavement, as free as the wind brushing across my face. Every mile we travel breaks away another piece of the shell I’ve been existing in my whole life, just watching life because I was too weak to live it. It wasn’t a shell. It was a cocoon. And like a butterfly I emerge now, my gorgeous multicolored wings unfolding to shimmer in the rising sun, free at last.

  By the time we stop at a roadside diner attached to a motel at the edge of a small desert town, I feel like I could fly. My whole body is pulsing with the desire to.

  A huge cactus is growing in front of the diner with a gorgeous pink blossom open to the sun atop it. I could stare at it all day and not get bored. The diner, and I suppose the motel too, is named the Desert Rose. This cactus with its blossom must’ve been here since before it was built.

  “I thought we could stop and wait out the worst heat of the day,” he says in a toneless voice. “And I need some sleep.”

  He looks it too. I’ve never seen eyes as bloodshot as his. But he’s grinning, so I guess it’s not so bad.

  I follow him to the diner, where he holds the door open for me like a perfect gentleman, to the frown of the middle-aged waitress with waist-length dark grey hair behind the counter, because I’m moving slow and letting the heat in.

  Or maybe she’s just frowning because she wasn’t expecting customers, seeing as we’re the only two people inside.

  I say hello, and get a curt nod back from her. We take a seat in one of the cubicles by the windows. The seats are desert sand brown and the tabletop was once the same color, but the original white is showing beneath the many scratches on it. My heart is thumping in my chest. It always happens when it adjusts to the change in temperature from the heat outside to the refrigerator-like AC induced cold in here.

  The waitress takes her time sauntering over with a pitcher of ice water and a couple of plastic glasses once we’re seated.

  “Nothing’s on special today,” she says, handing us each a menu from where she tucked it under her arm. “And if you ask me, you’re best off just getting the cheeseburger with everything.”

  She sounds gruff, but I don’t think she means to be. I think it’s just how life made her.

  “Yeah, I’ll have that,” Blaze says and hands her back his menu unopened. “And a beer.”

  “Me too,” I say and copy his action with the menu too.

  She nods, takes the menus back, and yells back over her shoulder, “Two cheeseburgers with everything!” to someone I can’t see in the kitchen.

  Then she pours our waters and walks away, her wide hips swaying under her pale pink uniform.

  “Charming,” Blaze mutters and finishes his glass of water in a few large gulps.

  “Just so we’re clear, I had every intention of bringing you to a much nicer place for our first meal together,” he says as he pours himself another glass of water. “But right now, I’m so tired I might fall asleep before I finish the burger.”

  I smile at him. “Well, it’s the thought that counts,
right? Besides, I’m about ready for a nap too. The heat doesn’t agree with me.”

  “We’ll travel in the evenings and nights then,” he says. “My favorite time of day, actually. Unless you want to go back. There’s gotta be a bus heading to Vegas from this town.”

  “You won’t get rid of me so easily,” I say and take a slow sip of my water. “But I do want to stop in town before we move on. Since I only have about fifty dollars left to my name, I thought I could sell my grandmother’s pearls to pay my way.”

  I pull them from one of the many zippered pockets of my new leather jacket and lay them on the table. “I figure I could get about two hundred for them. Maybe three.”

  It makes me sad to think about letting them go. It’s pretty much the only thing I have left of her. Except for the memories. And those are worth much more than pearls. Besides, she taught me to be pragmatic and unsentimental.

  He looks from the pearls into my eyes, sadness, and pity the only two emotions floating in them. My grandmother would be offended by that look, and I kind of am too.

  “Why don’t you put those around your neck instead,” he says quietly. “You don’t have to worry about money on this trip. It’s my treat.”

  “I like to pay my own way,” I say. “My grandmother would want me to sell these pearls over taking handouts any day.”

  He chuckles. “Were you two close?”

  I nod, sliding the pearls through my fingers. “She raised me and Stormi alone for most of my childhood. She was a widow, I never knew my dad, and my mom was in and out of our lives, because she couldn’t really deal with my illness, so yeah, we were close.”

  Remembering my grandma isn’t always the easiest thing in the world. She’s been dead for years and I’m still not completely over it.

  “If it weren't for her voice calling me back after my last heart surgery when I was thirteen, I might not be here today,” I say.

  I was in a coma, stuck inside my mind in the middle of a wide-open, empty flat plain covered in snow, even though it was the desert. I was all alone, and frightened and sick of it all, but could hear her voice clearly on the wind, calling me back, telling me to keep fighting, not to give up in her no-nonsense voice.

  “It worked then and it’s worked ever since. All I have to do is remember her voice and her words and I know I can get through anything,” I say.

  “She sounds a lot like my grandma,” he says. “Tough as nails and knows how to get the job done.”

  “Yes, exactly,” I say and smile. “Is she still alive?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s been three years since I left home and I haven’t been in touch with anyone since. I hope she is though. I’d like you to meet her.”

  “I’d like that very much too,” I say just as our food and drinks arrive.

  He takes one look at his plate, smiles apologetically to me, and starts eating. It’s making me hungry just watching him wolf down his meal, but I eat more slowly, focusing mostly on the fries. Meat doesn’t always agree with me, especially on very hot days.

  Not that I’m worried about that. Not really.

  Talking about grandma has brought her right back to the forefront of my mind. I think she’d be happy I was going on this trip.

  But Stormi is another matter. I left her a note and I’ll call her as soon as we get to the motel room. She’ll worry and she’ll want me to come right back home. But I have no intention of doing that.

  12

  Misti

  I had every intention of calling Stormi as soon as I got to the motel room. Blaze took off his jacket and boots, lay down on top of the covers of the huge double bed, and was asleep before I even lay down next to him. His rhythmic, steady breathing filling the nicely air-conditioned room, and the air of absolute freedom and all the excitement that goes with it lulled me into closing my eyes.

  But the incessant buzzing, like a thousand angry bees flying over my head, kept intruding on my dreams of pleasant rides through the countryside, with the world awash in golden light, nothing but the open road leading to freedom before me.

  This time, it wakes me up enough so I realize it’s actually my phone. Or his. Or both of them. That seems the most likely.

  The single small, rectangular motel room window next to the narrow door is covered with a sand brown curtain. It filters the late-day sunlight, washing the room in dark gold light.

  Blaze is still sleeping soundly, still lying on his back exactly the same way he lay down. I’ve been nestled into his side, my back against his solid, strong body and I have never felt this safe before.

  It’s my phone that’s buzzing and the inside of my small purse is flashing with the bluish light from the screen.

  I rise slowly, partly not to wake Blaze, partly because I’m always sluggish when I wake up and I don’t want to have a breathing-trouble episode.

  The phone stops ringing by the time I dig it out of my purse, but it starts up again right after I notice that I have 23 unanswered calls, all from Stormi.

  She must be frantic with worry, and my heart twists with the guilt of causing it.

  I walk to the small bathroom and close the door behind me before picking up the phone.

  “Misti, where are you?” she says breathlessly, and kind of tonelessly. “Why did you just leave?”

  “I’m with Blaze,” I say. “He’s taking me to see his family.”

  “What?”

  I don’t know if she actually didn’t hear, or she’s so shocked she can’t filter what I told her. But I don’t repeat myself.

  “Come home,” she finally says. “The open road is no place for you. Not with your condition.”

  She sounds a lot like my grandma as she says it. I’m hoping she’ll also understand why I need to do this, like I’m sure grandma would.

  I sit down on the small bathmat and lean against the flimsy screen of the shower stall.

  “Blaze came over early this morning and he was in a bad way,” I say. “He said he was going home and he wasn’t happy about it. I knew I was the only one who can help him. So I’m going with him.”

  She signs loudly. “Misti, come on, men will always do stupid things and it’s not your job to save him. Whatever he has going on is none of your business. You barely know him.”

  Her words are harsh and unforgiving, but I know they’re coming from a place of concern and love, so I’ll try not to get angry.

  “He came to me for help,” I say. “That makes it my business. And my obligation.”

  “No, no, no, Misti,” she says. “That’s not how it works. You’re just too innocent with men to know that.”

  “You know what, Stormi, I can decide that for myself,” I say unable to hold my anger back anymore. “I realize I’ve been very sick and you’ve had good cause to always be worried about me, but I’m not a complete idiot when it comes to knowing what I want and what I need. I need to do this. For me. Not just for him.”

  “He’s run away and didn’t tell anyone why. Or get permission from his president,” she says. “They’re all very pissed off at him and you don’t want to be there when they find him.”

  Her words send my heart fluttering. But not in fear for myself.

  “I’m sure he knows what he’s doing, Stormi,” I say.

  “Where are you? Please let me come and get you,” she says.

  It’s me who sighs this time. “Try to understand, Stormi. I have a chance at living now. I never had that before. And this is what I want. I don’t want to be stuck inside anymore. I don’t want to just wish I was living anymore. I don’t want to just daydream about all the adventures I could have. I want to truly live. On my own terms.”

  A few moments of her breathing shakily into the receiver follow my words.

  “I know you’re worried,” I finally say when it becomes apparent she can’t say anything. “But I was worried about you too when you were gone. And this isn’t nearly as dangerous as that was. I’ll be back. But first I have to do this thing.”
/>
  Her breathing maybe gets a little less raspy.

  “Come on, just be happy for me. I’m taking a road trip. I’ve never been further than the Strip and even that was just for one evening,” I say and chuckle.

  “But it’s just so dangerous,” she finally whispers.

  “My whole life was always dangerous,” I say and chuckle. “This is nothing compared to that.”

  She’s not ready to laugh with me about this, but her breathing has calmed a lot more now.

  “Alright, fine, yes, I understand,” she finally says. “But please call me from time to time, and tell me how you’re doing. And if you need me, I’ll be there.”

  She sounds like she’s accepted it and the relief of realizing that is like a huge boulder rolling off my chest. I didn’t even know it was sitting there until just now.

  I can hear Blaze moving around on the other side of the thin bathroom door. The buzzing of the phone, which has been pretty much constant coming from the room since I’ve been in here has clearly finally woken him up too.

  “I promise I’ll stay in touch, Stormi,” I say. “And I’ll return when I’m ready, OK?”

  She sighs. “OK.”

  I don’t tell her it will be Blaze bringing me back or no one at all. But it will be. I won’t have it any other way.

  Blaze

  When the buzzing of my phone roused me, and I opened my eyes to the peeling paint on the ceiling of this shabby, cheap motel room I had no idea where I was. But I did know I was alone, which woke me up completely, thinking this morning and Misti and that pure white light showing me I had something to live for was just a dream.

  It took me a couple of very painful seconds to realize I could hear her voice through the bathroom door.

  Which brought a whole different kind of pain.

  She shouldn’t be here. I’m on the run from the most ruthless MC this side of the Mexican border, going to a place where I don’t expect to survive. It’d be better if she wasn’t with me. Much better.

  I leap out of bed, and the black spots that causes to pop up in front of my eyes force me to grope for my phone in the jacket pocket I tossed on the floor when we arrived. They clear up by the time I’m holding it.