Blaze: Devil's Nightmare MC: Book 11

by Lena Bourne

  “What’s going on?” I ask, pulling away from his lips and looking into his moonlight-filled eyes.

  “We’re being watched,” he says. "I’m sorry. I don’t want them to see.

  “What? By who?” I ask, looking around at the dark shadows beneath the trees and bushes, as though I have any hope of seeing anything.

  “My brothers,” he says. “They let me come to see you to say goodbye, but I’m pretty sure they’re not gonna let me out their sight again. Not until this job is done.”

  “What job?” I ask. “You said you were going home.”

  “I am, but they’re coming too,” he says. “I can’t tell you more than that.”

  His voice is very flat like he’s reluctant to talk about this. I can still hear that coldness of death, of giving up, of being on the way to his doom in his voice and it makes me so mad. My heart starts fluttering faster and faster and I’m having trouble catching my breath.

  “You’re still going home to pick a fight, aren’t you?” I ask. “To die.”

  The last two words came out so mangled and choked, I’m not even sure he heard them.

  “That was my destination all along, Misti, you know this,” he says. “I can’t give you anything, least of all a future. You can’t come with me.”

  “Then why did you come to see me now? Why did you bring me here? Why are you holding me? Why are we kissing?” I ask, growing more and more breathless after voicing each of those questions.

  I’ve pried myself from his arms and am sitting back on my heels, kneeling in front of him like I’m begging, which I kind of am. I’m desperately trying to see at least a tiny bit of hope in his eyes. But they’re as cold as moonlight always is.

  “I had to see you one more time,” he says quietly. “To say goodbye. To make sure you don’t waste your time waiting for me.”

  At the far end of the field, in the distance behind him, yellow light is starting to rise from the ground. For now, it’s just a pale band, but soon it will eat away the night. I was right, this dawn is proving to be the worst one I ever lived to see.

  “You just told me you loved me, Blaze,” I say. “How does that make any sense with what you’re telling me now?”

  He shrugs and gives me the tiniest of smiles. “I do love you. In a way, I never loved anything or anyone. But that doesn’t change anything. It just makes it harder. And easier at the same time.”

  “Easier? What?” I snap unable to control my annoyance anymore.

  “Because I care so much about you is the reason I can’t do any wrong by you”

  “Are you serious? Are all men like you?” I ask, not meaning it in a good way at all. Even though that’s how he does. I can see that clearly. It’s misguided, but he wants the best for me.

  He shrugs and doesn’t reply. Just like he didn’t answer any of my other questions. But I have the answers.

  “I know why you really came back,” I say. “It’s because you want me to stop you. Because you don’t want to go do whatever you think you have to. You want to live and you want to be with me. I know that because I know your heart. And I will stop you.

  A phone starts buzzing in his jacket pocket. They must’ve given him a new one, because his old phone is still in the motel room. His face is a tight mask as he pulls it out and answers.

  “I’m on my way,” he says in a clipped, deep voice. “I’ll take her back to the motel now and get my stuff. Then I’ll ride.”

  Even the moonlight is gone as he hangs up and pockets his phone again. His eyes, his whole face are just dark. I hardly see him.

  I take his face in both my palms and stare deep into his eyes, hoping to see something more there. Some light, some love, something that is not just death.

  “Please don’t go," I whisper.

  He peels my palms away and stands up. “I have to go. And you have to stay behind.”

  He reaches down to help me stand, but I do it on my own.

  “Just like that?” I ask.

  He nods. “I’m sorry.”

  “Will you come back to me?” I ask, even though I really, really don’t want to hear the answer.

  He shakes his head. “Don’t wait for me. Live your life.”

  Fat chance of that happening. I lived my whole life with a sick heart. Now I’ll live the rest of my life with a broken one.

  And the worst part is, I know he really is very, very sorry. But I also know there is nothing I can do to stop him.

  21

  Blaze

  Saved by the bell, you could call Cross’s call telling me to move out. But it didn’t save anyone or make anything better.

  She didn’t say much as I dropped her off at the motel and got my saddlebags and old phone. Her sister was sleeping in the king-sized bed, or pretended to, I think. I definitely felt watched as I tried to say a quiet, goodbye to Misti in the parking lot.

  She let me leave without making a scene and that was the only “good” thing about it.

  I was ready to let her go.

  I even restrained myself from sleeping with her one last time, even though my dick is still protesting that decision now, as I ride off into the blindingly bright sunrise alone.

  I told myself I was being a gentleman. Letting her down easy. Letting her down with respect.

  But those were just hollow lies that turned to dust the moment daylight touched them.

  All I can see are her angry, disappointed eyes. Her worried, sad eyes. There’s such wisdom in those eyes. She sees right through me, knows my secrets. All her questions last night were on point. All her answers were too.

  I do want to spend the rest of my life with her. More than I want anything else.

  But the thing is, my answers are just as right. Just as true.

  There is no other choice but this for me. No other path. And I won’t even pretend there is anymore.

  I love her. But it’s not meant to be.

  And as soon as I get to that point with my thinking I stop it dead.

  This is no time for that.

  I have a job to do, and lives depend on me doing it well.

  The lives of my brothers that I’ve been trying to save by leaving in the first place. Colt’s life. My families’ lives.

  In other words, this is bigger than me. Just as the feud has always been bigger than me.

  I have a chance to stop it now, but not if I half-ass it. Not if I let myself wallow in the could’ve beens and might’ve beens.

  No. They were never that.

  Love doesn’t change that.

  Misti’s pale, glowing skin doesn’t either. Neither do her wise, gorgeous eyes that see so much.

  If I come out of this alive, if the feud ends and there’s peace, I’ll find her, I’ll make it up to her.

  But I can’t make that promise to her now. Not while there’s every chance it will never come true. And I can’t go into the death storm the Devils are about to unleash carrying hope in my heart. That’s not how it works.

  In about eight hours, I’ll be knocking on the gate in the wall around my family’s compound, asking to be let in. I might not survive that part. Let alone what comes after. There’s no hope waiting for me there. There never was.

  Misti

  Stormi feigned sleep when I came into the room after Blaze drove off. I was happy for it, and just lay down beside her, sure I wouldn’t sleep. I wasn’t sleepy, I wasn’t tired, in fact, I couldn’t feel anything at all. Just like that time I was in a coma, in that vast, cold desert in my mind that my grandmother managed somehow to call me out of.

  I feigned sleep even after Stormi stopped pretending. And the result was that I did fall asleep for real.

  Now the sunshine outside is as blinding and hot as it was yesterday. Stormi’s sitting by the window looking out and I know what I have to do.

  I have to be the voice that calls Blaze back. I’m all he has. If I don’t succeed, I’ve lost him forever. And a part of myself too. I know that as I know my own name.

 
“Good morning,” Stormi says, as I sit up in bed. She’s smiling, but her eyes are very serious. She knows there’s nothing good about this morning.

  “I’m going after him,” I say.

  She shakes her head. “Don’t be stupid. He said he’ll be back.”

  So I was right, she was awake when we returned and she clearly heard our whole quiet conversation before he mounted his bike and rode off into the dawn. She looks kind of tense now, like she wasn’t planning to tell me she heard everything.

  “He didn’t say he’ll be back, he said he’d try, but that was a lie,” I say, climbing out of bed. “He needs me to stop him.”

  She inhales sharply and opens her mouth, but doesn’t start speaking. I can literally see her brain working to try and find some nice way of putting it, when really, she just wants to tell me I’m being stupid.

  “Maybe I’m being stupid, but Blaze is being stupider,” I say to save her the trouble of having to point it out. “And I’m the only one who can make him see sense.”

  She shakes her head and sighs but again doesn’t seem to know what to say.

  “I’m not being naive,” I say. “I know how he really feels.”

  “I wasn’t going to call you naive,” she asserts, finally finding her voice. “I understand you don’t want to sit here and wait for him to come back, fearing he might not. I feel the same way about Ace, since he’s going wherever they’re going too. But that’s just how it is with these guys. We don’t get any say in it.”

  I’m the one shaking my head now. “It’s more than that. Blaze is sure he’s going to die doing this and I am sure I have to stop him.”

  “Do you even know where he’s going?” she asks.

  “Two Forks, Nebraska,” I say. “To a place behind an eight-foot-high wall made of scrap metal, wood, and a bunch of all kinds of other garbage. You can’t miss it, he said.”

  “And how are you getting there?” she asks.

  “You’re taking me,” I say and grin.

  She shakes her head.

  “Or I’ll take Mom’s car and go myself,” I add, stopping her from saying whatever she was going to. I never learned how to drive, except by watching others. I think that’ll be enough. It will have to be, if she says no.

  “You can’t drive,” she says anyway, stating the obvious.

  “Please drive me there, Stormi,” I say. “Please don’t say no. You were always there for me. Please be there for me now.”

  The pain that lights up her face twists my heart until I’m sure it will never beat right again. Not that it ever has.

  “I can’t just sit around and wait to hear he’s gone,” I say. “I literally can’t.”

  She leans forward over the small table by the window, burying her face in her hands. I’m afraid she’ll start crying, I keep waiting for her back to start shaking, but when she finally looks up at me again her eyes are dry and she’s grinning.

  “I get it and I’ll take you,” she says. “This has to be the craziest thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve done some pretty insane things, but I’ll do it.”

  I smile too, finally feeling some joy in my heart. I was afraid my ability to ever be happy again rode off with Blaze this morning.

  “You do realize no one will be happy to see us there?” she says. “They’ll all wish we stayed behind like they told us to.”

  “Blaze will be happy to see me,” I say. “No matter what he says.”

  I laugh and so does she. But in my heart, I know what I just said is the absolute truth. He needs me to show him the right path. I’m his omen. And I think I finally figured out what that means. I have to show him the way back to life.

  22

  Blaze

  The sun setting behind me is coloring the corrugated metal sheeting that makes up the wall around my family home a shade of watered-down blood. Fitting in more ways than one. I know a hundred secret ways to get across this wall without anyone noticing, and a large part of me wants to do exactly that, just slink in the way I would when I was younger, when I still lived here, and pretend I never left.

  I don’t want all eyes on me when I ride in. But there’s no way around it.

  I bang on the metal gate with my fist, so hard my whole arm aches. And then have to do it three more times before it finally starts sliding over.

  My cousin Dev’s long face appears in the crack. His shoulder-length blond hair looks like he hasn’t washed it in weeks, and his eyes are distant and watery as he fixes them on me. The effects of all the Meth he’s been doing since we were in our early teens. I’m surprised he can still stand.

  “Blaze,” he says, and I have no way of know if he’s happy, sad, angry, or what about seeing me from his tone. Indifferent, it sounds like. That’s probably what it is.

  “Let me in, Dev,” I say. “I have to speak to Pa.”

  “You sure about this?” he asks.

  “I’m positive,” I snap, and rev my bike. The echoes of the sound fade into silence long before he has the gate open wide enough for me to ride through.

  Dust and dirt, old, hard, and permanent, assault my nose and eyes as the tires of my bike riding across the yard kick it up. The other smells—of roasting meat, and raw meat, piss, shit and vomit, and fires burning—aren’t very welcoming either. All the metal of the wall has its own smell too. Sharp and tangy and if you smell it too long you taste blood in the back of your throat. That alone is enough to remind me clearly of all the reasons why I left. The decrepit, run-down trailers and houses crowded too close together behind the wall do the rest.

  But I don’t have time to reminisce. My father is striding towards me, flanked by two more of my cousins, Brady and John, both of who at least look healthier than lanky, skinny Dev, who is still struggling to get the gate closed behind me.

  My father, almost sixty years old by my count, looks the healthiest. His thick black hair is combed back, and the streaks of grey along his temples seem wider than I remember them, but he still moves with the gait of a man half his age.

  His eyes are made of anger and hate. And this time both of those are just for me. I dismount and wait for him in pretty much the center of our sorry ass compound here.

  “You have some nerve riding back in here, boy,” he snaps at me as he stops so close I can feel his hot breath on my cheeks. We’re the same height and by all accounts, I look just like him when he was young, but in what’s on the inside, we’ve always been as different as night and day.

  “Does it take nerve to come back home, old man?” I ask, just as harshly. Weakness is the one thing he despises above all others. It’s the reason we can never speak about my mother. She was too weak to go on, so she doesn’t get mentioned. So I’m not gonna show him any weakness. I know that much.

  Men and women are poking their heads out of their homes all around us, or lifting their gazes from whatever work they were doing.

  “When you leave your family behind like a coward, yeah,” he says.

  “I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have left,” I say. “And I’m back now to fix it.”

  He barks a harsh laugh that sounds more like a cough. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my father smile. Maybe way back in the hazy past when me and brothers were still young. When my brothers were still alive.

  People are walking towards us now. I hardly see their faces, hardly hear their footsteps in the dirt.

  “You’re gonna fix it?” he says, because it’s not really a question. It sounds more like an accusation. “You? Boy, you’ve always been too hotheaded for anyone’s good.”

  The two cousins chuckle harshly. They were barely out of their teens when I left. Now they look older than me.

  “I’m not alone,” I say, very aware of the six-inch hunting knife on his belt his fingers keep twitching around. He keeps another in his boot, and a 9 mil tucked behind his belt on his back. I bet the cousins do too. Armed to the teeth. That’s how it’s always been around here. “My MC brothers are riding too. I bring a way to end the feud,
for good.”

  His eyes widen to crazy, bulging out until I’m sure they’ll pop. “I see your fancy new cut. I see you taking your worthless allegiance elsewhere. I told you what would happen if you ever came back.”

  This time his hand grips the hilt of the knife on his belt and in a flash of silver the blade is pressed against my throat. I did my best not to flinch, but I don’t know if I succeeded. I guess I should count myself lucky that he stopped short of slicing my throat open and finishing this before it even got started.

  “I see you missed me, old man,” I say. “I know about Reggie. I’m here to make sure he didn’t die for nothing. Let’s talk.”

  Few things make my father’s eyes go a little soft, and clearly, his brother’s death is one of them.

  “I should cut you down where you stand,” he says. “You left. You are nothing to us. We do not need you and we do not want you.”

  “Do it!” someone from the crowd that’s formed a circle around us now yells. The voice is young. I don’t recognize it.

  “He’s a traitor. Do it!” Another voice joins in.

  “No mercy!”

  Mutters of agreement grow louder and louder as my father’s eyes grow darker and darker. I realize now that I dared to come back, because I never truly believed my father would kill the last of his sons. But looking into those dark eyes of his now, I think I might have been wrong.

  “Let him talk, Slash,” an older voice says from the crowd. This one I do recognize. It’s Bill, my uncle on my mother’s side and one of Pa’s oldest friends. “Reggie would want you to hear him out.”

  My father’s face grows even redder than it already was, and I’m pretty sure he’s stopped breathing.

  “Talk,” he barks. “But make it quick.”

  “Devil’s Nightmare MC is riding to take out the Snakes,” I say. “They’ve asked for our help. But whether we give it or not, the bulk of our problem with the Snakes is over. For good.”