by Kiss, Amy
The satisfied smile on my lips dropped when I heard nothing as I came in. No breathing. I found Ghost turned into the sofa, shielding his eyes. His chest barely moved.
I filled a syringe with two bottles designed for very large dogs, prayed I wasn't about to commit murder and shot it up a vein.
His breathing seemed to ease, but his forehead still sat cold. I wiped the blood off his cheek and found nothing serious underneath. I eased back onto the coffee table and waited.
I'd sat vigil over Sandy as she puked into a bucket a couple times (and her me, at least once), but that memory soon left and got replaced with a darker one. Sitting at Santa Maria Memorial, waiting for the doctor. When one had emerged with a chart and slowed once he saw me, I had felt my heart seize. I'd steeled myself to hear which parent I had left.
Apparently neither. The answer looped me around. Instead of feeling double, I felt nothing. I thanked him, even shook his hand and walked out. I think he tried to stop me, but I was 18 already, and they couldn’t stop me from going home. I had sat in our back porch, so empty now, and then lay down, watched the stars until the sun came up. Sometime in the day, Sandy had come to check on me, found me lying there and dragged me back to her place to feed me. She did this for a week, she said, but I had no memory of it.
It wasn't odd that this should come up, as I watched Ghost huffing on the blanket. It sort of must have been how I looked, with everything wiped out. Did the drugs affect his brain too?
The last thing I needed now was for Sandy to come and check, so I texted her saying that I was watching this totally hilarious episode of our favorite cooking travel show on TV. I knew nothing about reports of me staggering into the clinic from a motorcycle.
Ghost dozed peacefully and after I checked his vitals, I left him to go cook something. I tiptoed around feeling a bit like I had guests over - ones that I'd actually invited. I ate lunch, checked on him, watched TV for a long while. He was still out, so I pulled a blanket over him, and then made dinner.
When I clicked on the lights in the evening, he woke. One moment he was resting. The next, he was upright in front of the sofa.
"Katie?" he asked.
"Ghost." I said, understanding his name even more. "How do you feel?"
He rolled his muscles, stretched. I watched each vast mound come to life and ripple into the next. Everything looked pretty good to me. He took of his glasses and his eyes didn't glow. They sat like blue stones in his strong rugged face.
"I'm fine," he said. "It's 7:30."
"That's...right." There were no clocks in the room.
"I was out for 7 hours?"
"You were pretty bad. I've never seen anyone in that state. Though, I'm only a vet. Well, no, vet tech.”
"It's something I have to deal with. Thank you."
"What is?" I said. “What did the military do to you?'
"That's classified."
He looked so serious, but it reminded me of a kid with a secret. I had to crack a smile.
"Classified? Are you undercover in this biker club or something?"
The look faltered. "No. But it's better if you don't know."
"So why'd you come here?"
"I needed you."
There was the moment where his meaning was clear, but I didn't speak and the meaning expanded. I forgot what I wanted to say.
He grabbed his jacket. "I need to go."
"Whoa, wait," I said.
He waited.
What was I going to do, keep him for observation? I wasn’t a doctor. I had helped him recover. That was more than I should have been able to do. I had nothing else to offer. And nothing else I needed from him.
Right?
"I have some more stuff for you," I realized.
I gave him a few more of the bottles I'd stolen from the hospital. He scanned the labels and pocketed them.
"I appreciate everything you've done, but I have to go back,” he said. “My club is in danger."
"The guy that tried to rape me."
Ghost gave me a long strange look. "The guy who tried that is dead."
"Oh," was all I could say.
"And others," he said. "We are at war."
I thought maybe I'd heard sirens lacing my dreams on the bus. "Is this because of the guy?"
"It didn't start there, but it did lead to this moment."
No start, no end. Maybe he preferred that. Ghost loomed over me now, fully healed and fully upright. His shirt swelled with him, the size chosen to showcase the power inside. This guy was designed for war, trained for it, and practiced at it. What would he do in peacetime?
Well, join a biker gang apparently. The longer I looked though, the more that answer wasn't enough. The silence swelled between us filling with the weight of unasked questions.
He started for the door. I went to block it. "You owe me something."
"No." His hand caressed my shoulder with unexpected tenderness. "I owe you everything. Which is why you deserve me out of your life."
"You saved my life, too. It's only fair."
He shook his head. "I saved your body, but you saved me.” He seemed to want to add more but stopped. "What do you want from me?"
Tell him. Tell him the last thing you want is him out of your life.
"Your name. Your real name."
His eyes pored over me, shining again in the moon as if the night gave him life. "Bryan Cross."
His lips barely moved, as if they were betraying him. It was a simple name, efficient, but it drifted over me like a gentle gust.
"And what are you?" I asked, my voice dropping to match his.
"Sergeant US Army. Unit classification G1-105. " Half his mouth curved up in a smile and all the toughness melted off him like it was big Halloween prank, but his body was still straight "Dishonorably discharged."
His eyes had stopped searching, I realized. And if I had noticed, I must have been staring at him a long time
"Fuck it," he said.
He leaned in, pressed his lips to mine, and for one timeless moment, I tasted his breath. Clean and flavored with the tinge of diesel, and something sweet. His arm dragged my body into his. I sank into his strength like water molding to him. His hand landed on my butt and when it squeezed, I seemed to drip like a sponge. I laced my arms around his vast neck and tried to climb deeper into his kiss.
I needed him. I had known the night he'd saved me. Sandy was right. It didn't make sense that I hadn't sank into him then. He had saved me, but not yet fully.
His face seemed to change against mine. He pulled off, and my body swayed in dizzy heat. By the time my eyes opened, he had drifted down the driveway and onto his Harley. His face showed no trace of the smile, just a soft longing. He threw me a last nod, let his engine growl and rode off past the tree line.
I perched on my steps, and let my heart still. He would be back again, I knew. When he was ready, he would come looking for me. I could wait.
I pulled out my phone and searched for Unit G1-105. Nothing showed up. Special ops, just like I suspected. Chemically enhanced special ops. Nothing I'd ever heard of. I'm sure the army would deny their existence, like UFOs or....
G1-105. I read that again in the browser. GHOS.
He was a G1-105 Trooper.
I smiled. So he was a ghost after all. I wondered when he would haunt me again.
Ghost
I arrived in the board room huffing from my morning 8 mile. I looked around the table and saw slagged, slumping figures, oozing whiskey and surrender. Canyon and Cripsy's seats remained noticeably empty. I'd told Nico that now was the time to be decisive, but his mood had sunk as bad as any of them. If the Scorpions chose to simply roll on us, half the people here seemed ready to place themselves against the wall for the execution.
I felt more alive than I had in years. Even after the spike wore. Even after the beta blockers wore. Even now, days after I had seen Katie, the world showed in the finest detail. Maybe the spikes had been holding me back. Maybe this was reality
. This color, these fine grains of life. I hadn't seen Katie in days. It was fine just knowing she was out there. Knowing she saw in me the same something I saw in her.
Until this mess was sorted, though, I had to stay away. The Sand Scorpions were in full war mode, and it wasn't just them anymore. The Sheriff's department might let us be at the edges, but not if we were having small arms engagements in the streets. With all the bodies we'd given them, they had plenty to work with. Word was that an FBI gangbuster squad was flying in to investigate.
The only small comfort was that most of the bodies in the morgue were theirs. Six to our three. Three good men. No, not good, but loyal. Which counted more in this life.
Twist had survived, and lay wrapped up in ICU. For now, unable to talk. But unwilling to make a deal? With Quantico interrogators battering his brain the second he showed signs of life? He wasn't cut for that.
"Twist is up," Nico said. A look passed between us that told me just what Nico thought of this development. He slouched back on a bristly forearm. I wondered what he would say if I pulled him aside and offered to make sure Twist never talked again. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer he'd give me.
Twist was not the best man, but he was one of ours. That line, I would not cross.
"What's the plan then?" I sat upright in my seat, sweeping the residue of despair away from in front of me with the clink of glasses and the scuff of cigarettes. I looked at Dyno's reclined form until he noticed. I held the gaze until he glared back and nodded and sat up. I went one by one round the table, and roused them all.
"We're ready," I said to Nico. "Tell us what you want."
"I want us back on top," he said over the top of a snifter of whiskey. He tossed it back.
"How are we doing that?"
"Fucking Sand Scorpions. There was room for both of us when they knew their place." His eyes lazed around the room.
"Nico," I said soft. He glowered at me. I spiked a little so he could see his own reflection clearer on me. His anger sank under a cloud.
He slammed down the glass. "The way I see it, we got a problem and we got a calamity," he said. "The Scorpions are the issue yeah, but they've called a shitstorm down upon all of us. The FBI rumors are true. This time tomorrow we'll have a special agent or two in our pretty little city. My guy in the sheriff's telling me we can expect DEA too."
His eyes prowled from face to somber face, and infected each with his anger. I could get that effect one on one, but in a crowd? Before a group? No, this was why Nico was the President and I was the General.
"So what do we do? We endure. We hunker down, and weather the storm. We make sure we don't leave any flaps open. A little luck and it'll be the Scorpions flying off in the wind."
He started doing inventory of our cash and existing business deals. Some of the riskier ones, deep in town we would have to stop for a while, but we could probably keep a few of the more important ones in play. One thing that became clear to me in the military was that most of war was about trying to see if you were willing to lose more money than the other guy. That's what all the tech and manpower boiled down to. Waiting it out was always the preferable option.
It would mean longer before I could risk seeing Katie again. I could stand it, but girls like that didn't have to wait around for long before someone else found them. I didn't think she would take kindly to me putting a knife in that guy to win her back.
Christ, was I back in middle school? Thank god I hadn't met Katie as a combat medic in base camp. I would have been looking for flowers on patrol instead of IEDs.
She could easily have been military. I barely remembered much of that teeth chattering afternoon. I hadn't known what she did, but that girl had the chops. Twice now, she'd looked at death - first delivered by me, then stalking me. Twice her mouth had opened with questions, not screams.
"Ghost, you there brother?"
Dyno snapped his finger in my face. Prick. He could doze off for a day, and I couldn't for five mins?
"What?" I growled.
"Twist." It was Nico. "What's your take on that?"
I stared at him long enough to let him know that it wasn't going to be that.
Nico sighed. "He's gonna be hit with a shitload of questions,"
"Then, I'll tell him to get ready."
"What, walk into the hospital?" Dyno asked, stroking the plume of his red beard. "Didn't you hear Nico? We're trying to lay low, not given them another suspect."
"They know every guy in the club," I said. "Whether I'm a suspect depends on how much Twist says."
That shut Dyno up, but Nico looked none too happy.
"The sheriff's boys watching him now?" I asked.
"Two of them," Nico said.
"Ok, right. Two sheriff's guys." No one got my point, and I went on. "Not FBI. Not DEA. Just locals, who know they can't just run off once this whole mess boils over."
Nico gave this some consideration. "So you want to go talk to him."
"Twist just needs a little reminder we got his back."
"Alright, you got my blessing. Go. Get the fuck out of here."
I allowed a thin smile. Good to see the boss returning to brutal form.
I set off to do business. Rumbling down a lone desert road with the thrum of an engine under you makes you feel mighty. The sun and the sand would have been a death sentence for a man a century back. Now, nothing more than scenery.
Then again, the desert held other threats now. I’d learned in Afghanistan. Ambushes, improvised explosives, suicide attacks far from med support. I'd learned to fear the sands before I was augmented.
Despite all that, despite the fact I'd been off IED detail for years by the time the war deposited me back home, driving through here for the first time had still nearly made me snap. I hadn't been enhanced at the beginning of my tour. When I was a grunt, a safe patch of road had looked just the same as one that could turn your transport into a funeral pyre. That's what my mind remembered.
Joining the Wraiths had been better than any therapy, cause it made that fear reasonable. Instead of IEDs, I had state troopers, rival clubs, and just straight junkies to worry about. Now I knew the desert by heart. The stress was gone. My last fear dead. Even now, as I headed into a new war.
I roared into Gilsner, eyes straight ahead, locked behind shades. My body held a familiar tension like I was about to offload in enemy territory. In a way, this whole situation was the reverse of my time in the service. I was the bad guy here, the infiltrator. I was trying to hide in plain sight, leave enough reasonable doubt so I could reach my target. I wasn't planning to commit violence though. A quick talk with the sheriff's boys should let them give me a few minutes to give Twist the heads up. His room was likely bugged too. Good thing my body spoke clearer than my lips.
I parked my bike and slammed through the entrance of Santa Maria Memorial. The nurses and all the staff glanced at me and then looked away before they could draw my attention. I'd seen them all though, with a nice little spike. The meds that Katie had given me were nowhere near the military grade depressants we got after ops in military but it was enough to give me the freedom to run fast and loose with my spikes.
I got the room number from a wary receptionist and then wandered through, aimlessly wondering if Katie might just happen to be here. Then I realized how idiotic it would be to put a dirty animal hospital in the same airspace as a human one. Just needed a reason to think about her. Even through the spike, that girl was gnawing at my focus.
I prepped as I hopped up the stairs leading to Twist's. Everything counted on him wanting to see me there. No reason he shouldn't, but still, if he told the cops to keep me away then that's what they would do. Spiked, I could knock them off their feet and clear out before they had me.
Which would let them bring me in on battery charges. That would be perfect in a way. Once I got taken in, everything could be pinned on me, and the club would be free.
Didn't think Katie would visit me in prison, so that was out
of the question.
The door opened on the hall leading to Twist's room and the loose plan fell apart. For one, there was no guard - uniformed, plain clothed or otherwise.
"Hey," I said at the nurse's station. "Is that where the biker's being kept?"
"It was." She glanced up, saw my jacket and gave me a one eyed appraisal that only a weathered nurse in a rundown city could give. "Your friend huh? Sorry, he just passed."
Dead? No, this was no coincidence.
"Can I...?" I pointed at the door.
"Sir, you can't - ," but I was already there.
They had the sheet pulled over his head. I yanked it down and saw Twist's ugly mug, uglier now with the blood drained from his face. His body was still warm, his mouth tips twisting down as if he had just had an especially lousy meal. I grabbed the chart. The doctor had called it not 15 minutes ago.
"Sir," the nurse had actually hobbled up to the door in fury.
"What the hell happened?" I asked.
"He had multiple gunshots."
"Yeah, and today he woke up from that."
She shrugged. "God's plan ain't for you or me to judge. Maybe he just had time enough for a confession."
"Confession?" I nearly spat the word back at her. "Confess to who?"
Her judgmental look took on a layer of confusion. "One of your guys."
Her eyes were on my VP badge. Another biker.
The Scorpions.
"Where are the police?" I demanded.
"ER. We got a tweaked out addict knocking over tables. They needed help subduing him."
"You're telling me that someone was in here without the police. Talking to the patient. And then he died."
She shrugged. "Done saying what he gotta say, I guess."
She glared at Twist's body then whirled and headed back. She didn't give a shit. Just another dead gangbanger, another dead biker. How many had she seen through the years?
What did the Scorpions want with Twist? He wasn't the only witness to the gunfight they didn't control; they knew about me. Was this some dumb ass vengeance? The police already knew the Scorpions were involved. They had the bodies.