by Adair Rymer
“Yeah. Thanks, man.” Have to hand it to Tee, he always knew how to deflate my anger.
“Oh hey! Your chick, she got a sister?”
“Shut the fuck up, Tee.” I smiled. I'd have chuckled if I wasn't still so damned pissed off.
I hung up. It took me a minute to let go of the phone. It'd been good to talk to a friend, a brother again. Everything else raced through my mind. There was a lot of mess to clean up.
First things first. Prove to Bones that I want in by leaking the info about the meth lab. I'll never be a Lobos member but they'll take me in as an adviser. Then I'd set the stage for the Lobos and Deadeye's poisonous crew to kill each other. Two birds, one stone. Cut both their fucking heads off and save the Veins from the inside and out.
When I broke it all down like that it sounded... Fuck this was still going to be risky as hell.
“Everything go OK?” Star was wearing the sunglasses of the annoying woman that was yelling at me. It made me love Star that much more. Just being around her lifted my spirits. It was more than her magical pussy as Tee put it, it was every damn part of her.
“No but I'm going to fix that.” I took the gaudy glasses off Star and tossed them. I kissed those soft, smooth lips. She tasted of bubblegum and smelled of sugar. I suppressed an urge to slam her against the wall and sample the rest of her.
Just a little taste, I sampled a sweet patch on her neck. That's when I looked past her to see the shrill bitch cowering against the wall. It didn't look like Star had hit her which had me curious at what she must've said to her to scare her enough not to move or leave.
“Don't ask,” Star saw where my eyes wandered and smiled. That fire in her shined brighter than ever before. “Just reminded her to have some manners. So what now? We go back to the Lobos clubhouse to meet with Bones?”
“No, let him come to us this time.” The gravity of what was to come seeped back in and with it the realization as to just how fucked up both clubs were that I had to take such extreme measures. I didn't want to be the gardener, ripping out the weeds and dead limbs but I would if that was necessary.
I looked back at the bitch from earlier. What were her problems compared to mine. Were there lives hanging in the balance of the call she had to make? I ripped the phone out of the wall and dropped it at her feet on our way out of the store. She gasped and wilted. Guess we'll never know.
* * * * *
Channingstone was an old brick plant that died in the early twentieth century. I killed the headlights as we drove into town. Looked like the bikers had set up in the old post office, one of the few brick buildings left in town with a roof that hadn't collapsed. A few bikes were parked out front.
We pulled through and drove back to a nearby gas station. Star dialed Nachomama's for me. I told Manny to let Bones know there was a present waiting for him in Channingstone. I guessed we'd have about an hour before the Lobos showed up.
When we got back I parked us about a mile away so we could walk in silently. We'd set up in the saloon across the street and wait for the Lobos to show up, to take the meth lab down with them. That was if they didn't shoot us too. It was risky but that was the only real play. I wasn't too fond of the idea of storming the place with just the two of us but I'd at least have to check it out to let the Lobos know what they were up against.
“Stay here, I'll be right back.”
“You're not going in there alone are you? I thought we were waiting for the Lobos first,” Star's eyes went wide with concern.
“I'll need to tell Bones what they're up against when they get here or they might think we set them up.” She nodded as I started turning away. Then I stopped. Something was eating at me, I couldn't leave without asking her, “If something happens, I'll need you to take down anyone who goes for their bike. Can you do that?”
“What do you mean, if something happens? What could happen, you're just going to look, right?” Star looked worried.
“Answer the question.”
“I think so,” her words were soiled with doubt.
“Not good enough. This is it, Star. You're fully in it now. There's no going back. Sometimes that means, you'll be the one to pull the trigger. I need to know that you have my back, no hesitation, no doubt. Can you do that?” I repeated the question.
“Yes. I can.” Star breathed out, letting the heaviness of the decision rest on her shoulders. She nodded and looked up at me. I was asking a lot of her but that was the only way I was walking out of there alive if I was spotted.
I kissed her on the forehead and jogged across the street. If I lingered too long with Star, she'd be less and less likely to let me go. It was hard for both of us to trust each other in that way. Love, respect and loyalty were all easy compared to trust. Especially when that trust revolved around the person you need most in this world putting themselves in a dangerous situation. One misstep and that person was gone. It was a hard thing.
It was what I struggled with the most throughout all this. I didn't want her here at all. I'd keep her locked away in a safety deposit box till everything with the Lobos and Veins were over if I could. Had she been a brother, I'd have had her come with me to watch my back but I put her behind cover across the street because it was safer. It wasn't that I didn't trust her ability or her constitution, I couldn't bear putting her in that much danger. I didn't trust myself enough to let her go. A hypocrite through and through.
I peered in through a window, two Spanish girls were doing the cooking. I frowned at the collateral. When the Lobos got here, they'd kill everyone to send a message, including the women. No one cooks on their turf without them sanctioning it. Period.
Through the next window I saw two guys playing cards on a small table in another room. Their AK's leaned against the wall next to them. They were from a Veins support club, I didn't know them personally but if they volunteered for this gig then they deserved whatever they got. I hated the meth business, the fallout was always messy. People always got hurt. In the end it wasn't worth it, that's why the Veins always stayed away from it. Until now apparently.
I shook my head at how far we've fallen.
There were four bikes out front, where the hell were the other two guys?
The sound of giggling hit me like a fucking freight train. Dread washed over me and my heart sank. I didn't need to look in the window to confirm my fears but I did anyways. Kids, four of them. Shit. That complicated things immensely. I slumped back against the wall and looked over to Star but it was too dark in the saloon to see her.
Was she my moral compass now? I hadn't realized how much I began relying on her. I wasn't used to needing help in anyway but knowing that she was there regardless warmed me. I felt even more confident in walking the hard line with her behind me.
Maybe I could talk Bones into leaving at least the kids alive. Yeah and maybe their fairy godmother would send a pumpkin carriage to pick them up. It was a non-starter. I knew how that would shake out. They'd be witnesses to murder. There was only one thing that happens to witnesses of any age and gender.
I forced myself to think of the bigger picture, this wasn't my problem. I was here to save my club, that's it. I wasn't a saint and I’d be lying to myself if I thought otherwise. No, I'd wait till the Lobos arrived and we'd deal with it as it came.
I've always had trouble with kids, they struck the loudest chords in me. It always killed me when I'd hear about the twisted shit that happens to them and I don't have the ability to even understand how people can fuck with them. Whenever possible, I always stayed away from kids altogether.
I didn't mind kids, I even liked doing the Christmas charity runs and giving out presents to them. I just understood that doing what we did with the Veins wasn't something you punch out of at the end of the night. No one turned off their phone, it just didn't happen. Didn't matter that you took off your colors to eat dinner, fuck your girl, walk your dog, whatever. When that call came in you answered it. And sometimes that shit followed you home.
; Of all the shit that burned away at my conscience, the dark horrors that kept me up at night, the blood of some innocent kid wasn't one of them. And I did that by staying the hell away from them. That's why I was so torn to go inside that house. If I did... I couldn't predict what would happen. There were so many variables.
One of the bikers stepped out of the post office to piss.
Light scuffling and childish yelps and laughter ate away at me. No women, no kids, no innocents if it could be avoided. Goddammit, we had rules! My resolve to not get involved eroded. If nothing else I needed to find out why these sick fucks had kids here.
“Hands up, asshole,” I whispered to the pissing biker. In a flash, I had a hand over his mouth and my knife to his throat. His dick hanging out, he pissed all over himself as I led him around the corner to a spot that was a little more concealed. “You say anything that's not an answer to my question and I’ll bleed you. Answer slowly and quietly. Why are there kids in there?” I took my hand away from his mouth but pulled my knife tighter against his neck.
“Don't do this, m—” I covered his mouth, stabbed him in the shoulder and touched the sharp edge of the wet blade to his throat again. I was able to muffle his scream.
“Answer the question and I'll let you live.”
“Insurance,” he whined. “Keeps the girls working and gives us a bargaining chip if the cops can't be bribed.” Smart plan. Evil but smart. Any empathy or loyalty I had for these guys, just doing what their club asked of them, evaporated. It was replaced with cold certainty.
I covered his mouth and stabbed him in the side of the neck, then jerked the blade to the right turning him into a Pez Dispenser. He flailed but I had him. There were several ways I could have done that but I couldn’t find it in me to make it less bloody and painful. These men were rabid dogs that needed to be put down. I held him for a few minutes till the writhing stopped and had to shove the body forward to keep myself from getting pissed on when his bowels released.
I dragged the body a little further away so it wouldn't be accidentally stumbled across. Blood had stained my hands and shirt. It was inevitable. It was always so goddamned inevitable.
A dot of light flicked on over the horizon, followed by several others. Headlights. Lobos would be here soon, I immediately knew what I had to do. How could I look Tee and the others in the eye and tell them I wanted a better club if I let a room full of kids get gunned down. Star would have to understand.
I slowly opened the back door and went in. As I passed the two women cooking I put a finger to my lips then motioned for them to leave. Fear gripped them but they stopped what they were doing and headed for the room thick with the laughter of their children. Old floor boards creaked with each step toward the guy waiting for his card player buddy to return.
“Grab me a beer on the way in,” another man called from the room up ahead. That was two.
Where the hell was the last man?
With my gun drawn, I walked into the card room. The biker was shuffling when he saw me. Cards flew everywhere as he got up and dove for the AK. I stomped the table into him, pinning him against the back wall before he could reach the rifle. He put his hands up in surrender. The look of recognition dawned on him. He knew who I was, or had heard about me enough to guess.
“Poe—” I punched him in the face cutting the word off.
When his bloodied head snapped back I put up a finger and made the “shhhh”sound. I dragged him into the hall between the back processing rooms and the front retail room and told him to casually call to one of his friends.
“What do you want? I'm on the phone,” asked a biker, stepping into the hall from the front retail room.
I put a round through his forehead, dropping him. The kids in the other room screamed at the sound of the gunshot. They'd need counseling after this but they'd survive. As long as I got to the last biker in time.
“Where is the last one?” I asked moving my hostage further down the hallway to check out the front room. We stepped over the corpse of the man on his phone. Aside from a few chairs, it was empty.
“It's just the two of us. I swear!” The man lied.
I had no time for subtly. I put a bullet through the back of his knee. Bone fragments and ligaments ripped through the front of his jeans. He screamed, his body threatened to collapse. Not yet, I thought. You don't fall until I say so.
“Yeah? So you guys packed those other two bikes out front in your bedrolls as what? Spares?” the faint rumble in the distance reminded me that I was running out of time. “WHERE IS HE?”
“I don't fucking know! I swear! I fucking swear! Last I saw him he was in the kitchen with the girls, I swear! Don't fucking kill me.”
I striped him of his gun then put another round through his other knee and let him fall. He screamed and writhed on the ground but he'd survive. He was no more use to me but I didn't want him running off either. I'd keep this asshole alive for Bones to deal with. I'm sure he'd have some questions. Being from a sister club this asshole wouldn't know any more about the ins and outs of the Veins operations than the Lobos mole already did.
I had to get the kids out now or they weren't going to make it. I barged into their room. The lot of them couldn't have been older than six or seven. They were crying, huddled against their mothers. What a shitty situation. It made me even more furious at the assholes that ran this place. I wished I had more time to torture those fucks but getting the innocents out before the Lobos showed up was more important.
“Toma, estoy estacionado a una milla al este de aquí.” I tossed one of the girl's my car key and told them where the car was. I'd wanted to get the car back to the church but it wasn't in the cards. I'm sure father Jameson would understand. God's plan and all that. “¡Anda!”
I had just started walking them out toward the back exit, which was a straight shot down the short hallway through the cook room, when that door was kicked open and a figure stormed in.
“We got company! Strap up—” The last biker's words cut off when he saw me. That's why I couldn't find him, because he was outside! I berated myself for the oversight. It was a fucking prospect kind of mistake. Was I that rusty already?
From where he was standing he could see the bodies in both the card room and at the end of the hallway. His eyes narrowed at me as he snapped his AK up.
“¡Abajo!” I yelled. I was half a second faster and got a round off just before he opened up on us. I just missed the mark. A half-second more to aim and the biker would've had a hole drilled into his face. My pistol was no match for an assault rifle so I threw myself into the girl next to me and we tumbled into the room, out of his sight line.
It didn't matter. A dozen rounds blasted through the thin wooden walls like they were made of paper. If I had to put money on it I'd bet those bullets punched through every wall in the building. I rolled out into the hallway and licked off several more shots at him. I clipped him but it was nothing but a flesh wound. With no reason to stick around the biker slipped back out the door he came in through and headed around the side to get to his bike.
It was up to Star to stop him from leaving now. If he got away, word would get out that, not only was I alive but that I was helping the Lobos. The whole plan would be fucked.
I had to trust in Star, in the woman that she'd become. It wasn't the first time I had to place my fate in her hands and it sure as hell wouldn't be the last. If no one else, I could count on her to pull my sorry ass out of the fire.
The kids were sobbing in a pile. When I got to my feet I saw why. The girl I hadn't pushed to the ground had taken three AK rounds and didn't look like she was going to make it. I shook my head and had to tell myself that it was unavoidable. I did what I could. I felt for them but some times really bad shit happens. If the rest were going to have any chance of making it out alive then they needed to leave right now.
That's when bad became worse. The dying woman was rolled over. She'd been holding a small boy when she was hit. The bullets wen
t right through the poor kid first. Half of his head was gone.
“Jesus...” I got light headed. Felt like my life was a carnival house of mirrors, everything was so familiar but wrong on every level. Past and present events played in my head like tattered, poorly stitched together film reel. The sound of bikes closing in should have been Veins not Lobos. This meth lab in New Mexico should have been our guns warehouse in Oklahoma. The illegal labor should have been paid and alone not enslaved with fucking kids present.
What the fuck was I doing here? How did everything get so fucked up? This wasn't part of the plan. It was the first time I'd ever seen a dead kid. It was horrible. It staggered me against the wall like someone kicked me. I struggled to stay on my feet.
I didn't kill him directly but I might as well have. I felt so damn responsible for it. I'd heard about kids killed in drive-bys and even seen a few crime photos. Being that removed from it all, I could rationalize it all. Weigh the cost of collateral damage against the gain of the bigger picture like saving the club but being there in person when it all went down was something else. That kid's lifeless body trembling, his brains splattered across the floor... There was no defense for that. It was too much.
I set this up, called in the big guns, leveraged their lives in this chess match against the Lobos. I was no better than the fucks that brought them here. I slid down the wall. The kids were inconsolable as their mothers hugged them. The dying woman with her dead toddler and the other woman with her kids. They needed to leave this place. I weakly told them to go. Then begged them. Finally, I screamed it!
Everyone recoiled. Their frightened gazes peered through the flesh I wore to the demon hiding beneath. In their faces I could read the terror plainly. To them I was no different than anyone else who's taken advantage of them. Seen them as an expendable workforce, subhuman. The honesty of it shook me.