Unexpected: Desert Knights MC

by Paula Cox

  I raise my hand as high as it can go as Tory stands cautiously. She has to realize that her being exposed to a rival gang had to be more dangerous for her than it was for me. She most likely was taught at a young age how much her life was worth to people like the Senators and their leaders. But she had no fear today. With her head held high, she marched herself over to the pack and lifted her shaking arm out to introduce herself.

  Her words were muffled as I attempted to listen in on her retell the story. She points towards the body of her brother unmoving, stiff, and then back to me where I lay with my arms wrapped around my waist, holding my insides in place. Arie runs in a sprint towards me where he kneels beside me. Without even asking, he pulls back my shirt and examines the wound, purple and black, the skin peeling away around the entrance of the bullet.

  With somber eyes, he reaches above his head and tears off his own shirt before wrapping it around my waist. The tie pushes into my raw, burning skin as I cry out in pain. “You wanna go see our doctor? Ace can drive the car.”

  “No, no. We have to go back and get Tory’s mom. We don’t have time for that.”

  “Kid, you don’t have time for anything but to die with a wound like that.” He looks back down at the tied off wound and then to Tory as if to give her the grave news that I wouldn’t be around much longer.

  “Arie, just get me in that car. Put me in the backseat so I can rest. And then we’ll figure out the rest. Can you deal with the body situation?” I use my chin to point towards Brandon. Body disposal is every club’s speciality, and this one wouldn’t take too long given how the Senator riders were staring at it with smiles that stretches wide across their shadowy faces. “We left a couple more back off of Mystic Road. I’m thinking those belong to you.”

  “Those fucking traitors? Don’t worry about them. We’ve got a burn pile ready with their names on it. But if I do this for you -- take the Walsh kid back, I want credit. It’ll help me explain to the rest of the boys what Walsh was doing with the off-grid Senators and the VP.”

  I glance over to Tory whose head is hung low. Her hands rest softly in her lap as she continues to kneel at my feet. Part of me is wondering if she’s praying by the way she occasionally lifts her eyes towards the sky. I wonder if she’s praying for me or if she is daring to give an apology for what has happened to her flesh and blood.

  “You can take it. I’ve got enough on them to last me a lifetime. Most of the Knights are already against the Walsh’s anyways. The rest of them can find their way out if they’re that upset over that sick asshole.”

  “It’s a deal then, Murdoch.” He whistles towards the motorcycles and the man I met previously, Ace, steps forward. Arie moves around to my feet as Ace grabs me from under my arms. My broken body lifts off of the ground as they quickly move me back to the car. Tory opens the backseat door and the two slide me and help place my feet on the ground so they dangle slightly.

  Tory pauses outside the door as if she tries to think of something, anything to say to the two men she thought would always be her family’s enemy. “Thank you,” She says coldly, “Thank you for helping us out.” Arie touches her shoulder lightly before heading back to the bikers. Tory slips into the front, adjust the mirrors and the seat. The car starts, and she heads off, directionless.

  After a few minutes of driving, she finally comes to. Over the sound of some country singer belting out a song my mama would have sang when she was drunk and loaded, I hear Tory ask, “Where to now, Anton?”

  “The Walsh house. We’ve got some unfinished business.” I reply as I rest my head on the backseat of the car. And as she presses her hands to the steering wheel to turn around back to the direction of her hometown, I keep my eyes planted on the growing red stain. With every breath I take, every street light we pass, every long sigh that comes from Tory’s mouth, I wish to the stars they won’t be the last.

  Chapter 29: Dead End

  I can’t seem to keep my eyes on the road ahead. They keep floating towards the blurry, moving reflection of Anton lying with his arm wrapped around his wound.

  So much death. So much destruction. And what for? Me? My brother is dead and gone, along with some of his followers. My boyfriend, the father of my child, is near his own end. And who knows what is happening over at my parents’ house where I already watched my own mother stab my father in the chest with a piece of glass.

  Rose-colored glasses? Try blood-colored. I never knew it could be so thick and thin all at the same time.

  “Tory, can you maybe turn that off?” Anton whispers in the back. I don’t even know why the music is still playing. Maybe it’s to drown out all the thoughts running in my head. Maybe it’s because I need something normal in my life right now. Maybe it’s because my mind is everywhere but in this driver’s seat.

  When the music is completely off, Anton begins, “When we get back to your house, you’re not to go in there. You hear me?”

  I turn my head back towards him as I reply. “I hear you just fine, but there is no way you’re going alone. That is my house, my parents, and I am going in there come hell or high water. Do you hear me?”

  “You didn’t listen to me with Brandon when I told you to stay in the car. Now I need you to listen to me. Whatever is going down back home, you shouldn’t see it.”

  “If you know I didn’t listen to you with Brandon, why in the hell would you believe I was going to listen to you now? It doesn’t matter what I am going to see. I’ve seen enough as it is to last me a lifetime. Whatever is waiting there for me isn’t going to be any worse than what I’m picturing now.”

  “Tory…” He tries to argue further, but instead he lets out a long, grumble of a moan that causes him to wrap his fingers around the seat and bite down hard on the collar of his shirt. I can’t imagine the pain of a gunshot. The idea of something so hard being fired out of a weapon and crossing through all those parts inside of you is beyond me.

  I’ve dealt with gunshot wounds once before though. A dog came into the vet school clinic one evening while I was working in the lab. We occasionally took in walk-ins during weekends when the emergency vets in town charged an arm and a leg, but it was for routine things like a dog with an upset stomach or a cat with a broken paw. We weren’t ready for a poor, defenseless beagle that had been shot in the stomach by an angry neighbor.

  As I quickly shaved the dog around the wound spot to prep for surgery, I got a glimpse of what that bullet could do. Infections can set in within seconds and small fragments can travel throughout to places in the body completely naked to the human eye. The dog died that day, right there on the operating table while its owners sobbed in the makeshift waiting room with a few of the other unsuspecting vet assistants. Anton’s wound looks just like that dog’s.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, knowing the answer to my own question. “Do you want me to pull over. There’s a hospital at the next exit. We can go there.”

  “No!” His yell suddenly fills up the silent car, causing me to look back down on the road, away from him as he settled himself back down. “I’m sorry, Tory. I’m sorry. I just --- We need to do this for you, for me, for the club. I’m not going out tonight until I see that you’re completely safe.”

  “Anton, you’re not going anywhere. Not without me at least.”

  “You know what I mean, Tory.” His eyes flash up to the mirrors, catching my glance. Those blue pools soak in every bit of my emotions whenever I see them shine.

  “I know what you mean but not tonight. You got me? Not tonight?”

  He doesn’t respond. He just lays back and lets me drive the rest of the way back home in complete silence. The highway passes by in an instant as I start to dread coming up to the neighborhood. I wonder if I could take the long way and him not notice, but I don’t dare.

  I just drive down the subdivision, occasionally glancing at the few bedroom lights that are still on. In those houses, there are the civilians totally unaware of the hell that is brewing just a few blocks from
their own, private spaces. Or maybe they know. After all those years living in that house, I suspect that at least some of our neighbors knew what kind of life we led, what kind of husband and father Clay Walsh was. Still, they turn a blind eye when they themselves are offered protection from the unknown evils of the world.

  When I pull up to the driveway, the first thing that catches my eye is that the lights are on. Not just one hallway light or the light to my parents’ bedroom. Every light is on and shining brightly through the curtains. My stomach lurches into my throat as I try to think of all the reasons why either my mom or my dad felt the need. Anton too must have noticed the offputting scene as he pulled himself slowly forward.

  “Do you still have that gun, Tory?”

  “My brother’s? Yeah.” After the fight, I had thrown it into the front seat of the car, trying my best to forget about it. I hand it back to Anton as he quickly figures out the custom safety feature. It makes a load, forewarning click as it goes live.

  “There’s probably not many bullets left in there, but you should hold on to it. You need to use it, you don’t hesitate this time.” Anton gives me one last glance in the rearview mirror, his eyes softening as we both breath in time. Then, he opens the door, kicking at it with his foot and slides himself out. His body tumbles onto the concrete ground, but he manages to pick himself up. I steal one look to the backseat as I close the door behind him. The stain of blood is as big as the entire middle seat.

  Anton limps as he walks, his body not allowing him to walk in a straight line. And though he’s moving fast, he trips over his feet, causing him to spin in place. I walk behind him, my hands outstretched to catch him when I need him. But he keeps his face forward except for one long glance at something across the street right before he opens the door to the house.

  My childhood home has always had this familiar, comforting smell. Most childhood homes do. But mine smells just like my mom’s perfume mixed with motor oil and freshly made bread. The two energies of my parents lingered in everything from the couches in the living room to the hallway carpet and up to the welcome mat Anton dried his feet off with as he slowly closed the door behind me.

  I can’t smell that smell. Well, I can’t smell the perfume. That pungent motor oil is there and stronger than ever. But my mom’s trace is nowhere to be found. It’s as if she has been completely wiped out of her own home, her own story. All there is is my father. My father. My father.

  Anton takes his hand off of his wound and begins to step lightly into the entryway and towards the living room. His toes roll up, a trick I’m sure is supposed to keep others from hearing him coming or from stepping on old floor boards that might give him away. As he goes, he touches little objects -- a fashion magazine still opened to an article on a celebrity’s affair, a glass of watery colored whiskey, my mother’s unzipped white leather purse. His fingers leave little bloody prints like breadcrumbs as we then head to the kitchen.

  It’s there where we spot the first sign -- blood. Lots of it. It’s almost unreal how much blood there is. Even in movies, crime scenes like this weren’t so graphic. Sure, there would be specks of blood, maybe a splatter that looked like a paint smear, but this was almost like a puddle that never ended. It trailed through the kitchen towards the back entrance to the house, stopping at the small guest bathroom near the door.

  We followed it quickly, neither of us wanting to stop to guess who the blood belonged to. Whomever was behind the bathroom door, they were in bad shape, hopefully too bad to attack us. Anton put his hand on my chest and pushed me to the side as he lifted his leg slowly, placing it on the frame of the door. With a huff of breath, his foot shot through, making a hole right where he made contact.

  A muffled cry came through, and I ran past Anton towards the door. My hand reached through and unlocked it from the outside, flinging it open. Just like the kitchen, the bathroom was covered in blood. Handprints around the sink and along the mirror belonging to my mother showed how much she struggled just to get to where she laid -- tattered and torn in the bathtub.

  “Mom!” I cried out as I ran towards the tub. My feet sink to the floor as my arms wrap around her. I cry back towards Anton to grab me some towels from under the sink, but I have no idea where to begin. Her body is sliced, a road map of my father’s anger. There’s puncture wounds along her arms, chest, and even legs. Her face and neck are the only places that managed to stay clear, but they are a shocking shade of white as her lips tremble at seeing me.

  “Call the police! Call someone!” I scream to Anton as he stands upright and firm in the doorway, looking towards the backdoor. “Anton!” I shout again, trying to get his attention. “She needs help!”

  My mother’s hand reaches up to touch my face as she mouths quietly, “Oh Tory. I love you, but you have to run.”

  “Run? Where’s dad? Is he here?”

  “Run!” She coughs, a small trace of blood spitting out.

  Anton grabs my shoulders and spins me around towards the bathroom door and back towards the hallway leading outside. Standing in the doorway is my father. His hand waves the same piece of glass my mother stabbed him with earlier. His bare chest is wrapped in the sheet she had torn from the bed, evidently putting pressure on the wound she had caused. Clutched in his hand was a rifle and a nearly empty bottle of Jim Bean.

  “It’s no use, Tory. Your mama isn’t going to make it -- at least when I’m done with y’all.” He lifts the gun and points it straight up and out, but in his state, it doesn’t point at either of us. It just leans to and fro as he tries to steady himself. He looks back at Anton as he says, “You managed to get past my boy, did you? I knew you were a clever son-of-a-bitch, but I didn’t think you had those nine lives either.”

  “Brandon’s dead. We killed him. And you’re next if you don’t play your cards right, Walsh.” Anton’s voice has suddenly grown stronger as he pushes himself against a wall for support. “The whole club knows about your plans with the Senators and their coming. Even if you kill us three, you’ll be chased and hunted down and given a traitor’s goodbye. You surrender now, and maybe I’ll put in a good word for you.”

  “You’re bluffing.” My father replies as he looks back to me. “You set him to say this shit, didn’t you? You were always the smart little girl, my perfect angel. I should have known that one day you would turn on me like this. But at least I know you’re not going to get that happily ever after with a bastard of your own.”

  He pulls the gun back up to his eyes again and places his finger on the trigger. The gun aims at Anton as he laughs, “Say goodbye Tory! Can’t say I’ll miss him!”

  They say that a mother has this innate power to protect its family when in danger. You hear these stories about women who move cars off of their babies that have been run over or mothers who walk thousands of miles in the desert for water during famines. For me, it’s shooting my father.

  As he cocks the gun back to his shoulder, I move in speeds I’ve never thought possible. The gun I set on the counter of the bathroom finds its way to my hand and, unlike when I had to use it with Brandon, the trigger pulls back. The force of the gun sends me back up against the side of the wall to where Anton is standing, but I don’t stop. I fire it again. And again. And again. Three bullets each hitting their mark directly into the center of my father’s chest. They make bulletholes he’ll never recover from as his body falls to the ground in a loud, unearthly thud that seems to shake the entire home.

  So many things happen in the moments that follow. My mother cries out as if something is being physically released from her body. It’s not sorrow, pain, or guilt. It’s a release that takes all of her remaining energy from her. As I look towards her, I feel Anton’s weight press down on me, his body giving in finally. He falls ontop of me, giving me just enough time to set the still warm gun down on the ground next to where I lay him, in a puddle of my mom or dad’s blood. I don’t even know now.

  And as I think there could be possibly no way out of it, as
I look to that gun for some relief, Anton’s threat to my father comes true. The front door slams open followed by the sound of boots -- Desert Knight boots. At least 15 or 20 men I don’t instantly recognize outside their club color jackets storm into the kitchen, each stopping in their tracks as they spot the carnage. They look to me kneeling with Anton’s head in my lap for how to approach.

  And I can only cry, “Help. Please help.”

  Epilogue: Together

  I stand up, wedging my feet into my new pair of heels. The leather backs rubs up against my skin, and I wonder why I didn’t take all that advice about breaking them in before wearing them. No one wants to be in pain on their wedding day, especially while walking down the aisle to the man of their dreams.

  “Are you ready?” April asks as she holds my white gown up above her head. “We’re already running late.”

  “I know, I know. I just want to hold my baby one last time before I get in there. I’d really like to avoid messy fingerprints all over my gown.” I walk over to my mom who has been sitting quietly in her wheelchair, my baby girl in her arms. She smiles down at her as she hands her back to me.