If he says I need to give Crista space, it don’t matter that my muscles are achin’ from the strain of holding myself back. I can bear it.
I’m about to get myself another beer when a shout goes up from inside the clubhouse. Pig Iron and I exchange a look and then we’re haulin’ ass, along with the other brother who’d been milling around in the yard.
As soon as we’re in the main room, I catch the name Rebel Raiders.
Heavy’s on the phone, and Forty’s got the safe open, handing out pieces, barking orders to saddle up.
I lope over, hold out a hand. Forty slaps a Walther in my palm. I check the chamber.
“Bad, eh?”
Forty grunts.
Heavy’s been keepin’ me so sidelined, I feel like I been up in the stands. This must be some shit if I’m gonna ride. Ain’t gonna lie. Feels good.
“Listen up!” Creech hollers, and the dozen or so brothers get instantly silent.
Heavy shuffles forward, Dizzy at his side lookin’ like hell. The two could be brothers with their wild, long black hair, even though Dizzy’s clearly got some years on Heavy, and Heavy’s got a half-foot and sixty pounds on Dizzy.
“Roosevelt, Fay-Lee, and Story are up at Twiggy’s by the county line, and they’ve run into some Raiders. We don’t know what this is, but Knocker Johnson made very clear we ain’t at peace no more. We go in hot.”
Then he hollers like he’s herding steers, and the club moves out at a run and mounts up. I take the time to call Crista and leave a message before I turn my engine and fall in line, toward the middle of formation. We haul ass out of town, and even though it’s been a decade since I rode on a mission like this, the rhythm is there, part of my muscle memory.
It’s late afternoon, the kind of day when the sun shines warm but not hot, and my heart’s pumpin’ hard in my chest, for once not for some fucked up, heavy reason, but because I’m with my brothers, ridin’ like cowboys into some mess I didn’t have shit to do with.
A weight lifts off my shoulders. The gun’s slick against the small of my back, and I push thoughts of Crista straight out of my mind. She’s safe at her mother’s. Fixing that shit will save for another day.
I let it go, for the first time, and even though I’m ridin’ into the unknown, I feel light as air, free as the wind buffeting my face as my brothers and I race for the county line.
CHAPTER 12
CRISTA
There’s no cell service at Heavy’s cabin. It’s hardly in what you’d call the mountains—low rolling hills more like—but it’s far enough out in the boondocks that you can’t get a signal. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t have called Scrap until we were driving home, and I got service back.
It’s been two days since the Rebel Raiders attack at Twiggy’s, and Heavy’s loosened up the lockdown. It was fucked up. The Raiders happened on Fay-Lee, Story, and a prospect at a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere. They almost kidnapped Fay-Lee, and they almost killed the prospect when the club arrived.
I heard about it piecemeal from Annie and a few other old ladies who’d been bunking at Heavy’s place. Mom wouldn’t tell me shit. She’s still treating me with kid gloves, which is fair enough, but she should know by now I bounce back. Not full up, but I don’t stay down.
The news is eating at me, though. I spent the whole time at Heavy’s cabin fixating on the Rebel Raiders. After Scrap killed Inch Johnson, the Raiders more or less fell apart. Some of them still hung around up near Shady Gap and Pyle, dealing meth and dwindling down to almost no one as the cops and the opioids whittled away at them. Since I didn’t leave town, they weren’t in my face except when I drove past the gas station across from Finnegan’s Ice Cream.
Then a few months ago, they trashed the Patonquin construction site and then The White Van. My nerves got even janglier than usual, and I started tagging along with my mom to the shooting range again. It didn’t seem to turn into anything, though. But now? The Raiders are trying to kidnap an old lady and kill a prospect in broad daylight?
I haven’t been able to sleep without popping three of Mom’s Xanax, so I’m dopey and jumpy at the same time which is ridiculous. A kid will slam a door, and a minute later, I fall out of my chair.
I want Scrap, but I have no right after how I lost my shit on him, so I take it minute by minute, the way Dr. Ang taught me when I first got out of the hospital. I focus on getting out of bed. Sit up. Throw my legs over the side. Stare until I work up the energy to stand. Then I talk myself through getting showered. Wash my hair. Brush my teeth. Hang the towel over the shower curtain rod. That’s how I do my day, coaching myself to put one foot in front of the other, then do the next thing and the next, until it’s dark enough that I can go lie in bed and stare at the ceiling.
I try to tell myself that what happened with Fay-Lee has nothing to do with me—the past is the past, this is some new bullshit. But what happened back then? It didn’t have anything to do with me either.
So I try so hard to shove it all to the back of my mind, think about anything else, so of course, then I think about Scrap, and my entire body burns with the humiliation. I broke his fucking nose. The whole thing is all disjointed and hazy, but I remember it wasn’t just a single, startled kick. I kept going, stomping. I think he fell. I think he raised his hands to try to protect his face. He has to hate me.
He must know it’s not worth it now. I’m not worth it. And goddamn if he couldn’t have accepted that weeks ago, before I let him in. Before he kissed me, and we watched movies, and he moved in, and we fucked, and I thought that maybe I could be normal. I could have a normal life.
But I can’t be normal, and that’s my fault. Just like what happened back then was my fault.
You know, when you try really hard not to think about things? Everything comes up. Your baggage comes spewing forth, cackling and chittering like those swarms of locusts you see on those History Channel reenactments of the ten plagues of Egypt.
See, I don’t remember much about what happened after the attack. But I remember before in painful, perfect detail.
I had to stay after school, but it wasn’t a band practice day. I needed to retake a test in Spanish. I called home after I was done, figuring someone would come get me, and Mom told me she was in Pyle on a shopping trip with Aunt Shirlene. Dad was busy. Mom said hold tight. She’d find someone to get me. She was pissed that I hadn’t planned ahead.
I asked why didn’t she call Scrap and have him get me?
Mom said Scrap was a grown man, not my personal chauffeur.
And I was pissed. I’d gotten my hopes up. Maybe I’d even planned it so that I could see him. Ride behind him and breathe in the leather of his cut.
I sat on the front steps of the high school, and one-by-one, the other kids who stayed after got picked up. The sun got lower, and it got chilly. I was wearing a yellow sundress with spaghetti straps, and I’d forgotten my hoodie. The one I always wore.
I got bored, and my butt got cold sitting on the concrete. I decided to start walking home. It was only a few miles. Whenever Mom got ahold of someone to get me, she’d call. I’d tell them where I was. At this rate, I’d probably be home before she rounded up anyone to pick me up.
So I started down Main Street toward Gracy Avenue. I passed the post office. Finnegan’s Ice Cream. The diner. I was walking along the stretch of Gracy Avenue near the turn off for Route 12 when an old Impala pulled over. The driver waved me over.
He said something over his shoulder to a guy slouched in the back.
“Hey. Can you help me?” he asked.
I’m not stupid.
I knew what men were capable of. I was sixteen, not six. Not that long before, a Rebel Raider had taken a baseball bat to Hobs Ruth’s head. And the men at the club, most were like my dad and Bullet, but some were not. Some disappeared all of a sudden, and sometimes, the women who hung around had black eyes.
I was raised around hard, loud, drunk men with tempers and addictions and bad habits. I wasn
’t stupid.
But a strange man said, “Hey. Can you help me?”
And I walked right over. I didn’t stop to think for a single second. I was worried about the Spanish test and Scrap Allenbach and how my feet hurt walking so far in flip flops.
“You’re Pig Iron’s kid, right?” The man had been smiling. I think I smiled back.
And I said yes. I heard the man say, “It’s her. Get her.”
I heard him, and I didn’t move. I stood there, waiting. What the fuck for?
By the time the back door flew open and the other man dragged me in, shoving me down in the foot well, it was too late. It all happened so quickly, but not so quickly that I couldn’t have run. Or screamed. Or fought.
You see, it was all on me. Scrap going away? That was on me. Every day since Mom and I pulled into the gas station across from Finnegan’s Ice Cream, when I sat frozen in horror while the motherfucker who dragged me into Inch Johnson’s back seat pumped our gas and joked with my mother about the Steelers, when he winked at me, no recognition on his face.
Every day since then, I’ve kept my mouth shut. I am not going to be responsible for another life ruined. My dad or Heavy or another brother in jail or dead, it’s not going to be on me.
Right now, as I sit tense and nauseous in the car, I listen to the girls chirp happily in the back while Annie sings along to the radio. Destroying this family is not going to be on me.
When there’s finally service, I see I have a voicemail. With a stone in my gut, I listen to it, and then I beg Annie to pull over the car, and I puke on the side of Highway 11 until I’m dry heaving, gravel digging into my knees.
Hey, baby. I’m fine. Don’t worry about my nose. Ain’t gonna lie, it’s probably an improvement. Listen. There’s shit going down, but I don’t want you to worry. It’s gonna get taken care of. I’ll call after it’s settled.
You change your mind about—You need me, call me. Anytime. I’ll come runnin’.
That was three days ago. There is no other message. No other missed call.
When my stomach’s empty, I look up, and Annie’s two oldest have their faces pressed against the backseat window, worry rounding their eyes. Annie’s staring at me.
Mom’s riding home with Dad. Thank the Lord they’re ahead of us, or I’d have an even bigger audience. As it is, Bullet’s pulled his Fatboy off on the shoulder a yard behind us. He’s escorting us back to town. Dad bet him a hundred bucks that if he tried anything with Annie, Dad would cut off Bullet’s dick and sew his patch in its place. Bullet’s been keepin’ a good, healthy distance this whole drive.
“I’m good. Just carsick.” I wave at my nieces and my ex-brother-in-law. The girls blink and cast scared looks at Annie. Oh, God. The shame is bitter in my mouth. I force myself to get back in the car, buckle myself in.
Scrap is fine. If he wasn’t, someone would have told me.
Would they, though? Or would they treat me like a breakable nut case the way they always do?
“Annie? Is Scrap okay?”
“Far as I know.”
I need to keep it together. Think this through. History is not repeating itself.
There’s shit going down, but I don’t want you to worry. It’s gonna get taken care of.
Scrap went after the Rebel Raiders again, and he’s on parole. Best case scenario, he got arrested. He gets sent back to SCI Wayne to serve out his sentence. Worse case scenario? He lost this time, and he’s dead, and no one will tell me because they think I’m too weak to handle the truth.
If I hadn’t lost my mind, I’d have been with him. If I were there, he wouldn’t leave me. He wouldn’t do anything stupid.
Oh, yeah? He left you the other day.
Dad told him to back off. I was having a flashback.
Or your shit is too much. Maybe he’d rather risk losing his parole than figure out how to get rid of your crazy ass.
“You okay?” Annie’s giving me a hard look.
“Carsick.” I dare her to question me. She shrugs.
I need to find Scrap. Talk to him. I think about calling, but I need to see him. I need to let him know that it’s okay. I understand if I’m too much. He doesn’t need to mess up his life again.
“Can you drop me at the clubhouse?”
Annie raises an eyebrow.
“I want to see Scrap.”
“All right, lover girl.” Annie makes the turn onto Route 9, and I dig in my purse for a mint. It’s an old purse from middle school. Denim with fringe. When we came out to the cabin, I wasn’t about to go without my Beretta, so I needed a way to carry it. It was hard enough leaving Frances with the neighbors, although Frances didn’t seem bothered. I wasn’t leaving my gun.
It only takes twenty minutes or so to get to the clubhouse. Annie asks me if I can get a ride back to Mom and Dad’s, and from a yard back, Bullet hollers, “I’ll see her home.”
Annie pulls out and leaves me alone, surrounded by dozens and dozens of bikes and trucks and SUVs. Everyone and their mother is here. I scan for Scrap’s bike, but I don’t see it. That doesn’t mean anything. The parking has overflowed into the field across the street.
As I walk in, it strikes me how similar the vibe is to the night Scrap came home. The drinking has clearly been going for some time, and there’s music and chatter and weed in the air. They’ve got two prospects—Wash and Boom—tending bar.
I’ve walked through this old hangar a thousand times, but today, it feels different. I feel different. Like I’ve walked off the map, and I’m not sure anymore where I’m heading.
I don’t see Scrap until I’m almost to the bar. He’s at a table with Harper Ruth. He’s smiling, not his usual half-smirk, but a full smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes. Her hand is resting on his forearm. He’s not doing a thing about it.
Harper has a glass of wine in front of her like always. She empties it, and then Scrap hands her his beer. She winks as she tips it back.
And then he sees me, and his smile disappears.
Guess I shouldn’t have worried. He was just fine. What should have been relief feels like a fist in the mouth.
CHAPTER 13
SCRAP
I’ve been on my bike the past seventy-two hours, beatin’ the bushes for a skinny man with a snake tattoo and a fucked-up eye. Dude is a ghost. It don’t help that the Rebel Raiders’ known associates tend to be high as shit or baked crispy. They don’t make for the most coherent informants.
When Heavy called us in with a lead, I can’t say I wasn’t grateful. I ain’t spent this much time in a saddle since I was twenty, and I guess my ass could take a hell of a lot more then. Besides, Crista will be back in town soon. On the phone, Heavy said he’s easing up the lockdown.
When we got to Twiggy’s three days past, two Raiders were takin’ turns beating Roosevelt to death while a third, the skinny guy, tried to drag Fay-Lee into a car. If not for Story Jenkins….Well, it don’t bear thinkin’ on. Dizzy’s called chaos, and Heavy seconded. The man with the snake tattoo’s as good as dead.
When I roll up to the clubhouse, the lots so full, I got to park in the back of the field across the street. Guess some people ain’t got the news about the lockdown gettin’ lifted.
I need a shower and a decent meal, and I need to talk to Crista. She’s fine. Pig Iron and I have been in contact, but still. Sooner’s better. She ain’t tried to call me as far as I know. The service is bad up at the cabin, but…I don’t need to think about that right now.
When I get inside, Forty greets me at the door. Tells me to rest, church is in an hour. We got a heads up on the location of the dude—his name’s Donny or Danny—and we’ve got eyes on him. Apparently, he’s a real dumb fuck. He’s at work like nothin’ happened, a few miles away.
I wash the road off and borrow some threads. I can’t wait to get home. Then it strikes me. Do I even have one?
What am I gonna do? Push my way back into Crista’s place again? Pretend none of this happened? My nose is still t
aped, and my eyes got yellow and brown rings around ‘em like a fuckin’ raccoon.
If she wants this—if she’s ready for this—I need to stop pushin’. Leave be.
The thought leaves a taste like dirt in my mouth. I head for the bar, order a beer. They’ve got the prospects workin’ it. The one called Boom’s a smartass. A college dropout from up in Pyle. He’s still tryin’ to grow out his ironic mutton chops.
“What’ll you have, my man?”
“Whatever’s good.”
“All right, all right.” He goes into the fridge and passes me some hipster shit. The label’s so artsy I can’t tell what it’s called.
I take it to a table. Don’t think my ass could take a bar stool right now. I sip, not expecting anything, but it’s real good. Reminds me of the shit Twitch used to brew in his basement.
I ain’t thinkin’ about much when Harper Ruth slides into the seat beside me. She’s got a glass of red wine, per usual, and she’s dressed like she’s goin’ to court, fancy white blouse and a black skirt.
“Whatcha doin’, little brother?” Her wine sloshes a little when she sets it down. Woman’s tipsy.
“Waitin’ for church.”
“You haven’t come to see me.” She slaps my chest. Drunk Harper’s always handsy. “You don’t need a lawyer anymore, and I’m yesterday’s news?”
“You know you’re always my girl.”
Harper’s face takes on a pinched look. Hurt, almost, which don’t make sense. “No one’s ever gonna be your girl except Crista Holt. Everybody knows that. Sad as shit, but true nonetheless.”
“I didn’t think you were holdin’ a torch for me, Harper Ruth.” This conversation is goin’ in a strange direction. Until about a year ago, Harper was Charge’s old lady. Then she dropped him for Des Wade, a shady country club type with his hands in most everything around these parts. Word among the brothers was she wanted to climb the ladder a rung or two, see how the other half lives.
“You know I love you, little brother, but not like that. It just kills me to see you fight so hard for a woman who won’t fight for herself.”
Scrap: A Steel Bones Motorcycle Club Romance Page 15