by Celia Loren
I take a right down a seedy-looking street. I’ve checked it out before, but Lees could be switching locations, or there could be something I’ve missed. I go slowly, not wanting to make too much noise so that I can hear Olive calling out for help.
The thought of her in pain causes a tight feeling in my chest, like someone’s squeezing my heart. I take a deep breath through my nose and blow it out my mouth.
This is what I’ve always been afraid of, I realize. I’ve successfully pushed away any woman who wants to get close to me, afraid that this is how it will end. I guess a shrink would tell me it has something to do with my mom, about how her final, fatal overdose has fucked all my relationships with women. All I know is that I’ve avoided this feeling of helplessness and fear ever since, and now here it is on my doorstep, squeezing its way into my brain, seeping into my bones.
Why did I hurry to put distance between us, the second that Stick got back? I should have manned up and talked to him about it, told him the truth about how I felt for Olive. Instead, he had to find out what was going on through those fucking pictures. She must have felt so humiliated. And I was no help at all, holing up in my room like a goddamn toddler.
I have to find her. I have to tell her...what? I can’t quite figure it out. Tell her that I felt calm with her, that things felt brighter when she was around, but also less complicated. That’s not quite it, though. Feels like there’s something on the edge of my brain that I want to know, but I can’t quite see it.
This headache isn’t helping anything, either. I’m probably dehydrated. I start scanning the sides of the road for the nearest 7-ll or grocery store. I’ll just run in, grab a bottle of water, and head back out. The sun has dipped below the horizon now, which will make it harder to spot the car, if he hasn’t ditched it already, but I can’t stop looking.
I spot a small gas station up ahead and slow down as I pull toward it. I park on the side of the building and cut the engine, then stand up and stretch. My ass feels numb from the vibrations, and my neck cracks as I roll it around. I walk toward the front of the store and glance in the windows. There’s a man with a hood pulled over his face scanning the rows of chips. He looks awful—like he’s lost a fight.
There’s something familiar about his eyes. I pull out my phone and swipe to the photo of Richard Lees that Olive’s mom sent me. The guy in the hood has a short beard, and his face is bloody and swollen, but I think it’s him. Holy shit. I feel a surge of hope and pride. It looks like Olive could still be fighting back.
I duck a little lower and scan the parking lot for the sedan. No sign of it. If Olive’s not with him, then that means he’s left her stashed somewhere, so my best bet would be to follow him and find out where.
The darkness outside plays to my advantage, as the bright lights of the store make it easier for me to watch Lees without him seeing me. He walks to the register, pulling his hood lower over his face, probably worried about cameras. He pays and leaves, crossing through the pumps and pausing by the street. He waits for traffic to pass, then jogs across it, heading for a residential street.
I’m torn. If he’s walking back to where he’s keeping Olive, I should follow him on foot so he doesn’t spot me, but if he’s going to his car, I should get back on my bike. I make a split-second decision and sprint after him. I slow down and walk quickly across the street, treading lightly and peering into the darkness ahead of me. He’s about fifty feet ahead, carrying a couple of plastic bags of food from the gas station.
I trail him for another block down the dark street, under a couple blown out streetlights. In this part of town, those streetlights aren’t likely to be replaced. He slows down, and I duck behind another car to watch him. Maybe he’s headed into one of these houses.
Wrong. I hear the electronic beep of a car being unlocked and swear to myself. Then I hear the sound of a car cover being pulled off—no wonder we hadn’t found it. The car starts and lights sweep toward me. I crouch behind the car as he drives toward me, peering over the hood of it as he passes me, trying to check the car for signs of Olive. I don’t see her, but it’s dark, and she could be in the trunk.
As soon as he’s about ten feet past me, I start running after the car. At least he’s headed back toward the gas station where I left my bike. I sprint after him, and watch him take a left onto the road where the gas station is. I keep running across the street to my bike and jam on the start button. My bike roars to life under me and I peel out of the parking lot, determined not to lose him and my one shot at finding Olive.
I head in the same direction I saw Lees drive off in, peering into the night for a sign of his tail lights. Finally I spot a pair, and as I drive closer, I see the license plates match up with the ones that had been following us. Or Olive, as it turns out. I flip my headlight off, not wanting him to see the single beam of a motorcycle.
I maintain a cautious distance behind him as a couple cars pass us going the opposite direction. I just want him to lead me to Olive without him realizing I’m following him. I feel anger growing inside of me at my proximity to this fuck, but I don’t want it to cloud my judgment.
He starts slowing down as he approaches a sign on the road, and I back off the throttle, wanting to maintain my distance. He speeds up again, then slows down as he approaches another sign. I frown. Is this fucking idiot lost? Suddenly, he pulls a u-turn, and before I can pull off the road, he’s heading right toward me. Shit.
My only chance is that with my lights off, he won’t notice me. But as he draws closer, he swerves slightly, his headlights sweeping across my bike. As he passes, I glance into the driver’s seat. We make eye contact for a moment, his expression shifting from one of surprise to fury. He jams onto the gas, and his car jumps ahead.
I quickly pull a u-turn after him, opening up my throttle as he tries to lose me. I quickly narrow the distance between us. I didn’t see Olive in the car when he passed, but there’s still a chance she’s there. I don’t want to cause a crash that could injure her, but he’s definitely not going to lead me back to her now.
We pass by the gas station, now headed in the opposite direction. As the lights from it fade, I check my mirrors and glance up ahead. No sign of any other cars. Holding my bike steady with one hand, I reach behind me and pull my Glock out of the waistband of my jeans.
Lees swerves back and forth. If he thinks that’s going to help him any, he’s mistaken. I take careful aim and fire two shots into his rear tire.
With a pop, it explodes. The sedan careens to the side and then back as Lees fights for control, but he’s traveling at too high of a speed. The car spins, its back end flying forward and taking it off the road. I slow down, pulling away from the out-of-control vehicle. Lees is trying to brake now, but not soon enough. The car makes another full rotation before slamming into a telephone pole on the side of the road.
I speed to the driver’s side of the car, spraying dirt as I skid to a stop. Before I’ve even stopped moving, my gun is trained on Lees. He’s fumbling against the air bag, trying to get it to deflate, probably so he can reach for his own weapon.
“Don’t move!” I yell at him. I stand and let my bike drop to the dirt. I yank the door open with my free hand as Lees looks up at me, anger and fear on his face. I grab the front of his shirt and pull him out of the car. He grabs at my hand a little, but doesn’t put up too much of a fight. I think he’s stunned from the crash.
I kick him once in the ribs for good measure as he lies on the ground where I tossed him. Still holding the gun on him, I quickly check in the back seat for Olive. The trunk has popped open an inch in the crash, so I walk back and pull it all the way open. No Olive. Just duct tape and a purse. Her purse.
“Where is she?” I hiss, advancing on him. He doesn’t answer. “Where is she!?” I scream. He spits on the dirt at my boots.
Fine. If he wants to play it that way, we’ll play it that way. I narrow my eyes at him and raise my gun up, bringing it down with a crack against his skull.
One call to Ratchet and thirty minutes later, we’re sitting back in the clubhouse. My brothers quickly came to meet me where I’d found Lees. Some of them stayed to destroy his car, and the rest helped me bring him back to the clubhouse in a van.
He sits across from me in the clubhouse’s rarely used basement. He’s glowering at me, his hands and legs taped to a chair with his own duct tape from the trunk of his car. Ratchet, King, and Franchise are standing next to me, their arms folded over their chests.
“Am I supposed to be scared of you people, just because you ride fucking Harleys?” he finally spits out at us. I blink lazily back at him. “If you ever want to see Olive again, you’ll let me go.”
“I don’t think so,” Ratchet responds calmly.
“Last time I saw her, she was bleeding on a mattress, so I can’t imagine she’s in very good shape now,” he snarls. “In exchange for leading you to her, you let me go.”
“No,” Ratchet says.
“You can’t keep me here forever!” he growls, a vein in his forehead threatening to pump itself out of his skull.
“I don’t think he understands the situation,” I say.
“Oh, let me explain,” Ratchet begins with a smile, turning to Lees. “You’re not going to be here long at all,” Ratchet informs him. “You’ll crack quickly, I think. And then we’ll kill you.”
“Kill me?! You can’t murder a cop in cold blood! Who the fuck do you think you are?!” Lees screams, reeling back in his chair, threatening to knock it backward.
“Who the fuck are we?” I whisper. “You kidnap one of our brother’s sisters, set fire to his home while he and his old lady are asleep inside...you’re about to find out who we are.” I feel my heartbeat speeding up and I begin to shake. Ratchet’s hand on my shoulder steadies me.
“We have a code in MC’s: blood for blood,” I say, “You spilled our blood, now we spill yours.”
“You can’t do this!” he screams. “That’s not how this works! The cops will find me! I get...I get a trial!”
“I remember an entitled prick like you back in basic training,” I say. “He thought the world belonged to him, too. Thought it was created specifically for him. God, he couldn’t stop running his mouth that first morning. But he was the first to quit. Took him all of a day and a half. You are going to be much faster than that.”
I stand up and walk toward him.
“You have one more chance,” I warn him. “Then we go to work on you. And just so you understand, every single brother wants to use you as his personal punching bag. But if that’s not enough, King here has some more specialized tools.” I bend over, staring him in the face. “Where. Is. She.”
He starts to cry. My heart feels like it’s made of stone. “You’re just going to kill me anyway,” he blubbers. “Why should I tell you?”
I hear the click of a safety behind me, and Ratchet walks into view, cradling his Sig-1911. “Because you can either go this way, nice and fast,” he says holding out the gun.
“Or this way,” King says, stepping forward as he slips brass knuckles onto his fingers.
I was right. He doesn’t take long to crack.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Olive
In my dream, I’m lying in the middle of the living room. I try to move, but my limbs feel like they’re tacked to the ground. West, Stick, and Stacy are sitting in the kitchen, laughing around the breakfast table. My toes start to feel hot, and I look downward to see a spark leap off my foot and onto the carpet. I can just see the beige threads light up, a single flame turning into many as they lick around the room, racing toward the rest of the house.
I feel warm, but I’m not being burned. I try to yell out to warn the others, but there’s something over my mouth. I frantically try to scream, but the flames just grow higher and higher around me. Chunks of ceiling begin falling around me, but still the others are unaware of the danger.
Finally, as the house begins to fall, I hear screams from the kitchen. They grow louder and louder as the house burns down to its frame. Tears stream down my cheeks but I cannot move to help the ones I love. Finally, the house crumbles completely, and the screams stop. I’m lying in the wreckage, alone, staring up at the cold blue sky.
I try to cry out again, but I can’t. I try to move my arms again, and find that they’re free. I start to move my right arm up to my face, but I feel pressure on my wrist and flinch. That hurts. And I realize the pain is real, but I have been dreaming.
Fuck. Lees. I claw desperately at him as I open my eyes.
But it’s not Lees looking down at me. It’s West. And he’s holding my arms down. I frown up him and try to tell him to let go, but I can’t open my mouth.
“You’re in the hospital, and your mouth is bandaged shut,” he says, a look of relief flooding across his face. “I’ll let you go if you promise to stop trying to pull off the tape, OK?”
I nod stiffly, amazed. My head feels like it’s full of cotton. He eyes me suspiciously, and I narrow my eyes at him, or try to. One eye feels a little blurry. He grins, and lets my arms go. I look around. I’m in a small hospital room, with a window overlooking a dreary courtyard. The curtain dividing the room is pulled back, and I can see the bed next to me is empty. I flash back to my dream, and I remember the fire. The fire was real. I glance frantically around the room, trying to find Stick.
“Hey, hey, everyone is OK,” West says, smoothing a piece of hair out of my face. “Would you stop moving your head so much? It’s bad for your jaw. Stick and Stacy got out of the house. Some burns, smoke inhalation, but they’re going to be alright. They’re on another floor here, actually. We’ve got quite a presence going.”
I relax, leaning back onto the pillow. I look up at West, finally taking him in, relief flooding through me. If he is here, I know I’m safe. But he does look exhausted. How did I get here? The last thing I remember is being tied up on a mattress with Lees curled around me. I shudder. West leans over me again, reading my mind.
“Lees is gone,” he says.
I raise my eyebrows at him as if to ask “Gone how?” I thought he was gone before, and look what happened.
“Gone, gone,” he says, shaking his head. “We took care of him. You never have to worry about him again. Looks like you got him pretty good, though. Definitely broke his nose. ”
I stare at him as his meaning begins to become clear. Oh my god. I shut my eyes, trying to push the realization away. I pushed West into this. I pushed him into a position in which he was forced him to kill someone.
“I wish you could talk,” he whispers. “Don’t feel guilty. Lees was a psychopath. He fooled a ton of people into thinking he was normal, including an entire city’s worth of cops. And he’s not going to weigh on my conscience at all. After what he did, he deserved to die.”
To die. He finally says the words. I look him over, worrying about what this experience has been like for him. Not just killing Lees, but Stick and Stacy, the house…
“What else should I tell you...” he wonders out loud. “Let’s see...you’ve been here since very early yesterday morning. You had a dislocated jaw, that’s why you can’t open it. They have the bandaging in place to stabilize it but you can take it off probably tomorrow, they think. Also a concussion from a nasty cut on the back of your head, broken wrist, a couple ribs...he really did a number on you.”
I look up into his eyes, where I see fear and concern, tenderness, even. I study his gold-flecked irises, the crows feet just beginning to form on the sides of his eyes, the slight curve of his strong nose...Tears suddenly fill my eyes and drop down the sides of my face and into my hair.
“Sorry, what...do you need the nurse?” he asks, alarmed by my sudden emotion. I shake my head no.
I try to smile up at him to reassure him, but my mouth feels so stiff that I’m not sure what expression I’m making. It would be crazy of me to be mad about how things have gone between us. He doesn’t feel the same way about me that I do about him, an
d I have to figure out how to live with that. I reach my left hand up, then realize it has a cast on it. I try the right one. Hurts a little, but not too bad. I wipe my tears away.
“Hey, your mom’s flying in. Should be getting here any minute,” West says, trying to make me feel better. “And I’ll let Stick and Stacy know you’re awake. They really want to see you.”
I move my hand down from my eyes, gingerly touching the lower half of my face. Shit. It feels really swollen. My eyes widen in alarm.
“You might not want to look in a mirror for a while,” West says with a little smile. “But don’t worry, I’ve had plenty of injuries to my face, and look how good-looking I am.”
I roll my eyes at him.
“You two want me to give you some privacy?” I hear Stick ask sarcastically from the doorway. I look over to him and smile, which causes a little pain to shoot up through my ear. Maybe whatever pain meds I’m on are starting to wear off. I beckon him in with my right hand.
“I’m not going to ask you anything because I know you can’t answer,” Stick says as he walks to the side of my bed. “Stacy’s OK. She had it worse from the smoke than I did, so they had her on a respirator for a while. Would’ve been a lot worse if he hadn’t showed up.” He nods toward West.
I glance between them frowning.
“Oh, he didn’t tell you,” Stick says, surprised. “West pulled Stacy and I out of the house and called 911. Probably would have been dead if it weren’t for him.”
I look at West. He’s looking down at his hands.
“I shouldn’t’ve been at the house anyway,” Stick continues. “I should have been picking you up. I got your messages afterward...” he drifts off as he becomes choked up. “It won’t happen again, I’ll never let it—”
I frown at him. What’s he saying?
“Oh my god!” I hear from the doorway. We all turn to see my mom in the doorway. She’s got her suitcase in one hand, and is looking at me in horror. I grimace at the image of myself reflected in her expression.