Outlaw's Promise

by Helena Newbury

  “Brake fluid,” I croaked in horror. I grabbed Carrick’s wrist. “Someone messed with Ox’s bike!”

  34

  Carrick

  I ran for my bike. Annabelle was smart enough that she didn’t ask to come with me. She knew I’d ride faster on my own. But even going flat-out, could I catch him?

  My bike was parked at the side of the road but it had been swallowed up by the crowd. I had to yell and curse at people before they jumped back out of the way. Then I had to start her and get her pointed in the right direction. Come on! COME ON!

  I tore off down the mountain road, crossing the start line and whipping past a terrified-looking Annabelle. Her face was begging me: please.

  Please don’t let Ox die.

  Because that was what was going to happen here. He’d pick up more and more speed going down the mountain, trying to beat his fucking record. And then he’d reach for his brakes and nothing would happen and he’d slam into a tree doing ninety.

  My stomach tightened. Not Ox. What had Annabelle called him? A gentle giant. Well, maybe she didn’t know him like I did but he was a far more decent guy than I was. Not Ox. Please not Ox.

  I sped around the first corner as fast as I dared. My heart was thundering in my chest. The enormity of what I had to do was just sinking in: Ox was racing, trying to get down the mountain as fast as possible. His bike was more powerful, faster on the straights. And he had a head start. The only way I could catch him was to go suicidally fast on the corners.

  I leaned the bike all the way over for the next bend and sped round it doing fifty. The spectators lining the route looked up, astonished, then gave me a cheer.

  I could still smell Ox’s exhaust in the air but he was still out of sight. He can’t be that far ahead, I told myself. Please. Maybe he’s slow this year. Then I rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of him: five turns ahead and going faster than I would have thought possible. “OX!” I yelled, and honked my horn. But I knew he wouldn’t hear me over the bellow of his engine.

  He knew the road better than I did, knew every twist and incline. The only way I stood a chance was to take chances he wouldn’t. I twisted the throttle and flew around the next corner at nearly seventy.

  I could feel the bike fighting me like a nervous horse: the speed was just too much for the tight bends and downhill grade. And every cell in my body, every hour in the saddle I’d racked up, was screaming at me to slow down!

  I sped up.

  Each corner was a nerve-shredding, tire-squealing slide, now. Cold sweat was creeping down my neck, soaking my t-shirt. Jesus, this is insane. But I wasn’t going to let him die. Not Ox. I could feel that psycho Volos’s presence looming over the mountain. He’d done this. He was trying to rip our club apart in the most painful way possible, by murdering one of our brothers. No. Not Ox!

  Slowly, very slowly, I started to reel him in. I could smell the rubber I was leaving on the road as the bike fought for grip and I was leaning so far over on each bend that my knees almost brushed the asphalt.

  Then I cut a corner a little too tight and the wheels hit loose dirt. The handlebars went light and my stomach lurched into my throat. I went sideways towards one of the crash barriers: I’d smack into it, cartwheel and fall a hundred feet down the mountain before I hit anything else—

  Then the tires found purchase and I shot forward. And now I was close enough to call to Ox. Panting and shaky, I yelled as hard as I could. “OOOX!”

  He turned and, even from that distance, I could feel him frowning. I was messing up his time.

  I raised my hand and frantically mimed slashing my throat. “STOP!”

  I saw him hesitate...and then throttle back. I powered forward and came alongside him, but we were still doing almost eighty. “Your brakes!” I yelled over the wind. “Someone messed with your brakes!”

  I saw him squeeze the levers...and the sick dread on his face when they did nothing at all. I looked ahead. The next bend was a sharp left-hander and there was no way we were going to make it at this speed. I could brake but Ox would plow straight off the road and into one of the massive fir trees.

  There was only one thing to do. “Bail!” I yelled. “Bail!” At least he might have a chance.

  The trees were rushing up to meet me. I slammed on my brakes and Ox seemed to shoot forward, out of my reach. Bail! I thought. But he was staying on as long as possible, trying to lose speed before he jumped. Only a few seconds from the trees, I finally saw him heave himself off the back of the bike.

  I winced as he hit: at that speed, you basically become a sack of meat with nothing but physics to determine your fate. He had his arms up, protecting his head, but he was bouncing and rolling with sickening speed. His bike slammed into the trees, its momentum carrying parts of its mangled frame ten feet in the air. Meanwhile, Ox was rolling and spinning off to the side. I screeched to a stop, jumped off my bike and ran—

  And saw him slam to a stop as his head hit a tree.

  35

  Annabelle

  Within seconds of Carrick blasting past the start line, I’d yelled to Mac and Hunter what was going on and we were all tearing down the mountain in pursuit. I don’t know if Hunter had expected a passenger but I leapt on the back of his bike before he could argue. I was scared for Ox but I was terrified of what risks Carrick might have taken to save him.

  I had my phone back, now. I whipped it out and called 911, yelling to be heard over the rushing air. Maybe someone had gotten word to the Sheriff and they’d already called an ambulance, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  We found them almost halfway down the mountain. The first thing I saw was Carrick’s bike, slumped over on its side in the middle of the road. Then I saw the remains of Ox’s bike, mashed into trees just ahead of a bend.

  And then I saw Carrick, on his hands and knees over Ox’s body. As one, we ran to them.

  “No,” Carrick was saying over and over. “No, no, no!”

  Ox was lying on his back, arms battered and bloody from where he must have scraped along the road. His head was against the trunk of a tree and a lake of blood was spreading out from under it.

  “Get—Get an ambulance,” said Mac, his voice catching.

  “On its way,” I croaked. I couldn’t take my eyes from Ox. He was so still.

  A siren wailed in the distance. Carrick looked up and his eyes caught mine. I could see it in his eyes: this is my fault.

  No, I thought bitterly. It’s mine.

  36

  Carrick

  Annabelle and I rode with Ox in the ambulance with everyone else following on their bikes. Ox was rushed straight into surgery and the waiting room gradually filled up with black leather as members arrived. A few moments later, Mom screeched up in her station wagon and my chest went tight as we told her the news. Mac, Hunter and I gathered her into a hug as she began to sob.

  Volos. Volos did this. All I needed was two minutes alone in a room with that motherfucker. I didn’t care how much money and power he had. But all of my rage had nowhere to go. I still had no idea where to find the guy. Sheriff Harris and every one of Hunter’s contacts had drawn a blank, too. The guy was a ghost.

  Hours went by with no word on how the surgery was going. I needed air. I marched towards the exit. Annabelle grabbed my arm.

  “You did everything you could,” she told me. “If you hadn’t chased after him and warned him, he wouldn’t have even stood a chance.”

  I nodded, but without much feeling. This was all on me. I should have ended this at the Blood Spiders’ bar, in Teston. I should have killed every one of them and Volos, too. Then this never would have happened. The guilt was eating me up. “Give me a minute, okay?” I said.

  She nodded and stepped back, but she kept hold of my arm until the very last second. The realization hit me with a sickening lurch just as I pushed through the exit doors: Shit. That sounded like I was brushing her off. I hadn’t meant it that way. She’s upset, too. I cursed and shook my head. I�
��m no fucking good at this relationship stuff.

  I looked over my shoulder but Annabelle had already turned away. I promised myself I’d apologize as soon as I went back inside.

  It had started to rain: lightly, for now, but it was gathering pace and the whole sky was turning gray. I turned my face up to the heavens and let it soak me. Why Ox? I asked whoever was listening. He was a part of the club in a way I could never be because he relied on them. His whole life was the club—he and Mom held it together like glue. I’d die for the club but I’d never been able to trust it with my soul. That’s what Mac didn’t understand. I let them lean on me but I couldn’t lean on them because….

  Because I couldn’t lose a second family.

  The rain coursed down my face like cold tears. If Ox died, the club was done...but Volos would keep coming and coming until either we were all dead or we gave up Annabelle. Goddamn you! Come at me! Leave the rest of them alone!

  A sudden, shrill sound from the depths of my cut. My phone. Who the fuck was calling me? Everyone I knew in the world was ten feet away in the waiting room. Was there news on Ox?!

  I ran to the nearest overhang to shelter from the rain. It was getting heavy, now, and lightning was lighting up the clouds. I pulled out my phone, then frowned. I didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”

  “Heard about what happened,” said Agent Trent.

  I wanted to hurl my phone at the nearest tree. But that didn’t stop me listening.

  “I did some digging for you,” Trent told me. “This guy Volos is one serious fuck. Obsessive, some people say. When he decides he wants a woman, he doesn’t quit. There was a case down in Mexico where he wiped out an entire Hacienda: and I mean the family, their staff, even the fucking gardeners, just to get this one girl.” Again, Trent sounded almost impressed. “He will break you. He doesn’t have mercy. He’s not interested in a fair fight. He’s playing with you.”

  Playing with us. I couldn’t stop seeing Ox’s head hitting the tree.

  Trent’s voice grew softer. Compelling. “I’m staying right here in town. We could do a deal and I could have you and Annabelle in a safe house tonight. All your buddies would live. Isn’t alive better than dead? You’d be saving them.”

  Saving them...or saving myself by becoming a rat? Everyone would go to jail.

  But they’d be alive. The decision was ripping me apart. Neither choice was what I wanted. I just wanted my club back. My friends back. I wanted this bastard Volos off our backs. I wanted everything to go back to the way it was—

  Except that wasn’t true. I didn’t want things to go back to how they were before Annabelle called me. Not even for a second. Because then I wouldn’t have her.

  Trent was listening patiently to my slow, furious breath. “O’Harra, I’m not gonna pretend I know what it’s like to be in your shoes,” he told me. “But I do know this: sometimes you gotta do the shitty thing to do the right thing. If you really love your friends, you’ll take the deal.”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at the screen. I wanted to crush it in my fist. I wanted to tell him to fuck the fuck off. I wanted to scream that I’d never, ever betray the club.

  But what if betraying them was the only way to save them?

  “Am I interrupting?” said a voice.

  My head jerked up. Mac was standing in the rain not six feet from me. I hadn’t heard him come out. How long had he been standing there?

  I stabbed the button to end the call and shook my head.

  We walked towards each other and met in the rain. It was really coming down, now, soaking our clothes in seconds. Mac nodded back towards the medical center. “Annabelle’s pretty upset.”

  I nodded. That was next on my list.

  Mac stopped close by...but not quite close enough to touch. “We need to talk. This isn’t the time for us to be fighting.

  I nodded slowly. Mac was like a brother to me. I hated fighting with him.

  He put his hands out palm up, rain pounding down on them. “You’ve got to stop all this lone wolf shit. We’re a club. But first you ride off to Teston and rescue Annabelle, all by yourself, and start this whole thing with Volos. Then I have to put a gun to your head to stop you blowing away a rival president. Then you take off again and nearly kill a guy.” His face tightened. “Now I find you standing out here on your own in the rain, on the phone.”

  Shit. He suspected.

  “I’m just trying to fix it,” I said bitterly. “I started this. It’s my problem.”

  “It’s not your problem!” snapped Mac. “It’s our problem! When are you gonna learn that?” He sighed. “Why won’t you ever let us help you? This is your club as much as it’s anyone else’s! We’re here for you!”

  I met his eyes. Rain was streaming down both of our faces and there was a crash of thunder from overhead. That was what he’d never understood: I couldn’t take their help. It had to be a one-way street.

  I didn’t deserve their help. Not after what I did to my first family. And I couldn’t risk losing the club like I’d lost them. I shook my head.

  “Goddammit! Talk to me!” yelled Mac. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  This was it. This was when I should tell him about Agent Trent, if I was going to. I could come clean, never having made the deal, and he’d trust me again.

  But then the deal would be off the cards.

  And Volos would wipe out the club.

  I had to fix this myself...somehow.

  I pushed past him. And felt something between us break. It hurt like a motherfucker but I didn’t see any other way.

  Inside the medical center, I stood with water streaming from my rain-slick cut and pattering onto the tiles. More water was running out of my soaked hair and getting in my eyes and I had to keep brushing it away. But even when my vision was clear, I couldn’t see Annabelle anywhere amongst the army of black leather.

  I grabbed Viking’s arm. “You see Annabelle?”

  “She got a cab,” he said. “Said she was going to your place.”

  I frowned. That wasn’t like Annabelle. She wouldn’t leave us all here, worrying about Ox, and sit home on her own. And she knew better than to take off on her own when Volos was still after her.

  I found Mom and gave her another hug, telling her I had to go. “I need to find Annabelle,” I muttered.

  She grabbed my arm as I moved to go. “You’re damn right you do,” she told me, fire in her tear-stained eyes. “Don’t let that one slip away, Carrick.”

  Slip away? I didn’t understand women but Mom did and her words started a sick churning in my stomach. I nodded and ran for my bike.

  The rain had slowed traffic to a crawl but I threaded my way through, going as fast as I dared on the slick streets. It was only early evening but the sky had turned so dark overhead that it felt like twilight. I had to flick my lights on as I roared up the street towards my house.

  I hurled open the door. “Annabelle?”

  Nothing. Why on earth would she come here and then leave again? Unless Viking had been wrong and she’d never come here at all. Or….

  Shit.

  With a sudden sense of dread, I stalked into the bedroom and threw open the closet doors. The bags we’d brought back from her step-dad’s house were gone. The clothes I’d bought her since were gone. She’d run.

  I called her phone. My heart sank as I heard her ringtone coming from the living room. I walked through and found her phone sitting on the coffee table.

  I raced out into the rain and stood there, chest heaving, looking wildly up and down the street for some clue: a cab’s lights disappearing at the end of the street, maybe. But there was nothing. She was well ahead of me and I had no idea where she was going.

  You idiot! I’d been so busy blaming myself, I hadn’t considered that she’d be doing the same thing. It was her Volos was after so she was convinced she was responsible for what happened to Ox. She probably blamed herself for the fire, too, and anything that Volos di
d in the future. She was trying to protect the rest of us by getting out of town. Shit! Why didn’t I see this coming? Why didn’t she talk to me?

  Because I was an asshole.

  Because I’d spent so many years on my own, doing the club’s dirty work, I didn’t understand this stuff.

  Because I’d refused to share my past...and if I wasn’t going to talk to her, of course she wouldn’t talk to me.

  I’d lost her.

  I stared down the street, the rain sliding down my face almost blinding me. Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe she’s better off without me. She was smart and resourceful and she had clothes and money, now. If she ran far enough, maybe Volos wouldn’t find her.

  I shook my head, my hands tightening into fists and crushing the raindrops. Fuck that. Maybe wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t going to leave her out there on her own. I’d made a promise that I’d be there when she needed me. She needed me now, whether she knew it or not.

  And it wasn’t just the danger she was in. I wanted her back. I needed her back.

  I ran to my bike. Where would she go? How would she get out of town fast?

  The bus station.

  This time I rode even faster, fantails of water kicking up behind my wheels as I roared through the streets. But when I pulled up outside the bus station and checked the schedule, I cursed.

  Two buses had left in the last half hour. One went south, towards Sacramento, San Francisco and LA. The other went north, towards Portland. Opposite directions. And the minutes were ticking away: soon, the buses would make their first stop. She might get off at some small town and check into a motel and then I’d have lost her forever.

  I stared at the two routes and tried to think like Annabelle. Which would she have picked?

  South, right? The bright lights of LA, or at least San Francisco. Sunshine. Everybody loves sunshine. Nobody wants to go to Portland.