by A. C. Bextor
“How long you suppose he’s been dead?” I ask out loud, absentmindedly.
“No clue,” Iron returns, standing over the body with his hands on his hips. “Hangar’s a crazy fuck. He has a temper.”
“Obviously,” I utter to myself.
“He told us after you and Hoss left what he’d done and where in town we could find him.”
“Where was that?”
Wick answers this time before Iron’s able to. “He put him in the backseat of someone’s car.”
“What the fuck?” I ask.
Iron sighs. “It was the guy’s wife’s car.”
“Jesus!” I bite out.
“He likes to play it dangerous,” Iron puts in.
“Dangerous or fuckin’ stupid,” I correct.
My first day at Creed and I’ve already realized who the wildcard is. Fuck me if it isn’t the goddamn VP.
As I stand motionless, watching the other two move this body into an incredibly shallow grave, I observe the rest of the mess Hangar’s made.
One foot is bare. The last toe of his right foot has been severed. Large markings around both ankles bring forth enough proof that at one time, his legs had been tied together with a piece of steel or thin wire, which cut deep into his skin. It’s possible he did it himself while trying to escape the binds.
The sides of his face are plastered with blood so dark it looks nearly black. The stickiness of the substance has caused some desert rocks and sand to embed on his skin. At closer inspection, it appears the ear on his left side is missing and the one on the right has been left hanging free.
I cover my mouth to keep from choking and wonder why Hoss has no feeling at all regarding the sanity of his own VP.
This doesn’t make any sense.
As Iron stands at the man’s head and Wick stands at his feet, their practiced positions and fluent movements indicate they’ve done this before.
“On three,” I hear Iron say with authority.
In sync, they count together, “One, two, three.”
As the body is flipped, the sheet is removed. It’s then I find the mess Hangar left on the man’s backside.
Even his own brothers are disgusted. I hear it in Wick’s voice. “He’s outdone himself.”
“What the fuck is that?” I ask, pointing to the small object protruding from the man’s ass.
Bending down, getting closer than I would, Wick takes a long look. “Beer bottle,” he answers, tossing it next to the body.
Hangar had inserted a jagged bottle into the man from behind. The blood, once probably oozing, has dried and was plastered to the hair on his leg.
This is too much—even for me.
Moving quickly, Iron grabs the sheet and puts it back into place. “Fuckin’ Hangar,” he mumbles. “Hoss will have clean-up coming soon. We need to go.”
“Clean-up?” I ask. “Isn’t that what we’re here for?”
“Yes and no,” Wick somewhat confirms. “Tire tracks all around here. Needs covering.”
This happens often, I’m guessing, by the sounds of what they’re explaining.
Great.
By the time we finish, Wick’s nervousness and fear have subsided, and he continues to talk about life at Creed and the women, drugs, and money that accompany being a member. If he’s trying to make me jealous, he couldn’t be further off the mark.
“That’s it,” Iron voices, heading back to the truck.
“Guess we’ll see you around soon,” Wick comments behind him.
“Yeah, soon,” I confirm, looking down to the makeshift shallow grave we’ve just moved a dead body into.
I thought I left this kind of life behind, but it looks as though I’m right back where I started.
Fuck.
Chapter Seven
“You’re fucking crazy,” Tommy explains over the phone as I tell him what I’m up to.
I had been sitting outside my apartment, near my unit’s garage, before starting the day. There’s nothing I enjoy more than riling my best friend up before noon, so I called Tommy to tell him the progress I’ve made.
“He won’t tell you the shit he knows about Marie. He’s sayin’ that to get you to do whatever the fuck he wants. Surely you know this.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Initially, I wasn’t doing this for Marie, so what he’s offered is a bonus. I can’t turn his offer down. And I’ll need back-up.”
“Eastons,” Tommy states. “You can call Lelow and Aimes. They’re not far outside of the city and they’re just as crazy, if not crazier, in the head than you are. I’ve heard they’ve been bounty huntin’ on the side. Couple of badasses like them could come in handy.”
“Maybe,” I reply to his idea.
“Not maybe. They know Em. If they can help, they will. They’re all about helping the underdog.”
He’s right about that. There was just never enough action in this town to quench their thirst for violent drama, for either one of them.
“Can’t imagine they’d come free.”
“I don’t know. They might if you explain what’s up.”
“Not sure Aimes will be so happy to hear from me, so I’m guessing any favors won’t be on the house.”
Tommy exhales, I hear it clearly over the line. “Fuck. I forgot you fucked . . .” He can’t remember the woman’s name and neither can I. “Well, maybe you’ll just owe them one.”
“I’ll call ’em soon. Get their take on everything and find out what this shit will cost me.”
“Let Aimes get a good one to your jaw before you take him down. That’s fair. Maybe then he’d do it for free.”
Free. Right. Sure.
“I’ll do that.”
“You’re gonna blow some shit up, aren’t you?” he asks in a calm tone.
I hesitate before answering. Not because I don’t trust telling him, but because until I have more information on what the fuck’s going on, I can’t commit. “Not leaning that way just yet.”
Tommy’s reference of ‘shit’ goes back a long way. Marie and Emma both grew up with the same love for animals. There was a farmer on the outside of town who had dogs. Emma and Marie had gotten it in their heads that this farmer wasn’t treating the dogs as they deserved to be treated.
Marie came to me one October morning years before she passed and asked for help. The girls were about fourteen or so, if I remember right. She wanted Tommy and me to ‘take care’ of the farmer. She meant bodily harm, and she was serious.
When I refused, she devised a new plan. She and Emma corralled a group of older boys with criminal mischief records, who were rumored to have experience with fire. They decided they were going to free the dogs by blowing up the shed the farmer held them in during the colder winter months.
Turns out, those thugs they hired ran in the same circle as I did. Everything was a go until I heard about it from a friend in town and called foul.
Emma was livid and Marie refused to talk to me until I said I’d help. Finally, after listening to Marie run her mouth and Emma rip me a new one, Tommy and I agreed. We got rid of those ‘helpers’, got the money they were paid back, and created a small explosion rather than blow up the entire farm.
We never let either one of them live that down.
It’s still a constant running joke, even after all these years.
“You’re gonna blow shit up,” he repeats, this time as a statement from memory. “I’ll put Eastons in touch. Let me talk to them first and try to smooth things over,” he orders before asking, “Did you see Casey?”
“Negative. There are so many buildings on that fuckin’ property, I’m not sure if I could find her on my own.”
“When do you go back?”
“When Hoss calls.”
I hear the faint laughter again from the other end of the line. “You’re his bitch. You know this, right?”
So glad Tommy finds this shit amusing.
“Fuck you,” I return.
“I talked to Emma yesterday. I haven�
�t talked to her for a fuck of a long time.”
Narrowing my eyes, although he can’t see it, I’m curious, so I ask, “Oh, yeah? Where’d you see her?”
“She helps out down at the vet’s office, takin’ calls and helping the customers. I had to take Mooch in for shots and saw her sitting there when I walked in.”
Laughing out loud, I lean my body against the garage that holds my bike. “Wait. You still have Mooch? As in, the white lab that used to eat his own shit?”
“Cool it, man. He’s still my best friend. Natalie and Denver make me fuckin’ nuts. I’ve leaned on him for manly support.”
“He’s gotta be old as fuck in dog years. He’s still alive?”
“You’d know if you’d stop over to see the girls.”
Negative.
Tommy’s wife hates me. “Don’t think your woman wants to see my face.”
“She’s over it, Max. We were younger back then. Shit happens.”
The ‘shit’ Tommy is referring to is the night he and I told Dee Dee and Natalie we were taking our guns and going hunting on a farmer’s property about sixty miles from here. We packed our shit and listened to Natalie threaten to castrate him if he wasn’t back by dark.
Unfortunately, we got so drunk on the drive to the farm we ended up nearly running out of gas. We pulled into a station and debated where our last fifteen dollars would be spent—gas or beer. Tommy and I were poor by choice, choosing to live a life of ease rather than busting our ass in the city by working a nine-to-five job.
As it turned out, beer won, thus making us so late we didn’t get home until the following evening because we’d run out of gas. The walk back was long, but it’s a memory of Tommy I’ll never forget. It was a hell of a good time.
“Over it . . . right,” I return. “So, how’s Em?”
“You’d know, from what I hear. She told me you went to see her.” His voice begins to lower, no longer jovial and easy. “She’s married, Max.”
“I know this.”
“She’s married to a high-powered attorney, and with all the other shit you’ve got stirrin’, I’ll tell you again . . .”
Rolling my eyes and looking to the sky, I try to shut him up. “Save the lecture. I got it, little brother.”
“All right. I won’t tell you that when I mentioned your name, her face got red and stayed that way the whole time we were catching up. She never once looked at me directly.”
Fuckin’ Christ, he’s not helping.
“Nor will I tell you that husband of hers is a prick. Natalie says when he comes through her line at the bank, he requires his cash withdrawals to be pressed and clean.”
My mind races, recalling his fancy house and offensive art collection, and I smile to myself.
“Nor will I tell you . . .” he tries to continue, but I stop him.
“Tommy, go find something to do. You’re distracting me.”
“That’s what I was fuckin’ tryin’ to do ’til you interrupted me.”
I laugh, smiling into the phone. “Sounded like you were trying to set me up.”
“Finally, you get it,” he returns before the line goes dead.
Jesus Christ, I’ve missed this place.
Chapter Eight
I’ve learned to never trust a smile. Sometimes they aren’t real.
Casey offers a small smile to Anna, who stands above her seated position and combs her hair gently. She’s always found Anna to be gentle in nature. She doesn’t talk to her much, but feeling the connection to someone who pays so much attention to her presence as a person is appreciated.
She thinks about her life before she came here. She had known a few women, other than her mother, and they weren’t the type of women who paid attention to her.
Her first grade teacher, Mrs. Evers, was her favorite person. She’d taught Casey the essentials of reading and math. She’d sat with Casey after school when her mother had been late picking her up. She gave her chocolates to try and taste at Christmas. Casey never told her Santa always forgot to stop at her house. Although she never understood why, she knew it would be as depressing to others as it was to her if they knew the truth. She hated the pitiful looks they offered when she spoke about her life at home, so even at such a young age, she’d stopped talking about it.
“You’re not ready to become a woman yet, but you will be soon,” Anna informs her, pulling her from her reverie, running the brush through her clean hair then back up again for another pass.
She’s sitting on a nicely made bed in a nicely made-up room. The voices and sounds from outside seem so distant in the safety of their private company.
“It’s good you don’t talk a lot. You remember not to and I think your transition will go smoother than mine did. I fought.” Casey doesn’t miss Anna’s shiver as she admits this to her.
She wants to ask, plead for information regarding Anna’s statement, but she doesn’t move. She fears if she does, the affection she’s longed for in her one-room cell will disappear.
“Your mother’s been asking for you. I shouldn’t tell you this,” Anna says to her as she toys with the top button of Casey’s shirt. She’s wearing a nice, collared, blue button-up shirt coupled with what she doesn’t know are yoga pants. They’re clean and comfortable and that’s all that matters to her.
“She’s said she’s thinking of leaving here. Stupid woman. When I saw her yesterday, it looked like Hangar had gotten to her good.”
Casey remains quiet, recalling the familiar name; one that’s frightened her for as long as she can remember. Thankfully, as of now, she’s never been left alone with Hangar. Usually, it was Cilas or Anna who’d watch over her. No one else has gotten close enough to her in a long while. She prefers it this way. Hangar scares her more than anyone here.
Anna finishes combing her long, dark hair and sets it atop her head in a quick bun. “Look at me, sweetheart,” she calls to Casey.
Watching Anna move to stand in front of her, blocking her view of herself in the mirror, Anna’s hand reaches out and lifts her chin, forcing her to look up.
“You’ve got the eyes of an angel,” she whispers. “They’re dark, but there’s still so much light behind them.”
Anna’s eyes are the same color, Casey knows. But Anna’s eyes hide a past she can’t escape; Casey just isn’t sure what exactly that past had entailed.
“I’ve heard Viktor. He’s talked about keeping you for himself. Did you know Viktor lives in a palace?”
Casey doesn’t answer. Not that she doesn’t want to, but because she’s not sure what or where a palace is, exactly. She vaguely remembers her early childhood acquaintances at school talking about princes and princesses, but still, she can’t picture a palace meant for real-life people.
“He does,” she continues. “I’ve been there. It’s got trees outside for miles and his maid brings in lots of food during the day.”
Casey stands quietly, wanting to hear more of what Anna has seen. Like a story, Casey can only imagine the view in her mind’s eye.
“At night,” Anna continues. “You don’t hear anything but the outdoors. Animals playing in the distance, the wind blowing through the trees. It feels safe there.”
Casey stutters through her first words, worried about Anna’s reaction. “W-why aren’t y-you there now?”
“I’m old, honey.” She sighs, picking an invisible piece of lint from Casey’s shirt. “I’ve lived my life and now I’m here. I suppose there’s not much left of it.”
Not much left of it? Casey questions to herself.
Casey doesn’t know Anna’s exact age, but she knows she’s not as old as her mother. Her soft, black hair doesn’t look worn and tired. Her body is beautiful. Casey knows because she showered with her earlier, before coming to this room to finish cleaning up.
“Do y-you miss Viktor?” Casey asks, unable to contain her curiosity. Aside from placing her in the room where she’s been summoned to live, Viktor’s never been poignantly or unusually cruel.
A saddened thrust of air pushes through the room. Casey feels the shift in mood as she stares into Anna’s now-lost and lonely eyes.
“No,” she states quickly, but then masks her emotions with a smile. “That’s not the way of the world, honey. Someone else will take my place with him now,” Anna says as she continues smiling.
Casey senses it’s not real, and it’s a façade she will remember until the day she dies.
It was the day she learned she couldn’t trust even a friendly smile.
Chapter Nine
It’s twelve twenty-six, just after midnight, when I hear someone or something outside my door. It sounds like scratching. Then the doorbell rings again, I’m guessing for the second time. I’m assuming the first ring woke me up.
Finding the gun I keep tucked away in my bedside table, I reach for it to ensure it’s in place. Standing up and looking out my window, I see a car in the parking lot of my apartment sitting next to my truck, but I’m unsure who it belongs to.
“Just a minute!” I shout when I hear the doorbell ring again. The peculiar sound continues as I look out the peephole and find anyone other than who I would’ve expected at this hour.
Emma stands, looking down, and appears to be impatiently trying to calm Owen. The part of her face I’m able to see is red. She’s dressed in a low-cut robe which only reaches mid-thigh.
Opening the door, Em raises her eyes to mine and I feel my blood search for ways to cool the heat of it. She’s been crying.
“What the fuck happened?” I ask, grabbing the leash holding Owen. I pull him into the apartment before grabbing Em’s hand and taking her with me further inside.
“Cameras happened,” she states as though explaining the weather, her angry, blood-shot eyes still filled with tears.
I’m lost.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Greg came home from his trip.” She sighs.
“And?”
“He looked upset over dinner and didn’t say much,” she starts to tell me, taking her flip-flops off and leaving them by the door before following inside and to the couch. “I thought he’d had a rough trip out of town; it happens sometimes. I couldn’t find him after I finished the dishes. When I did, he was in the camera room.”