Adrenaline and blood lust pumping through him, Johnnie inched forward, to the other side of the kitchen. Staying out of the line of fire by leaning against the wall and peeping into the darkness, he stopped and listened at the entrance to the mudroom.
One brief inhalation gave the intruder away.
His heart pounding with excitement, Johnnie honed his hearing again, searching for location. Straight ahead and slightly angled to the right.
Gun paused and ready, Johnnie aimed and fired, rewarded with a grunt and the sound of a body dropping to the floor. Following the sound, he hurried closer and shot once more, enjoying the warm spray of blood on his face. He turned and flipped on the light. There, blocking the doorway, lay the body of an unknown motherfucker, sporting a hole in the cheek and one in the neck.
Not bad, considering he’d fired blindly. But now he could clearly see the dead fucker. Smell the blood and bowels released with the violence of his death.
Johnnie’s mouth dried at the sudden letdown he felt. He had no one else to kill.
Frustrated, he stood over the fucker who’d broken into Christopher’s house and emptied the clip into his head.
The easy kill disgusted him, but he still had the challenge of finding Megan once he searched the entire house and found no sign of her. Only her cell phone, forgotten on the floor in the kitchen.
Returning to the mudroom, he studied his kill as he dialed Cash’s number, explaining the situation when the man answered. “Is she there by any chance?”
“No.”
“Fuck. Come get this dead motherfucker and bring him to the meat shack. I told her I was going to my house. She might’ve escaped fuckhead and went looking for me.”
“Or she might’ve fallen into the hands of another motherfucker, Johnnie,” Cash snapped. “You shouldn’t be fucking talking to me. You should be looking for her.”
“I am as of right now.”
Water pelting her from all direction, Meggie reached Johnnie’s house. The night was dark, cold, and rainy, and she had little protection from the elements. Or from the man she’d stabbed.
Even now, he might be chasing her to kill and dismember as he had…
Falling to her knees, she doubled over, unable to endure the grief swamping her. Her mouth opened but no sound came out, only a silent scream of agony. She crawled forward and pounded on Johnnie’s door.
He wasn’t home.
She needed him to be home. She had to tell him that Christopher was dead. She retched again, then staggered to her feet, stumbling forward. Warm wetness slid down her legs and a cramp tore through her. But she kept moving. Stumbling. Mumbling. Remembering.
The moment she’d ever seen Christopher he’d frightened her, but also immediately captivated her. Then, days later, she’d never felt as safe and protected as the first time he’d taken her in his arms after he’d made her cry. The night he’d taken her virginity because she’d wanted no one else but him. His combination of vulnerability and bad assery made him the man he was.
The image in that video pounded through her head again.
Had been. Because he no longer was. He was dead.
She tripped over a fallen tree branch at the thought as a contraction slammed into her, so hard it almost took her breath away. When it passed, she staggered to her feet and glanced around, greeted by nothing but forest.
It didn’t matter.
Meggie just wanted to escape her grief.
She just wanted Christopher.
Raindrops pattered on the leaves and beat down upon Johnnie’s head. He circled the flashlight in the area beyond his house, close to the cave, and started to turn away, when a glint of white caught his eye. He raised the flashlight higher.
Megan.
Soaking wet, wearing only a long white nightgown, and stumbling toward him. She had to be freezing. He ran the rest of the way to Megan, took her into his arms and hugged her. The rain had cleared the blood away from him. Even if it hadn’t, he wouldn’t have cared.
“C-cold,” she managed, trembling, and clinging to him. “Christopher’s dead.”
“Megan. We don’t know that.” He couldn’t continue to lie to her when he was certain the attack at the house was connected to Christopher’s disappearance. “You have to pull yourself together.”
“No! He’s dead.” She let out a sob. “D-dead. D-dead. D-dead,” she chanted, her body jerking as she moaned and grabbed her belly.
He swept her into his arms and walked deeper into the forest instead of turning back toward their houses. The cave was closer, safer on this wet, rainy night.
She didn’t question him, instead laying her head against his shoulder. Inside the cave, he sat Megan on the ground. Because of the transfer of the crates almost ten days ago, matches, half empty oil lamps, and a bunch of muddy blankets, used to try and cover the crates, were piled in a corner.
“I’m c-cold, J-Johnnie.” Megan was shaking and trembling so terribly, he could barely make sense of her words. “H-he pr-promised. H-he s-said h-he w-was c-c-coming ba-back t-to m-me.”
“Shhh,” he soothed, ignoring his own fears about Christopher. His priority now was warming her up. Hurriedly, he lit the candles, then grabbed a few blankets. After fashioning a pallet, he guided her back and covered her with another blanket. “Christopher is coming back to you.”
“Don’t you know?” she sobbed. “He’s dead.” Crying out, she curled up and clutched her belly. “It hurts!”
Johnnie closed his eyes, regretting his decision not to take her to his house or her own. If he’d brought her back, he would’ve been able to get her warmed quicker. Towels were there to dry her off. Warm water. Alcohol. A nice, soft bed she could lay in until an ambulance arrived, if the need arose.
“I have to get your wet clothes off.”
She curled into a tight ball. “It hurts.”
He touched her cheek, then rubbed her back. “You’re freezing and I’m cold, too.”
“I’m having the baby,” she whimpered. As the words escaped her, she arched her back, crying out in pain. “I’m in labor.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart.
“No. It isn’t. I can’t lose Ryder. I’m scheduled for a C-section, but the baby is due weeks away.”
And they were deep in the forest, in a cave that would be almost impossible for EMTs to find. Not to mention it would allow officials further onto the club grounds than any of them had ever been.
“Do you trust me, Megan?”
She nodded, devastation in her eyes.
“Christopher isn’t dead.” He couldn’t be. Somehow, he’d know. Wouldn’t he? As close as he and Christopher were, he would know if his brother was dead.
“Yes! Christopher’s gone. Someone pretended to be a deliveryman,” she started. “He showed me a video on a phone.”
“Well, that explains how he got in,” he said with a sigh. “But you don’t have to worry about him.”
“I saw Christopher,” she whispered, sounding almost dazed and traumatized. “His body. His head was covered with a hood, but I saw the cut.”
She finished on another pitiful sob and fear threaded through Johnnie. Was Christopher dead? Despite all their differences, he knew Christopher always had his back. He knew the love Christopher carried for his family included Johnnie. He’d always gone out of his way to protect Johnnie, include Johnnie, and encourage Johnnie.
What had he been given in return?
No, Christopher couldn’t be dead. He needed to be alive so Johnnie could make up for all the infractions he’d committed against him.
“No, Christopher isn’t dead.” He couldn’t accept that. He refused to believe it “Whatever you saw isn’t true, Megan!”
“I saw him,” she reiterated weakly.
Instead of arguing with her any more, he got his cell phone and called Cash, to update him. “Find out the truth,” he ordered.
“Should I call 911 first for Megan?”
“Find Christopher. Find out if he�
��s alive or dead. I’ll get Megan from the cave myself. Just find my brother.” Alive.
“Keep your shit together to take care of Meggie, Johnnie.”
It was storming like a motherfucker when Christopher stepped off Sloane’s plane. For the millionth motherfucking time, he dialed Megan’s number and got no answer.
“Fuck, Prez, we thought we lost you,” Mort said when Christopher walked in from the tarmac and dripped his way to the enforcer.
He’d said something similar when Christopher contacted him and told him he was on the way. Christopher regretted not calling Megan yesterday in between showering and eating while he’d still been at the hotel Digger had moved him and Kendall to.
After that, shit had gotten fucked up with Kendall going into labor.
“If something happen to my ass, you woulda needed to fuck Kendall the fuck up. Her fuckin’ fault I’m in this shit.”
Mort nodded. Usually, he had some comment, but not now, raising Christopher’s suspicions. “Megan okay?”
“Cash called. He got a dead motherfucker out your mud room and—”
Christopher grabbed Mort’s cut. “Megan okay?” he demanded. “Where the fuck my girl?”
“Meggie girl in the cave, Prez. In labor.”
As Johnnie disconnected with Cash, blood bloomed on the front of Megan’s nightgown, descending his night from bad and into hell.
“Sweetheart, I have to check you.”
He had to get her out of these wet clothes, too. Silent tears leaked from her eyes, but she didn’t protest as he found another blanket and laid it on the ground. Once he did, he lifted her and placed her on top of it before laying her gently back down. After shoving her nightgown above her waist, he urged her legs open, but she clamped her knees together.
“Open your legs, Megan.”
“Johnnie, please.”
“Baby, I swear, I’m not asking that for no other reason but medical.”
“But Christopher—”
“Is your baby coming?”
Instead of answering, she squeezed her eyes shut and did as he asked, spreading her legs, allowing Johnnie to see the blood smearing her thighs and… “Shouldn’t you have no hair? Will it be sanitary for the baby?”
“Please, stop,” she whispered in a small voice, then writhed in agony again. “I-I w-want Chr-Christopher,” she said after a moment. “H-he c-can’t b-be g-gone.”
“He isn’t gone,” he crooned, praying his words were true. Megan’s skin, usually the hue of champagne, was alarmingly pale. He really did need to warm her up. She folded her arms over her breasts and refused to meet his gaze.
She sobbed, near hysteria and hypothermia. The only word he could make out was dead. It resounded in his head, but her lips were turning an alarming shade of blue. He needed to warm her up, then somehow get her to understand, as far as he knew, Christopher wasn’t dead.
When she arched up again and cried out, he realized she was having another contraction. This went on for a while before she went silent, seeming just suddenly to give up. He wouldn’t fucking allow it. Settling himself in front of her, he held out his hands.
“Grab hold of me, sweetheart,” he encouraged, relieved when she did. “Are you ready?”
Already bearing down, she nodded and squeezed his hands. She grunted and strained until she grew too weak to do so and fell back onto the blanket, her hair plastered to her.
“Come on, baby,” he crooned. “You’re doing so good.”
She grabbed his hands again, her own trembling in his hold.
“You can do this.”
“Johnnie, please, it hurts.”
“I know, sweetheart. But it’ll be over before you know it.”
Gasping for air, she fell back again.
“Stay calm. Whatever else happens, I’m here for you.”
Her sobs started all over again and she clung to him as if she’d never let him go. As if her heart had been broken into a million pieces. She was using all her energy, insisting that Christopher was dead.
She let loose a little hysterical shriek and her skin seemed to lose what little warmth she had. If he didn’t do something soon, she’d be dead.
“H-he’s m-my everything. I-I w-want to d-die, t-too.”
“That’s not happening. I’m not about to let you and your baby die. Christopher would kill me.”
He watched her, her trembling lips, her blue eyes filled with pain. A sick feeling began in his stomach.
“My husband is dead. My Christopher is gone.”
He’d never convince Megan that no one knew if Christopher was alive or dead, in her current state.
“Christopher isn’t dead,” he snarled. “And even if he is, your children need you.”
She stared up at him, her eyes huge, her chin and lips trembling. “I don’t care about anything but the fact that I’ll never hold Christopher again.”
“Why won’t you believe me when I tell you Christopher isn’t dead?”
“Because I saw him! Because I haven’t heard from him in days! No one has. He wouldn’t do this to me. He would’ve c-called.”
He stared into her eyes, overflowing with grief and hurt.
For once, he couldn’t quite blame Christopher for keeping Megan so close. She had an innocence that needed protecting—an innate belief in the goodness of people. She’d experienced her share of brutality. And, yet, she never blamed other people for everything else she’d been through.
“He promised, Johnnie. He promised he was coming back.” Tears choked her. “I can’t have Ryder without Christopher.”
“You have no choice, Megan,” he said gruffly, tangling his fingers with hers.
“I want Christopher,” she repeated.
“You fuckin’ got me, baby,” a voice said from behind Johnnie, a moment before a larger beam of light shone on the cave wall.
Johnnie jerked and glanced over his shoulder. Against the backdrop of the candles, Christopher stood behind him, visibly tired, but alive. He’d lost weight, but he was there, drinking in the sight of Megan and not caring that Johnnie was with her. He grinned, never so happy to see Christopher as he was in that moment. At any moment, he expected to cry like a girl.
“Your bitch and your daughter at the hospital, Johnnie,” Christopher told him in a neutral voice. “Plane on standby to take you to her.”
The words penetrated Johnnie’s relief. “Kendall delivered?”
“Yeah, your girl born.” Walking to Megan and kneeling next to her, Christopher bent and kissed her, murmuring reassurances to her. “Early this morning.”
He grinned. “Looks like we’re even then.”
“No the fuck we ain’t. I wasn’t ‘bout to look up that bitch cunt. Digger delivered your kid.”
Same old Christopher. At the thought, Johnnie smiled, happy to see Christopher alive and in one piece.
“Leave me with my girl and you get to yours. I ain’t got no cell phone, so as soon as you fuckin’ can, call 911. Send Bitsy here in case Ryder come.”
“Is it still raining?”
“On and fuckin’ off. Why?”
“I’m just thinking about Zoann getting to this cave.”
“I know, John Boy, but it can’t fuckin’ be helped. I’ma have to carry Megan back, but I ain’t wantin’ to move her right now. If the baby come, the umbilical cord gotta be cut and shit. Bitsy gonna have to carry Ryder while I see to my girl.”
Not having a better plan, Johnnie thought it useless to argue, so he left Christopher stroking Megan’s head and promising he’d take care of her.
Megan had weeks left before Ryder’s due date. She also needed to be in a hospital for a C-section. She shouldn’t fucking deliver in a dirty fucking cave without medical care.
The exhaustion left Christopher as he watched his Megan struggle to push until the strain became too much and she fell back.
“Christopher?” she whispered after a moment as if she didn’t believe it was really him. “He said you were dead. He
showed me. You. Dead,” she repeated.
“No, baby, my ass ain’t a fuckin’ ghost, so that mean I ain’t been dead.”
“You were wearing your cut and…and…” She started to cry. “I just didn’t know how I’d live without you. I would’ve for our babies, but...”
She was breaking his fucking heart. “Shhh,” he said, stroking her hair again. “We okay, baby. My ass okay. You okay.”
Grimacing, she nodded. “It hurts,” she told him and began to bear down again.
He moved away from her side and checked for himself what was going on with her pussy. In one fucking way it relieved him to see the baby’s head crowning and terrified him in another.
“It’s me and you, baby.” He clutched her hands and squeezed with reassurance. “I don’t think I can get you back to the house for a fuckin’ ambulance.”
“Okay.”
“Look at me, Megan,” he instructed, pulling her into a sitting position. “Focus on my eyes. Nothin’ else important. Under-fuckin-stand?”
She nodded.
“On the count of fuckin’ three. One-two-three, push.”
She grunted and did as he ordered, bearing down while looking at him.
“Scream, curse, do what-fuckin-ever you gotta.”
Although she didn’t curse, she released an agonized scream the next time she pushed.
“I got you. Always and forever,” he promised. “You can do this. Just one more fuckin’ push.”
One, final time and their son slid into the world. Christopher guided Megan back, then picked up Ryder as he released a loud wail. He was tiny, bloody, and full of goop, but he was alive and crying and wiggling.
The cleanest material available was his T-shirt. Laying their son in Megan’s arms, Christopher removed the shirt and wrapped the baby in it before returning him to his girl and laying him against Megan.
Christopher knew the baby needed the umbilical cord clamped and cut, and his mouth and nose suctioned, but he didn’t have the necessary equipment and he wasn’t sure what to do.
“He needs more covers,” Megan said hoarsely. The baby was already quieting down and Christopher worried that wasn’t good. “We’re both wet.” Struggling to move, she stroked Ryder’s back.
Death Dwellers Motorcycle Club:: Fifteen Bad Boy Biker Books Page 289