If I Should Die: A Kimber S. Dawn MC Novel

by Kimber S. Dawn

  “Our casa es su casa.” Dreads pulls me towards the bar before sadly smiling at me then winking. “Come on. Liquor first. Cure the thirst. Usually the rest of the shit works out after that,” he mumbles as he lines up shot glass after shot glass on the bar. “Ever had Patron?” he asks, winking at me. “Nah, never mind, I forget you’re a Charming Charlie’s native. I grew up down there. Did you know that?” he asks around another chuckle. “Sure did.” Then he shakes his head. And after a minute or two lost in thought, he begins re-emptying the contents of the liquor bottle into the little shot glasses.

  After he slides me two, he grabs two himself and then we cheers all four. Smiling, he mutters, “Double fisted. Atta girl.” Then he laughs, and I will admit, I smile. Okay, I grin. His damn comment made me grin.

  “Yeah, whatever that means.” I blush and shoot both shots back to back then slam them on the bar and grab two more. “Here’s to double fisting.” I smirk and shoot both of those back next.

  Whew. I am, whew...If I had to bet, I’d say it was the nerves mixed with the sixth shot. But when someone comes flying into the side door, barking orders and asking where Dreads and Slim are at, my eyes kinda crossed when I looked up and saw the short, squatty man with a long beard and a big ole belly. Must be Clutch. I chuckle to myself.

  “Clutch?” Dreads comes from around the bar, confirming my assumptions so quick I almost tip over. And I’m standing...sitting. I’m sitting three feet away. “What the fuck, bro? You look like you just saw a ghost,” he asks the other man. And when my eyes go back to the shorter older gentleman who just rushed in, I do note that he’s sweating a bit profusely beneath his tan colored shirt and that he has panic across his face.

  “Clutch?” I mumble and try to stand—only to think better of it and sit back down.

  “He won’t make it out this time alive. Dreads, he shouldn’t have lived the last time.” The old man bends at his waist and I tip my head to the side with him.

  Wondering, I ask, “Who? He who?” But no one pays me any attention. And suddenly I feel like the same little girl who once was having a heart attack, but she couldn’t find the right words to describe it before the pain ebbed away, and then she couldn’t get the adults to believe her. “He who?” I whisper scream, asking something I don’t want to know, I suddenly realize.

  I feel my heart shudder to a still beat as I remember the feeling that kept interrupting my dreams. The one that warned me something was wrong. And I can’t remember to even breathe as my eyes meet Clutch’s and I know the truth before I’ve even officially met the man standing in front of me. “What happened to him? Where’s he at?” I pepper the man named Clutch with questions. “He shouldn’t—no. He wouldn’t have left me here. Not now. Not right now. Not before this meeting. Not just before meeting my father. And not for Roxy. Somebody find Jacques fucking Cain. Or tell me where the hell he’s at. Somebody better start talking now.” I grab my bag from the bar and swipe a few sets of keys before heading towards the bay doors opened up to the parking lot. Or Boneyard, so says the sign. Then I start hitting the buttons on the key fobs I snagged. “If you don’t want me driving drunk, you better damn well start following me, boys. Or start talking!” I holler without even glancing over my shoulder.

  And when I hear the sound...I don’t even know what it is. Mainly because I’m a civilian, and we don’t hear shit like that on a regular basis, but also because it’s accompanied with the blunt end of a pistol, with Ben Cain on the other end of it, slamming it against my temple. But I do register the resounding sound of a bullet falling into the chamber as soon as my mind connects with the fact that there’s a nine millimeter pointed to my head. “Vagabond? Is that what he calls you?” Ben’s dark chuckle raises every one of the hairs on my skin. “Where the fuck did he get that dumb shit?” His tone is edging on insanity and I wonder...a little too loud, before I can stop it.

  “W-where’s Eden? Where’s my sister?” I glare knives at him, praying with everything in me that she’s okay. That’s Jacques is okay. That I didn’t piss away too much time being stubborn. “Where is my sister, motherfucker! Tell me. Now. Or so help me—”

  CRACK.

  Then everything went dark. As dark as the darkest flecks in the irises of Jacques Cain’s eyes. And almost as black as his hair.

  Jacques.

  It all went dark. And I can’t even remember if the Sons of Silencers had followed me outside the MC’s big building during my rant.

  When Roxy called, asking for help, I immediately called Slim and told him I was heading over there. Then I relayed what our phone conversation consisted of. “She said Ben made her grab the file. That had Eve looked hard enough, or been paying attention, she would have noticed Ben on the ground just outside the window, rushing Rox and making her hurry along. But I hadn’t given Pipsqueak the time to tell me that part of the story,” I told him.

  And it was the truth, too. I did what I always do when she starts running that damn cute little mouth of hers. I shut that shit up. I meant to go back and make her finish telling me the rest of the story, I swear I did. But what the hell happened?

  I chuckle to myself after hanging up with Slim, thinking of Eve cuddled up asleep in my bed where I left her. As I take the corner, and head west on my bike towards Rox and Clutch’s old house off Willard Street, I start chuckling at her little demands earlier. Every time her voice would growl, it took everything in me not to laugh. Jesus, she drives me crazy.

  After I call Dreads and give him a heads up on what’s happened too, I tell him I’m headed over to Rox’s. Then I also tell him about my sleeping beauty who should be still tucked in my bed. “It shouldn’t take long, but you know how Roxy is. And you know her dramatics. So...just give Pipsqueak enough time to wake up. Maybe get a beer in her or two before the meeting. No Versed, though, brother. I think she’s cool. She was being good before I left.” I chuckle. “But on the cool, I need her lucid when she meets her father. If I’m not back, I will be back soon after 'King' and Philip show up. If not, just wait. I got Rox. She ain’t no bigger than a bite. I can handle her.”

  Once Dreads and I have everything squared away, I hang up and keep making my way towards Roxy’s. And when Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet starts playing in my earbuds, I smirk...then crank that shit up.

  I’m just making the curve, and it’s a curve I’ve taken a thousand damn times before in my life. I swear to God. There’s not a single damn thing different this time. Not one. Well...except for the oil all over the road.

  But I didn’t see that. I never saw the oil because I was distracted by the figures of eight to ten men standing around it at the end of the curve. And then I smelled the familiar smell of my favorite fumes—just before my bike fishtailed and I spun out, landing myself between an old oak tree and the big bitch herself; my bike, Linda.

  I remember faintly hearing the sound of another bike in the distance, and then the shadows standing around me began to slip back...until I’m no longer aware of their presence any more.

  Then I glance up in the big old oak tree above me.

  And I swear to God, I see my vagabond. In the distance, I hear Slims’ bike pull up beside me before he yells and grabs his phone from his vest pocket, cursing. And when he leans over me, I can barely make out his face as I feel him checking me for a pulse, but my focus is no longer on him and his antics.

  My eyes slide back on my vagabond up in the tree...with the cutest little face I’ve ever seen. Her big brown eyes looking down at me are the only thing I see from my spot beneath the branches. As her lips move, I try and make out her words and the sound of her familiar voice.

  And then...suddenly they both become more than just clear...they become real. As real as the prayer she’s praying over me.

  Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. May angels stay with me through the night and wake me with the morning light. But If I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take.

  The End.

&
nbsp; Thus far...

  Before I Wake:

  A Kimber S. Dawn MC Novel

  Chapter 1:

  Eve—

  When I come to, I’m barely aware of two things. One being that I’m somewhere dark and cold, and two, that I’m not alone. I can hardly make out Ben Cain’s form sitting in a straight-back wooden chair until he moves and leans forward in a dark corner of the room. And when his eyes settle on mine, I’m forced to shudder to keep my teeth from chattering because of the cold chill in the air.

  Have I previously mentioned how much I hate being cold? As I move to sit up, for the first time I notice the lumpy mattress under my bottom and the cold damp concrete room I’m in. Then I start glancing around the small space nervously. And without thinking of the consequences, I blurt out the first thing that comes to my mind. “Where the hell are we at, you crazy motherfucker? Jacques is gonna kill you. He’s so gonna freaking kill you—”

  But his dark chuckle cuts off my whispered warnings and threats. Just as the hair on my arms raise at his even darker voice, he whispers, “Vagabond, even if he makes it, he doesn’t give a shit about you. Don’t you realize that? He doesn’t care about you. Not anymore. Or he won’t, not with Roxy back in the picture and bidding his beck and call. He was supposed to die. Why can’t they just fucking kill him, already?” I note the sad, dark tone laced with confusion in his voice, but I can’t focus on that. I can’t focus on what he’s focused on. I need to know where I’m at. I need Ben to know I’m loved, that I have family and friends who love me. I need to make myself seem loved. Real. Special, maybe? And even though his words do sting, I brush them off and go back at him. “Okay, so if Jacques doesn’t want me, I know Ty does. And I texted my friend, Lauryn, too. She knows I’m in town. We have plans, actually. Tomorrow,” I somewhat coolly lie. “So there are people who’ll be looking for me.” I feel myself pleading with his eyes through the dark until I’m wincing when the hand I was reaching up to tie a ponytail in my hair hits the egg on the back of my head at the base of my skull. I gently brush my fingertips around the jagged but approximated edge where his pistol split the skin earlier. “You stitched me?” I ask in a whisper. “Thank you.” And no, I don’t know why I’m appreciative. Especially to him. Maybe it means he doesn’t plan on killing me if he’s sewing me up? That’s as far as my mind took it.

  And first of all—I don’t know why I’ve been kidnapped twice in the last month, but I’d be willing to bet it’s because of my affiliation with a certain man from an MC as of late, but right now it’s slim pickin’s on whose side I can chose. And the police are no damn help. Can we all agree? Besides, I already see where the lines in the sand are being drawn, and you can bet your sweet ass I know where I belong in those lines. I know whose side I’m on at this point. And he just so happens to be the only ally I’ve got; as well as the damn president of Sons of Silencers, NYC.

  “She has manners.” Ben nods, chuckling before standing up. And when his laughter quiets, he takes a breath then blows it out. All the while I haven’t moved from my spot on the mattress; I’m still even as his eerie black eyes settle on mine. “So, what do you think? How do you feel about what I did? Huh, Vagabond? How do you feel about what I’ve done to my family? My club?”

  My eyebrows shoot up my forehead at his question. “What do I think? What does it matter?” I ask the honest question.

  “It matters because now that we know who your daddy is—that fucks everything up. Especially when he isn’t even back in his own town because he’s fucking with Jacques in Daytona, who’s been fucking with you! Who’s it supposed to look like killed my father when the main players aren’t into position? That puts me and my plans at odds with not one, but two MCs, honey. Do you know how many fucking men that is in cuts?” He tsks before stepping towards me. “Too many for my eight to ten to handle. That’s for fuck’s sure.” After he slowly makes it across the small space between us, he walks onto the raggedy wafer-like mattress that I’m on like it’s nothing more than a floor mat. Then he takes the toe of his boot and shoves it between my legs sitting in indian style, butting his steel toe boot against my pelvic bone. And when the heel of his boot digs into my ankle bone under his weight, I wince and bow my head before separating and straightening my legs on either side of his foot and scurrying back. Once I’ve backed up to the point of feeling the cold stone hit my back behind me, I tuck my legs beneath myself, pulling myself up on my haunches. And only then do I realize I’ve got myself cornered into a huddle on the thin mattress in the dark room with my kidnapper.

  My thoughts begin scattering like pins hitting the floor. Racing and running. I squeeze my eyes closed and try to breathe as Ben looms over me.

  When his dark voice continues rattling on, I’ve already started to shut out his rambling riddles. I learned this trick a long damn time ago. ‘Cause after all those years in Child Protection, and all those counseling sessions the tax payers’ money paid for, I learned a thing or two. And deflecting isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes it can save your sanity. Sometimes it’s the only thing that can save it. And your ass.

  I close my eyes and breathe in deeply, conjuring up the first image I can of Jacques from when I was child. I can’t remember if it’s an actual memory, or one of my favorite dreams, either...I just close my eyes and myself, blocking out what Ben’s haranguing at me in the background.

  So when Jacques Cain’s navy blue eyes settle on mine, it isn’t in this room. And we aren’t in a place in this time. He’s where I’ve always kept him. It’s a place I’ve kept hidden, even from you. Hidden in the clandestine corners of my heart. He’s where I always find him...just when things seem darkest. He’s where I always need him...there to hold my heart. I almost feel his fingertips tilt my chin up and it causes a smile to cross my face.

  Which is odd, because in this memory I’m above him…looking down.

  “Vagabond, huh? You can’t beat that. I like that, actually. I’ve been calling myself a roamer. Or nomad. But Vagabond has a much better ring to it. Name’s Jacques, and you? What’s your name, little one?” His dark blue eyes search mine through the branches of the old oak tree I’m saddled up on a branch in as a smirk creeps across his cheek and a dimple appears. When I see the cross hanging from his tanned neck, I try and remember the little prayer I learned last week in bible school.

  Now I lay me down to sleep...no.

  Lord, I lay me down to sleep. No—If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

  When I notice Jacques’ eyebrows start to raise—probably because of the stumped look on my face—I hurry to answer, trying to sound like a grown-up. Like he did when he asked me my name. Completely forgetting bible verses and bedtime prayers.

  “Jacques. There’s a reason I’m still here…”

  When I feel Ben’s fingertips dig into my chin, his words cut through my happy place with Jacques and my eyes almost fly open to glare at him for it. “Huh, Vagabond?” I hear. But I slow my thoughts and my breathing. Then I watch him through my lashes as he leans over me, and I witness as he settles his knees on the thin mattress on either side of mine. I squeeze my already clamped thighs closer together and my hands involuntarily clench into even tighter fists. I’m trying to keep from touching him. I feel myself huddle closer into the corner of the cold room in an effort to make myself smaller, until, hopefully, I disappear, but he won’t let me.

  I feel my lungs constrict around my battered and confused heart when the hand he’s now gripping the lower half of my face with slides down until it’s wrapping around my neck. It tightens to a vice as his other hand comes from out of nowhere, and I’m not ready for it. But I highly doubt anyone my size would ever be ready for a hit from someone with his towering stature and weight behind it. The bones of his hand connect with the weaker ones in my face, and it’s my flesh and bone that doesn’t win.

  “Huh? Vagabond? Huh?” The voice belonging to Ben mimics a ricochet of Jacques’ from my earlier memory. And I briefly won
der if Ben can read my fragmenting mind after the hand that struck me comes back to my face. This time when his hands settle on me, he keeps the one hand clenching around my throat, and the other hand lands on the swollen side of my face. His fingertips bite into my quickly swelling cheek and it makes my vision blur with tears.

  “I pray to God Roxy makes the right choice,” he mutters vaguely. “She’s the only damn thing I have that hasn’t been blown to shit because of you.” His spit flies off his lips and I decide—fuck it.

  I can’t take this shit anymore. And I’m not helping a goddamn thing huddling up in this dark corner. I try and breathe around the threats he’s barking at me. I try and concentrate on my memory. My memory of Jacques. But his words won’t stop.

  “She’ll do the job, though. Roxy’s a big girl, and she knows the ramifications if this shit goes off the rails. She knows the plan. Rox’ll kill him. She’ll finish the job the chumps I’ve accumulated couldn’t. I think they said the last guy who took the literal hit for my unusual sloppiness sneezed—and that’s what got him killed.” And I decide, I fucking can’t. I can’t listen to anymore of his bullshit.

  He’s flaunting his pride. For what? I don’t know yet, but I’m not learning anything sitting here listening to his psycho-babble, either.

  I squeeze my eyes shut before plugging my ears like an eight year—which is what I prefer at the moment—then abruptly stand, trying to shut off his words. Using my weight against him, I stand with all my might, shoving with every ounce I own until I’m steady on my own two feet. And when my head connects with the spot under his chin, it makes his teeth clack and he stumbles backwards before falling onto his side and cursing, “You stupid bitch!”