by Nicole Fox
He tears off a piece of his shirt and ties it around his shoulder, gritting his teeth and letting out a snarling sound. “You want us to go back in there for your brother,” he says, shaking his head slowly. “I’m sorry, Allison, but a man makes his own decisions. When our backup gets here, we’ll sweep the place clean, but if you want us to go back in right now to get your brother you’re gonna be disappointed.”
“But—” Tears slide down my cheeks, unbidden and impossible to resist. “I know it’s not fair of me to ask. I get that. I really do. But he’s my brother, Granite. He’s the only brother I have. He’s—he’s my brother, you know? He’s the only family I have left now.”
“He’s a man!” Granite snaps. “He’s a fully grown fuckin’ man. A man makes his own decisions. That’s what the life is all about. That’s the fuckin’ point of being a man. A man does what he decides he wants to do, and if it turns out that that ain’t the best for him, then fine, he’s fucked himself over. But at least he’s still a man.”
“You’re saying …” I wipe tears from my face. “You’re telling me that I should be okay with that psychopath killing him because he made his bed and now he should lie in it?”
“I don’t care what he does,” Granite says. “All I know is that he ain’t the one I care about. You are. So if he’s got himself in some trouble, then all right, fine, he can deal with it. In this life we don’t pander to men. That just ain’t the way it goes.”
“I’m begging you. I know, I really do know that it’s a horrible thing for me to ask, but it’s important. That guy, that leader, whatever his name is, he’s angry. He’s really, really angry. He could be doing anything to him right now and there’s nothing I can do but ask you for help. So I’m sorry, Granite. I really am. But I’m asking you.”
He groans, rubs his forehead. “I don’t wanna keep repeating myself, but here’s the thing, Allison. He is a man. He is an adult. He made his decision to invite these fuckers into his home and look what it got you. He fucked you over, your own brother, and now you want to risk everything for him. It just makes no damn sense.”
“What if it was your brother?” I snap. “Would you say the same then?”
He smiles, but it’s more of a shocked smile. Smiling like he can’t believe I just said that. “Don’t say that again.”
“Okay, okay. But … I just. Ah!” I close my eyes. I need to tell him. I didn’t exactly want it to be like this, but I have to. “I’m pregnant.”
***
After I’m sick, I go to the medicine cabinet and stare at the pregnancy test, still there from my last one-night stand, my last late period. They came in a pack of four and there’s two left, just waiting for me to use them. I don’t want to, because the idea is terrifying, but at the same time I have to know if I’m carrying his child. I can’t just go about my day, my life, not knowing if Granite’s baby is inside of me.
I sit on the bowl and try to pee, but apparently my body has decided to pick this moment to make peeing far, far more difficult than it should be. I end up leaning across to the sink and lapping water from the faucet like a thirsty dog and then peeing. I stand up, I pace, I wait … and then I discover that I am pregnant.
Granite’s baby is inside of me.
I walk around the house, chewing my fingernails, unsure of what to do.
***
“Goddamn,” he whispers. “God-fucking-damn.”
“Our baby can’t lose his uncle like this, not before he’s even born.”
“Fuck.” Granite stands up, limps in a small pacing circle, clutches his forehead. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. You’re pregnant. Goddamn. I don’t … I don’t know what to say, Allison. I don’t know how to take this. This has been a nightmare of mine for years, some club girl telling me she’s got a bun in the oven. I never thought I’d feel—I don’t know what this is. Like I’m committed already. It’s crazy. You look different. Just staring at you. You’re—changed, somehow. It makes no sense. Fuck!” He raises his voice. “Dagger, where’s the backup?”
“Stuck on another job!” he calls back.
“What job?”
“Looks like whoever’s in the warehouse organized a hit on the clubhouse. A distraction. Not a big force but big enough to buy them some time.”
“Enough time to kill Brandon,” I whisper.
“Maybe,” Granite says. “Brandon. Who the fuck is he to me? Nobody. That’s who. A man who don’t know how to be a man. But you’re right. He’ll mean a hell of a lot more to the kid than he ever could to me. A kid …” He shakes his head, staring up at the sky. “A goddamn kid. Fine.” He limps over to the other men. “I’m going in for her brother. He’s still up there. She saw him. You fellas can wait here or come in with me, but I’m getting this done.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Michaels asks quietly, stroking his dangling gray hair.
“No,” Granite replies. “But I’m doing it anyway.”
“I’m with you,” Jax says.
“Me too,” Dagger mutters, and then glances at me. “Although you’re going to have to explain this shit to me when it’s over.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Allison
I don’t know how long I sit on this rock waiting for my brother and my man, but it feels like years. It feels like the sun rises and sets a thousand times, though it doesn’t rise or set once; it slowly descends, but that’s all. It feels like I take a million breaths but I’m not even sure if I take one. I just sit here, hands clamped over my mouth, staring at the doorway. And then the gunfire starts, steady pop-pops at first and then quicker, harder. Shattering glass; resounding metal. The whole world seems to pause for their gunfire. Birds fly away. Clouds avoid the sky above the warehouse. The wind whistles around it. Dust backpedals when it reaches the door.
“It’s going to be okay,” I say. I have to say it aloud, otherwise I won’t believe it. I need to hear a voice say it, even if it is my own. “Everything is going to be okay. It’s going to be just fine. Everything will work out. Nothing bad’s going to happen. Nothing. Everything—”
And then I sit back, clasping my knees so hard my fingernails cut through my pants and dig into my skin. I close my eyes and stare at the sun, staring at the red imprint on my eyelids.
What if they all die? If everybody in there dies except for the man who kidnapped me, I might as well be dead. I think about leaving, going further back, but I don’t have the energy. I can’t leave Granite, Brandon. I can’t abandon them like that.
Slowly, the gunfire stops. Then there’s nothing but silence. I stare at the door without blinking, my eyes aching I’m staring so hard.
“This is it,” I whisper, voice trembling. “It will be Granite,” I tell myself. “Not that pervert. Granite. I swear. Please. God.” I cradle myself, rubbing my shoulders, feeling pathetic but not caring right now. “Please let it be Granite.”
Time slows down, bends, warps. Time abuses me. Time taunts me. Time doesn’t care about my feelings, about what I hope happens. The only thing time cares about is moving on at whatever pace it chooses, and right now the pace is excruciatingly slow. But finally—after who knows how long—the door opens and they walk out. The light shifts. Is it Granite? I lean forward.
Granite limps out, bleeding from another gunshot wound in the side of his belly, clutching onto Brandon who looks okay for a moment before my eyes focus. His face is haggard, almost blue, and his eyes flit open and closed. I run toward them, arms spread, catching them both and helping to hold them up.
“We need to get you to the hospital,” I say.
“Right now,” Dallas—Dagger—says, coming up behind them. “I’ll bring the car around. Don’t you fuckin’ die on me, Granite. I mean that.”
He grins weakly. “I’m never dying. I decided that a long time ago.”
The wound from his belly covers my hand in blood, soaking it. I lower them both to the ground, or maybe I just soften their landing when they fall. They lie side by side, staring up
at the sky.
“It’s nice to meet you, Brandon,” Granite says. There’s a horrible wheeze in the back of his throat like a rattlesnake is back there, upside down in his belly, tail sticking up into his mouth.
“Nice to meet you,” Brandon replies, sounding just as wretched.
Dagger pulls up in their car and throws the door open. Michaels and Jax step forward without delay, picking up Granite and laying him in the back seat. Then they get Brandon and lay him in there, too. Before I can ask how we’re going to get to the hospital—I can’t just leave them—Dagger slams the door and drives away, fast.
“What about us?” I ask.
Jax and Michaels just stare at me like they don’t know what I am, let alone who I am.
“Wait a second …” Jax walks over to me, looking me up and down. “I know you’re Al. That shit’s obvious now that I’m properly looking at you. But you’re that chick from the ATM, too, right?”
“Right.” I nod. “But that isn’t really the concern right now, is it? Hey, where are you going?”
“Away from there.” He points at the warehouse.
The three of us walk away from the warehouse toward the road. Michaels says: “This is a fuckin’ mess if I’ve ever seen one, and I’ve seen some goddamn messes in my time. This is worse than the time at the pier. Do you remember that, kid?”
“Why is this worse?” Jax asks.
“Because Granite has been hit three goddamn times. A man doesn’t get hit three goddamn times and live, not in this game.”
“Don’t say that!” I snap, surprising myself as much as them. “Granite’s going to be okay. I know he is.”
Michaels shrugs. “Then you’ve got some secret power we don’t know about. What do we call you now? I’m guessin’ Al’s off the table?”
“My name is Allison.”
“All right then, Allison, but here’s the thing: guns kill men. That’s why they use so many of ’em in war.”
“But how is that helpful?” I counter, stepping over a lonely fallen log. Tears press against my eyes, as though trying to leap past my inner defenses and explode in front of these men. But I won’t let them; I cough them back. “I don’t see how talking about Granite dying does anybody any good. He’s going to live. I believe that. I feel it. He won’t die. I won’t let that happen.”
Jax tilts his head at Michaels, the two of them sharing a secret look.
“I saw that! And I know what you’re thinking: If Granite dies, it’s her fault anyway. Do you think I don’t know that, really? I know it. I get it. Which is why I’d prefer if we all just stayed hopeful.”
“Hopeful,” Michaels says. “There’s a word we don’t hear much.”
We walk in silence the rest of the way, stopping at a dusty intersection. A few minutes later a black jeep pulls up and we all climb in. Nobody talks and I’m glad for that, because all I can think about is Granite and Brandon and how they looked half-dead when they came out, how they could be dying right now and there’s nothing I can do but wait to see what happens. I chew my fingernails down to stubs and then scratch my legs.
“Who do you wanna see first?” Jax asks.
We’re standing outside the hospital, people walking to and fro beside us. An ambulance pulls up and an old man is wheeled into the building. From a room upstairs, a baby cries shrilly. “Um …” This is a big choice, it feels like. An important moment. “Granite.” I answer without giving it deep thought. I don’t need to.
“Okay.” Jax nods like that’s the right answer. “Follow me.”
He leads me through the hospital, up the elevator, and to a room at the end of a white-walled hallway. Then he nods to the door opposite. “Your brother’s in that room, so it’ll be easy for you to go back and forth. The boss called and I think he sort of assumes you’re gonna care for them both, like a nurse or something. Oh, and by the way, he knows that you’re Al. I’m not sure how he’s gonna take that.”
I don’t have time to process that threat—if it is a threat—because before I know it I’m beside Granite’s bed, holding his hand, stroking his still fingers. He’s asleep for the first few minutes, but then his eyes open with a struggle and he smiles at the wall. I’m not even sure if he knows I’m here.
“But I love her, kid. I really fuckin’ love her. And I know what you’re gonna say. You’re gonna tell me that love doesn’t happen just like that, that you ought to know a lady for a few months or whatever the goddamn rule is. But that’s the thing. I love her. I didn’t know what love was before we met. Maybe I still don’t. I reckon you’ll say I don’t, but I know how I feel. I know what’s in here—yeah, that’s right.” He laughs sleepily. “My heart. I don’t know, man. Being with her, it’s like I can—yeah, I might be dizzy, who gives a fuck—it’s like I can finally forget about you, kid. I know that sounds selfish, but it’s the truth. All my life I wanted to forget about you, ’cause you haunt me no matter what I do. And now I can. I can just forget. I don’t have to obsess anymore, ’cause I’ve got someone else to keep me busy.”
I kiss his hand, sniffing away tears. “I’ll keep you real busy,” I promise him. “Just please don’t die.” His heart monitor beep, beep, beeps …
And so does Brandon’s. He looks even worse than Granite, laid up like an injured bird, skin so pale he might already be dead. He isn’t talking anytime soon, not with the drugs they’ve got him on. He stares up at the ceiling with half-open eyes.
“I want to tell you something,” I whisper. “And I know it’s going to sound mean, cruel. Whatever. I want you to know that if you ever pull shit like this again, I’ll kill you myself. I get it. You’re sad that Mom died. I’m sad, too. But that doesn’t mean you have to go completely crazy, does it? That doesn’t mean you have to throw our family away, throw our life away, because you’re sad. That isn’t—” I pause, realizing I’m parroting Granite. But then I realize that it doesn’t matter as long as it’s true. “That isn’t what men do, Brandon.”
I kiss him on the forehead and then go back to Granite’s room.
“I’ll protect her until the end,” he mutters after about an hour. “Whatever it takes. Guns? Fire? Fists? I don’t give a damn—a damn. I don’t care.” Then he falls into a deep sleep.
I go down into the lobby, outside to get some air. Jax is down the way, smoking, so I go in the other direction, leaning up against the wall and taking slow, steady breaths. Then my cellphone rings.
“Hey, doll,” Emma says, her chirpy voice out of place in the current madness of my life. “How’s it going?”
I laugh, too tired to lie. “I’m at the hospital with Granite and Brandon. Both of them are badly hurt. I can’t explain how or why, but they’re safe. The men who hurt them are gone.”
“Gone,” Emma says quietly. “I don’t—excuse me, Allison, but I don’t know where to start. Your voice sounds all choked up. Have you been crying?”
“Can I ask you something, as a friend?”
“Sure,” she says, though she doesn’t sound at all sure.
“Can you just tell me that everything is going to be okay? I know you don’t have all the facts. I know you don’t know what the hell’s going on. But can you just say it for me?”
She pauses for a moment—I can almost see her, staring down at her painted nails, eyebrows knitted—and then she sighs. “Okay, here it is. Allison, you’ve been my friend for half a decade now. I love you. Everything is going to be okay.”
“Thank you. We’ll talk later, I promise. I have to go now.”
I hang up before she can protest and put my phone on silent, stuff my hands in my pockets, and slump against the wall. “It’s over,” I whisper. “They’re all dead.” I wonder if I should feel bad about that. After all, death is death. But I don’t, not even slightly. Each and every one of those men was going to rape me.
Just as I’m thinking this, Mr. Ivarsson walks over to me, his face and forehead burnt to a crisp red and his lips pursed like he’s sucking on a lemon. He just st
ares at me for a few moments, thumbs hooked through his belt. After a long silence—a silence in which I’m too intimidated to speak—he clears his throat.
“So you played quite the trick on us,” he says, voice even. “When you walked into my office, I thought you were just some kid. I didn’t think you’d ever make it into the club, but I knew you had something in you. And I was right. Not in the way that perhaps you hoped. You didn’t look like a biker. But you had something in your eye. You’re Granite’s old lady, so that means you’re in the club now, like it or not. We’ll protect you. But you’re gonna have to give up this Al shit.”
I let out a relieved breath. “That all sounds fine to me, sir.”
He inclines his head; it’s too slow and deliberate to be called a nod. “That’s fine. How are they doing?”
“Not great. They’re recovering. They’re on lots of medication. They’re sleeping, except that Granite is talking every now and then.”