by Sybil Bartel
“You have a third name?”
“Yep, Shaila Victoria Hawkins.”
I said the middle name to myself, rolling around the unusual combination of letters. “What is the purpose of the third name?”
She shrugged and leaned back into my chest. “To sound pretty, I guess. Tradition too. And sometimes in certain religions, when you decide to take Jesus into your heart, you take on a confirmation name.”
I did not understand any of it, nor see the purpose of it. “I am not an eagle.”
She giggled as her finger traced a vein on my forearm. “Now that I’ve had time to think about it, no, you most certainly are not. You’re a ground animal. One that runs fast and swift and can snatch its prey before the poor victim even knows what hit him.”
Not knowing if I was insulted or flattered, I probed at her assessment. “Is that what you think of me?”
“Oh yes.” She nodded with conviction. “Most definitely. You’re like a cougar… no, a panther. A Florida panther. Sleek and fast and cunning.”
“I am none of those things.”
“You are to me,” she quietly admitted.
I entertained a thought I had had earlier in the day. “You are neither earth, nor water, nor air.” I stroked her blonde hair with red hues. “You are fire.”
She leaned away from my chest, and for long moment she simply stared at me, and I held her gaze. Then a shy smile softened her face. “I think I like you, Mr. Scott.”
“You more than think,” I corrected.
Her smile widened. “Do me a favor?”
Making no such commitment, I tipped my chin for her to continue.
“Don’t ever change.” She kissed my cheek. “Stay true, Tarquin Scott.”
Unable to make any such assurances, I gave her the one thing I could promise her. “I will always give you my honor and my strength.”
“Honor and strength,” she whispered, repeating my words.
“Yes.”
“And your love?” she asked hopefully. “Will you give me that?”
I wrapped my arms around her tight, but I did not hide the slight twitch at the corner of my mouth. “Close your eyes, woman. It is going to be a long night.”
A smile in her voice, she gave me the same attitude that had made me think of her as not earth, water or air, but fire. “Yes, sir.”
I peeked in the grungy window of Rooney’s trailer. TV blasting, a blunt between his lips, he was sitting on a couch you couldn’t pay me to touch.
I glanced over my shoulder at Tarquin, who was standing behind me with a gun in his hand and a scowl on his face as he scanned the trailer park. Or rather, the vacant lot where a few rusted-out trailers were squatting next to piles of trash that made the county dump look like a picnic.
“We’re good,” I whispered. “He’s alone.”
Tarquin glanced at the Road King we’d glided in and hidden behind Rooney’s trailer. “I do not like this plan.”
I patted him on the chest. “Too late. We’re here and startin’ up the bike now to drive away will only get us more attention than we want. Besides, you got a gun and you know how to use it.” I smiled. “Trust me, you already have the upper hand on Rooney.” I headed toward the front of the trailer.
Tarquin caught my wrist. “What if he alerts someone?”
Awareness shot up my arm. Every time he touched me, my body came alive and all I could think about was how it felt when he was tending to me.
Tending.
Mentally shaking my head, I still couldn’t believe I was speaking like him now.
Forcing myself to focus, I got back on track. “Who’s Rooney gonna call? His best friends are junkies and drug dealers, and none of them are gonna bother with the likes of us.” I hoped.
Tarquin glanced at the other trailers before his gaze cut back to me. “Remember the plan.”
“I remember, but I don’t like it.” If anything went south, I was to get out and leave him behind to handle everything on his own. “If we’re supposed to be partners, we’re supposed to help each other.”
A scowl overtook his face, and sweet Jesus, it made him even more handsome. Threatening, but handsome. “We are not partners. You are my woman. I will protect you. End of discussion.”
“Lord have mercy,” I muttered. “It’s a good thing I grew up around bossy men like you, you know that?” I didn’t wait for a response. “Otherwise, I might actually take offense at that kinda talk. Now come on, we got some money to make.”
His jaw ticked, like it did when he wasn’t happy, but he followed me to the front door.
Not bothering to knock, because I knew Rooney kept his place unlocked, I took the two rickety steps and pushed his door open.
Before I could say a word, Rooney held his hand up. “Wait, this is the best part.” His back to us, he stared at the TV as some big explosion on screen happened. “That’s what I’m talking about!” Rooney whooped.
Tarquin stepped in behind me and quietly closed the door. Ever alert, he was already scanning the small, smelly place like he’d scanned the outside.
“Rooney,” I clipped, already out of patience.
“Yeah, yeah, coming.” Setting his blunt in an overflowing ashtray, he reached for a remote and turned the TV down. “What can I get for—” His eyes landed on me, and he stopped midsentence as his jaw dropped.
Then he turned dead white.
“No. No way in hell. You can’t be here, Shaila.” Looking way less stoned than when we walked in, Rooney’s head started to shake like a bobble toy. “You need to leave. Like right now. Your dad’s gonna kill me. And I do mean kill, with a capital K.” His nervous gaze cut to Tarquin, then his eyes went even wider. “And holy fuck, Shaila! Is that him?” His voice squeaking on his last words, he sounded like he was being strangled.
“Him who?” I asked with a smirk. “If you mean, is that my husband, then yep, sure is. And we’re goin’ to Kentucky, and we need—”
“LA LA LA LA!” Rooney yelled, slamming his hands over his ears. “For Christ’s sake don’t tell me where you’re going! Stone will beat it out of me!” Spinning in a circle, he bent at the waist. “He’ll kill me.”
“Shaila,” Tarq quietly warned.
I held a hand up to him. “I got this.” I pulled Rooney’s hand off his ear. “You wanna make some money or what?”
Half bent, holding his stomach like he was gonna be sick, Rooney turned his head to look up at me. “You’re crazy. Leave.”
“A lot of money,” I corrected. “More than you’ll ever make selling to strung-out junkies who pay you in roadkill and stolen oranges.”
Rooney shot upright and held a finger up. “One time, Shaila, one time I took that deer. Meat is meat. You know how long that fed me for? Don’t act like you didn’t eat some too.”
Tarquin interrupted Rooney’s rant. “We are out of time.”
“Do you want a brand-new Road King or what?” I asked Rooney.
He blinked. Then he blinked again. “Say what?”
“A Harley.” I threw my hands up. “Don’t you know what a Road King is? You been livin’ under a rock?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt like a heel. Looking over my shoulder at Tarq, I apologized. “Sorry. No offense meant.”
Giving me a tight nod, he didn’t say nothing.
I looked back at Rooney. “A brand-spankin’-new Road King with all the bells and whistles. Retails for thirty-five grand easy.” Maybe, probably. Close enough. “All we want for it is however much cash you got on you.”
“And food,” Tarquin added.
“And food,” I agreed. “But nothin’ homemade from this pigsty. Real food in unopened packages. So how much cash you got?”
Rooney stared at me like I’d lost my ever-loving mind. “Are you insane?”
“Possibly.” At the mention of food and the thought of potato chips, I was suddenly starving. “So what’s it gonna be? Because if you ain’t interested, I got another buyer waitin’ to take this beast
off my hands, but since we worked together, I came here first out of courtesy. I don’t got all night to sit around waitin’ on you to make up your inebriated mind, so what’s it gonna be?”
“Just hold on a minute.” Looking decidedly less high, he straightened. “Let me see if I got this straight. After shooting your dad’s motorcycle gang members and stealing their bikes, you want to sell me one?” His voice raised two whole octaves. “Do I look suicidal? Where am I gonna fence a stolen Lone Coaster’s bike around here?”
“Did I say it belonged to an LC?” I glanced at Tarq. “I don’t remember sayin’ that. Did I say that?” I looked back at Rooney. “And who said anythin’ about shootin’ anyone?”
It was Rooney’s turn to throw his hands up. “Your dad is who! He came into the gas station, and as one of his biker bitches grabbed me around the throat and dragged me over the counter, strangling me, he smiled at me. He said if I didn’t tell him exactly where you were, he was going to gut me and use my entrails to hang me up by my balls and watch while vultures pecked my eyeballs out. Who says that, Shaila?”
“Stone Hawkins is who.” I wasn’t impressed. I’d seen and heard it all before. “But what’s that got to do with capitalism? You want the bike or not?”
“Jesus Christ.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “You’re as cold as him.”
“I’ll be a lot colder when I’m livin’ in Kentucky away from this heat.”
“Stop telling me where you’re going!” He pulled the neck of his shirt aside. “I still got the marks where I was strangled today because of you, and I didn’t even know anything then!”
“Well, now you know I got a bike. Want it?”
“Are you not listening to me?” Rooney yelled.
I reached over and pulled the dingy curtain aside on the only window facing the back of his trailer. “Did I mention I have a small armory in the saddle bags?”
“I’m not buying that, that….” Rooney glanced out the window and his mouth dropped.
I smiled sweetly. “Pretty, ain’t she?”
“Shit,” Rooney whispered.
I tried to sweeten the deal so we could get out of here sooner rather than later. “You don’t even have to fence it around here. She rides like a dream. Drive her to the west coast. Heck, get out of state. Drive to Washington. Keep goin’. I hear Canada’s pretty. This bike’s got plenty of miles in her. You could go anywhere.”
“I can’t afford that.” Rooney glanced at Tarq, then his gaze landed on me. “Even at a dead biker discount.”
I slapped him on the shoulder. “Then it’s a good thing we’re friends, because I’m gonna give you one helluva discount.” I leveled him with a look that said I meant business. “How much cash you got?”
“Five, maybe six hundred bucks.”
A couple hundred more than I was expecting, but a couple thousand less than I wanted. No other options, I took it. “Six hundred and you got a deal.”
Rooney rubbed his chin as he looked out the window again. “Whose was it?”
“Can’t say I caught his name.” Technically, it wasn’t a lie.
“Someone from around here?”
I had to give Rooney credit. For all the years I’d worked with him at the gas station, I never took him for more than a mind-altered stoner who didn’t have a whole lot going on upstairs, but this Rooney here was holding his own. “To my knowledge, no, it wasn’t someone from around here.”
Rooney frowned. “Rival MC to your Dad’s?”
“I don’t know if I would say that.” After all, Rush was gonna make me his old lady.
Rooney snorted. “Well, if the dude who was driving this is found dead in LC territory, it won’t be long before it’s a rival gang.”
I inwardly cringed at his all-too-real assessment, but there was nothing I could do about it now. I wasn’t sorry those jerks who were gonna shoot us were dead. I just didn’t want to be the source of some all-out biker war. “All the more reason to make a decision quick and do what you’re gonna do with the bike.”
“Fine. I’ll take it.” Rooney looked at me, and for the first time in all the while I’d known him, he looked un-stoned. Well, more like kinda green and kinda sick and a whole lot resigned, but not high. “If I get dead because of this, I’m coming back to haunt you.” He glanced at Tarq. “And you too.”
In his ever-present hold on honesty, my man laid out the truth for Rooney. “There is no such thing as ghosts.”
Rooney flinched at the deep quiet of Tarquin’s voice, but he didn’t back off. “There will be if I get dead because of her.” Pushing past both of us, he moved toward the one bedroom at the back of the trailer. “Wait there.”
Tarq watched Rooney disappear down the short hall. Then he turned to me and lowered his voice. “I do not like this.”
“Yeah?” Me either. Something felt off all of a sudden.
But I didn’t connect the dots to that off feeling and Rooney’s missing cell phone until it was too late.
The dirty-haired drug addict came out of the sleeping quarters with a cell phone to his ear and a gun drawn. His arm shaking, he pointed the weapon at us.
“Yeah,” he said into the phone. “I got them right here.”
My gun already in my left hand, I gave him one warning as I slowly palmed my knife. “Hang up if you want to live.”
“Tarq,” my woman whispered. “Find out who he’s talkin’ to first. Don’t kill him.”
“If he intends to kill us, I make no promises.” I raised my voice. “Hang up. Now.”
Extending his arm further, the addict’s hand shook worse. “No way. I hang up and you’ll do something to me.”
My woman put her hands on her hips. “Like what? Sell you a bike?” She shook her head. “You’re a dumbshit, Rooney.” She glanced at me. “Let’s go. He won’t shoot. He’s got no balls.” She made to move past me.
In a calculated maneuver to safeguard, I stepped in front of her.
“Hey!” The addict waved the gun. “One more move and I shoot!”
I threw my knife.
The addict screamed. Dropping his gun and his phone, he grabbed the arm my knife was embedded in and fell to his knees.
I did not hesitate. Kicking his gun aside, I pressed my 9mm to his temple as I stomped on his cell phone. “Do you know the only reason you are still alive?”
He did not answer. He cried. Like a baby.
My woman snorted. “You really are a dumbshit, Rooney. You’re alive because I told him not to kill you. Tell me who you were talkin’ to and you’ll stay alive.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Shaila!”
“Who were you talkin’ to?” she yelled.
“Your dad’s driver, okay?” His body shook in pain. “Now get the fucking knife out!”
My woman didn’t concede. “Where were they?” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” he cried.
“Not good enough,” my woman snapped.
“I don’t know, okay! They were here an hour ago, more, I don’t know! Help me and get the fucking knife out!” He looked at the knife and cried harder.
“You’re lucky I liked you, Rooney. But for the record? Now I don’t.” My woman fisted my knife and yanked it out.
The addict howled in pain as he fell forward.
Grabbing him by the shirt, my woman jerked him back up to his knees and wiped the blade on his clothing. “Where’s the six hundred bucks? And don’t mess with me, you shithead, or I’ll make sure you get a matching scar on your other arm.”
“Oh my God,” he wailed, holding his wound. “You’re fucking fucked-up, Shaila, you know that?”
“Money,” she demanded of him. “NOW.”
“Bedroom,” he yelled back, curling in on himself. “The fucking dresser, you crazy bitch!”
I hit him.
He fell to the floor, unconscious.
“You pistol-whipped him,” my woman stated, staring down at him for a moment before looking up at me.
“H
e called you a name. We need to go.”
She kept staring at me. “No one’s ever defended me like that. I mean, I get the whole thing back at the house and in the orchard, that was life or death, but this?” She shook her head. “This is different.”
I did not see it as different. “We are out of time.”
“You care about me.”
“Woman,” I warned.
“Right.” She nodded. Then her gaze dropped, and she nodded again. “Okay. Let me grab the money.” Inhaling, she turned toward the bedroom, but then she paused and held my knife out to me. “Here.”
I took the gold-plated switchblade that had a dozen small diamonds embedded in the handle. “We do not need the money.”
“Just a sec, just give me a second,” she called over her shoulder as she walked into the bedroom.
“We have to leave.” I looked out the front window. No headlights, no vehicles, no one on foot that I could see, but my instinct was telling me her father was close.
Drawers banged open. “I got it.” She emerged from the bedroom with a handful of clothing as she shoved something into her front jeans pocket. “Let’s go.”
“Wait.” I stepped out of the trailer. Inhaling air not rank with drugs and filth, I scanned the surrounding area. Seeing no one, I nodded at her.
She glanced nervously down the road we had come in on. “Maybe we should take the Road King if my daddy’s comin’. It’ll be quicker.”
“Leave it.” Grasping her arm, I steered her toward the shadows at the edge of the property.
She did not pull out of my grip, but she paused. “Wait. I got a bad feelin’ about this. The other bike is over a mile away where we hid it, and if Daddy’s close, it’ll take too long to get to it. We should just take the Road King and get out of here. I’ll even give Rooney his money back.”
“We are not going back, and we are not stopping. They will not look for us on foot. They will expect us to be on the motorcycles we stole.”
“I think Daddy’ll know if we’re hoofin’ it,” she argued. “You can hear those pipes a mile away. If he stops to listen and doesn’t hear them, he’ll figure it out.”