“Don’t say shit and you’ll get through this. Trust me for once and go with whatever I say. I don’t need your lip, and if you and I survive the night, you can speak your peace when we’re out of here. This ain’t Disneyland, and these guys aren’t game players.”
She nodded curtly, already having sized up the situation. Wisely she decided not to say anything about his commands as if she were his soldier in case someone was listening. The more they thought she was a brainless twit, the better.
The men rounded a corner, just as a small girl around twelve or thirteen jumped down from a tree and darted away toward the trailers that dotted the distant landscape.
“Katie,” Ender’s dad called out.
The girl stopped and turned. Long golden hair framed an innocent face that held a wary expression. Some of the guys who stood around Ender’s dad smiled at the girl in a way that wasn’t appropriate for her young age. Katie was in that awkward phase of puberty where she was growing into a woman. She had breasts, bigger than what Piper pretended to have. It churned her gut as she spotted a few pricks giving the girl a leering once-over. That any of them would actually see Katie as a potential conquest and not the young girl she was made Piper long for a pocket rocket launcher.
“Yes?” Katie answered.
Her young voice was small and shouted out her adolescent age as if it came from a bullhorn. It further added to the fact that the girl was probably a middle schooler.
“Take…” Ender’s dad looked at him for help.
“Piper,” he answered.
She didn’t like him giving out her name. However, it wasn’t her birth name. So she let it go.
“Take Piper to Eric’s old room. Make sure the bed is made with clean sheets and shit. Show her where the bathroom is and you know.”
He waved a hand. Katie glanced at Piper, and she nodded to the girl. Katie moved in a wide berth, away from the men, to a back door and waved her inside. Piper turned to Ender, and he nodded, which meant she would be okay, or so she hoped.
Katie didn’t wait. She moved quickly, and Piper found herself jogging to keep up. If not for the blond hair streaming after the child, Piper would have lost her because the girl moved like a ghost.
Up a flight of stairs, she found Katie digging out sheets from a hall closet before ducking into a room. The floorboards squeaked as Piper walked. She made a mental note of where she stepped that caused such noise. She even took the time to test other areas nearby, planning out where she could move silently, if she had the need to leave without being caught.
By the time she made it to the room, the girl had a pile of sheets in the corner and was halfway through making the bed.
“Let me help you,” Piper offered, placing her backpack down on the bedside table.
She didn’t move far, only tucked in the side she was on. And then she helped smooth out the flat sheet and duvet.
“Thanks,” Piper told the girl when they were finished.
Katie grabbed the wad of sheets and was ready to bounce off when Piper stopped her.
“Hey,” Piper called out. “Can you show me the bathroom and kitchen?”
Katie nodded, but Piper could tell the girl wanted to do anything but. They went in the opposite direction from where they came. Katie pointed at a door as they went by. Piper chanced a glance inside the open door to the bathroom but didn’t stop. She feared the little girl would disappear. They headed down another set of stairs at the opposite end of the hall. Katie moved like the wind, only Piper’s blood went cold as she turned the jug handle of the stairwell and saw a man cornering Katie.
“Katie, girl, how old are you now?” the dickwad asked, ogling at the girl’s budding breasts like they were the fifth wonder of the world.
“Katie, there you are. You’re supposed to put those sheets on my bed. Right?”
The girl’s scared eyes turned toward Piper. Thankfully, she was smart. Katie nodded and headed back up to where Piper was. The man gave Piper a freezing glare. The swastika on his neck said it all.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Piper guessed he hadn’t been apprised of her and Ender’s arrival. She didn’t give a shit, though.
“None of your goddamn business.”
She spun and went in the room where she’d dumbly left her bag. Piper snagged it, berating herself for the mistake. Katie sat on the bed quietly as Piper closed the door behind her and stood by it. She heard footsteps approach. She turned the lock and put a finger to her lips as she faced Katie.
Blond hair bounced as the girl bobbed her head in acknowledgment with eyes that slowly grew in size. Footsteps stopped in front of the door. Piper listened and barely took a breath. When the footsteps moved on and receded, Piper closed her eyes and waited until she heard them disappear.
Softly, Piper said, “Do you live near here?”
The girl nodded. Piper walked to the window and caught sight of the back of the house. She noted the men were all gone. Time to make a move.
“Can you show me?” Piper asked.
Although it should have been an odd question in the girl’s ears, she eagerly nodded.
Piper walked back to the door and held up a finger. She wasn’t afraid of the man. She could take him down despite his larger frame. Bigger by over half her size, he still was only all muscle with zero brains based on his actions. Dumb and not as highly trained as she was, made him roadkill in her eyes. However, she didn’t think it would go over well for Ender if she bested a man who thought he was God’s gift, and everyone else was beneath him.
She listened, and when she determined the coast was clear, she curled a finger in the girl’s direction. Silently, she told Katie to follow her that time. Piper knew how to get out of the house. She simply went back the way she’d come. She figured if the men had come in, they were on the side of the house near the kitchen where Katie had been taking her until they ran into that asshole.
Piper played hopscotch with the boards and stepped where none would squeak. She glanced back at Katie, who was a quick study. The girl smiled when she figured out what Piper was up to. It was nice to see her act in such a girlish way. She’d lost that fearful look and resembled more like the carefree girl someone of her age should be.
The door was trickier. It squeaked on the way in and knew it would do the same on the way out.
Piper whispered, “We’ll run for it, once the door is open.”
Katie nodded.
Piper pushed the door open, and as promised it let out a squealing alarm even though it hadn’t meant to be one. They ran, and it felt good. Piper hadn’t had a good run in days, and her limbs felt better for the excursion.
They passed a few trailers before cresting a small hill. Katie navigated down the short drop to stop in front of a double-wide just at the bottom. Hidden, that’s good, Piper thought.
A woman stepped out the door and took Katie in her arms.
“What’s doing, girl? You weren’t at the big house again, were ya?”
Katie nodded against who Piper assumed was her mom’s torso.
The mother sighed heavily. “Girl, I told ya not to go over that way. It ain’t good for ya no more.”
She said all of this while eyeing Piper. Piper thought the mother had a good handle on the why Katie should stay away. Only Katie was just a little girl who had no idea the machinations of a dimwitted man. Which meant the mom didn’t bring such men to her home. That was one thing the mother had going for her.
“And who are you?”
Piper shrugged. “I came with Eric and saw the trouble that could come of a girl who may look like a woman in the wrong man’s eyes.”
The mother nodded. “Well, I have to thank you then. Surprised to hear Eric’s returned. Didn’t think that boy would come back given how fast he ran when he was able.”
Piper shrugged again.
“And after everything. He’s not like the lot of them,” the woman added.
Piper ignored her inquisitive nature when it
came to Ender and focused on other answers she needed to keep safe.
“What is this place?” Piper took the chance and asked.
“Eric ain’t told you nothing?”
Piper shook her head. The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Katie, go inside and straighten up your room.”
She let go of the little girl and waited a few seconds after the trailer door closed behind her daughter before she took the few steps down to meet Piper halfway.
“Normally, I wouldn’t say nothin’. But you earned a few answers for helping my girl. You’re right about some things. Ain’t no place for her. The way they stare, you’d think they were waiting for her first period before they pounce.”
The woman’s brow rose as if in challenge to a quiet Piper, who understood the words weren’t stretching the truth.
“Believe it or not, I came here on my own free will. I was young then. And all the attention I got made me feel special. Here, I was taken care of, given a place of my own, and I didn’t have rules. Until I did.”
She sighed.
“When Katie came, and I weren’t so willing, they reminded me of all I had. Now I’m too old. And they are eyeing my girl.”
“Can’t you leave?” Piper asked, given the first chance to do so.
The woman barked out a laugh and pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. The cough that followed told of at least a pack a day smoker.
No heeding the warning coughs, Piper asked, “Can you spare one?”
The woman reluctantly handed Piper one. She used matches and not a lighter, which also said much about what the woman had and didn’t have.
Piper started to feel like Motherfucking Teresa or some shit when she decided to chance another question. “You don’t have somewhere else to go?”
The woman inhaled deep and shook her head. Piper sucked in a breath and felt the anxiety over the past few days ease. The woman blew a long stream out of the corner of her mouth as to not blow smoke in Piper’s face, even though she was smoking, too.
“Ain’t got nothin’ and nowhere to go. I haven’t talked to my folks since I left fifteen years ago.”
That would put the woman in her mid-thirties if she left home in her early twenties or earlier. Although, she looked more like she was in her mid-forties. Life hadn’t been kind to her after she’d left her parents.
“I don’t even know if they are alive,” the woman added.
Piper nodded. “There are places that can help. And keep you safe,” Piper added.
The woman shook her head. “If I left, they’d find and kill me.” She stepped closer. “But if you knew of such a place, maybe they’d take my girl.”
Piper was shocked the woman would even suggest sending her daughter away without saving herself. Piper gave the woman more points in her head.
“Maybe. If I did, do you think they would let me walk out of here with Katie?”
The woman had yet to tell her what the place was, but she didn’t need an answer. It was clear it was some kind of compound where the motto was, keep your women safe and dumb from the rest of the world under the pretense of protecting the race.
“No way. They’d kill you both first.”
Piper nodded. “Then I suggest you get some things packed. Something light and portable. Eric and I will be leaving in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. I’ll figure something out and most likely won’t be able to give you warning. If I can get the both of you out, will you come?”
“I told you—”
“I know what you said. If I can get you out safely, will you come?”
The woman nodded. “I’m not getting my hopes up. Don’t let Katie come back ever, if you can’t get me out, that is. It’s likely they’ll kill me when they find out she’s gone.”
Piper didn’t doubt the woman. Cults typically had zero turnovers in membership. She decided to ask another important question.
“Who’s the father?”
The woman shrugged and sucked on the cig. “I always thought she looked a little like Stevie.”
Piper nodded as if she knew who the woman was referring to. “If I can’t get you out, make sure the girl knows her name. If you don’t have a birth certificate, I’ll need her full name and date of birth to get her one. And if I can’t take you, buy what time you can to keep them from figuring out when she left. Eric won’t know what I’m up to, and I don’t want to get him in trouble for it.”
The woman agreed, and Piper began to walk away before the woman added a bit of advice. “Thanks, and keep your doors locked at night up at the big house if Eric ain’t with you.”
Piper chewed on that as she took her time walking back, checking out all the locations to hide. One bad thing, the valley where the compound sat, was reasonably flat with no tree cover. There were trees on the fringes, but not much anywhere else. It would be best to carry out a night extraction. Only she didn’t know if she would be able to pull it off. She stepped toward the fringe area to see just what would happen. She wondered if there were hidden patrols or if they operated on trust. There could also be nosy people who kept an eye out from the confines of their home windows. She leaned on the tree, leisurely smoking the cigarette. Nothing to see. If anyone asked, she was just smoking in the shade.
When the cigarette had nothing left save the filter, she worked her way around the tree and hid as best as she could from the few homes in her line of sight. She dug in her backpack, which she dared not to leave in the room unattended, and pulled out her burner phone.
21
Ender sat cooling his heels in his father’s kitchen at his father’s table, yet he still felt like a stranger. The faces that surrounded him were familiar, yet it seemed at a distance of a million miles away. He had nothing in common with any of them, except a blood tie to a few. He wanted nothing more than to leave the place and forget it ever existed.
“What do you bring to my table?”
His father still commanded as if they were members of his personal army like he had all those years ago. Force of habit, he sat up straighter to show the man the respect he insisted on.
“We want to buy some land just outside of St. Louis. We don’t want war or any trouble. I’m here to bring you a proposition first.”
His Dad’s community was the reigning force in the area. They ran the underground in these parts. If the Devil’s Edge had tried to buy land without negotiating with them first, his dad could use his influence to run them out of town. And that would end in a bloody fight.
“What are you looking to build here?”
The question itself would seem innocuous to any that might overhear, but Ender knew exactly what he was asking.
“Just an outpost. A place for those passing through to rest their head.”
His dad bounced his eyes around the table at his two half-brothers first and then the other men, before he focused his gaze back on Ender.
“How will you fund construction?”
He wanted to shake his head at how his dad danced around the real questions. Apparently, he didn't trust him even after the pat down.
“We were looking at buying in on a strip club near a casino on the waterfront,” Ender said.
His dad leveled a glare at him. “Just pussy?”
Ender nodded. “We wouldn't do any business that conflicted with yours.”
That meant no guns. He purposely worded it, leaving out the possibility of other pursuits.
“And what if we wanted in on pussy? Never ending supply, there,” his father asked.
Ender gritted his teeth. The way his father and the community treated woman made his blood boil, but he had to keep his cool.
“Something we could negotiate if you get serious about that. In the end, though, like you said, endless supply. And endless customers. I don't think we would cut profits if you wanted to open up your own pussy shop.”
His dad nodded.
“We’ll have to sleep on it. Meanwhile, why don’t I show you what we’ve done with the place?�
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As far as Ender could tell, they hadn’t done much. He suspected the man really wanted to talk to him alone.
One of the knuckleheads at the table snickered. “Wonder if Piper needs some lead like Mandy.”
Ender stopped halfway from getting up from his chair. He pressed his knuckles on the table, giving the asshole who dared to talk about Piper a good view of what was tattooed on his fingers. Then he leaned in and gave him his most menacing glare. The fucktard could have been one of them. He only needed one excuse to exact the revenge he’d planned in his head over the last few years.
“It’s best you keep your thoughts to yourself, or I can end them myself,” Ender growled.
For a second, everything went quiet. Tension built as every man had to decide to save face or save oneself. The fucker didn't know Ender. He hadn't been around when Ender had begun to fight back against his tormentors and win.
“Yeah, man, no problem. She's yours, I get it,” the guy said.
Ender pushed himself to his full height. He eclipsed his dad by a few inches as well as the rest of the mofos, save one of his half-brothers, who was just about the same height.
He gave everyone still at the table one more look before giving them his back as he traipsed out of the kitchen door to the backyard.
The two of them walked several yards before his dad came to a stop. “You know the thing about Mandy?”
“I don’t want to talk about her.”
If Ender had a prayer of getting through these negotiations without killing someone, he couldn’t talk about her. Thank fuck he knew his father hadn’t been one of them. Mandy had confirmed that.
His dad respected his wishes and changed gears. “You into that little piece, Son?”
Ender stared at the man who donated half his DNA for Ender’s creation.
“Thought I taught you better than that. It would go a long way if you shared the girl. You knew what bringing her meant.”
Although his dad hadn’t said it, they both knew he was reminding him again about Mandy.
Ride or Die (Devil's Edge MC #1) Page 11