by Dark, Raven
One at a time, I dispose of the bodies in the quickest way possible—kicking both over the side of the cliff and leaving them at the bottom of a two-hundred-foot deep canyon.
Where no cops or passersby will ever find them and trace their deaths back to me.
I throw their bikes over too, watching them crash to the bottom.
Cursing, I swing onto my bike and tear back toward the cave where Stephanie and Cap are waiting. Where Stephanie is taking care of the closest thing I’ve ever had to a real father, and where Cap is hopefully still holding on.
Fury for every Bastard under Wolf’s command fuels my blood, a hit of high octane fire in my veins.
Wolf’s brother, dead, by a bullet from my gun. The Bastard’s prez calling for my blood, and the blood of every brother with an Outlaw’s patch, is inevitable now. This is no longer a battle between our two clubs, an old feud reawakened.
War is skulking just around the corner, waiting for Wolf to sound the fucking horn.
18
The Man Inside the Beast
Minutes pass, and Cap hasn’t moved. He hasn’t opened his eyes. The old man doesn’t even seem to be breathing.
There’s still no sign of Spider. Fear for him trickles into my veins, icy cold and foreboding.
What happened with those shooters? Did he catch them? If he didn’t…
If they caught him first…
I shut the thought down, refusing to allow the worry to eat at my already tenuous resolve.
I check the clock on Cap’s phone. It’s been ten minutes since I called Dragon. If I’m right about our distance from the clubhouse, he won’t be showing up for at least another ten.
Closing my eyes, I listen for any hint of danger, but there’s nothing. No gunshots or footsteps outside the cavern. Except for the sound of my own breathing and the occasional whistle of the wind, inside of the cave there’s only silence.
I’ve tried again to wake Cap without success. Checking his pulse earlier, I found nothing. I find his wrist and check again. Either he’s dead, or his pulse is too weak for me to feel it. He must have lost more blood than I thought. Either that, or he has other injuries I’m not aware of. Maybe he hit his head when he wiped out.
My throat tightens. Ten minutes suddenly seems like hours.
Alone in the near blackness, my thoughts inevitably return to Spider.
Images of him lying lifeless in the desert, bleeding out from gunshot wounds inflicted by a rival biker gang rise up, refusing to be ignored.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but the images remain, constricting my heart in a tight fist. I let my head fall back against the rough cave wall.
How in the world had I ended up here? I’d escaped the Colony only to end up the prisoner of a man far more dangerous than Seth or anyone in the church. A man who stole everything from me because I stole from him. From his club.
And now, after all that he’s put me through, the thought of losing him makes me feel as if my heart is being ripped out of my chest.
How does that even work?
More than once, Spider has threatened to kill me. I’ve never seen him kill anyone, never seen him fire that gun, but I can feel it—he’s taken lives, and I have a feeling he does it with the same cold efficiency with which he promised to take mine. He’s a criminal, and a monster. Given the chance, he’ll break me. If those shooters got him, my captor would be dead. So why does that thought threaten to tear me apart?
A sudden gasp from Cap makes me jump. His chest heaves.
Relief washes over me in a torrent.
“Cap?” I scramble up onto my knees.
He draws a ragged breath, but his eyes don’t open. I shake his shoulder, but he doesn’t wake. His chest rises and falls on shallow, uneven breaths.
I sigh. At least he’s alive. I put the back of my hand to his forehead. There’s no fever, but he feels cold.
With no blanket to keep his temperature up, I try to keep him warm, holding him.
The rumble of a motorcycle engine carries in the distance, growing louder. I jerk my head up. Spider? Or is it the shooters, having killed him and now coming to finish Cap and me off?
It can’t be Dragon, it’s too soon.
Tense, I try to press myself back further into the darkness. Until the engine cuts and footsteps sound outside the cavern.
A man’s shadow darkens the mouth of the cave. Blocking out the moonlight, he’s a huge silhouette, his face reduced to featureless blackness. I can make out the whites of his eyes and a patch on the front of a cut, but not the coloring or letters on it.
I shrink back. Until he strides in, long sure treads that eat up the distance with a predatory efficiency that I’d recognize as easily I would know his face.
“Spider…”
“Yeah, Wildcat. It’s me. How’s Cap doing?”
Taking a knee in front of Cap and me, he’s close enough that I can clearly make out his beard, the harsh masculine lines of his chiseled face.
He’s never looked so perfect.
He also doesn’t look to be hurt, but in this darkness, it’s impossible to be sure. The worry in his tone for Cap tugs at my heart.
The urge to throw my arms around him seizes me, and I tamp the ridiculous notion down, holding onto Cap so as to restrain myself from doing something so foolish.
“I’m not sure,” I tell him, looking over his friend. “He’s unconscious. Are you okay? Where are the shooters?”
“You don’t have to worry about them anymore.” He rests his hand on my back, and the heat of his palm on my bare skin drives away the chill of fear before he checks Cap’s pulse and then his leg.
Spider’s eyes flick over me, no doubt taking note of my holding his friend in my arms, still stripped to the waist. I can only imagine what this must look like, but he doesn’t say anything about it. I’m grateful for his tact.
“You’re keeping him warm. Good,” he says softly. “But here.” He shrugs off his cut and then pulls his shirt over his head. “Put this on.”
I take his tee and slip it on. The thing is huge, enough that I’m swimming in it. When I stand, it’ll reach my knees. Spider puts his cut back on. I can see the faint shapes of the tattoos on his shoulders and arms in the darkness.
“What happened with those men?” I press.
“I took care of them.”
I swallow hard. His tone was low and uncharacteristically tender, a shock to be sure. He’s never talked to me like that before. But there was also a cold finality in his voice that leaves no doubt as to what he means.
He killed them.
A mix of unsettled nervousness and relief hits me. I’m not sure if I should be scared of him or feel safer because of what he did.
I’m not a complete stranger to the concept of death by violence. The church guards are trained to kill when necessary, but that aspect of Colony life is something that’s always kept from us. We’re told from the outset that if we try to escape or break rules serious enough to require the use of deadly force, the guards will do it, but we never see it happen, never hear the shots. I remember hearing whispers about at least two people who have been killed while trying to escape before I was born. It’s something all of us know happens but which we learn not to think about. This is different.
Knowing Spider killed two men only minutes ago, being able to imagine him watching the life leave their eyes is different than hearing about something that happened long after the fact. It’s different than a faceless death, the circumstances of which are only vague rumors.
“What did you do?” My voice shakes.
“What I had to.” He smoothes my hair down my back.
An evasive answer if ever I’ve heard one. It carries implications that are both annoying and somehow reassuring. It’s an answer that, to me, seems intrinsically male, and at once intended to soothe, and shut me down.
“Is Cap going to be okay?” I ask.
“Impossible to tell until a doctor looks at him. We’d better get him h
elp soon.” He starts looking for Cap’s phone until I pick it up from the ground where I set it and hold it up.
“I already called for help. Dragon said he was on his way. He should be here soon.”
He glances at me. “You called Prez?” Surprise and amusement are evident in his tone. “I’d love to have heard that phone call.”
“Yeah, he was mad until I told him what happened.” I hand him the phone.
“I bet.” Spider chuckles. “He’ll get over it.” He puts Cap’s phone in the old man’s cut pocket and then looks over the cloth I’ve tied around his leg, now soaked through. “Nice dressing.”
He sounds genuinely impressed. I’m not sure what to make of that.
“I don’t have more cloth to change the dressing, though.”
“We’ll take care of it when Dragon gets here. I’ll see if he’s coming.” Spider goes to the mouth of the cave and looks out, then comes back to me. “They’re coming up the road now.” He squeezes my hand. “Everything’s gonna to be fine now.”
Except I can hear the suppressed worry for Cap there.
Unwilling to give false reassurance, I squeeze his hand. My heart swells when he squeezes back.
Spider cups my nape in his palm and presses a lingering, warm kiss on my forehead. The reassurance in that single press of his lips to my skin is indescribable.
Minutes later, we’re on our way back to the clubhouse. Dragon’s brought Tequila with him, along with Striker, Pip, and four other men. They’ve brought a large black van to transport Cap in. Pip drives, tearing up the roads, while I’ve climbed in the back with Tequila and Spider. Dragon, Striker and the others ride their bikes, flanking the van from all sides.
They’ve penned the vehicle in. I don’t have to be familiar with the biker world to understand what they’re doing. They’re protecting the van—protecting Cap—from anyone who might come after us. I can see them out the windows, and all them seem to be keeping eyes out for unwanted company.
Before we’d taken off, as Spider and Striker loaded Cap into the back of the van, I’d seen Spider talking quietly to Dragon. Couldn’t hear what they said, but Spider was no doubt updating him on what had happened. Dragon cursed a lot, and I saw him kick a rock or two.
The men mentioned that someone would have to come back for Cap’s bike.
Tequila replaces the dressing on Cap’s wound with a fresh bandage. He’s strapped to a stretcher that’s lying across the floor of the van, where the seats must have been pulled out to make room.
The walls are stacked with medical supplies, gauze pads, blood pressure pumps. There’s also IV tubes. Where in the world the club got a hold of all that stuff, I haven’t a clue, but it’s lucky for Cap that they have it.
My thoughts are a scattered mess. Concern for Cap, relief that Spider is all right, and worry for what he had to do to those men creates an unrelenting, sickening tension in my belly that clamps tight and won’t let go.
We arrive at the clubhouse long after full light. Tequila and Pip lift Cap’s stretcher down from the back of the van. Spider hops out after and helps me down.
“Why is it that every time something like this happens, Axe is nowhere to be found?” Tequila mutters now as she and Pip push the stretcher ahead of us toward a side entrance of Casper’s. “He’s the doctor, but I’m always cleaning up your guys’s messes…”
I smile. I can hear fondness in her voice under the annoyance. She loves her job.
Spider squeezes my shoulder. “Come on, Wildcat.” He steers me toward the front door of the clubhouse. “Let’s get you something to eat and put you to bed.”
The gentleness with which his fingers rest on the small of my back causes me to blink up at this huge biker at my side. Spider’s nearly always handled me as if I’m property, and any gentleness made me feel like a favorite toy instead of someone he cares about. He’s always talked to me the same way. He’s never touched me or talked to me the way he just did now, with warmth, as if I matter.
As if I mean something to him.
This new side of him makes me feel as unbalanced as the darkness I see in him when he’s ticked off. Unsure if I can trust it, it takes a moment to realize what he just said.
Food. Bed. I’m too anxious over everything that’s happened and too worried about Cap to eat or sleep, but when I tell Spider as much, he just pushes me gently onto a couch at the back of the barroom and calls for one of the girls to get me a plate.
An irritating appreciation for his attentiveness has me smiling in spite of myself.
“Really Spider, I’m not hungry.”
He squats down beside me. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”
“I had a bag of pretzels on my dinner break. I’m fine.”
“That was hours ago. You’re eating. Real food, none of that processed shit.”
I sigh. “You’re really pushy, you know.”
He grins. “I’m just taking care of what’s mine.”
Well, how am I supposed to argue with him when he’s like this?
Striker and Mort join us on the couches, and for some reason, they’re watching Spider closely, as if they’ve never seen him before. Spider ignores them and pushes my hair off of my shoulders.
“You all right?” he rasps.
There’s a loaded question. I just watched a very sweet old biker get shot. For minutes that felt like hours, I thought he’d died. Spider could have been killed. I could have ended up lying in the desert, dead along with him. And this man I’ve only known as a dangerous captor just saved my life. I know he killed two men who would have murdered the three of us if he hadn’t. No, I am a million miles from all right, but the thought of appearing weak in front of a man who went through all that and still looks tough as nails kills me. Looking weak in front of him would feel like letting him down somehow.
I force a smile and nod. “I’m good. Just a little shaken.”
He nods, looking pleased and giving my knees a squeeze. “Good girl.”
Sassy comes over with a plate of steak, potatoes and scrambled eggs and Spider sets it on the table in front of me, thanking her.
“Stay here with Mort, all right?” He glances over at Dragon, who’s waiting with Snake and a few other men near the entrance to the back hall, gives Dragon a nod, and turns his eyes back to me. “I want you to eat everything on that plate. I’ll be back.”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, Daddy.”
Halfway to the hall, he cocks his head at me, his eyes gleaming. “Did you just call me “Daddy?’”
Oh, Lord. My cheeks grow extremely hot. I can see it all over his face, he’s taken the word in an entirely different way than the way I meant it. The look in his eyes puts a connotation on it that I’ve never heard before, but nonetheless does all sort of weird things to my insides.
Mort snorts into his fist.
I clear my throat and jerk the plate to me, eating very fast.
Spider roars with laughter and disappears down the hall with Dragon, Striker, and the others.
“I heard about what you did for Cap,” Mort says once they’re gone, digging into a bag of potato chips.
I swallow a mouthful of potatoes, shrugging awkwardly. The food is delicious, the well-done steak hitting the spot.
“What you did was good.” He pops a few chips into his mouth.
Not sure what to say, I finish my food and set the plate down on the table. It’s crazy, but I want the members of the club to trust me. No, I need them to trust me.
Glancing around the room, I notice that there are a lot of men and women there, but there’s a hush laying over the place and everyone talks in low voices. The kind of low voices that remind me of when my father’s mother died. Some of the women stand huddled together, hugging each other. Pip rubs Monica’s back.
They’re all waiting to hear news about Cap. There’s a camaraderie among these men and women that should seem out of place among people who seem to rough and hard, and yet seems entirely natural. They’re
like a family waiting for a loved one to come out of surgery.
It reminds me of the fellowship in the Colony, but it feels different, here. Maybe it’s because members of His Holy Peace aren’t permitted to leave, or because there are guards keeping them in line. Whatever the case, the sense of family feels more real, here.
The need for them to want me here tugs at me hard.
“Hey.” Mort catches my attention, leaning toward me. “I know all about what you did that put you here, darlin’, but what you did tonight for Cap…it changes things.”
“How?”
He holds up his hands. “I aint saying what happened tonight undoes the bad. It won’t wipe the slate clean in one fell swoop. But the club doesn’t forget a good deed. It’s memory is long, and it keeps score with every wrong done, but it also keeps track of the good.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“All I’m saying is, what you do always comes back to you ten fold. Do the club right, and it does right by you. You saved Cap’s life. The club will not forget that.”
He pops a few more chips into his mouth, crumples the bag, and gets up, walking away to throw it in the garbage. Leaving me staring at his retreating back with my brain trying to process what he’d said.
I try not to read too much into Mort’s words. It’s not like what happened tonight can change things all that much. I am still a prisoner, still an outsider, and still Spider’s captive. I can’t let myself forget that.
Half an hour later, Spider returns with Dragon, Striker and Snake, plus two others. I’ve seen both of them going into the chapel with Dragon before. One of them, with a patch on his cut that says V. President, has the thickest, waviest blond hair I’ve ever seen.
All of the men look tired and worn, especially Spider, who runs his palm down his face. Tequila comes out of the hall and whispers something in Dragon’s ear. He nods.
“What’s the word on Cap, Prez?” one of the guys sitting at the bar asks Dragon.
I sit forward, waiting for the answer like everyone else.
Dragon squeezes Tequila’s waist and addresses the room at large.