by Jackson Kane
I stood there for at least a minute, my mind drifting over the events of the past few days. I tried to focus on the task at hand, but my brain and my heart kept returning to Hendrix. I thought about just how much I had misjudged him initially. How I wouldn’t be here without him. I probably wouldn’t even be alive right now if it hadn’t been for him.
Sometime later, when I came back to the present, I saw the service agent behind the counter start and stop like she wasn’t sure if she should repeat herself or call her supervisor over. Her discomfort almost made me laugh. It wouldn’t have been a laugh at her but at the fact that I had become an entirely different person than when I first met the Coffin Eaters. I used to be overly accommodating and empathetic. The hardness that I wore for work was a façade, an ill-fitting, uncomfortable mask. I was so much tougher now. Tempered in the fire of pain and tragedy, I now found it difficult to care about the discomfort of others. Social niceties were beyond my capacity at the moment.
She coughed, finally mustering up the courage to repeat herself. I ignored her again and let my gaze wander. The loss that settled throughout me was so palpable that I felt physically heavier and awash in numbness.
The current date and time digitally hung above the various airline kiosks and booths. I still had two days before the cut-off date with the bank. The flight from here to there was only around two hours. That wasn’t that long when I thought about it. My brow furrowed. These two locations couldn’t have been all that far apart, right? “How long of a drive is it to San Francisco?”
“I’m not—”
I left before she finished her sentence and went straight for the car rental kiosk. There was the faintest kindling of hope smoldering inside me, and I didn’t have time to waste it on people who didn’t have answers for me.
“A little over half a day if you’re quick about it,” the car rental agent answered when I asked him the same question.
Embers of that fleeting hope suddenly flared to life. My sorrowful haze dissipated like burnt flash paper. I dared to dream the impossible once again. He told me where they kept the rental cars and called ahead for me. Unapologetically, I pushed my way through the crowded airport, running my heart out to get that rental car, praying that it wasn’t too late.
I couldn’t fill out the forms and throw money at him fast enough as I rushed the on-site representative through the mandatory paper signings and visual checks on the car. I threw another twenty-dollar bill at the man just to get him the hell out of the way. I didn’t give a fuck about any of it. I needed to leave immediately, and he wasn’t getting it. He tossed me the keys and shouted policy reminders at me as I peeled out of the parking lot. God, please let it not be too late!
The roadways in the airport complex were designed to be a giant traffic circle so that if you missed your drop-off or pick-up point, you could loop back around again. I frantically drove through the entire circuit twice before finally spying what I was searching for.
Hendrix’s unmistakably broad figure boarded a shuttle that would take him somewhere off-site, somewhere out of my life completely. What I did next would have been unthinkable to the old me of a week ago. I sped up and passed the shuttle right as it began to pull away from embarkation. Then I jacked on the brakes in front of it. The bus screeched and skidded to a halt. I had no idea if it would be able to stop in time, but it did with under a foot to spare. I hadn’t been listening to the car rental agent, but only now did I realize that I probably hadn’t bought additional insurance that covered “idiot drivers.” I jammed the vehicle into park before jumping out of the car. The only thing I cared about was getting to Hendrix.
The shuttle doors opened, and the driver commenced the scream-a-thon. “What the fuck, lady? I’m calling the cops!” I ignored him and forced my way on the bus. Right as I passed him, the driver grabbed my arm and violently jerked me backward. “Are you out of your ever-fucking mind, bitch? Do you know how much trouble you’re in?”
“Not nearly the trouble that you’ll be in if you don’t take your greasy hand off her,” boomed a deep voice from the back of the bus.
Hendrix’s hulking form rose to his feet, towering over the seated passengers like an angry, marble sculpture of a wrathful Norse god. When the sculpture moved, the passengers quieted and the driver released me.
I ran to Hendrix. His disposition shifted from anger to confusion, but he caught me as I barreled into him. “Maya….”
The words spilt out of my mouth. I couldn’t handle hearing him reject me without explaining myself first. “There were no flights available, so I rented a car. Come with me.” I buried my face in Hendrix’s chest. “Please come with me!”
“Just go before I—” The bus driver stammered through the pathetic threat before he was interrupted by my Norse god.
“We’ll take as much time as we damn well please,” he growled at the man with a fierceness that was unquestionable.
The rest of the passengers were becoming restless. This wasn’t a scene from a movie from which they would get screen credit. They didn’t rally behind the notion that love conquers all. We were the equivalent of a car wreck, a delay that came with a spectacle during the morning commute. Everyone who wasn’t frightened was becoming impatient, and some already had taken out their phones.
Hendrix saw that too. His eyebrows tipped up in a look of concern as he regarded me. “The cops’ll be here soon.”
If the police caught Hendrix, they’d quickly discover that he had broken parole, and they would arrest him. I risked too much to let that happen to him, especially after all he had done for me. I released him from my hug, feeling the onset of a crushing emotional defeat creeping in. I had to leave him again before I was destroyed by it.
I didn’t know what I was thinking about trying something like this. Of course, it wasn’t just because he couldn’t get on a plane with me. He’d fulfilled his promise. He got me safely to where I could finish the journey. There was no reason for him to help me further. I felt like such a fool.
“Yeah. Okay.” I turned away from him this time. I didn’t want him to see how badly this hurt me.
“Aw... hell, I’ve been meaning to work on my tan anyway....”
Those words turned my legs into lead and stopped me dead in my tracks. Could that have possibly meant what I desperately hoped it would mean? Turning, I saw him smile. It did! It fucking did! He was coming with me. My heart cartwheeled.
Hendrix kissed me, and we exited the bus together. He grabbed my hand and halted me as I opened the driver’s side door. “No way,” he retorted, shaking his head. “I’m driving.”
I guess that was fair. I had the car for fifteen minutes, and I’d almost crashed it into a shuttle bus. I circled around to the passenger side, let myself in, and buckled up. The bus driver scowled at us through the windshield but drove around us without any more complaints. One girl in a window toward the back of the bus grinned impishly and gave me a thumbs-up as they passed. I smiled back before facing Hendrix. I was still stunned that such an unlikely gamble actually paid off.
“Is this a microcompact? It’s smaller than my bed in prison! No Harleys were available?” Hendrix struggled to adjust the seat just to get in as he was much too large to be driving such a small car. It was kind of adorable.
“Sorry, the rental place only had Japanese motorcycles,” I smirked.
Hendrix’s face screwed up in disgust. “Compact it is, then.”
I laughed. Having him with me felt night and day better than being on my own. It was horrible thinking I had lost him forever. For now, the path before us was paved with uncertainty, but at least I didn’t have to lose him just yet. That’s all I wanted... just a little more time with him.
We drove out of the airport and cruised back onto the highway. We had a long drive ahead of us, but it would just be him and me with hopefully no one else trying to kill us. I really liked the idea of being trapped in a car with Hendrix as it would give me the chance to really get to know him.
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br /> The windows were down, and the radio was on, but faintly. The sun peeked out behind a cloud-dotted, light blue sky. I leaned the seat back and put my bare feet on the dashboard. Riding with him without being chased felt delightfully normal... relaxing even. I could breathe easy.
With the scenery blurring by, I glanced over at Hendrix with a warm, contented smile. His long hair was brushed back by the warm summer wind as he thumbed his way across the tuner controls on the steering wheel, trying to find some decent music.
Was this happiness? Actually happiness? It was impossible not to feel hopeful. Hendrix had a way of instilling that in me. Maybe, just maybe, everything would be all right after all.
It was such a beautiful lie, I could almost believe it.
“Wait! Go back! Turn that up!” I exclaimed reflexively but reached for the volume knob without giving him a chance to do as I asked.
“Underground victim-sheltering network—” the radio scratched out through static. I quickly found the frequency for the clearest sound and listened with rising dread. “Kansas attacked. Dozens dead in ‘safe house’ slaughter.”
“No….” The word escaped me as if it was squeezed from my chest by a vice. I froze, immediately thinking of Anna. It couldn’t be her safe house. That was impossible! The organization I dropped her off at moved victims several times before they finally found a place for them. There was no way Slick could’ve found her.
They couldn’t even tell me where Anna was.
Chapter Eleven
Hendrix
The drive itself was rough with Maya needing to stop every hour to make calls, hoping to find out more about her sister. After the fifth, frustratingly futile hour of uncertainty, I was finally able to convince her that her best bet was to make it to her aunt’s place and the safe-deposit box as quickly as possible. It took some time to convince her, but after a while, she relaxed enough not to be utterly wrecked with concern over her sister, and we talked about some lighter and more irrelevant topics.
Despite the desperate air of worry that hung over us like pregnant storm clouds, I loved stealing some time with Maya. It was the only thing that made those endless fucking desert roads, consisting of a vanishing point in front and behind and nothing else in between, bearable. There were some mountains on the horizon, but they were so far ahead they might as well have been on another planet.
I drove until I damned near passed out.
Maya offered to drive, but even she didn’t have much stamina. She did her best to stay awake and keep me company, though.
A collision in Utah delayed us to the degree that we had to spend the night in the car somewhere along the highway in Nevada.
The following day was much easier. Once I got her rolling, it was hard to keep up with the conversation at certain parts. Maya was such a smart girl, a hell of a lot smarter than I ever was.
I had hung out with rough-and-tumble thugs most of my life, so stimulating conversation was hard to come by. Hearing words with more than one or two syllables pour over me... she was like a cool glass of water, and goddamn if I wasn’t thirsty.
We talked about anything and everything—hobbies, interests, past experiences, even favorite positions. The more she talked, the more there was to like about her. The chord that struck me the loudest was what she said about her family. All the shit about her scumbag father made me really understand her mistrust of the MC lifestyle.
We had to stop for gas about an hour away from Maya’s aunt’s house in San Fran. Before pumping gas, I took the opportunity to buy and activate a pay-by-the-minute burner phone then followed up with the contact I had found while calling around at Benny and Agatha’s place. With my club dead, there was only one group I could turn to that might actually be of any help—the Steel Veins MC proper.
It took some time, but I finally obtained the number to the new national chapter that had relocated to Leslie, Ohio. I was hoping to get ahold of the big man in charge and explain what was going on, but all roads led to Remy’s ol’ lady, a woman by the name of Star.
My first impressions? Star was sharp, fiery as hell, and quick to put me in my place when I told her I’d only talk to Remy.
“I want to make it perfectly clear,” Star harangued like an unapproachable mother hen. “You’ve reached the top of the food chain, Hendrix. Remy and I work as a team. The only place left to go is down if you don’t mind your words very carefully.”
“Well, hell….” I rested the back of my head against the outside convenience store wall I had been leaning against. “All right, then. Let me catch you up to speed.”
Star was guarded and skeptical when I started telling her everything that went down between the Coffin Eaters, the Lost Wild Boys, the Legion, and the Hangers but only really perked up when I mentioned Slick and his splinter faction of the Steel Veins. When I told her how Slick—and by extension, the Steel Veins—had probably been the one who had massacred that underground safe house, Star became extremely quiet.
“Those motherfuckers….” Star couldn’t keep the disgust from her voice. “I was wondering why we hadn’t heard back from St. Louis. There’s been some trouble getting a few chapters on board with the changing of the corrupt old guard.”
“I don’t know if you can do anything, but there’s a scared teenager being held hostage in Slick’s new club somewhere. We can’t go to the police—”
“You won’t have to,” Star was quick to reply. “It’s our mess now. We’ll handle it. If what you’re saying is true, Remy will want to go pay Slick a personal visit.”
“Handle it how?” I asked cautiously. The last thing I wanted was to put Maya’s kid sister in someone else’s crosshairs. “Anna had nothing to do with this.”
“We’re not that kind of club, not anymore. Remy saw to that personally.” There was a pause as if she was caught off guard by my genuine concern about them killing to clean up any loose ends. “Keep our number, Hendrix. If you’re looking for a place to land when this is all over, let us know. We might have an opening for a guy like you.”
“Appreciate the offer.” I chuckled, which then ended like a sigh. “But I’ve spent every waking moment since I’ve been out of prison trying to get out of the MC life. All I’m interested in now is freedom.”
“That’s fair.” There was a knowing tease in her voice as if she’d tasted the freedom I was after and found it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. “Well, if freedom gets too lonely for you, let us know.”
“I guess we’ll see. One train wreck at a time,” I replied with a short air snort. That was whether we even made it through this adventure without getting killed or arrested. I thought about asking Star to send us some backup, but adding more bikers to this party was just going to get the cops called on us that much quicker. It was better to keep a low profile, especially if we were going to be heading to some banks.
“Oh, hey! One last thing!” I couldn’t help myself. I just had to know. “All the rumors of Remy coming back from the dead, fending off a kill team, and tearing apart the Lobos, that’s all bullshit, right?”
“You’ll have to ask him yourself.” Star just laughed, again with that tantalizing allure in her voice.
This now made me wonder what the hell Remy and Star’s story was. Who knew? If I stayed out of jail and the grave long enough, maybe I could ask them in person.
Feeling a little better about Anna’s situation, if nothing else, I filled the car with gas from the pump, then laid my arm and head on the roof of the vehicle. It had been a long haul, but for better or worse, the end of all this was just around the corner.
The pump dinged and slowed to a crawl before stopping at the prepaid amount. I picked my head up, and I was back in the present. I could see Maya browsing the aisles inside through the convenient store’s large windows and open floor plan. Man, I could watch her forever.
Maya was much stronger than she originally thought, although I thought she was finally starting to see that now. All the shit that girl had
been through, and I thought I had it rough. I’d known a lot of men who weren’t half as durable as that sweet thing. And here I was, completely incapable of taking my eyes off her. I tried to think of the rest of my life without this woman, but it was like dreaming in black and white and trying to imagine color.
I knew she cared about me or else she wouldn’t have nearly crashed into a bus to get me. That made this ending that much more bittersweet. She’d been trying to escape the conclusion of this trip, pushing it from her mind and focusing on the tiny moments of time we actually had left.
I was envious. All I could think of was the end and how impossible it would be to have to let her go. I didn’t know how I would find it in me to do it. I walked away from her once, and that took everything I had in terms of physical and emotional strength. This time, it just might kill me.
Seeing her face light up when she saw me watching her leave the building was the twist of a beautiful knife. It made all the thoughts of joining the Steel Veins dissipate like cigarette smoke.
If we’re looking for a place to land.... Who was I kidding? We were heading into a major metropolitan city with cameras and eyewitnesses and live streaming on every corner. One way or another, landing anywhere didn’t seem likely.
I doubted I’d ever see the ground again.
It was selfish of me to come with her. I should have forced her to leave Utah without me. All I was doing was stealing time and making it harder to eventually part ways. Whether she found what she was looking for or not, the cops would have to be involved at some point, and that was the point at which I would have to leave her.
I was willing to die for Maya, but I didn’t have it in me to be locked in a cage again. I just couldn’t.... I could either leave her of my own accord or leave her in a body bag. Either way, we both knew there was no future for the likes of us. It had been a few days since I checked in with my parole officer, so the cops would’ve found out that I had jumped bail by now. With all the bodies that I’d dropped on the way here, I must have at least one murder charge going, God knew what else.