It Happens

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “Mother.”

  Still fucking nothing.

  “Don’t make me cause a scene, woman!” I called out.

  My mother looked at me over her shoulder. “I’m not telling you. Daddy said that he would beat my butt if I told.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Daddy wouldn’t hurt you and you know it,” I told her. “The worst he’ll ever do is tell you that you can only have twelve trees in the house and not thirteen.”

  My mother snickered. “That’s true.”

  “Tell me,” I ordered.

  She sighed. “Walk over there and listen to whatever your man is saying.” She paused. “He offered to let me put up the Christmas tree this weekend if I got you here and kept you here. Please.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re a Christmas hussy.”

  Her grin was unrepentant.

  “I’ll go buy your cookie. You go around the back of that building and come up from the other side,” she ordered, pointing her long finger in the direction of the building that Zee was standing next to.

  I did as she ordered, slipping in through the open doors of Sally’s Saloon and going out the back door that led to the patio that they did live concerts at during the summer.

  I paused at the bar that separated the alley from the back deck and listened carefully, not liking what I was hearing.

  “…can’t do that. She’s going to figure it out. I would love to take her to my house, but it’s not something we’re going to keep secret for long. She’s not dumb,” Zee was saying.

  No, no I wasn’t dumb.

  And he was right. I’d want to go home—at least to gather some clothes.

  “Yes.” He growled. “What kinds of cameras? Remote? They require camera cards? Good.” He sighed. “She agreed to stay until Sunday, but come Sunday evening, she wants to have her ass back in Bear Bottom.”

  That was true. I did.

  Actually, I’d rather it be back in Bear Bottom by tonight, but I was sure that was due to the fact that I’d seen Raine just a few minutes ago buying a shirt that I’d been admiring enough to buy one for myself not five minutes before. Now I would have to throw the damn thing away.

  And dammit! I really liked it, too.

  It was a cute little vest that was red and black plaid on the outside, and a soft faux fur on the inside, and would definitely be able to keep me warm.

  But then she’d held it up to her chest and swished around so the woman she was standing next to her could see the movement, causing me to want to set my vest on fire.

  “…need to go. I’ve left her alone too long. I’ve lost her.” Zee sighed. “Yes, she’s with our mothers. No, she’s not anywhere that she’s unsafe. Do you really think the four bikers you have watching over her, rather indiscreetly, would let anything happen to the club president’s son’s woman? No? What about the club’s vice president?” His laughter started anew as something else was said on the other end of the line.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I looked over my shoulder to see the very last person that I wanted to talk to standing there.

  “I’m leaning against a table, enjoying the break,” I lied. “May I help you?”

  I pretended like I didn’t know her, even though the scowl of hers would forever be burned upon my brain.

  Then again, she’d put on quite a bit of weight over the years, and she had some frown lines from hell. She had deep bags under her eyes and a hard look on her face that definitely hadn’t been there when I’d first met her.

  “You know exactly who I am,” Raine returned, her sneer taking on familiar lines on her face. “Where’s my ex-husband?”

  I shrugged. “Around.”

  I had no doubt that Zee could hear us. He was literally just around the corner. There was also no hiding Raine’s acidic tone.

  Nor was she trying even a little bit to keep her tone to a semi-normal decibel.

  “Why are y’all here?” she asked. “And why are y’all together? I thought that y’all hated each other.”

  I shrugged. “Sometimes hate sex is the best kind of sex.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I always knew he had a thing for you. That’s why I decided to leave him, after all.”

  I would’ve punched her in the face had I thought I could get away with it.

  However, I’d never kept my dislike of the woman to myself. I’d made it abundantly loud and clear exactly how I felt about her—when Zee was with her and when he wasn’t.

  There might’ve been one time that I accidentally, maybe on kind of purpose, tripped her because of how she was talking about Carrie behind her back.

  Then there was another time that I heard her talk about my sister, who was ‘long dead and gone’ and ‘why can’t he just get over it already.’ That time I’d lost my shit a little harder than all the others. Needless to say, I might, or might not have, punched the bitch in the face.

  My sister wasn’t something that you could ‘just get over already.’

  My sister was a beautiful person, and she would forever be a fresh wound inside mine and Zee’s hearts. Just like his brother.

  “You didn’t know shit, then,” I said. “Zee and I are new. We just got ‘together’ as you say. And there’s never been a time when what we have wasn’t completely, one hundred percent platonic until lately.”

  She scoffed in derision. “Yeah, right. You expect me to believe that?”

  I shrugged. “You can believe whatever the fuck you want.”

  I didn’t care if she believed me. I also didn’t care if she fell off the curb and was run over by a bus.

  She was completely inconsequential to me.

  “You knew that I had a baby with Zee, right?” she asked carefully.

  I tilted my head. “Yes.”

  Or would have had she not miscarried it.

  “I’m being punished now for misdeeds of my past.” Her lips thinned. “I didn’t want that baby. Even after I married Zee, I didn’t want it. When I lost the baby, I didn’t care. But now that I’m trying to actively have one with my new husband, I can’t stay pregnant. Do you know what that feels like?”

  “You mean, do I know what it feels like to want kids and not be able to have them?” I asked. “Yes, yes I do.”

  She curled her lip up at me. “And how would you know that?”

  I lifted my hand up to show her the webbing of scars that ran up the length of my arm. “Because of this right here. When I was struck by lightning, this scar wasn’t the only thing that was left behind. The inability to have kids was also left with me. So yes, I understand what it feels like not to be able to have kids. What I don’t understand is why you wouldn’t have wanted the one that you were carrying of Zee’s. We haven’t been together long, but Jesus Christ. If I had the chance to carry his baby, I would do it in a heartbeat.”

  Faster than a heartbeat.

  “Well, I guess I can’t say that I’m upset about it all.” She shrugged. “I guess it’s fitting. You don’t need kids anyway.”

  Annnnnd, that’s when I punched her.

  ***

  Zee was laughing as I was hauled away in handcuffs.

  At first, I thought that I’d get out of being arrested. The arresting officer, Leed, was one of my father’s men. He was the sergeant at arms for the Dixie Wardens MC Arkansas chapter.

  He also had his hands tied.

  Had I not been the one to throw the first punch. Had I not been the one to keep pummeling her even when he told me to stop. Had I not done it all in front of a damn camera that had captured the whole thing…

  Needless to say, I deserved it.

  What I didn’t deserve was Zee’s laughter.

  “What are you looking at?” I snarled at the nearest person, a girl I graduated with.

  She’d been a bitch to me my entire life, so I was unsure what anyone expected me to do.

  “Nothing,” the girl lied.


  I couldn’t even remember the girl’s name. Only that she’d been one of the ones to give me shit when I hadn’t wanted shit to be given to me.

  “Be good, Killer,” Zee ordered, laughing his ass off as he walked next to me. “I’ll meet you downtown.”

  I flipped him off from behind my back.

  I would’ve waved that finger, loud and proud, had my wrists not been cuffed behind my back.

  “Surely you could’ve cuffed her hands in front of her,” my mother trotted next to us. “She’s not going to run away. You know who her parents are.”

  “Listen, darlin’,” Leed said. “The one and only time I underestimated this kid, she got out of her room, stole the keys to my Harley, and drove off with it when she was twelve. I will not be underestimating her again. Not to mention she and Raine had to be dragged apart.”

  That was true.

  Well, both things.

  We had had to be dragged apart. I also might’ve stolen Leed’s motorcycle. But it’d been when I had just turned fifteen. Not when I was twelve. There was a little bit of difference in years.

  Not to mention maturity levels.

  “Did you want to ride with us, Carrie? Bertha?”

  My mother and Carrie shook their heads. “No, we’ll go home. Zee can take care of her.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Fucking wonderful.”

  Zee pinched my ass. “See you in a few.”

  He was right.

  He did see me in a few.

  But not before Leed gave me a string of lectures.

  Chapter 18

  Find a man that’ll start your car for you on cold days. That, or remote start. Who needs a man, anyhow?

  -Text from Jubilee to Zee

  Zee

  I walked in with a bag of tacos in one hand, and a couple of sweet teas in the other. My intention had been to come straight to the police station, but then I’d seen my favorite taco guy ever on the side of the road selling tacos—and swear to God, I knew Jubilee wouldn’t mind since they were her favorite tacos, too.

  I’d just topped the top step when I heard the screaming.

  Frowning, I walked into the front office of the police station—a place I’d been a million times before, it seemed like—and came to a sudden halt.

  The office was in chaos.

  From the corner of the room, I could see Jubilee, looking on wide-eyed, as a man struggled to get free from his chair that he’d been handcuffed to.

  Leed was sitting in his chair, watching the festivities with disinterested eyes.

  He glanced at me when I walked in, took one look at the bag in my hands, and shook his head.

  “You know, I thought for sure she was going to claw her way out of that cage and kill me for putting her in there, but I think you might’ve just saved the day.” He laughed. “But this kid’s high off his ass on meth, and I don’t want her out here while he’s in here. I would’ve put him in the cage, but last time I did that, he beat his head against the wall so much that he split it open straight to his skull. Then kept going. And going. And going. I had to stop him because he started to break the brick.”

  I walked farther into the room, then skirted around the man that was flailing against the ground, arms and legs straining to get free, and up to the bars.

  “You okay?” I asked softly.

  She looked at the bag of tacos in my hand. “If that’s Miguel’s tacos, then yes. I’m fine.”

  I grinned and handed the bag through the bars. “Take what you want and hand me back the rest.”

  She did, setting the bag on the table as she painstakingly chose four tacos, all different kinds, and handed me the bag back.

  “Is that sweet tea?” she asked hopefully.

  I grinned. “It is.”

  She wiggled her fingers in the air excitedly. “Sweet!”

  I grunted out a laugh and handed that through the bars, too.

  “Don’t step back,” Leed said. “You might trip on him.”

  I looked down to see the man, still struggling, inching his way toward me.

  I kicked him back by placing my foot on the wooden frame of the chair.

  I gave him a little bit harder of a push than I’d intended to, causing him to slide across the floor, underneath a desk.

  “Whoops,” I said.

  Leed chuckled. “Why don’t you just let her out and take her home? Eat that there.”

  I turned around and caught the keys he’d already lobbed at my head.

  “Thanks for watching her for a while,” I said to Leed as I fit the key into the lock and turned it.

  Jubilee didn’t stop eating her taco that she’d already unwrapped.

  Instead, she gestured toward the table.

  “You had him take me away because you saw something,” she muttered through bites of taco. “What’s going on?”

  Why was this girl so damn smart?

  “I got a call from your dad,” I sighed. “There’s been someone living in your attic.”

  She frowned. “I got that part…but just sayin’, I think I would’ve known if that was happening.”

  I pulled out my phone and swiped it open, keying up the text messages that had been passing back and forth between me and her dad.

  “Look.” I showed her the first picture. “That’s of your attic. That bed in the corner was slept in. There’s milk that goes bad in the fridge in three days’ time, oh, and let’s not forget the fresh cum rags that dot the floor.”

  She gagged and looked at the taco she was eating.

  “Let’s talk about this after tacos,” she instructed.

  I shrugged and gestured for her to continue, neither one of us talking until we’d devoured the entire lot.

  “You know how awful y’all are?” Leed asked from the other side of his room.

  I looked over at him as I licked the cheese off my fingers.

  “You back on that diet?” I asked.

  Leed rolled his eyes. “I have diabetes, bitch. It’s not a fuckin’ diet.”

  I grinned, loving giving him shit.

  Leed and I had grown up with each other. He’d been that nerdy guy in the bunch of kids that had grown up with us and had never really grown into being more social as he aged.

  I liked him, but he’d always been a sickly kid, and never really part of the group, despite us trying to get him there.

  “Sorry,” I lied. “I have some more in here if you want them.”

  I’d purposefully bought too many just so I could reheat them later.

  “No,” he shook his head. “It’s easier to abstain than to taste what I can’t have.”

  He said it so oddly that I would’ve questioned him on that comment had Liner not come in, looking pissed as hell.

  “What’s wrong?” I wondered.

  “Just talked to her dad.” He gestured his head in Jubilee’s direction. “The vehicle that the suspect is driving in was seen on a tollway headed in our direction. He was also spotted at a gas station about two hours from here, still headed in our direction.”

  Jubilee stiffened at my side.

  “Well maybe instead of staying here and giving him a direction to head, we should head out, too,” I said softly.

  “How about y’all go ahead and break it all down for me.” Jubilee pushed her way out of the jail cell, paused to glare at the man that almost tripped her when he lunged in her direction, then continued to the nearest chair.

  Leed moved his feet from the chair and allowed her to take it graciously.

  Leed was always a ladies’ man, even when he didn’t intend to be.

  There was one time in junior high that we’d all been on a canned food drive with our fathers. Leed and I had been in the van, driving with my mother, waiting for her to stop at the next house that had cans for us to collect when Leed had shouted to stop.

  When my mother had stopped, Leed had bailed out of the van and ran toward a house that looked unk
empt.

  While we’d watched, Leed had run to the front door of the place and helped a mother carry two babies to her car.

  “Please sit down.” Leed rushed to make more room on the table.

  “Not to mention everyone that whoever hurt or offended Jubilee in any way in the last couple of weeks has also met their demise between when he confirmed Jubilee left and about two hours ago,” Liner continued.

  That landed between us all like a bomb.

  “Well, Castiel got to digging,” Liner said. “He was investigating that death of the governor’s kid. Then a dead body was called in with the same type of death. And another. And another. Until the last one that was called in was a limo driver.”

  Jubilee’s face lost all color.

  “H-how did he know about them?” she asked softly.

  “Listening devices were found in your house. If it was ever mentioned there, then he probably knows from that,” Liner said. “Castiel thinks that he went on this killing spree because he was afraid one of them hurt or took you. Since you hadn’t been back to your place in a while, he started to get worried—then killed them when he didn’t find them with you.”

  Jubilee closed her eyes. “So how many deaths in total?”

  “Five. Including your neighbor,” Liner said. “We’re not sure if it was your leaving that caused him to flip his switch, or his hidey-hole being uncovered. Either way it goes…you’re in deep shit, girl.”

  I carefully walked the trash over to the trashcan, tossed it inside, then promptly kicked it halfway across the station.

  It hit the meth guy in the forehead, knocking him out cold.

  “Uhh,” Leed said. “That was perfect. But, just sayin’, we should probably not do that again.”

  “Zee couldn’t do that again even if he tried,” Jubilee said softly. My eyes went to her. “We need to go home.”

  Chapter 19

  What is your first language?

  -Talking shit

  Zee

  Needless to say, nobody was happy when we finally arrived back in Bear Bottom at two o’clock in the morning.

  Our mothers weren’t happy because they didn’t get enough time with us. Our fathers were pissed because we were home.

  Then there was Jubilee, who wanted to go home to see her house and all the shit that had been put there without her knowledge, but I wouldn’t allow her to.