Blow Out (Steel Veins Book 1)

by Jackson Kane

  To my utter surprise, the priest pressed a set of car keys into the palm of my hand. No way, seriously?

  The priest pointed to the parking lot. “It’s the station wagon. Come,” he said gently and helped me up. “Let’s get you out of the street. Most truckers around here drive far too quickly to be able stop in time. Even for women as handsome as yourself.” The priest winked, then smiled gently and beckoned me to join him as he walked toward the car.

  It reminded me of when my grandfather would wink at me after he’d sneak me an extra piece of candy right before dinner when my parents weren’t looking.

  The corners of my mouth creased into a distant smile with warm remembrance.

  “Thank you for this, Father.” I tossed the bag onto the passenger’s seat and kissed the priest’s cheek. He blushed. It was sweet. His goodness reminded me of Gloria back at Muse’s Place.

  I really hoped she was doing all right.

  “Hey. I thought you said the donation was anonymous? How’d you know it was Remy who paid for the work to be done?” I raised an eyebrow at the priest. It felt odd that a man of the cloth might’ve been caught in a lie.

  “I asked Father Jameson that very question.” He nodded, satisfied that we thought alike. “His response was… elusive. However, my guess would be that Our Lady of Resurrection church doesn’t get many motorcyclists. Mr. Daniels probably wasn’t one to be easily forgotten.”

  There was no one else like Remy, that was for sure.

  “Amen.” I grinned.

  “Oh, Father Jameson would like you to thank our mysterious benefactor for breathing new life into the old bones of Our Lady of Resurrection. He also said to mention that, should he ever like to rejoin the choir, the doors are always open for him. Father Jameson tells me Mr. Daniels had a lovely singing voice as a child.”

  “I’ll let him know.” Now I couldn’t contain my beaming smile. It was hard to imagine Remy belting out the Catholic hymnal hits with the other boys, but I did love the thought of it.

  “There is a map in the glove compartment. Go with God, my child.”

  I waved to the retreating priest and quickly plotted the course on the map. There was no time to spare, but I needed a peek. Just before I took off, I checked to make sure no one was in the area and unzipped the bag all the way. It was full to the brim with money and also had a couple guns, a knife, a change of clothes, a half a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of whiskey, and a frayed copy of The Catcher in the Rye. I zipped it back up, smiled again, and took off for Santa Fe.

  I found your bag of tricks, Remy. Hold on! I’m on my way!

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Star

  Five thirty. With a half hour to spare, I turned down the side road that led to the taxidermy shop. A bike and a sedan whipped by me, heading in the opposite direction. I could tell by the rider’s vest that they were Lobos. Were the Lobos Doc’s 6:00 p.m. appointment? If so, then what happened to Remy?

  Now I was getting nervous. This Doc guy was obviously unhinged. Who knew if he was the type of person to honor a verbal agreement? The grisly thought of Doc chopping Remy up and mounting his head to the wall was completely ridiculous, but it scared the shit out of me nonetheless. I drove a little faster.

  The sooner I could pay this psychopath and get Remy out of there, the better.

  I wasn’t taking any chances. I tucked the pistol that I found in Remy’s bag into the back of my jeans and slung the bag over my shoulder. The pressure of the gun was tight against my back, and it dawned on me that I really didn’t know how the hell to use this thing. I’d only ever fired a gun once when I shot Rio, and that was almost completely luck. I had no idea where the safety was or even how to activate it. If we ever got a damn moment to breathe, Remy was going to teach me how to handle a gun. It seemed to be a necessary skill in the MC lifestyle.

  The buzzer noise sounded when I pushed open the door. The store was empty, but I could feel Doc’s beady eyes on me through the camera. Dusk had begun stretching across the horizon, and Hall’s Taxidermy had entered that lighting limbo where it was still slightly too bright to merit turning the house lights on but slightly too dark to feel like you were in a retail store and not a haunted house waiting to be torn apart.

  Every wall in the showroom was covered in dead animals, even more so than the basement. The shadows thrown by the dying light filtering into the room were just enough to rob the animals of that cheap, still-just-a-statue quality. Everything was cast in an eerie state of terrifying realism. Reflected light made dozens of hate-filled, glassy eyes flash from the recesses of dark sockets. Monstrous predators of all types were poised, muscles taut, just waiting for the right moment to pounce on an unsuspecting victim.

  I gingerly picked up my pace as I made my way to the basement door.

  The unmistakable sound of a hacksaw cutting through bone greeted me as I opened the bulkhead door. The sense of growing dread that, despite it all, I still hadn’t made it to Remy in time made my rib cage feel like it had halved in size and was strangling me from inside out.

  The gun found its way into my clammy hands.

  Doc was hunched over the metal table with his back to me, and he was vigorously cutting through the head off a body. Oh my God, I was too late!

  He had killed Remy!

  I felt myself raising the pistol. I wasn’t in control any longer. I was now just a horrified passenger in my own body. I watched as grief, fear, and rage took over my limbs. This man had to die.

  A familiar, roughly-calloused hand slowly grabbed and lowered my arm. I was wound so tightly that I wouldn’t have been surprised if my scream had shattered glass.

  “It’s okay, Star. I’m okay.”

  It was Remy! He was awake, and, more importantly, he was alive!

  “Keep the woman silent while I work,” Doc irritably barked, never breaking concentration from his sawing

  “But… but I thought…,” I said quietly as I dragged both of our gazes back to the body being sawed in half.

  “Just an unlucky bastard that the Lobos brought in.” Remy’s voice was a labored husk of what it was before. “They’ll send the head as a message and have Doc cremate the rest.”

  “Why the hell did you scare me?” My adrenaline was finally fading, but still mad at him for startling me, I reflexively punched him in the shoulder.

  His eyes narrowed and his jaw set as he grimaced through the pain. I felt terrible, but Remy didn’t recoil as much as a man who was shot five times should’ve.

  “Oh my God! I’m so sorry!” Immediately realizing how shitty that was, my hands sprang out in front of me to console him. I stopped them from touching him again because I was afraid I might hurt him more, so they just hung in the air awkwardly.

  Remy breathed for a moment and worked through it. He touched his shoulder to make sure nothing had reopened, then his face slowly unscrewed into a genuine smile. A smile that, despite my stupidity, meant he was glad to see me. He then pulled me in for a hug, and it was the best feeling in the world.

  “I couldn’t let them see me when they brought the body in, so I hid behind some boxes.” Remy favored his left arm and ribs while struggling just to stand. Still, he was a lot less fucked-up than when I left him. I honestly didn’t expect to find him standing at all, let alone moving about. He had to be on some really good drugs.

  “Do you have my money?” Doc finally turned toward us. Blood splattered his biohazard coverall as his head cocked down to look at us over his thick-lensed glasses. “Well?”

  “Yes! Christ! Give me a damn sec.” I’d almost just shot this man in the back of the head because I thought he killed my… whatever Remy was to me. I needed a moment to switch gears. I fished out ten thousand from the bag and slapped it down on the table.

  He peeled off his gloves, expertly tossing them in the incinerator. He strode over, snatched up the bundles of money, and began counting to make sure it was the right amount and not counterfeit. “Yes, yes. You may leave,” Doc abruptly
stated when he’d finished verifying the money was legitimate.

  Fine by me. I was eager to put this freak show behind us.

  “Wait.” He put it all in a safe embedded into the floor and handed me a mason jar with the bullets he’d taken out of Remy.

  “Gross.” I held up the jar. The bits of metal were all deformed from punching into Remy and were covered in dried blood.

  “You’re just jealous you didn’t get a souvenir.” Remy’s tone would’ve followed with a smirk, but he was grimacing too much from the exertion of going up the stairs, which was a slow process. He was still in really rough shape, but feeling his weight on me as I helped him along was exactly what I needed.

  “Yeah.” I smiled for the both of us instead. “Now I need to find you a shirt that says ‘I got gunned down by a Mexican biker gang and all I got were these lousy bullets.’”

  “Ow, fuck!” Remy growled through a pained chuckle as we made our way out to the station wagon. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  Remy would have a long road of recovery ahead him, but I’d be there every step of the way.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Remy

  Two Months Later…

  It was a weird thing being dead.

  I’d thought about it a lot, especially these last few years. It wasn’t so much of an “if” but more of a “when.” I just never thought I’d live through my own death.

  After a few weeks of being bedridden, it felt damn good to be outside again. The asphalt was damp with midnight dew. I sat on the ground under the overhang against the wall of our motel room. I watched occasional taillights speed by the sleepy main road that blinked out as they turned the corner.

  I didn’t know if I actually died or not.

  The last thing I remembered was pushing Star out of the way then hearing Bones’s gun fire. Everything after that was extremely fuzzy. The things I did or said during that time were automatic or completely on a subconscious level. She had to fill me in on what happened at the taxidermy shop and getting my bug-out bag from Our Lady of Resurrections.

  It was one thing to be saved from being killed, but to be brought back when the odds were hopeless was incredible. I guess at one point, she even stole an ambulance to keep me alive. It was hard to wrap my head around the thought of someone caring that much for me.

  Every breath I drew now was because of her.

  It was quiet, aside from the ambient hum of the city. I put my fingers on the concrete slab walkway and felt the vibrations of big things moving in the distance. I felt connected again.

  We had holed up at the Cottonwood Castle, a shitty, one-level, white and teal, U-shaped motel complete with a small room with a lumpy bed, stained carpet, and barred windows. Low-man’s Paradise. It was the cheapest place with weekly rates that Star could find, but I didn’t fault her for it. She had done the best she could do given the crazy situation.

  It was two thirty in the morning, and I couldn’t sleep. I needed to be outside for a while to get my bearings and clear my head. The chill in the air necessitated more than just the T-shirt I was wearing, but I just couldn’t force myself into that scratchy, yellow-green Christmas sweater that Star got me. It made me look like a late-February pine tree lying by the curb.

  I almost wasn’t able to get out of bed to come outside. Not just because of the constant pain that radiated throughout my fixed-up, ventilated holes, but because Star was lying next to me. I’d forgotten how warm and comfortable it was to sleep next to the same person in an actual bed for more than one night.

  It was peaceful, something I’d abandoned a long time ago.

  It had been years since I was able to let my guard down enough to sleep without having to worry about what might’ve been gone in the morning. Not that I had a lot of stuff to begin with, but I did typically carry a lot of cash on me. My philosophy was always: if someone could take it from me, then they deserved it more than I did.

  That wasn’t the case anymore. Everything had changed. During my recovery, I was disgustingly useless. Star was the one who kept the wolves at bay. All I could do was exist. I practically slept all the time now. I’d been so tired from the recovery that my sleep schedule was all jacked up. Sometimes, I’d lay awake in the middle of the night just to feel her next to me. Her arm always wrapped around my chest while she was asleep, like she was trying to shield me from being shot like she couldn’t the first time. She was afraid she might lose me.

  Her pressure over my wounds hurt, of course, but I embraced that pain. I was glad it hurt. Pain was familiar and safe, a constant companion of mine that assured me I was still alive. It was the other thing that frightened me.

  I’d stopped being worthy of love years ago.

  To have someone care about me despite the man I’d become was intimidating. It made me anxious and worried that I wouldn’t live up to her expectations. I wanted more than anything to be able to storm back into that room and declare an undying love for her like in a Shakespearean play, but I wasn’t hardwired that way.

  The man I wanted to be was within arm’s reach, but also a million miles away.

  I balled up my fist in frustration and pushed it into the concrete beneath me until the skin on my knuckles started to crack and bleed. I didn’t know love in any other way that wasn’t also pain. I was furious at myself for not being able to trust her completely.

  She brought me back to life! What else would it fucking take?

  I lit a cigarette to settle my nerves. Once the smoke hit my lungs, a familiar calm washed over me. The clicking of the lighter, taking a few minutes out of my day to reflect or to focus on what needed to be done. Smoking was a ritual for me. I knew it was a crutch, but it did clear my head.

  There was a scooter parked next to one of the motel room doors. It was chained to one of the windows. It needed to be, in this area. Hell, even I was half tempted to throw that tiny joke of a bike over my shoulder and pawn it. Looking at the brightly colored Vespa just pissed me off and made me miss my Ninja that much more.

  If Rocks had lived, I’d have killed him for what he did to my beautiful bike.

  When I first got that bike, Top busted my balls about it relentlessly. Whenever we had local club bullshit that needed doing, he’d ask me if I’d be riding my “butterfly” that day. I painted it all black a short time later, but it didn’t help.

  He dubbed it Black Beauty. But that ribbing was just around the club. If any nonmember had the balls to say shit about my bike around him, Top would’ve busted his fucking nose. Top saw me disconnecting from the club, hell, from everything for a long time, but Star was his catalyst to finally act.

  There was no getting around it; Top did some horrible, unforgivable shit, and there was no excusing what he tried to do to Star. But he was still my brother. I also understood that idle rage and grief could make a man lose his fucking mind. It was plain to see that he was lashing out because of Bren’s death.

  With Todd dead, he had no one else to blame for our brother’s murder but her. He tried to rape her when I brought her to Muse’s so I’d see her as just another whore and lose interest. Then he tried to have her killed because she was the only witness to me murdering Todd.

  If Star escaped, she could’ve sent me to prison for a long, long time.

  I knew what he was trying to do, and I would always love Top because he’s my last remaining blood brother, but what he attempted to do to Star, regardless of the reasons, was inexcusable. He’d have to pay for that somehow before things could ever be right between us.

  I thought about what Star meant to me now, and I honestly didn’t know a gesture that would be big enough to fix things. I exhaled a long plume of smoke, feeling frustrated that I’d lost both my brothers.

  I missed Tee and the other guys too. It hadn’t been that long since I’d seen them. What? A few months maybe? Even before all this with Star, ever since Maria had been killed, I’d been distant for a long time. I’d taken some time away from the club after that. The guys
gave me some space then, but I was still a member and they were always just a phone call away.

  Not anymore.

  This was different. I’d never been this far outside before.

  After what Bones did to me, everyone thought I was dead. Being dead had its perks though. For one, Deadeye would have to call off the kill teams. There’d be no need for them anymore, so we didn’t have to worry about people actively looking for me. It was kind of funny that getting killed meant Star and I had a chance to actually live.

  I glanced back at our motel room door. It was slightly ajar. The image of Star sprawled out asleep on the bed, comfortable and safe after all she’d been through these last several weeks, warmed me to the core. But also, here I was, broke and broken with no civilian skills or future.

  I didn’t deserve her. But there she was, by my side with nothing to gain. How could I not trust her completely? She was the Bonnie to my Clyde, as she loved to say.

  I’d do it all again if I had to. Leaving the club, getting shot, all of it, just to be with her.

  Star was worth it ten times over.

  Now I was dead, well, at least that’s what both the Lobos and the Veins thought. It was a fucking miracle that either of us survived that mess. We were free to start over to have a normal life.

  Star asked me once why we didn’t just leave all this. I still felt obligated to my brothers, and to the Veins that I remembered growing up with. I told her that she gave me the strength to be the scalpel, to remove the cancer that had grown in my club. But after the meet with Bones went tits up, I started to realize that maybe I had it all twisted. Star was right. I would always love my club, but maybe I wasn’t the man to fix things. They tried to have me killed. Granted, I did kill the national president’s shithead son. Well, the club could take care of itself. So what was the point of trying to sort things out on my own? My plan was insane. It would never work.