by Bourne, Lena
“What the hell is this?” he asks harshly, his eyes catching on my cut.
“I told you to come alone,” I counter. “Did you bring the money?”
He turns to the guys at his back. “Do you see this idiot? He thinks he’s got us.”
His mouth twists nastily as he turns back to me. “Release my sons first.”
I show him the detonator I’m holding in my left hand. “This is for the bomb under your sons' asses in the van,” I tell him. “I figured you wouldn’t come to me with good intentions, because that’s not the kind of guy you are. So I prepared. If I don’t see the money in the next couple of seconds, and if you don’t trade me your bike for the keys to the van right after, I’m gonna blow us all up. I’ll count to three.”
Even in the poor light cast by the headlights of their bikes, I see the dark red color disappear from his face. He didn’t think I’d be this prepared. He knows he can’t shoot me before I press the button on the detonator, he knows they’re all dead if he doesn’t do exactly what I say.
What I don’t know is why I’m putting on this long show. They’ll all be dead soon. Why prolong this wait?
“How did you do all this? Who helped you?” Griff asks.
“We did,” Cross says from the shadows, right before walking out into the light.
He lets them recognize him, then adds. “You’ve been talking to the feds, Griff, you’ve been telling them all sorts of stories. You know what the punishment for that is.”
“I…I…didn’t,” Griff starts stammering then clears his throat and continues more firmly, “Who the fuck fed you these lies?”
“Your sons did,” Cross says, pointing at Horse and Piston in the back of the van. “Talking to the feds is never tolerated, even if it’s to save your children.”
“What the fuck’s he saying, Griff?” one of the Sinners asks harshly. Three others are glowering at Griff, waiting for an answer. They probably had nothing to do with this. Too bad. They’re gonna die anyway.
“He’s lying, that’s what he’s doing,” Griff answers.
“Your sons both ratted you out,” Cross says. “That’s all the proof I need. You tried to take me and mine out. You lost. And as you may have heard, Devil’s Nightmare MC does not leave scores unsettled or debts unpaid.”
The gasps are even louder this time. I don’t think all of them recognized Cross or any of the others now standing behind him in the light.
“What the fuck did you and your deadbeat sons get us into now?” one of the men asks. It’s not the same guy who demanded answers before.
“Let’s make a deal,” Griff says to Cross, ignoring his club brother. “You let us go, we forget any of this happened, and I make sure the feds never bother you.”
I laugh, Ice and Tank and Scar laugh, and even Cross chuckles. “I don’t make deals with traitors.”
Cross brings the walkie-talkie he’s holding up to his lips. “Now.”
Shots whizz out of the darkness. Four Sinners go down before they realize what happened. One of them is screaming and trying to crawl away, because the bullet meant for him got him through the legs. Two are crouching and cowering, and two are running off into the darkness. Griff just stands there, glaring at Cross, showing more backbone in the face of death than I would’ve credited him with.
Another round of shots whizz by, cutting off the injured man’s screams abruptly, their echoes receding into the night time silence. Griff is the only Sinner left standing now. He’s as pale as a ghost.
Cross signals Ice and Scar to bring the sons out of the van. Horse is unconscious, Scar supporting all his weight, but Piston is awake if not quite alert. He’s in shock, most likely. The pain that crosses Griff’s face as he looks at them slices through my heart before I can block it out. Where I see the men who were gonna kill me and my woman in cold blood, he’s looking at his little boys. They were gonna rape Stormi before killing her just to make the last moments of her and my life more hellish and unbearable. They were gonna enjoy doing it. The reason we’re all standing here is because they didn’t think much before killing a group of children. They don’t deserve my pity or my mercy.
“They tortured me, they tricked me, and they said we could live,” Piston says in a pleading voice.
“It’s alright, son,” Griff says quietly, comfortingly. “I’ll get you home. Both of you.”
He sounds like he believes it, but I doubt he truly does.
Griff wasn’t hit by any of the bullets, but he went to his knees during the second volley anyway. He’s extending his arms towards his sons. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll make it alright. Let me fix it.”
I’m not sure who he’s talking to, Cross or his son, or maybe God.
Piston is straining against Ice’s grip to get to his father, screaming, crying, his words unintelligible.
“Let him go,” Cross says. “Bring the other one too.”
Cross is not a cruel man. He’s gonna give Griff this last chance to embrace his sons and say goodbye. And he does.
It’s hard to witness. I have to keep a firm grip on my own pain of never getting the chance to say goodbye to my family to prevent this scene of hopelessness from overwhelming me. I never got to say a good goodbye to Stormi either. And now she’s not answering my calls. I called her three times today and left two voicemails, but she hasn’t replied yet. I refuse to accept that she wants nothing more to do with me, although faced with this scene I set in motion, I can see why she wouldn’t. Why she shouldn’t.
I’m a killer, as cold-blooded as they come. She deserves better than me. But that voice of logic is not cold enough to convince me. She’s the best thing that’s happened to me since the day my family was killed. I will be the man worthy of her. I will win her back. But how?
“Let’s finish it now,” Cross says, jerking me out of those threatening thoughts.
It’s all done and over with in the space of three shots. Merciful and quick. If Horse ever woke up, I didn’t notice it. Griff died clutching his sons’ hands.
“I’ll stay behind and help dig the graves,” I tell Cross. “If someone could see about getting my bike…”
“It’ll be done,” Cross says.
Part of this fake deal I made with Griff was for my bike to be left in the mall parking lot near the beach where Stormi and me shared our first night together. At the time I didn’t realize it, but now that I think back on it, I figured that would be the first night of many more to come. Now I’m no longer sure it will.
“Take the van and torch it at least ten miles away from here,” Cross directs me and the rest who are staying to dispose of the body. “Then call and we’ll pick you up.”
I’ve already started digging the graves.
I ate and slept with these men. They were never my friends and they tried to kill me, both as a member of Devil’s Nightmare MC, and as Ace the Spawn, the man I pretended to be. I bested them. I won and they lost. I’m left standing and they’re dead.
That’s why I want to help bury them. Or part of the why. The other part is that I’m not yet ready to face the rest of my life, and accepting that Stormi will not be a part of it.
I came so close, so damn close, to having a family again. But that’s also how my twisted luck works. It saves my ass whether I wish for it or not, while dangling the things I do want in front of my face just long enough for me to touch before snatching them away. My family. My vengeance. And now Stormi.
24
Stormi
The film crew left after Misti was admitted, taking the pastor with them, but neither my mom nor me went home while they ran the pre-op tests on Misti. We had lunch in the hospital cafeteria, drank another three cups of coffee and waited until the doctor finally said we could go and see her.
She’s sitting up in bed as we enter her room, wearing a pale pink hospital gown, her back propped with two thick pillows. The smile on her face is perpetual.
“I’m good to go,” she informs us as we enter. The walls
of the room are painted a bright orange to cheer up the patients and family members. They were lavender when we were younger. I never found them cheery, just glaring and annoyingly bright and fake. Until today.
“You’re tests went OK?” I ask.
I walk to her bed, sit on the edge and take her hand. It’s cool, yet soft. My sister has the softest skin I ever felt.
“The doc says my results aren’t perfect, but they’re workable,” she says, squeezing my hand in return. “And that’s good enough for me.”
Mom wipes a tear off her face while she fluffs her pillows. Misti leans forward to let her do it, peering at my face intently.
“We did it, Stormi,” she says. “Finally. But won’t you tell me what happened to you? I’ve been so worried about you.”
I shake my head and give her hand a tighter squeeze as I look away from her sparkling diamond blue eyes. The afternoon sun is finding its way through the cracks in the blinds on the window, piercing the room in blades of soft light, making all this seem like a pastel-colored dream, my favorite kind. I don’t want to ruin it.
“I’ll tell you when you’re well,” I say in a voice that’s throaty and hoarse, as though I hadn’t used it for a while. And when Ace is with me. I don’t add that. He hasn’t called all day. He might never call. I can’t face that thought yet.
Misti’s smile falters and both her and Mom are looking at my face like they’re worried for me.
“I’d like to know, Stormi.”
“You need peace and quiet today, not horrible stories,” I say and chuckle. Both Misti and Mom gasp.
Misti’s the one squeezing my hand tight now. “It’s worse not knowing, Stormi. I can see in your eyes that it was bad. I want to make it better for you. While I still can.”
I’m the one who gasps now, the reality of what she said piercing me like a knife through the heart. I’m ready to argue, ready to insist that we’ll have all the time in the world after her procedure, but it melts away as I see the earnest truth and compassion in her eyes. Mom’s face is almost identical.
“We’re your family, Stormi,” she says. “You can tell us everything. At any time.”
Where do I even start telling my story? How much do I tell? Not everything.
I clear my throat, looking from one to the other, still vaguely hoping one of them will tell me I don’t have to do this. That I don’t have to pierce my sister’s heart with knowing all about the deadly, soul-destroying mess I got myself into for the money I gave her. She’ll blame herself. She’ll feel guilty. She’ll…
“Please, Stormi,” Misti says. “I want to be there for you like you’ve always been there for me.”
I clear my throat again, squeezing her hand for support and reassurance this time. Not everything.
“You know that money I gave you before I left? The seven-thousand dollars?” I ask in a croaky voice. She nods, while I clear my throat yet again.
“I stole that money from a biker I met one night in a club,” I say. “It was a huge mistake. He tracked me down…me, Brenda and a guy she was seeing, and they took us with them to San Diego. Since I couldn’t pay them back, they made me…they…they kept me locked up until I could pay off my debt. And Brenda too.
I hope Brenda found the note I left for her. I hope I didn’t make too many spelling mistakes with my dyslexia to make it unreadable. I tried to warn her to run away.
Both Misti and Mom are looking at me with identical looks of deep shock laced with sorrow in their eyes.
“But they let you call me. Why didn’t you run away?” Misti asks.
“I knew they’d kill me if they caught me. I’d lead them right to you if I went home.” I clear my throat, but there’s no easy way to say this. “I also knew that they’d kill you too to get back at me. They’re vicious and totally immoral.”
“What…what did they do to you?” Misti asks in a shaky, petrified voice.
“I just had to work behind the bar and serve them drinks pretty much around the clock,” I say with too much false cheeriness in my voice. “It wasn’t so very bad. I just couldn’t leave.”
“It’s all my fault. If I didn’t need the money, if I wasn’t sick, if you didn’t think you had to do this for me…” She’s breathless and needs to stop talking for a second. My heart is cramping in my chest from the pain I’m causing her.
“I made a bad call stealing that money,” I tell her. “It’s not on you, it’s on me.”
“No. It’s all on me,” Mom says in a whispery, croaky voice. She’s standing right behind me, so close I can feel her shivering even before she strokes my hair. “If I’d been around, if I’d been the mother you girls deserved, none of this would’ve happened. None of it.”
Tears are streaming down her face and Misti’s too, leaving whiter streaks on her already porcelain cheeks. My own are still in my eyes, not flowing yet.
“No one needs to cry, and no one needs to take the blame for any of this. I’m home and I’m free and Misti is getting a second chance at life,” I say as I lean into my mom’s caress while squeezing Misti’s hand tighter.
My hearty words aren’t enough to convince Misti who’s shaking her head in refusal of the truth in my words. Mom hiccups as she tries to suppress a sob. I’m gonna have to try harder to keep the blame for all this where it belongs—on me.
“I also found love. I found a good man. He saved me and made it so I can be here with you now, be free,” I say, the words kinda catching in my throat. “So it all turned out good. Better than good. It turned out perfect.”
I believe that with all my heart and all my soul. It’s just my mind warning me I might have lost that love too. Found and lost, it would seem. Ace might actually already be in that group of men I thought I loved, the group that came and went.
Misti smiles through her tears and Mom leans down to kiss the top of my head.
“I’m happy for you, Stormi. You deserve happiness and love,” Mom says and Misti nods in agreement.
I feel lighter for having told them, as though their tears and kind words washed away the last dregs of the dirt left behind by Horse and the rest of the Sinners.
Mom sits down beside me and hugs me. I pull Misti into an embrace too. Then we just sit there in silence, the bands of soft white afternoon light illuminating us, warming us, making this scene into one of the best dreams I ever had.
* * *
Misti’s operation started at six PM and ended at one AM. It wasn’t an easy one, the very tired doctor told us once it was over. Her condition was much more advanced, because she’s so much older than most of his other patients, so it was trickier to do all he had to do, but he said he’s confident it went well. He was glassy eyed and slack-faced when he came out to tell us all this, his curly hair limp and sticking to his forehead with sweat. I tried to not fear it meant the outlook was bad despite his encouraging words. I spent the hours while she was in the operating room sending her every and all good thoughts I could come up with, while fearing she’ll never wake up. A dizzying, nauseating combination.
“No visitors yet,” he told me when I shakily asked if I can go see her. Then he smiled for the first time since coming out of the ER. “I have every hope she’s going to recover quickly and live a much fuller life than she did until now. But she must rest and recover first.”
I didn’t leave the hospital though. I stayed in the waiting room with my mom and the pastor, sending my energy at Misti with a single-mindedness I haven’t felt since I was a little girl and she had her first heart surgery. I fell asleep leaning on Mom’s shoulder.
“Go home and get some real rest, Stormi. You need it,” she says quietly as she wakes me. “I’ll stay here.”
The pastor was already gone too.
“I want to be here when she wakes up,” I say blearily, my heart still racing because she roused me out of very deep sleep and a nightmare. I think. I don’t want to try and remember it too well, because I think it was very bad.
“I’ll call you
as soon as Misti wakes up,” she assures me. “Do you need money for a taxi?”
I nod and she takes her wallet from her purse and hands me a couple of bills.
“Call me at dawn. Whether she’s awake or not,” I ask her and she assures me she will.
“I’m happy you’re home, Stormi,” she says taking my hand as she hands me to money. “I missed you.”
She sounds so sincere when she says it my eyes nearly well up.
“I’m so happy to have both my girls home with me,” she concludes. “Everything will be alright from now on, you’ll see. Absolutely everything.”
“I’m glad I’m home too,” I say awkwardly.
My mom’s made some big mistakes in her life, not least of which was leaving her two young daughters in the care of her mother and disappearing for almost ten years. But I’ve made some majestic mistakes of my own since then. Maybe it’s time I start truly forgiving her for hers.
I dozed off again in the taxi, and I’m shivering as I walk from the sidewalk to my dark, empty family home. Memories of Ace’s smiling face as he bid me goodbye right here not long ago are flooding my mind so hard my lips are tingling from the last kiss we shared. Why didn’t he call yet? Will he ever?
I have no energy to face the questions, no strength to fight them. I can barely ignore them.
It’s almost two in the morning, and I don’t turn on any lights when I get in, just go upstairs and lay down on Misti’s bed. I always slept in her bed when she was in the hospital, thinking I’d be closer to her that way and better able to send her more energy. The two foster kittens and the old cat she’s taking care of seemed to have the same idea tonight, because they’re all already sleeping on her bed. But they make room for me too.
* * *
Ace
The digging and burying didn’t take very long, nor did the torching of the van. It’s barely three AM when we return to the compound, where even the sight of my bike, with all my possessions safely stowed in the saddlebags in front of the bunker, doesn’t dispel the deadness that settled over me as I shoveled the dry, sandy earth over Griff and his sons.