by K. A. Ware
“Jesus, no need to get your panties in a wad. No, I don’t know where he’d take her. I haven’t been around the club in years. I did hear that the Knights were responsible for taking out Vinny and his boys and settin’ the clubhouse on fire, though. Is this what that’s all about?” she asked. I didn’t care how much she fished. I wasn’t giving her any more ammunition.
“Are you sure, you can’t think of anything from before? Didn’t they do business down here sometimes when Dad was around?” I asked, trying to remember that far back. I was pretty sure she had complained about his frequent trips south, but I had no clue if the trips were to Portland or some other destination.
“Listen, kid. You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree. I don’t know where the fuck he could’ve taken her. Now, tell me, who’s ear you in down there? Hook a big fish? Or was it Nat? You gonna take care of your mama? You know it’s been real hard just tryin’ to get by. My landlord’s gonna kick me out if I—”
I disconnected the call without letting her finish. Same as always, she only succeeded in being worse than my memories.
Lying on my side, I curled into myself, trying to stave off the empty feeling growing in my chest. I’d gone for broke, playing the last card I had and came up empty.
Everything hurt, my face, chest. Hell, my whole body ached, but it was my heart that was in agony. Every minute she was gone was a minute he could be brutalizing her. Even if we got her back, I couldn’t help but wonder what version of my sister would come home.
How much could one person take before they broke for good? He’d stripped away her innocence and saddled her with issues that would haunt her future. Was there anything even left?
“I’m sorry, Nat. I love you, and I’m so fucking sorry,” I whispered through my tears.
Maybe a miracle would carry my words to wherever she was, and they’d give her strength. Or maybe I was just as delusional as Butcher.
I must’ve fallen asleep because my phone buzzing in my hand woke me up. Peeling my eyes open, I looked at the screen but didn’t recognize the number. It took me a second for the night’s events to come flooding back, but when they did, I sat up straight, fumbling to answer the phone.
My haphazard stitches pulled painfully with the movement, causing me to wince.
“Hello? Stella, is that you?”
“No, it’s your mother. I take it you didn’t find her yet?”
Fucking hell.
I was going to have to change my number when this was over.
Flopping onto my back, I stared at the ceiling, wishing I could fall back into a dreamless sleep. At least there, my heart didn’t feel like it was being bled dry.
“No, why are you calling?” I asked, ready to get this conversation over with.
“I just—” she broke off into a coughing fit and came back wheezing. “I just wanted to see if you found her.”
I hated that a small part of me wanted to ask if she was okay. She never cared if we were sick. Never worried about what condition Stella was in when she resorted to shooting shit into her bloodstream to forget the nightmare she was stuck living in. Charese didn’t deserve my concern.
“Well, we haven’t,” I clipped out. Glancing to the clock on the wall, I saw it was just past three in the morning. The few hours of sleep I’d managed had done little to take the edge off. If anything, I was more irritable and stressed than I had been before.
“I’m sorry, baby. I wish I could help,” she said softly. I wasn’t buying it for a second. The bitch was as opportunistic as they came. She’d be angling to leverage the situation to her benefit in…3…2…1…
“You know, I could drive down, help with the search. Then, when we find her, I could stay with you for a while and help out. I miss you girls,” she offered, her voice dripping with honey.
And there it is.
“No. This isn’t some olive branch, Charese. I was desperate, and you were the absolute last person I wanted to reach out to, but I had to try. As far as Nat and I are concerned, you’re dead and gone. Don’t call me again,” I snapped, ending the call.
Breathing out a frustrated sigh, I sat up and climbed off the bed. Might as well go and check to see if Baz and the guys had found something while I was sleeping.
My phone buzzed again, and I groaned when I saw the 253 area code. She would just keep calling if I didn’t answer.
“I told you not to call me,” I barked into the phone.
Road noise and heavy breathing filled the other end of the line. “Fin?”
My heart stopped, and I nearly fell to my knees hearing Stella’s voice.
“Oh, my God. Are you okay?”
“Fuck, Fin! I’m screwed, I’m in trouble, FUCK!” she screamed, and I heard some sort of pounding before she came back to the line. “I’m fucked,” Stella whimpered.
“What are you talking about? What happened? Where are you?” I spit the questions at her one after another, desperate for her to answer any of them.
Flinging the door open, I ran down the hall, searching for Baz.
“Fuck, I don’t know! I don’t really know this part of town. Fuck, I’m gonna get pulled over, and they’re gonna lock me up. Shit, I can’t breathe. Fucking. Goddamn. FUCK!”
“Stella! Take a breath. It’s okay. One thing at a time, it’s going to be okay. You sound like you’re in a car, are you driving?” I asked, coming into the main bar area.
Hearing my voice, Baz looked up from where he’d been looking at Frogger’s laptop. They were the only two guys left. Everyone else must’ve been in bed or out looking for Stella.
“That her?” Baz whispered as I came to stand beside him. I nodded and put the phone on speaker.
“Yeah, fuck Fin, I’m so screwed. Goddamn it.”
Shit, she was spinning out. If I didn’t calm her the fuck down quick, she was going to end up killing herself.
“Stella, honey, take a breath. You’re driving, what’s around you? Can you pull over?”
“Yeah, um, there’s a Mexican restaurant,” she said, her voice sounding slightly less tense.
If I gave her one task at a time to focus on, maybe it’d bring her back down.
“Good, can you pull into the parking lot and park?”
“Y-yeah. Yeah, I can do that. But Fin, if someone sees me…” she trailed off, her voice growing more panicked.
She didn’t want anyone to see her? What had Butcher done to her?
“Can you park in the corner or under a tree or something? It’s late, if you keep the lights off no one is going to be able to see you in the dark. Are you parked?” I asked after a second.
The other end of the line quieted, and I heard Stella blow out a breath, then another, before she spoke. “I parked, but I don’t know where I am. You gotta come get me, please!” she begged.
“Honey, we are, we’re going to come get you, just concentrate on breathing. We just need to find you, first. What kind of phone are you calling me on?” I asked, remembering how Baz had me send him my location when I’d gotten a flat.
“Just a shitty burner, it was Butcher’s. I took it when…Fucking shit, fuck! You need to get here now, right fucking now, Fin!”
Frogger blew out a breath. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“Okay, it’s okay, everything is going to be okay. Do you know what part of town you’re in?”
“Gresham, I think,” she said between breaths. I could hear her inhaling deeply and slowly exhaling, one of her many coping tools. “Sign says Casa Tamale. I wasn’t paying attention to street signs.”
I looked to Frogger who was typing frantically on his computer. “Rockwood. Right off the corner of 187th and Stark.”
“We just sent Z and Jester to check out an address that way, I’ll have them meet her,” Baz said, already pressing his phone to his ear as he started to walk away.
“Z and Jester are close, so they’re going to meet you. I’m on my way, too,” I said, even though I didn’t know how I was going to
get there. My car was still at my house, and I didn’t know where they kept the keys to the tow truck, so I was as good as stranded.
“Just talked to Jester, they’re less than five minutes out from her location. We’ll meet them there,” he said, reading my mind.
“Did you hear that? They’ll be there in a few minutes. It’s going to be okay,” I said, hurrying behind Baz.
I climbed into the tow truck, coaxing her through calming breaths. I needed to keep her calm, so she didn’t start to lose her shit again. I didn’t know why she was so concerned about someone seeing her, but given what I looked like when Baz found me, it couldn’t be good.
She was safe, that’s what mattered at the moment. Everything else would work itself out. It had to. We’d put more than our fair share of blood and sweat into this new life. I refused to believe it could all fall apart now.
Twenty-Eight
BAZ
I spotted Z and Jester’s bikes as soon as I turned off Stark. Guiding the truck into the lot, I chose a space between Stella’s car and the road, offering what little coverage I could. Rabbit was out the door and running for Stella before I even had the truck in park.
Climbing out, I rounded the back of the truck and surveyed the scene. Stella sat sideways in the passenger seat of her little Mazda, bracketed by the open door on one side and Z on the other.
She stood up, tossing her cigarette to the ground as Rabbit approached. They threw their arms around each other and hugged in the dark corner of the abandoned parking lot.
When they pulled away, I noticed Stella was limping a little. “Somethin’ wrong with your leg?” I asked.
Stella’s head shot up at the sound of my voice. “Uh, yeah. I twisted my ankle,” she said, lifting her left foot off the ground.
“Here, sit back down. Let me look at you,” Rabbit said, guiding her back to the car.
Z didn’t move from his position, not even stepping away to give Rabbit room to maneuver. She managed to work around him and get Stella back in the position she’d been in before. Jester and I closed in the little semi-circle around the car.
Stella’s fingers reached up and curled around the hem of Z’s cut, tugging it a little. “Can I get another cigarette?” she asked quietly.
I narrowed my eyes at her, just then noticing she was wearing an oversized leather jacket that looked a hell of a lot like the one Z owned and wasn’t wearing.
Without saying a word, Z pulled his pack from his pocket, offering her a cigarette before placing another between his teeth. Bending over, he lit hers and then his own.
Offering someone your coat, lighting their cigarette, these were completely normal gestures. I wouldn’t blink an eye at them if it were anyone else, but Z wasn’t a normal guy.
He was like his own fucked up version of a knight in shining armor. His soft spot for damsels in distress was going to get him fucking killed one day. He latched onto them like it was his mission in life to save them. Jumping out in front of whatever came their way. I had to nip this shit in the ass. If Z started fixating on Stella, it wouldn’t be good for anyone.
“What happened,” Rabbit asked, crouching down in front of her sister.
Stella’s uninjured leg bounced rapidly as she took a long drag of her cigarette. “Took me to an empty house. Shot me up with fuckin’ meth so we wouldn’t get tired,” she choked, dipping her chin.
“Did he…?” Rabbit trailed off, and I winced against the pain in her voice.
“He had me for hours, Fin. What the fuck do you think?” Stella bit out on an exhale of smoke.
“Hey!” I barked, taking a step closer.
Rabbit’s hand shot up in my direction. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Come on, let’s get you back to the clubhouse,” she said, turning back to Stella.
Stella shook her head violently. “We can’t, not yet. We have to get rid of the body,” she hissed, eyes darting to every shadow.
“Body? Where?” Z asked, turning to look into the backseat.
“Not in there,” she said, smacking his arm. “At the house. Holy fuck, my DNA is all over that fucking place. What if someone finds him and calls the cops?” Stella’s breaths got quicker until she was practically hyperventilating.
Fuck, her movements were jerky, and she was acting paranoid as hell. Whatever amount Butcher had pushed into her veins, it was too much. She was tweaking like a motherfucker.
“Whoa, what are you talking about? Who’s body? Butcher’s?” Rabbit asked, taking her sister’s hand. She held it for a second before Stella shook it off.
“How do you think I got away?” she hissed. “I fucking stabbed him until I couldn’t anymore and got the fuck out of there. I’m fucking covered in his blood!” Stella opened the front of the leather jacket to reveal her stained T-shirt.
It was dark, so I hadn’t noticed it before. Rabbit must not have either, because she wobbled from her position crouched in front of Stella.
“Tell me what the hell happened,” she said, gripping Stella’s bouncing knee.
Stella’s head tilted to the side, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she remembered. “He thought he heard a noise, so he went to the window to check it out. His pants were on the floor next to me, and his knife was right there, so I grabbed it. I hid it under my back, and when he came back and he…was distracted, I pulled it out and stabbed him in the side. He punched me and rolled off of me, but I held onto the knife. I just kept stabbing until the knife got stuck and I couldn’t get it out.”
If she’d killed Butcher, her tweaking was the least of our worries. We needed to clean that shit up before someone walked into a life sentence for Stella.
“What’d it look like?” Jester asked, pulling out his phone.
“Like a horror movie, what the fuck do you think it looked like?” she snapped, glaring up at him.
“The house, babe. What did the house look like?” Z rasped, his voice an octave lower than normal. Almost like he was trying to be gentle with her. I had a feeling I was going to be sending Z on some long runs in the near future. He was already acting too familiar with Stella. That shit had to stop.
Stella ran a hand through her tangled blonde hair. “Right, sorry. Fuck, I don’t know, it was dark out. I think it was white. It just looked like a normal house. And it smelled like old people.”
“This it?” Jester asked, holding out his phone.
She squinted at the screen for a second and nodded. “Yeah, that’s it. How did you know?”
“It’s where we were headed,” Z said, pushing off the car. “His grandma’s old place. She died last year. House went into foreclosure two months ago. Frogger found it digging through records, thought we’d check it out, see if he still had access.”
“Rabbit, get Stella in the truck,” I instructed. For once, she listened, helping her sister to her feet and walking her to the tow truck.
“You two help me get her car hooked up and then go check it out and torch the place. Don’t want this blowin’ back on Stella,” I said, nodding to Jester and Z.
They both sprang into action, Z rounding the back of Stella’s car and hopping in the driver’s seat while Jester headed for the back of the tow truck.
Within fifteen minutes we had the car hooked up and were ready to roll.
“We’ll take care of it and meet you back at the club,” Jester said, clapping me on the shoulder as he passed on his way to his bike.
I climbed into the truck where Rabbit and Stella were waiting, and we headed for the clubhouse. If possible, Rabbit was even more tense than she’d been before we’d gotten to Stella. I didn’t blame her. Stella was acting like she wanted to crawl out of her own skin. Her knee never stopped bouncing, and she was fidgeting like crazy.
It was going to be a long night and an even longer road to recovery. I’d seen it a hundred times, one relapse and all the work fades away like smoke. At least Stella had a default support system now. The club had done it before, and they’d do it again. The brothers would look
out for her, and the old ladies would rally around. She wouldn’t be alone.
I brought the bottle to my lips, letting the amber liquid roll over my tongue before burning its way down my throat. Exhaling the tension of the day, I let my head drop back, relaxing into the worn leather couch. The club was quiet, the brother’s who’d been out looking for Stella were either passed out in their rooms or already home with their old ladies. Rabbit and my mom were getting Stella settled into one of the empty rooms and Dad was somewhere in the kitchen, but otherwise, I was alone.
Alone with a bottle of Jack, a joint and my thoughts to keep me occupied. I watched the paper burn as I took a hit, holding it in as long as I could before coughing it out.
I usually liked to fuck my problems away. Sink into Rabbit’s tight, wet, heat and let her take it all away. Since ass wasn’t on the table at the moment, I turned to the next best thing, booze, and bud.
It was the first time I’d had a moment to just breathe a full breath since Frogger had called me with the news about the coroner’s IDs. That was, what, eight, nine hours ago? It felt like it’d been an eternity.
We might’ve been through hell in the last few hours, but we made it out, at least most of us had. My heart constricted as I thought of Gunner’s waxy face. His death was going to ripple through the club chapters like a wave.
Shit needed to start stabilizing around here. We needed a solid foundation for the shit that was about to start piling on. We needed to come together if we were going to get through the next few months.
The club had taken hit after hit, and the bell was about to ring for the next round. Things were going to change, and fast. As callous as it sounded, Gunner’s death and Chains’s decision to step down meant a shift in the majority.
We’d suffer and burn while Chains fought a losing battle, but we’d rise up from the ashes ready to take on a whole new chapter of the legacy.
“Hey,” Rabbit said softly, coming around the back of the couch. I’d been so lost in my own head that I hadn’t even heard her approach.
