Vicious Cycle

by Katie Ashley

  Then I walked out the door.

  As soon as I arrived at the school, I was herded into the cafeteria for a presentation by the principal. Facing the massive crowd, I found myself sandwiched between my fellow kindergarten teachers. My legs shook with nerves as I tried to focus on what was being said. In the end, I couldn’t tell you one word my principal spoke. Instead, I kept scanning the parents’ faces, searching for Sigel or anyone from his club. I hated that he had chosen the school for us to do our business. It wasn’t just about the one clean part of my world, my school, getting sullied. It was more about the fact that I feared people getting hurt regardless of Sigel’s promise.

  At seven thirty, we were dismissed to our classrooms, where for the next hour we would meet with parents. On the walk to my room, teachers chattered around me, but I couldn’t join in. Instead, I tried focusing on keeping the frayed and tattered strands of my sanity from coming completely undone.

  When I got inside my classroom, I thankfully found relief. With parents to greet and students to talk with, my worries about Sigel were forgotten. I was able to genuinely and enthusiastically talk about each student’s progress and graciously take the compliments from their parents on how I was doing teaching their child.

  The sound of my principal’s voice on the intercom made me jump. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s now eight thirty. We would ask that you wrap up your questions and conversations and make your way to the exits. Thank you again for attending Buffington Elementary’s Parents Night.’”

  I walked the last remaining set of parents to my classroom door. Just as I waved good-bye, my cell phone rang. I glanced warily at it over my shoulder, then hurried to grab it. “Hello?” I questioned breathlessly.

  “Come down the D hall—the wing of the school that hasn’t been finished. Go to the last bathroom on the hallway. I’ll be waiting.”

  When the call ended, I took a deep breath. I went over to my bag and took out the cut. After I laid it on the desk, I reached inside for the knife. I slid it into one of the inside pockets of the cut, one that I could keep my hand on at all times. With a determined step, I walked out my classroom door. As the herd of parents and children streamed through the main lobby, I eased my way through them, feeling a little like a salmon swimming upstream.

  While people came out of the B and C hallways, the double doors to the D hall were empty. Because of overcrowding, the school had been forced to open early, before the last wing was completed. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw no one was watching me as I stood before the closed doors. I pushed them open and stepped into the darkened hallway.

  The only light to guide my way came from the emergency signs. My heels echoed along the silent hallway. The snap and pop on the tile reminded me of gunshots. I counted down the first and second bathrooms. When I reached the third door, I faltered. I couldn’t seem to bring my feet forward or my hand to push open the door. Fear clutched me in a viselike grip. Closing my eyes, I prayed for strength and for courage. Of course, the irony in praying with regards to plans to kill someone was not lost on me.

  Think of Willow. Think of Deacon. Think of your parents.

  Drawing in a deep breath, I pushed forward on the door. Light flooded my eyes, causing me to squint. As I glanced around, I saw the main area was empty. Passing the urinals, I headed for the stalls. The sound of my heels once again grated on my already-frayed nerves.

  “Sigel?” I finally questioned, my voice echoing back to me.

  With a trembling hand, I reached out to push open the first stall’s doors. It was empty. I went on to the next one. “I’m here, Miss Evans.” Sigel spoke in a low tone. The voice had come from the handicapped stall two down.

  Knowing where he was didn’t speed me up. Instead, I crept even slower down to the stall.

  I opened the door. He casually leaned against the wall. His face was devoid of any emotion. I couldn’t help craning my neck around. “Where are your goons?”

  “They’ve been ordered to stay back. Keep their eyes and ears out for any Raiders scum.”

  “They won’t find any,” I replied.

  “I hope not.”

  As I thrust out the cut to him, I frantically kept my grip on the knife, fearing my sweaty fingers would slide and drop it. When he started to reach for it, the world around me slowed to a crawl. For just an instant, I stepped outside of myself, surveying the situation.

  The woman I saw was a caged animal with a feral gleam in her eyes. She swayed like a cobra in a life-and-death dance, waiting for the right moment to strike. The man fixated all his attention on the sacred object in front of him. As his hand ran over the leather, tears pooled in his eyes.

  It was in that moment that everything changed, and the woman I had been before was forever changed.

  With Sigel’s emotions paralyzing him, I acted on his momentary weakness. A physical strength I didn’t know I had propelled me forward. Snatching out the knife, I gripped the heavy blade in my fist, my knuckles turning white from the tension. Pulling my arm back, I then launched myself at Sigel’s neck.

  I had no idea what stabbing someone entailed. Would the knife cut through the skin easily, or would it be hard? The force with which I plunged the knife into Sigel’s artery buried the blade. Blood spewed from the wound. As I stood there with my knife in his neck, Sigel’s wide-eyed gaze slowly swept from the cut to my eyes.

  “You should have never underestimated me,” I told him.

  Not wanting to risk that he could survive the injuries I’d inflicted, I didn’t jerk out the knife. Instead, I braced myself and sliced through the tendons and muscles on his neck as his arms flailed up to stop me until I hit his collarbone and could go no further.

  Sigel’s expression flickered between emotions like a flashing sign. Grief to disbelief to pain to rage. Just as I started to pull the knife out, Sigel’s gaze met mine. We momentarily stared each other down. Then he lunged at me, his hands coming around my throat. I gasped and wheezed for air as I swung my arm with the knife blindingly forward. It caught Sigel in the biceps, causing him to momentarily loosen his grip.

  I stabbed him once again before he knocked my arm back, sending the knife clattering to the floor. Just as he began to squeeze my throat harder, Sigel’s knees gave way. Collapsing to the floor, he dragged me down with him. His hands abandoned my neck, and I rolled to the side to gasp for breath.

  When the world around me started to turn black, I fought with everything within me to keep conscious. With my breath coming easier, I began to attempt to crawl away, to reach the knife that was just out of my grip. Once I had it in my hands, I staggered to my feet.

  Staring down at Sigel, I eyed the mutilations on his body, which I’d inflicted with the borrowed knife—I’d had no idea such a ferocity was hidden within me. In a way, it frightened me more than consoled me. Although it was for those I loved most, I had transitioned far too easily into the outlaw realm.

  When Sigel’s gaze flickered to mine, a cruel smile formed on my lips. I wasn’t quite finished with him yet. “Just so you know, Deacon Malloy is alive and well.”

  A gurgling rattle of a laugh escaped Sigel’s bloodstained lips. “Expect me to believe that?” he rasped.

  “You should. Why would I have any reason to lie? He never got into the house that day. He was off in the woods, chasing our puppy. He hid out at my house for two days. Then he had his own resurrection. He’s at the Raiders compound right now, handcuffed to a bed.” I narrowed my eyes at Sigel. “I wasn’t going to let him fuck with my revenge on you.”

  Recognition slowly flashed across his face, and I knew then he believed me. And with sick vindication, I got to watch Sigel take his last breath with the revelations that he would never get his revenge on Deacon and that he had been taken down by a woman.

  My knees gave way, and I sank down onto the bloody tile. A commotion above me startled a scream from me. In a cloud of dust and debris, Archer collapsed down beside me from the ceiling. Once he recovered, he reached out
for me. “Are you okay?”

  “I-I’m f-fine,” I stammered.

  Archer glanced over my shoulder. “Fuck me. You actually did it.”

  “Yeah, I did.” That statement caused a tremor to run through me. My abdomen clenched, and I turned and emptied the contents of my stomach onto the floor at Archer’s feet. “I’m sorry,” I moaned, when I saw what I had done.

  “It’s okay.” He rose to his feet and then pulled me up.

  On shaky legs, I surveyed the gap in the ceiling tile where Archer had come through. “Your idea really worked, huh?” To keep out of Sigel’s eye and suspicion, Archer had relied on his electrician father’s background. Through my bracelet, he had tracked my movements from above me in the school’s ceiling. I didn’t want to begin to know how he had broken into the mechanical closet, but he had found a way.

  He grinned. “Yeah, it did. Fix it back for me, okay?” He then gripped me around the waist and hoisted me up. I slid the tile back into its place. We couldn’t leave it as it was. It wouldn’t corroborate with our story.

  When he set me back down on my feet, he placed a chaste, tender kiss on my cheek. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured, my emotions still overwrought from what had just happened. Then I realized that precious time was ticking. “Come on. We gotta get busy.”

  He nodded. I handed him the bag, and he took out a clean pair of clothes—a janitor’s uniform, actually. I didn’t bother looking away as he stripped. I’d been through too much tonight to care about any false modesty. Instead, I took the knife, gritted my teeth, and then slashed cuts along my arms and legs. A wildfire of pain burned its way through my limbs as the metallic smell of my own blood entered my nose.

  Once Archer was finished changing, he threw his old clothes back into my bag. What he planned to do with it, I didn’t know. When he was done, he looked at me, and regret instantly filled his eyes. “You have to,” I protested, knowing he was having second thoughts about the second part of our plan. The part where he had to make it appear like I had been attacked.

  “Deacon will kill me when he finds out.”

  I shook my head. “You have to do it.” My fingers gripped the sides of the sink. “Now, Archer!” I commanded. The words had barely left my lips when his fist connected with my cheek. Pain ricocheted through my face and head. Before I had a chance to prepare for the next blow, it felt like my lip was splitting apart.

  Staggering back from the sink, I tried to get my bearings. Then I felt Archer’s hands on my waist and neck. I couldn’t help noticing that his fingers were trembling. “Jesus Christ, forgive me, Alex,” he said.

  Then he went for the grand finale. A disabling move I had never heard of, but Archer’s martial-arts background had served him well. I needed to be unconscious to truly sell our story of Sigel’s attack, but Archer refused to knock me out. He had demanded to find an alternative. As the pressure he was applying above my clavicle increased, I began to feel light-headed. The harder he pressed, the more it caused the world to spin around me.

  And then everything went black.

  You know the old cliché that says that your life flashes before your eyes before you die? Well, in the last three days, I’d stared down the sins of my past twice. Once when I was knocked onto the forest floor from the impact of the blast that took out Case. Then the other when I was chained to a bed and forced to watch the woman I’d come to love more than life itself walk out of the room to an uncertain fate.

  I don’t know how long I screamed behind that gag. I never fully grasped what a helpless feeling it is not to be heard. As I tried pushing myself up on the bed, the metal of the cuffs sliced into my wrists, sending blood trickling down my arms. Over and over again, I jerked my arms, hoping the rails would break, but the damn things might as well have been reinforced steel.

  Finally, I resorted to throwing myself back against the bed, which banged the headboard against the wall. A sheen of sweat covered my body as I banged and banged. When the door flew open, a red-faced Bishop stomped in, his face buried in some mechanical manual. “Dude, would you pipe down? I’m trying to study for my exam.”

  When he finally looked up, the manual clattered to the floor. His mouth dropped open almost as far as his eyes widened, and if the situation hadn’t been so serious, I might’ve laughed at his expression. He jerked the gag away from my mouth. “What the fuck happened to you?”

  “Alexandra,” I growled.

  “What did you do? Get ready for some kinky sex and piss her off? Man, she’s a feisty one.”

  “Just get the fucking keys out of the nightstand and get me out of these.”

  Bishop started rifling through the top drawer. Finally, he produced the key. Once I was out of my metal prison, I grabbed a towel off the floor. Pressing down on my wrists, I tried to stop the bleeding.

  “You gonna tell me what the hell happened?” Bishop pressed.

  “I need to find Alex. ASAP. You think Archer can put a tracer on her phone?”

  “Archer went with Alex when she left half an hour ago.”

  “Fuck!” I growled as I threw open the bedroom door. I stalked down the hall to the bathroom. While I wrapped my wrists in Ace bandages, Bishop eyed me suspiciously.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t have time to explain. I need to find Alex. Now.”

  “Tell me why she handcuffed and left you?”

  “Alex lied to me about her meeting with Sigel. She didn’t tell me that he had asked for the cut.”

  Bishop’s brows furrowed. “Why would she do that?”

  “Sigel ordered Alex to bring him the cut. When I found out what she was going to do, she handcuffed me to the bed, so I couldn’t go with her.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me!”

  “I wish.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “She had this Parents Night thing at the school. I don’t know if she was meeting him afterward. …” Then it hit me. Sigel would want a safe place to get the cut—a place with a lot of people and witnesses to foil any retaliation the Raiders could plan. “Fuck. He’s meeting her at the school.”

  I raced out the door with Bishop close on my heels. All I could think of was getting to Alex, damn stubborn fool that she was. I hoped to hell I wasn’t too late.

  Without a word to any of the other guys, I hopped on my bike and tore out of the driveway. Bishop and Rev caught up with me halfway down the road. When I got to the school, my heart shuddered to a stop. My eyes were blinded by the glaring blue and red lights of the police car and ambulance. Once I parked my bike, I started scanning the crowd for any Knights. The only cut I saw belonged to Archer, who was talking to a police officer.

  At the sight of me, his face drained of color. For a moment I felt that my knees would give way and I would collapse onto the pavement. Alex couldn’t be gone. I couldn’t even begin to imagine a world without her smile, her caring heart, her laughter. It was unbearable, and I fought for breath. It felt like someone had roundhouse kicked me in the chest. I wasn’t a praying man, but in that moment I started begging and pleading.

  And then Archer held his hands up to me as if cautioning me not to freak out. He said something else to the officer, and then he strode toward me. “Deacon, she’s fine. A few cuts and bruises, but she’s going to be fine.”

  Doubling over at the waist, I braced my hands on my knees and gulped in air. “Thank God you were here to protect her.”

  “No, man. She took Sigel out on her own.”

  Jerking my head up, I stared at Archer in both disbelief and horror. “What?”

  And then Archer began to tell a story that was almost too hard to believe. Before I showed myself to her after the explosion, a plan had been masterminded by Alex to ensure that Sigel would never hurt Willow again. A plan for which she had enlisted the help of both Rev and Bishop, although they’d had no idea what her true intent was. No, only Archer knew the truth. He had risked both his life and
his place in the club by helping Alex.

  As he talked, I tried wrapping my mind around Alex and Sigel in that stall. How someone like her had managed to take down a notorious MCer simply with a knife and some courage blew my mind. When Archer finished, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, man. I thought it was the best thing for the club and for your family. Even when you came back from the dead, so to speak, it still made sense.”

  “It made fucking sense for someone defenseless like Alex to take on someone like Sigel?” I demanded, the blood boiling in my veins.

  Surprisingly, Archer didn’t back down. Instead, he narrowed his eyes at me. “Would you let go of your bullshit pride for a minute and truly think? He never saw it coming. He never imagined her capable of it. Any of the rest of us? He would have seen us coming a mile away, including you.”

  I still couldn’t wrap my head around it or allow myself to condone what happened. “Where is she?” I demanded.

  “They took her over to one of the ambulances.”

  Jabbing a finger into his cut, I said, “We are not through talking about this.”

  He nodded. “I understand.”

  I hated that there was a part of me that could see the reason and brilliance behind Alexandra and Archer’s plan. However, there was a much stronger part that was mad as hell and wanted to take the kid down for his utter stupidity and wavering loyalty. Sure, he’d been brave and done everything within his power to keep Alexandra safe, as well as the club. Regardless of his protection, he had still allowed my old lady to be in danger, and I wanted to kill him for that. And yeah, the fucking irony wasn’t lost on me.

  I weaved my way through the crowd of onlookers. Beyond the yellow police tape, I saw the ambulance with its back doors open. Moving around the taped-off perimeter, I came through the other side. With a blanket draped over her shoulders, Alex sat on the floor of the ambulance. An EMT worked on cleaning some lacerations on her face. While she stared straight ahead, her body suddenly tensed, and her gaze jerked from staring down at the pavement to scanning the tree-lined woods. I shouldn’t have been too surprised that she could sense me.