by Jayne Blue
We slept, finally, after twenty-four hours. But it was a restless sleep, filled with nightmares. When I woke up, Hammer was already awake and working again.
“We’re going to have to leave today. We’re going to take the truck, leave my bike, and get to Canada this time.” I didn’t question him. I didn’t feel I had a right to now.
“Okay.” Hammer looked up when I said it. He stopped his packing of boxes and supplies and walked over to me. He put me in his strong arms and gently hugged me.
“It’s okay, we’re just made. That means we need to get going. You’re going to like Canada.” He squeezed me tighter and I squeezed back. Would we always be running? Had I ruined his life, along with mine? These were the questions on replay in my head.
Hammer secured the stuff in the garage, he locked up the windows, and I looked around. I wondered if I’d ever see this place again. It was so cute now, so bright and airy. I loved this place, but because I had fucked up, I would have to leave, probably forever. I continued to make bad judgment calls, and it was eating me up. This time I’d dragged Hammer down with me.
I had planned to go with him, for now, and then soon, when we were calmer when he was feeling more settled, I’d run. I’d leave him to save him.
As it turned out, I didn’t have the luxury of picking the moment.
We head into Manistique one last time. Hammer was going to go into the store, get a few things, supplies he said we needed.
“You stay here. You keep your head down, I don’t want to risk someone seeing you.” I used to think that was nuts, but now I knew it was practical. I should have been as careful as he was. He told me we’d stay on the back roads, that we’d keep driving and sleep in the truck for a while. A few months ago, I would have maybe thought this was a grand adventure. Now, I knew the truth. I had upended his life, turned the man into a murderer, and taken him from his brothers. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. But it had.
I did as he said. I hunched in the front of the truck. Then there was a knock at the window. It didn’t startle me. I was strangely unfazed to see Bunchie there, making the ‘roll down the window’ motion.
I complied.
“Hey Daniella, how are you doing?” He said it like we were old friends like we were just going to catch up here and move on with our lives. But I knew differently.
“Hey, Bunchie.”
“I hate to do this to you. But I know that Great Wolf thug killed Dirt. Saw you guys dump the body, saw you get his bike, pretty much all of it.”
“How?” I thought back over the gruesome last few days.
“I was hiding, waiting. I was back up for Dirt.”
“He hurt me, Bunchie.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I supposed he deserved it. But here’s the thing, you got to come with me now, or Lynch points the finger at your Great Wolf.”
“What?”
“You come now, or that guy’s fucked. I will have to tell the cops what he did. Lynch will make me.” Bunchie looked a little sad to tell me this. My mind raced over my options.
They were minimal. I could scream. That would bring Hammer out here, but maybe he’d kill Bunchie like he did Dirt? We’d be on the run with two Hawks dead in our wake.
Lynch knew Hammer killed Dirt, Bunchie just said so. Was he going to call the police? Would they be looking for us too?
Or I could end the trouble I’d caused for Hammer with one move.
“Okay, can I just grab my little bag here?” Bunchie nodded. I got out, picked up the backpack, and put it on my shoulders.
“We better hurry, he’s been in there a few minutes.”
“Yep.” I didn’t argue with Bunchie. We moved quickly to his bike.
I got on, he revved it up, and we shot out of the parking lot like a rocket. I glanced back and didn’t see Hammer. He hadn’t heard the bike. He would be behind us, but not right behind us. Bunchie was making a fast exit with me.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone and dropped it. Maybe he’d find it. Maybe he’d see the call log. Maybe he’d understand that I was to blame for Dirt and Bunchie showing up.
Because I hadn’t resisted and helped Bunchie get us moving, he’d pulled off his assignment to collect me.
We didn’t stop, not for food, not for the restroom, not for anything but gas. When we did stop for gas, it was fast on, fast off. And if Hammer was following me, he’d have to stop too. We were probably ten minutes, maybe fifteen ahead of him. Unless he’d gone to get his Harley, to be faster, then well… we were at least thirty minutes ahead of him.
And it was enough to have me back to Flat Rock by the time the sunset. We were in the same state, the same country, but Flat Rock was a different planet compared to the cottage by the lake.
Bunchie helped me off the bike. The Devil’s Hawks club was more sinister looking than I remembered. How had I even come back here once after my first visit? Bunchie put his arm out and we walked inside.
The club was empty, except for one or two members, sitting around smoking. They looked up at me with hate at the worst, indifference at best. Bunchie kept us walking to the back. I knew where we were going.
Bunchie opened the door to the meeting room I was never allowed in. There was a long table. It was dark wood, and on the top, the Devil’s Hawk symbol was carved in the center. It was a pentagram around the beak of a hawk. It was ugly and designed to scare people. It worked.
Rex Lynch’s lizard-like sexual energy was on full display. He sat, splayed out in his chair like it was a throne. He was a reptile, and he was going to swallow me whole, without breaking a sweat.
“So, sweet little Daniella. You sure had an adventure.”
“Rex, why do you even care? You know I’ll never say a word about anything I ever saw here.”
“Now why would I trust anything you say? You’re a lying little bitch, aren’t you?”
I tried not to flinch. I’d seen him enraged at me, I’d seen him beat his own club members, and I had also seen him order it done.
“What we started with, that wasn’t a lie. I felt something for you and you know that.”
He listened to me. I had one play and that was to make him understand that I was going to stay. That I wouldn’t run.
“Yeah? Well, you’re going to prove it.”
I was scared shitless at that phrase. Was he going to rape me? Was I doomed to that fate here?
I involuntarily pulled the sweater in around my body.
“Don’t worry, Snow White. I’m not going to fuck you until you beg me for it. I’m also not going to turn your boyfriend in for murder. You see now, I have all the cards I need against the Great Wolves. I’ve got one of Sawyer’s top lieutenants on murder if I need it. I’ve got you where I want you. And the Hellz Rebels are doing me a favor by terrorizing Grand City.”
I didn’t know much about the clubs, their wars or rules. Hammer had told me Sawyer and the Great Wolves were legitimate, that they were out of the guns, drugs, and prostitutes that the Hawks traded in. I had no idea about Hellz Rebels or what was happening in Hammer’s hometown of Grand City. I’d never been there. I only knew that Hammer was exposed, thanks to me, and I was going to keep Lynch happy to keep Hammer safe.
“What do you want from me?”
“In a few hours, you can be damn sure Hammer and his block head Great Wolves are going to show up and demand I return you. But see, you’re going to show them that you don’t want to be returned.” Lynch stood up and slowly walked towards me. I stood my ground. I had to.
“How am I going to do that?” I knew though, I knew just how to hurt Hammer now.
“You’re going to be my little girlfriend. You dumped him, and all his club is going to know it.”
“I have one request.”
“You have no leverage. Remember, I know what you did last summer.” Lynch laughed at his own joke.
“I’ll do whatever you ask, you don’t turn in Hammer, and I don’t say a word about the stuff you’re into. I’ll
show Hammer we’re together, all of it. I just want to be able to visit my Granddad, okay?” I softened my face. I begged him, hoping that whatever he’d seen in me when he’d helped me at the diner all those months ago was still somewhere in his black heart.
“How about if you do exactly as I say, I don’t kill him? That’s the deal.” Rex Lynch put his hand up to my face. He lightly touched the stitches on my cheek.
“Get her the Doc,” he said to Bunchie who turned and ran.
“The blonde hair is sexy, but that cut makes you look like shit.”
He waved me off and turned to sit back on his biker throne.
“I can wait in the club?” I asked. I was subservient; I was the original Daniella Moore who he’d rescued from the diner. I was the one who wouldn’t cross him. I had to be that, or Hammer was going to prison or worse. It was my fault he was in this mess and I was going to do everything I could to get him out. Even if it meant breaking his heart.
“Yeah, they’ll get you when it’s show time.”
I did as I was told. I found the booth that I’d waited in while we were dating and I did it. I sat there. I tried to stay calm. I told myself over and over again why I was doing this.
An older man, not a biker, showed up. Doc.
“The stitches aren’t bad actually, pretty good. But you need this.” He slid a bottle of pills toward me.
“What’s this?”
“Antibiotics. I’m assuming you got this outside of a traditional medical setting. It looks like you’ve got an infection starting. Feel how hot the skin is around it.” He was right, now that I had a moment to sit there and think.
“The drugs will clear it up.” I took the bottle.
“These are safe?”
“I’m an M.D. Lynch got me out of a jam once. In exchange, I help out when people need to be patched up. I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Ok.”
“You don’t take these, it’s going to get ugly, and you’re too pretty for the nasty scar that might leave.”
“Thank you.”
He looked like he belonged anywhere but here. He wore a polo shirt. His paunch strained the front of it and his khaki’s road below the paunch. But he had kind eyes, and I trusted him. My skin around the cut was hot, that was true. I took the medicine.
“I’ll be by next week unless someone around here gets shot or stabbed. I’ll take those stitches out and we’ll see what’s what. I need to go treat one of the knuckleheads for gonorrhea now. Nice to meet you.”
“Okay.”
I opened the bottle. I had a bottle of water and a protein bar in my bag. That would have to do for now. I took the pill.
And then there was more waiting. Eventually, I dozed off.
I opened my eyes later, with no idea how long I’d slept, or where I was.
I was in the back of some van. What the holy hell? I had passed out. I’d been so exhausted that I’d passed out?
The van door slid open. It was broad daylight and the sun streamed into and hurt my eyes.
Bunchie was next to me.
“Come on, Daniella. Lynch says its show time.”
“What?”
“You gotta get up.” He helped me climb out of the van. I stumbled a little when my feet hit the pavement.
“Here’s your bag. He says go get ready in there.”
We were at some rest stop along the highway. It wasn’t one I recognized. It didn’t look like Flat Rock. Next, to the rest stop, there were six bikes. Devil’s Hawks bikes.
“Get ready?”
“Pee, shower, whatever you need, but he said to look as nice as you can.”
“Uh, okay.”
I went in and cleaned up. I tried to shake the weird feeling I had, the feeling that I was sick, or had a fever or something.
I used the showers. I did what I could, and then I looked at my face in the mirror for the first time in a few days. The cut was ugly. I saw now why Doc had put me on meds. And my hair. It was still unreal that I had a blonde pixie cut. I missed my long reddish hair. I missed my old simple life of working and taking care of Granddad. I didn’t know who was in the mirror anymore.
But I had an important goal, a mission really. I was going to be sure Lynch didn’t turn Hammer in. I was going to protect him, whether he wanted me to or not.
Then I’d be able to hold my head up high, blonde and scarred as it now was.
I swiped some lip gloss on, some mascara, and hoped I looked as nice as I could under the conditions.
“You’re going to be on the back of Lynch’s ride,” Bunchie told me as I exited the rest stop bathroom. Lynch was waiting, head to toe in leather. His dark wavy hair was unbound and skimmed his shoulders. I could see why I’d thought he was handsome, once, or sexy. I felt nothing but contempt for him now, but I remembered what it had been like at first.
I got on the bike. There was no warning to hold tight or any of the things that Hammer did to help me when we rode. I held on, though, afraid I could easily float off the back and into oblivion. It was an odd sensation.
We were in Lansing. That’s what the signs read. The crew of the Devil’s Hawks parked in a line. There was another line of bikes on the other side. They were Great Wolves, I knew. I was sure.
Bunchie stayed outside with me; the rest of the Hawks went into the diner. I watched from the bike as they went inside. The diner was all windows. I could easily see the tables of the restaurant. And then my breath caught in my throat. There he was, Hammer. He was wearing his cut. He was the Great Wolf again. He was with several others in the same cut. They were handsome men, his size, so different to the Hawks. The group of them sat down at the long table.
I had no idea what they were saying.
“What’s going on, Bunchie?”
Bunchie had always been sweet to me. I was grateful for that.
“It’s a Hawk and Wolf meeting.”
“About me?”
“And other stuff, but yeah.”
It didn’t take long before the talking turned into hostility. The Wolves stood up and the Hawks responded. I watched as Hammer lunged for Rex Lynch’s throat. His brothers got a hold of him and restrained him. It took three of them. I knew that they were talking about me. I was Hammer’s weak spot. I hated that I was.
The meeting was over, Rex and his crew came out. He had a smile on his face. He’d meant to goad Hammer into exactly the rage I had witnessed. He didn’t know I was here. He hadn’t seen me. I was grateful for that, but it was about to change. The Wolves exited the restaurant and stood in front of it. They watched The Hawks head to the bikes.
Lynch and crew had made a show of everything. This whole meeting was a show, designed to demonstrate something for Hammer and the Great Wolves. I followed Hammer’s eyes. His brothers had let him leave the restaurant. They’d let his arms go. I wished it could be different. I wished Hammer could run to me and steal me away. In reality, all I could really hope for was that his brothers would grab him, fast, for the next part of this demonstration. This next part was my part.
Lynch looked back at Hammer to be sure the Wolves had an unobstructed view of me.
Lynch put his hand on the back of my neck. He pulled me forward, roughly took my lips with his. He kissed me hard. And I kissed him back. It took everything in me not to recoil, not to show what I felt. Hammer needed to believe that I was with Lynch. Hammer needed to think that I was that faithless whore who did fuck everyone in The Hawks.
I leaned into his body. I pretended this was real, for a second. I performed the role that Lynch had set up for me. And I did it for Hammer.
“DANIELLA!” It was Hammer, he was yelling for me.
His brothers had him again. They were stopping him. But they didn’t need to. Even if he were an inch away, I would have still gotten on Lynch’s bike like I did. I would still squeeze tight to his body. I would still do everything I could to break his heart into a million pieces to save him.
Lynch put one hand on his handlebars and anoth
er on my thigh, just above the knee. He gunned his engine and we drove off, away from Hammer, and The Great Wolves. I looked back to see Hammer on his knees, and his brothers surrounding him.
There, I’d done my job. I didn’t care what happened next.
Twenty-One
HAMMER
She had slipped away from me. I had thought The Hawks had snatched her, all through the first twenty-four hours.
When I got out of the grocery store in Manistique, I knew they had her.
I acted fast.
I knew there was only one way to save her and that was with my brothers. I knew that I had to go back and beg Sawyer for help.
I got my bike and flew back to Grandy City as fast as I could. I wanted to tale her, and whatever scumbag Hawk who’d kidnapped her, but that was going to get her killed, or me, and then where would this all be?
The only way to save my baby girl was to get my brothers involved. They were an army; they’d know how to make this happen. If I had to knock down the walls at The Devil’s Hawks M.C., I’d fucking do it. My rage against Dirt had caused a chain reaction and I had to think, be smart, and lean on my brothers to reverse it and get her back.
Steel was the first one I saw. I didn’t know what to expect, what he would do. But he rushed to me. He hugged me like the bear he was.
“Brother, it’s been, it’s been hell without you.”
“What did Sawyer tell you?”
“That you were choosing that girl over us, that you had betrayed the rules, the orders. But there’s a group of us who know, we know man.” He hugged me again.
“I had to. Lynch was going to kill her or, I don’t know, worse.”
“And you love her.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Look, the core of us, we knew you’d never leave the club if it wasn’t real shit.”
Steel, who didn’t have an old lady, who never seemed interested in a woman more than a hot second, was telling me he had faith in my love fueled betrayal of my brothers. I didn’t deserve his trust, but he gave it to me, with no reservation.
