by Hope Stone
I was well aware of how lucky Bailey and I were. We were raised in Verde Hills, one of the wealthiest beach communities in LA. I went to a private college and had all my expenses covered. Bailey was on track to do the same thing, although she was more likely to go to UCLA and study law.
Terrance wasn’t exactly a bad neighborhood, but it did have some seedy areas. Working with the disadvantaged community there had sparked a passion in me to help people who didn’t have the country club upbringing Bailey and I had. I wanted to help make a difference where it was needed, not sit in some classroom writing papers about it.
I took a sip of my cold brew and shook my head. “I don’t know why you guys keep saying it’s dangerous. It’s La Playa, for fuck’s sake, not Tijuana. People choose to live there!”
“Yeah, people who go to Cal State La Playa. That’s not what you’re doing. You want to move to the worst neighborhood in all of La Playa, and what? Get a job as a waitress? Is that why you went to college?” Bailey was talking to me, but her eyes were following a couple of young men as they got into a BMW convertible. “Hey, Chad.”
They nodded hello before putting on sunglasses and pulling out of the parking space next to the café. Guys like that had no idea what it was like to work a minimum wage job for years to save up for a beat-up used car. In Verde Hills, most kids got a new car for their sixteenth birthday. Even I did, although it was a Honda and not the Porsche I’d asked for.
I sighed before pushing my chair out and standing up. There was no use talking to Bailey or anyone else about this. My family didn’t understand at all. I’d seen things that they didn’t want to see. I was a lot tougher and more streetwise than they gave me credit for. “You sound like Mom.” I threw away the plastic cup and headed to the car as Bailey followed me.
No, if I was going to do this—move to La Playa and help the people who needed it the most—I was going to have to do it on my own.
Ryder
“Where the fuck have you been?”
I was sitting on the couch watching Cops when Lily finally came in. I’d heard the bike pull up and the engine cut a couple of minutes before, and it took all my self-restraint to sit in here and not kill the guy with my bare hands.
“None of your fuckin’ business,” she said, throwing her keys in the bowl next to the door. Her hair was dark brown and curly like our mom’s had been, and it was tied back in a braid. She wore jeans and the same top she’d been wearing when I dropped her off at school yesterday. The material was too thin for her to have been warm all night, which meant that the asshole she was with had probably lent her his jacket.
The idea of my sister wearing a Las Balas jacket made me want to puke. “It is too my fuckin’ business, Lily. You have no idea what you’re dealing with. The Las Balas are bad people. When they see someone like you, they only want one thing.”
She was standing with her back to me in front of the open refrigerator, drinking orange juice straight from the carton. I marched over there and grabbed it out of her hand. “Stop that shit, Lily. It’s disgusting.”
She looked up at me, and for a moment I saw the little girl she once was. Those big brown eyes had once been innocent and trusting. One drunk driver had ended that for her when our parents died. What looked back at me now was an angry face with a hard-set jaw and a bottom lip that stuck out defiantly.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ryder. Scorpion loves me. And when he gets his patch and becomes a member of Las Balas, we’re gonna move in together and you won’t have to worry about me anymore. I won’t be your problem.” She stomped off to her room, leaving me holding the empty container of orange juice.
There was no way in hell my sixteen-year-old sister was moving in with a twenty-year-old prospect. I’d kill him before that happened. He didn’t fucking love her, that was for sure. The only question was, why was he with her? Yeah, she was beautiful and young. Any guy with a dick would want to hit that (she’s my sister, but everyone is somebody’s sister and I’m not an idiot). She was also the kid sister of the Vice President of Outlaw Souls. There were tons of girls whose pants he could get into. The fact that she was my sister had to mean something.
But there was no point in getting into that now. Lily was home and was safe. Maybe I’d talk to Padre and see what we could do about keeping Lily from getting too close to the Las Balas. They were responsible for some of the worst crimes in La Playa. If a kid got sex trafficked or someone OD’d from dirty drugs, it was likely the Las Balas who were behind it. Don’t get me wrong— the Outlaw Souls were not saints. We got our name when our founder stabbed three guys to death with a filero knife in a street fight in downtown La Playa in the 1970s. But sex trafficking and shit? That was low even for Outlaws.
Throwing the empty carton in the trash, I went into the living room to crash on the couch. It had been a long night, and now that Lily was home, I might be able to catch a few hours of sleep before heading to the bar later for our meeting.
“Where the hell is everyone?”
I pushed open the door to the back room of the Blue Dog Saloon. Padre’s brother owned the place, and the back room was where we held our meetings. Yoda called it “the chapel,” but the rest of us just called it “the back.”
The only ones in the room were Swole and Yoda. “I think they got stuck in traffic,” Swole said.
“All of them?” That wasn’t likely, unless there was a ride and I wasn’t aware of one.
“There was a car crash on the 710,” Yoda said. “Couple people killed by a drunk driver. They shut down the freeway.”
My stomach tightened when I heard that. It had been years since my parents’ car crash, but the memory of it was still fresh.
I yanked out a chair and twisted off the top of my Coke. Looking at my phone, I saw that it was only five minutes after. Per the rules, we had to sit here for twenty minutes and needed a minimum of five members to hold the meeting. Since I was the VP, if Padre didn’t show, I’d have to run it.
“I hope they get here soon,” Swole said. “Tammy is making dinner for us. It’s our anniversary.” Swole had pledged with us right after I did, and she was the first female member in the history of the club. There’d been a lot of arguments about whether to let women in. But she was a badass who fought like a dude, and that’s why we put her in charge of security. A lot of guys tended to underestimate Swole—until she had them in a chokehold.
“How’s that adoption thing going?” I asked. She and Tammy had put in an application to adopt, but they hadn’t heard back from the social worker. It was likely going to be hard for them to get approved because of her association with Outlaw Souls. Of course, there was no official association, but our MC was pretty well known in La Playa.
She’d done a good job of keeping her distance, on paper, anyway. She was the manager of a fitness studio across the street from Blue Dog. Tammy was a pilates instructor and they’d been married since it was legalized in California in 2008.
“I don’t know, man. I’m gonna be old enough to be a grandma by the time we finally get this kid.” She rubbed her face with her hands. “Tammy would be such a great mom. It’s bullshit that it’s taking so long.”
“What’s taking so long?” Trainer asked.
Trainer, Pin, and Moves all came in at the same time and pulled up chairs in between Yoda and me. We left the head of the table open for Padre, and I looked at my watch. We needed to wait six minutes, but we had enough for the meeting.
“For you to get me that twenty bucks you owe me from the Superbowl, that’s what!” Swole grinned and punched Trainer.
Trainer looked Middle Eastern even though his last name was Lopez. He had thick curly black hair and a full beard. He got his nickname because when he was pledging he stole a bunch of ammo from another MC as part of his initiation.
I was really wondering where Padre was. If he wasn’t with Trainer, Pin, and Moves, then he wasn’t stuck in traffic. It wasn’t like him to miss meetings. But if he didn
’t show in two minutes, I was going to have to start without him.
“Where’s Padre?” Moves asked. He was our Enforcer and was small, fast, and deadly. The guy knew weapons the way the rest of us know the alphabet. He was the one who’d suggested we have Trainer steal the ammo because he knew exactly what we needed. Moves was also the one responsible for keeping inventory in the warehouse.
“The warehouse” was actually a Public Storage locker just up the street. We paid off the owner to look the other way, and it’s where we kept the guns, ammo, and various drugs we sold and used as leverage.
I stood up. “I don’t know, but it’s time to start without him.” I walked to the front of the room and pulled out Padre’s chair. Just then, the door opened and the four patches walked in. Known as “members” in some other clubs, these guys didn’t have management roles, but were active members of the club.
The recruits were likely outside acting as bouncers to let us know if there were any problems during the meeting. You didn’t get to attend meetings until you were a patch.
“Okay, everyone. Almost everyone is here, except Padre. Rules are rules, so let’s get started. Since we don’t have a Secretary at the moment, let’s get right to the numbers. Pin, how much do we have left from last year’s Fun Run money?”
As Pin got out the books and put on his accountant glasses, my mind started to wander. This is what it would be like to be President. Looking around the table at the faces of my brothers and sister, I had to admit it felt good. Maybe someday I really would be the President of Outlaw Souls. I hated to think what it would take to make that happen, though. I’d looked up to Padre as a father figure since I moved to La Playa. The idea of him being gone…it was too much.
Where the hell are you, Padre?
Paige
My sister was looking out the window of her bedroom on the second floor of our house, watching me move out. My mother was locked in her office, blasting Ellen about as loud as the television would go, angrily pretending nothing was happening. My dad was in the kitchen drinking a sparkling water and barking commands at me.
“Don’t bump the wall with that box, Paige. I’m not paying for Trevor to come and touch up paint that you scraped.”
“You need to put the big things in first, Paige, and then fit the smaller things around it.”
He seemed to have an awful lot of opinions for a guy who was willing to stand there and watch his daughter do everything alone.
My arms and legs were exhausted. I’d rented a U-Haul and was putting everything I owned in it all by myself. No one in this family was willing to lift a finger to help me because they didn’t approve of me moving to La Playa. “You want to be on your own?” they said. “Do it on your own, then.”
I was almost twenty-five years old and the only time I’d lived away from this house was when I was in college. I stayed in the dorms for the first two years and then in a sorority house the last two years. And even then, I came back home during breaks. It was well past time for me to move out.
I’d been collecting things for my eventual apartment since I was eighteen and storing it in the garage.
“Be careful of the Audi, Paige. I don’t want you scratching it.”
“I won’t, Dad.”
One by one I grabbed lamps and boxes and tables and chairs and put them in the U-Haul. I’d hired movers to load the things I couldn’t carry, like my bed and dresser and stuff like that. I was going to make one trip over with all of this stuff and then meet the movers back here this afternoon for the second load.
La Playa was only about 25 miles from Verde Hills, but it was a world away. Since my parents refused to help financially, I wasn’t able to afford an apartment in the nice area of town. I was staying at an apartment complex right on the border of North La Playa. I’d signed a month-to-month lease so that when I got a better job and saved up for first and last month’s rent, I could move closer to the beach.
“You said you wanted an urban experience, Paige. Now you’ll get one,” my dad said when I told him where I’d be living. My mother just sat there, tight-lipped and judgmental.
When I finally put the last load of stuff I could carry myself into the truck, I pulled the back of the U-Haul closed, locked it, and took a deep breath. This was it. After years of wanting to move to a community where I could really make a difference to people who understood what a real crisis was, I was finally doing it. These people lived a different life than the one I’d known, and I knew from my work at the free clinic that they were often on a razor’s edge between life and death.
As I pulled up the directions to my new apartment in La Playa, my heart tightened. The neighborhood was definitely rougher than I was used to. It was about the same as where USC was located, except that I was on campus for most of my time there.
“It’s not that bad,” I said to myself. My parents were overreacting, as usual. Millions of people live in neighborhoods just like this all across Los Angeles. It was no Verde Hills, but it was certainly safe enough to live in.
I didn’t even get to the end of the block when my phone dinged with a text. It was my mother.
Don’t think you’re going to come crawling back when you’re scared. You made your bed. Now lie in it.
Nice. Thanks, Mom. “No worries,” I said to myself as I pulled the huge truck onto the freeway. “I wouldn’t move back home if it were the last place on earth.”
I told myself that it was normal that I couldn’t sleep. My body was sore from all of the moving and everything looked and sounded different. Banner Manor, near the traffic circle, had looked almost upscale during the day. The front steps were flanked with two huge red doors that swung open, revealing a long, carpeted hallway. At the end of the hallway was a staircase that led to the second floor. My apartment was in between two others, to the left as you came up the stairs.
The movers had been talking in Spanish, and although I’d taken it in high school, I really didn’t understand what they were saying because they were talking so fast. I did understand the word “dead” and the names of the Crips and Bloods, which were rival gangs in downtown LA. But this wasn’t downtown LA and I didn’t think they had gangs like that in La Playa.
But as I lay there in bed, eyes open, listening to the shouts coming from the two apartments on either side of me, the sirens going up and down the street and the police helicopter overhead, my heart was pounding in fear. What had I done? I’d burned the bridges at home with my parents and had gotten myself into a sketchy apartment in a bad neighborhood in La Playa.
Tears stung my eyes as I fought off a suffocating wave of homesickness. I wanted to be in my room next to Bailey, snuggled up next to Betty White, our Golden Retriever.
“I wonder what the pet policy is here?” I said aloud to calm myself. “Maybe I’ll get a little dog or something.”
I went into the kitchen and turned on the tap to pour myself a glass of water in the one cup I’d unpacked. Tomorrow would be a better day. I’d spend the day getting settled, and then on Monday I’d start my new job as a waitress at Tiny’s.
Tiny’s was a classic diner on a busy corner across from a biker bar, a fitness studio, and an apartment complex. I’d put in a bunch of resumes at various social justice nonprofit organizations and the waitressing job was just so I could have money to hold me over until I got something better.
“You shouldn’t move to La Playa until you have a secure job, Paige,” my dad had said. But my parents’ disapproval of my life choices was so oppressive that I figured I’d rather be on my own any way I could. Besides, how would it look on a resume and interview to say that I was living at home with my parents in a three-million-dollar house in Verde Hills but I wanted a job helping the impoverished? I needed some street credibility.
Climbing back into my bed, I dug around in my bag for some earplugs. I was going to make this work. I knew I would.
“Well, you’re as ready as you’ll ever be.”
I was in my tiny bathroom
staring at my reflection in a cloudy mirror. The room wasn’t steamy—the mirror was just so old that you could barely see anything. I imagined it was what a prison mirror looked like.
The reflection looking back at me already looked different than the girl I’d been in Verde Hills. I’d only been here two days, and to me, I looked more independent. My long blond hair was tied back in a braid. I didn’t want to waste much makeup for work because I didn’t know when I’d be able to afford to buy more. So I just lightly dusted my eyelids with some shadow and added some mascara so that my blue eyes didn’t fade into my face. One thing about being a natural blonde is that if you don’t have a tan, you can look washed out.
I didn’t imagine I’d have much time for tanning. I was lucky to get the waitressing job at Tiny’s, considering I had zero experience. They must have been desperate to have hired me.
“You do have a college degree and work experience, Paige,” I said to the woman in the mirror. “Don’t let your parents’ disapproval become your thoughts.”
Grinning at my inner Tony Robbins, I flipped off the bathroom light, grabbed my purse, and headed out of my apartment for my first shift.
Ryder
“Lily. Come out. You’ve been in there for two days.” I was banging on her bedroom door, trying to get her attention over the loud music booming from the room.
I knew she was in there because her window had been nailed shut after she snuck out at fifteen. That was Moves’ idea. His parents did that when his little sister started sneaking out and she’s now a doctor at Cedars Sinai.
I banged on the door again. “I’ll buy you pie.” I knew it was wrong to bribe her, but I really needed to talk to her.
