by Lena Bourne
The bed levels again as he gets up, and a moment later I can hear curtains being drawn. I know exactly what they look like without having to open my eyes—dark blue, thick velvet with golden trim. Gaudy and pretentious, as most things to do with Monarch are.
I open my eyes just as he comes back to hover over me. He turns on the bedside lamp, diffuse white light showing me more than I want to see. I’m lying in his pretentious, hardwood four-poster bed—the bed I hoped never to see again. The vision in my left eye is blurry, like I’m looking at the world through the water I’ve been drowning in since my head hit the pavement during my botched escape attempt. But I can see clearly through my right. Monarch has taken the time to trim his beard while I’ve been sleeping. It’s a circle of grey speckled with white around his mouth, designed to hide his hanging jowls. It works, for what that’s worth. His hair is longer than it was when I left him and he’s wearing it slicked back, revealing the neat widow’s peak in the middle of his forehead. The point of it is as sharp as the look in his big brown eyes.
“Where’s Josh?” he asks.
“I told you,” I croak. “He left me with those nasty Sinners and rode on without me. Can I have some water?”
The lightning in his eyes tells me he’s gonna refuse my request, but to my surprise, he takes a glass off the nightstand and brings it to my lips.
“I have no desire to destroy you, Brenda,” he says as I take a slow, cautious sip. “You’re a precious sort. Impossible to tame, and I always knew that about you. I’ll give you another chance. I’ve missed you. But first I gotta find Josh. His mother is worried sick about him. He hasn’t been in touch in more than six months.”
I take another little sip of waters, trying to get my thoughts into some sort of order inside my aching, throbbing head. Not for a minute do I believe him. He’s never gonna forgive me for running off, and with another man on top of it. By the sound of things, others know what I did, and that’s another thing Monarch will never forgive—being made to look like a fool. He’s also clearly desperate to find Josh, and if I could just spin him a tale he’ll believe…but I can’t even come up with the beginnings of it. All that’s filling my head is a hammer banging at the inside of my skull right above my left eye and the incredible need to close my eyes again and sink to the bottom of the muddy waters.
The last thought that pops into my head before I give into the need is that Monarch would probably kill Josh too if he found him. So he might not even be that upset to learn he’s already dead.
“Bitch, tell me,” he says, shaking me roughly. But not roughly enough to make me want to wake up.
“A week with the truck stop whores should loosen your tongue,” he warns, and I can feel a bubble of fear somewhere very far on the very edges of my awareness. So much for him not wanting to destroy me. I better come up with a good story. And I way to get out of here. But first I need the banging in my head to stop.
Colt
The sun was already almost right above our hiding place between the two boulders overlooking the small town before Tank and Cross, their faces covered by bandanas, led Snake down the hill behind the big house. They were followed by Ace, Ice, and Rook, also masked, leading the other three we took last night. A line of twenty of our guys stayed up on the ridge, the blinding sun glinting off the rifles in their hands.
“Listen to me!” Snake shouted. “I have something to tell you all!”
He had to repeat himself three more times before the Sinners, their wives and children, and the club girls finally assembled in the dry field separating the big house from the rest of the town.
“We’re to pack up and leave by tomorrow morning,” Snake yelled once they were all silently waiting for him to speak. “Anyone who stays will be killed. That’s the bargain I struck. I expect you all to follow me.”
There was a lot of grumbling, a lot of complaining.
“Where are we going?” one of the men in the field finally shouting.
“Texas,” Snake says. “My brother has a ranch near the Alamo. We’ll regroup and figure things out there. We can’t stay here. Griff and his snitching ways made sure of that.”
More complaints, more grumbling, and more than a few women shouting that they can’t just leave, that their kids have school here, that they have families here.
“Everyone leaves by dawn!” Cross shouts. “Or dies here!”
He doesn’t mean it. We don’t kill women and children, only scumbags who would kill us just as fast. But they don’t know that, and the silence that falls over the field is so absolute I can hear a bee buzzing very far away.
“Griff fucked us over and it’s on me to fix it,” Snake shouts. “Go pack! Be ready by this evening.”
Cross and the rest of my brothers retreat into the big house with their targets. The men with the rifles on the ridge stay put. The frenzy of voices, yells, even crying in the field, soon becomes a packing frenzy.
I watch Cross and the rest leave by the back entrance to the house and disappear over the ridge. The men with the guns stay. They’re joined by at least a hundred more, lining the hills surrounding the town. I turn my head to see a few on the crest of the hill where me and Blaze are hiding. I don’t recognize all of them, and they’re not wearing bandanas. It must be the Knights and I’m glad to see some of my own brothers among them. Hopefully, enough of them to stop the Knights veering off what was agreed upon and shooting all those people scurrying about down there.
By the time the scorching hot sun finally sets behind the hills to our left, the town below is once more deserted. The dust kicked up by over fifty bikes, and many more cars—everything from pickups, to vans and station wagons—as the Sinners left it is still settling.
By the time twilight deepens to night, the wind is once again howling through a ghost town. Most of the men with the guns have left, but some remain.
A text comes for the two of us to return to the bunker, and we do. Nothing, absolutely nothing will keep me from visiting Brenda tonight. I gotta know where we stand, or I’ll lose my mind.
23
Colt
Cross had already started dismissing us to return home a couple of hours before Blaze, Ace, Eagle, and myself returned. He told us to leave in small groups and not all at once. Standard stuff. He had no problem with me visiting Brenda before I left, but did strongly suggest I don’t stick around these parts for too long. I don’t plan on it.
I made hasty plans to meet up with Ace and Blaze in the afternoon so we can head up to Vegas together, then rode off towards the Lucky Star Motel. The road never seemed so winding and long. Parts of it were so dark, even my headlight barely penetrated the gloom. At those times, it felt like I was riding straight into some sort of void in time and space, and while I’m not one for superstition beyond spitting over my shoulder and cursing if a black cat crosses my path and knocking on wood when I feel the urge to, but the ominous, eerie sensation was hard to ignore. It was the exact opposite of every other time I’ve gone to visit her, including the night I almost got killed rescuing her from the Sinners’ clutches.
My stomach is in a knot by the time I pull into the parking lot of the motel. The light in the reception area is on, a station wagon, a jeep, and a small hatchback are parked one next to the other by the three rooms adjacent to Brenda’s. Clearly this place likes to rent their rooms in order.
There is no light on in Brenda’s room.
I roll up to the door and knock loudly, but by that time, I’m not even expecting her to answer. Through the flimsy curtain drawn across the window, I can see the bed. It’s neatly made. The whole room is neat, as though no one’s been there for ages. Ever.
It’s like I’ve walked straight into an alternate reality. One where Brenda never existed. I can’t face the thought so I bang on the door louder, calling her name even though I know there’s no hope in hell that she’ll open them, that she’s in there. The guy staying in the next room opens his door and scowls at me. I give him a look that shuts
him right up in whatever he was gonna add to his glowering look. He wisely closes his door again. I need something to punch and I’m not picky. The pimply receptionist kid standing to the side of the office door and looking at me will do.
“Where’d she go?” I ask as I stride towards him, closing the distance in what feels like a second.
He takes a step back from me and shrugs. “She left with you the last time you were here. We kept the room for you since it was paid for. But then the maid said it was all cleaned out, and it didn’t look like you were coming back so—”
“What do you mean she left with me? Clearly, she didn’t leave with me, else I wouldn’t be standing here asking you, would I?”
The knot in my stomach has turned to pure acid and if I don’t get a sensible answer out of this kid, I can’t be held responsible for what I’ll do.
“Look, I don’t know,” the kid says, backing away again, so he’s standing in the open doorway to the office. “A group of bikers came, she left with them. I thought it was you and your friends. I don’t know anything else. I don’t want any trouble.”
I take a deep breath to try and cool the acid that’s burning through my entire body now. Did the Sinners find her and pack her away before they left? But that’s impossible. I saw all of them leave that town, and none of them turned back this way.
“When was this?” I ask, needing to be sure.
“The day before yesterday,” the kid says. “I was just leaving for my weekend off when she left with them. With you, I thought…”
“The day I was here last?” I ask.
He nods. “So I thought she left with you.”
I shake my head. The possibility that the Sinners got her is very real and very scary. But I would’ve seen her down in that town as they left today? Wouldn’t I?
Not if she was already dead, I wouldn’t.
It’s a thought that fills my mind with such blackness I can’t let it consume me yet.
“Did you see what was on their cut, what colors…”
The kin stares at me blankly.
“The cuts, the jackets they were wearing…the ones that came to get her?”
“Oh, right,” he says. “Well, they wore black leather, except one of them I think had a jean jacket on—”
“No, goddamn it, not those colors,” I snap. “The pictures on the back of their jackets, were they like mine?” I turn so he can get a good look at my cut, before realizing I’m not actually wearing it, since we’re here incognito.
I deserve the confused look he’s giving me now, though I won’t hesitate in wiping it off his face if he doesn’t tell me what I need to know soon.
“Was it a horned skull with roses?” I ask. “Is that the picture you saw on the backs of their jackets?”
He looks up, as though trying to recreate the image in his head.
“Nah, man, it was more like a crown type deal. Like gold on blue, kinda tacky, I thought. And the name was Kings MC or something like that.”
This time I’m the one stepping back and I don’t know whether it’s to prevent falling on my ass in shock or to get away from the kid so I don’t end up knocking him out because of what he just told me.
Kings MC. Monarch. The guy she was with before she got tangled up with the Sinners. She told me about him. Told me he’s the reason she’d rather not go back to Vegas just yet and certainly not alone.
But she’s a woman with a plan. What did she do? Call him to come to get her after she gave up on me ever doing what I said I would and taking her away from here?
I’m mad as hell at her for that, angrier than I’ve ever been at anyone in my life.
But at least I know where to find her now.
And after all we’ve been through, after the love I have for her that is still clutching at every thought that passes through my brain with its clawed paws, she better tell me to my face she wants me gone from her life. That she wants some fat old man more than she wants me.
I’m on the highway heading for Vegas before I’m in the moment again. I pull up on the shoulder to tell Blaze where I’m going and why. Back in the day, I wouldn’t have bothered. But the new me has grown up some.
“What are you gonna do when you get there?” Blaze asks me.
“I’m gonna walk into their clubhouse and demand to see her?”
I can literally hear him shaking his head in exasperation. “You’re gonna just demand to see their president’s woman. And you think this is a good idea…”
“Look, I gotta see her and I gotta talk to her,” I say. “I’ll be as careful as I can.”
“At least wait till I get there,” he says. “For backup.”
“I’m making no promises,” I say.
But in truth, I’m hoping the long ride to Vegas will clear my mind some. Because my plan spoken in Blaze’s level voice sounds like the dumbest plan anyone’s ever made. But I meant what I told him. I gotta see her and I gotta talk to her. Gotta. It’s a physical need as bad as hunger or thirst. And I’m not gonna let a bunch of pissed off bikers stand in my way.
Brenda
A bright beam of white light shining directly into my eye and piercing my brain like a laser, so hot it almost doesn’t even hurt, wakes me. The throbbing in my head isn’t as intense, and it’s now concentrated mostly to a point on the side of my forehead.
The light enters my other eye and this time I scream out in pain, shutting my eyes and trying to get away.
“She’s getting better, but I don’t like that it’s happening so slowly,” a man says. “That was a hard blow. I still say it’s better she gets checked out, just in case. If you want to keep her.”
Monarch’s scowling face materializes before my eyes just as he shakes his head.
But then his plump lips extend into a smile, reminding me of a slug sliding out from a field of grass. Only slimier.
“How are you, Brenda? The headache not so bad today?” he asks as he approaches the bed. In the background, the club doctor, or whoever that guy with the flashlight was is leaving the room, closing the door softly behind him.
I shrug, not meeting his eyes as I sit up in bed and lead against the headboard. That’s something I can do now without too much pain. But even that little movement makes the bed wobble beneath me like I’m on a boat or something. I doubt I could walk two steps without collapsing. But I gotta get my feet back under me if I’m gonna get away. I gotta.
“Tell me where Josh is,” he says. “I swear I’m not gonna hurt him. Or you.”
A big fat lie. His are very dark, darker than they should be based on color alone. He’s still smiling, but not with those eyes of his.
I dreamed a lot since the last time he was here. Most of the dreams were of Josh’s lifeless body hitting the dust in the lot behind the Sinners’ clubhouse.
I gotta spin him a story. A story that won’t make him kill me on sight.
“I told you everything I know, Monarch, baby,” I say, trying to coo it, but it comes out a croak. Maybe it’s because I don’t even want to coo for any man other than Colt. Or maybe it’s just thirst and sleep.
The thought of Colt brings tears to my throat, making it even harder to form words. Will he look for me? Or will he just think I left him? How will he even find me?
“He seduced me and we left,” I say, fighting the lump in my throat. All that is useless thinking now. I’m on my own here. I got no one but myself to get me out of this mess. Story of my life, but at least I’ve had a lot of practice. “That was a terrible mistake. I never should’ve left you. I’m so sorry I did. We stopped in that backward town and that’s when I told him I wanted to go back to you. He got so pissed at that he just left me there. It was only later when the Sinners dragged me out of the motel room Josh left me in that I realized he settled some sort of debt with them by letting them have me. I tried to call you, to let you know where I was and to apologize, but they wouldn’t let me out of their sight.”
He’s listening, that’s a good thing I gu
ess. But his eyes are still very dark and glassy. It’s impossible to tell if he believes me or not. But I gave him a little piece of the truth with the story. Josh was indebted to the Sinners, as were me and Stormi. He ended up dying for it. Me and Stormi almost followed him.
“How did you even find me?” I ask. “And why didn’t you come sooner?”
I’m glad my voice is toneless and coarse from my injury and disuse, otherwise, he’d hear how much I really didn’t want that to happen.
“You two were last seen partying with Roadside Sinner's MC members,” Monarch says, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “It took me a long time to find that out, but when I did, I came straight away. To find you strutting about, free as a bird.”
I get the narrowed eye suspicion now. How do I deflect it? Does he know about Colt too?
“I took up with a guy to get out of being a slave to that MC,” I say. “Can you blame me?”
He does, but he also understands. I can see that clearly by the sharp look in his eyes. He knows manipulation and the need to survive.
“Say that story’s true, say Josh really sold you,” Monarch says, speaking slowly and deliberately, which tells me he doesn’t believe me so a second. “Why would he just disappear?” Monarch asks.
“I have no idea. He was afraid of what you’d do if you found us,” I say. “I think that’s why he was so quick to toss me aside.”
He starts shaking his head, slowly at first, then more and more fiercely. He leaps to his feet and spins. I actually scream as he punches the columns of the four-poster bed by my head, making everything shake. I know it was my face he was thinking of, and I’m not sure why he didn’t punch me.
“You make me crazy, you know that?” he asks harshly. “What the hell am I supposed to do with you?”
I reach out and lay my hand over one of the fists he’s pushing into the mattress. It takes all my skill as a seductress to make it a warm and pleasant caress.
