Lion

by Jessie Cooke

  Lion didn’t bother knocking when he got to Walt’s piece-of-shit house. He kicked in the front door, gun drawn and ready to shoot anything that moved, unless it was Madison. “Walt!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. The living room was small and littered with takeout containers. The recliner that was pointed at the television was stained and indented like a mold of Walt’s big body. Lion kept his back to the wall and went over to feel the back of the television set. It was cold. A beer sat on the table next to the recliner, and it was hot. “Walt!” he yelled again, making his way toward the door that looked like it led to the kitchen. He used one hand to push it open and led with the gun in his other hand. The kitchen was small, filthy, and empty. His inspection of the bathroom and bedroom, the only other two rooms in the house, went exactly the same. Walt wasn’t there, and neither was Madison.

  Screaming profanities in his head, Lion checked the small yard before getting on his bike and heading to Luger’s house. If Walt had her, Luger damned well knew where they were. As soon as Kyle saw him drive up, he got out of his car and jogged up to the house, meeting Lion on the porch. “He hasn’t left, and his bike is here. Dax told me what happened…”

  “I hope the fucker is here,” Lion said. “I’m going to make him tell me where she is. I know this is him, Kyle. Please don’t try to stop me.”

  Kyle looked at the gun in Lion’s hand. He didn’t say anything, but reached down into his boot and pulled out his own as Lion slammed his fist into the door and yelled Luger’s name. Lion was ready to kick it down the way he had Walt’s when it was pulled open, by an older woman with long gray hair and dark blue eyes. “Who the fuck are you?” she growled in a voice that sounded like she smoked three packs a day.

  “Where’s Luger?”

  She narrowed her eyes and looking straight up into Lion’s she said, “You’re that freak, the witch’s boy.”

  “Look, lady, I don’t want to shoot you, but I will. Where the fuck is your son?”

  “None of your fucking business,” she said. “Now get off my property or shoot me.”

  Lion wasn’t going to shoot her…he didn’t think…but he also wasn’t leaving without Luger. With his free hand he nudged her out of the way. She started yelling, but he ignored her and went inside. Their house was bigger than Walt’s and cleaner. The television was blaring a game show from the front room. Lion checked there first. He could hear Kyle behind him, trying to convince the old woman he was the police. She wasn’t buying it, but she also wasn’t calling the police…that told Lion there was something or someone in the house that she didn’t want them to find. It was exactly why they tried to avoid calling the police to the ranch at all costs.

  Lion continued to move through the house, checking each room as he went. There were two living rooms, a kitchen, dining room, three bedrooms, and two bathrooms…and he found nothing. The anxiety and the anger were burning him up inside and he was afraid when he came face to face with Luger he’d kill him before he found out where Madison was. He went back into the living room and said, “Where is he, you old bat?”

  “Fuck you! Burn in hell with that crazy witch grandmother of yours.” She spat at him and a yellow ball of spittle landed on the floor in front of his feet. Kyle was standing next to her with his gun pointed at her head, and Lion’s fist tightened around his own gun and once again shooting her crossed his mind.

  “No sign of him?” Kyle asked.

  “No, but he didn’t leave through the doors and I didn’t see any open windows. Which means this old woman closed it behind him…and she knows where he is. Where is he hiding?”

  The hateful old woman raised her middle finger at him. Lion could see where Luger had gotten all that charm he threw around. “How old is this house?” Kyle suddenly asked. The old woman gave him a dirty look and Lion said:

  “Why?”

  “These old houses all have basements. When I first started watching Luger, I checked the perimeter. There were no windows, or doors…but it does sit up high on its foundation.”

  “Where is it, old woman?” Lion demanded. It netted him another “Fuck you.”

  Lion snapped, grabbed her arm with one of his hands, and pressed the gun against her temple. “I will fucking kill you, and then I’ll find that bastard son of yours and drag him here and make it look like a fucking murder-suicide. You hear me, old woman? I don’t have the time or the patience to fucking play with you anymore. Tell me where the basement is, or where your fucking loser kid is…or I kill you.”

  “Kill me then,” she said, with the conviction of someone who literally had nothing to live for. “I don’t give a fuck.” Lion let out a roar that the neighbors probably heard and tossed her down onto the couch, roughly. He didn’t want to hurt a woman, much less an old woman…but she was pushing her luck. He left Kyle there with her and went to check out the house again, this time paying close attention to closets and areas of the wood floor that were covered with rugs. He found what he was looking for at last, in the closet of the back bedroom. There was a ring on the floor, covered by a shoe, and when he pulled on it a hole opened up and a set of narrow stairs folded out.

  “Hole in the floor of the old lady’s closet,” he yelled to Kyle before he began to descend the stairs. He was jumping down into the dark room when Kyle appeared in the opening above him, shining down a flashlight. “Toss it down,” Lion told him. Kyle did, and Lion caught it. When he began to move it around the room, he could see that someone had been living there. There were beer bottles lined up on the coffee table, and Chinese food containers on the table next to the couch. He continued to slowly move the light across the room, stopping suddenly and letting out a loud gasp.

  “What? Are you okay?” Kyle was still watching from up above and it suddenly occurred to Lion that the old lady was alone, and probably calling her son.

  “I’m fine. You should go watch the old lady.”

  “She’s okay. I put her in the pantry. Locked it with the broom. I used to do it to my little brother all the time when we were kids. She’ll be there for while. Tell me what you see.”

  Lion felt like he might throw up, and not thanks to the dank, stale air in the basement. He stepped closer to what the light had fallen on and illuminated what was spread out across the floor. It was his drawings, all of them of Madison…but they’d been altered in crude, vulgar ways. One of them had a knife driven into her throat and he’d drawn or painted blood dripping from it and down the front of her. Luger had taken another of the drawings and cut off just her head. He taped it onto a nude body he had obviously cut out of a magazine…and then he’d defaced the woman’s privates like a destructive teenager playing with an ink pen in the doctor’s office. They all made his stomach roll, but the one that Lion couldn’t stop looking at was one he’d drawn of her sitting on a set of stairs. Behind her were crudely drawn yellow and orange flames…but it was obvious that’s what they were, especially since he’d blacked out part of her face so that it looked like she’d been horribly burned.

  “Fuck, Kyle. He’s got her at my place.” Lion was up the steps in a flash and neither man said another word, nor did they hesitate when the old woman screamed profanities from the pantry closet that they’d left her in. Lion got on his bike even as Kyle was making his way across the street to his car. All he could see in his mind, as he drove what would take him a half an hour to his house, were those flames. If he found Madison the way he had his Me Maw, not only were Luger and Walt dead men…but he’d probably have to join them shortly after.

  29

  “Fuck you! She’s my kid, Dax! Fuck you! You want to keep me here you’ll have to fucking kill me now.” Levi had done his best to convince Hawk nothing was going on, but the old man wasn’t stupid. Short of physically restraining him, Levi couldn’t keep him in the trailer, or off the Harley he rode up to the club. He busted in, demanding to know why the ranch was locked down, and where Madison was. They all stalled until Dax got there, but by that time Hawk was brandishing a ba
seball bat they kept hidden behind the bar and threatening to bust all their heads open.

  “Hawk, we think that Walt and Luger took her…”

  “What the fuck for?”

  Dax knew no matter what he told Hawk, keeping him on the ranch would be a matter of getting physical with him and locking him up. Hawk was too fragile for that and Dax didn’t want to kill the old man. He decided to go with the truth and hope that Hawk had enough sense to realize he was in no shape to go after her. “We think they might be the ones that started the fire up at Lion’s place, the one that killed Kate. Lion’s cabin was broken into about a week ago, and he thinks it was them. Luger has some kind of vendetta going against Lion…and I think maybe he’s looking to make Madison collateral damage.” Hawk swallowed hard, and Dax could see fear in the old man’s dark eyes. It looked out of place there, Hawk wasn’t afraid of anything, or at least if he was, he always hid it well. “Lion’s on his way to his cabin now—he thinks that might be where they took her. Kyle is with him and Cody and Jimmy just left to go and help as well.”

  Hawk started walking toward the door and three big, young bikers stepped in front of it. That didn’t stop him. He raised the bat when he got close and Dax had no doubt he was about to start splitting heads open. “Hawk, you just got out of the hospital. Let the guys do what they do. They’ll protect her, you know they will.”

  “Fuck that. If it was your little Susie, you wouldn’t sit here and let someone else go after her.”

  “It’s different,” Dax said.

  “Why? Because I’m old? Because I’m fucking dying? You think I want to die knowing I did nothing to help my little girl? Get them out of the way, Dax, or I swear to God your girls will be cleaning blood and brain matter off these walls for years to come.”

  Dax looked at the guys and tossed his head to the side. They looked surprised, but they stepped out of Hawk’s way. Dax watched him walk out the door with a silent curse. He knew the old man would somehow make things worse…but he also knew he was right. Dax couldn’t let him die knowing he hadn’t even tried to help his daughter. He heard the Harley start up outside and he looked at Levi and said, “Text Kyle and let him know Hawk is on his way, tell him I’ll be with him.”

  Levi nodded and said, “I’m sorry, boss…I should have kept him in the trailer.”

  “Nah, hopefully the men will have things in hand by the time he gets there. If not, it might do the old cowboy some good, to think he helped.” Dax just prayed Madison was still alive, for all their sakes.

  Lion smelled the smoke before he saw the flames. His senses were so overwhelmed that he wasn’t sure he could even trust them, but as soon as he turned onto the road that led up to his house he saw the yellow and orange fingers reaching for the sky. He had the throttle opened as wide as it would go and it still wasn’t fast enough. If Madison was hurt…or worse…he didn’t think he could take it.

  As he got closer to the house he saw Luger’s bike parked near a tree about five yards out. He hadn’t even tried to hide it. Without even braking, he drove right into the back tire. That sent the bike spiraling up into the air and crashing back down against another tree, pieces of metal and rubber rained down on him, and he kept going. When he was about to run into the house, he slid sideways and let the bike go. He was on his feet and in motion before his own Harley hit a tree and stopped. Flames were spewing out through the two front windows of the house and he had to concentrate to try to block out the images of that night twenty-two years ago…it was all so familiar. He jumped at the door with both feet, cracking it along its hinges. “Madison!” he yelled, as he tried to fight his way through the smoke and flames and into the house. Everything was made of wood, and he cursed himself when he thought about that now. How fucking stupid was it for a man to rebuild a house destroyed by arson…with nothing but kindling?

  “Madison!” His eyes were watering and his skin felt like it was melting off. He couldn’t see anything, but he wasn’t leaving without her. If she died in there, he was going with her. He felt more than saw his way to the kitchen, kicked open the door, and called out her name. She didn’t answer, but he didn’t expect her to. He made his way around the small room, which was only burning around the outside edges, and when he was sure she wasn’t there, he went back into the living room. The sound of a Harley out front competed with the almost deafening sounds of the flames crackling as he made his way across the living room, which was now engulfed in a ring of flames. It looked like whoever had started the fire had poured accelerant around the edges of the room, and across the doorway to his bedroom. When he got there, he didn’t bother feeling the door to see if it was hot. He kicked it open and was met with a burst of flames that almost consumed him, and then once they’d eaten the fresh oxygen and begun to die down, he saw her.

  Madison was lying on the center of his bed and a ring of flames was burning the books that had been stacked in a circle around it. She had tape over her mouth and her hands and feet were taped together. There was a big piece of duct tape across her forehead, holding her down against the bed. Her eyes were closed and if not for the duct tape and the circle of fire around the bed, she might have just been sleeping. A murderous rage once again consumed him as he kicked at the four-foot pile of books that were fully engulfed in fire. The flames reached out to lick at his boots and his jeans and he felt the pants melting into his leg, but he didn’t stop until he’d cleared a path large enough for him to get through. He pulled the tape off her forehead, unstrapping her from the bed, and then he scooped her up. When he turned back toward the ring of fire, he saw that it had flared up again. He reached back and pulled the quilt off his bed, threw it over Madison with one arm, and then carried her through the flames. He could feel the pain as his legs and arms burned. He could smell the hair on his head and face singeing…but none of that mattered. All that mattered was that he get Madison out of there.

  “Lion!” he heard Kyle calling to him as he made his way through the smoke-filled living room.

  “I’m bringing her out, Kyle. I need you to grab that hose to the right of the porch and calm down those flames in the doorway.” Kyle didn’t answer him, but Lion heard him retreat. He stood as still as he could, feeling the smoke fill his lungs as he did. He hoped the quilt was keeping Madison from inhaling too much and he breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the sizzle of the fire as Kyle hit it with the hose. As soon as he could see the stream of water breaking through the flames, he moved and seconds later he was out of the house, soaked and in excruciating pain, and cradling Madison to his chest. He wanted to hold her there forever, but he knew she needed fresh air. He carried her as far from the house as he could and laid her in the grass. He could hear the sirens getting closer. He brushed his lips against hers and said, “Help is coming, baby. Hang on, they’re coming.” He didn’t want to leave her, but he had to find Luger and Walt before they disappeared into the night, or maybe forever. He couldn’t live knowing they were still out there, and Madison was still at risk.

  Hawk could barely see by the time he made it up the road to the cabin. It wasn’t the smoke affecting his vision, it was the gray spots that meant he was close to passing out. He ignored them and skidded to a stop as soon as a silhouette came into focus a few feet in front of him. He jumped off the bike and had to reach out a hand to steady himself against it, to keep from passing out right there. The smoke that was already feeling around in his lungs wasn’t helping. He was coughing and hacking when he heard the sound of a voice and followed it.

  “Kyle? Is that Maddie? Is she okay?” Kyle stood up and said:

  “She’s breathing.” The sirens were getting loud. Hawk had passed the fire truck before he turned off the main road. He hoped like hell there was an ambulance close behind. Walking on legs that felt like wet spaghetti, he followed Kyle’s silhouette until he was close enough to see his baby girl’s face. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw she had at least not been burned, and the way that the night sky was suddenly lig
hting up meant that help was getting closer. Hawk dropped to his knees next to her and took hold of her hand.

  “Maddie, it’s Dad. You wake up, hear me?”

  “The back of her head is wet with blood,” Kyle said as Dax walked up behind Hawk. “I think they must have knocked her out, but I don’t know how long ago.” Hawk felt like he was going to be sick. He fought through the nausea and then stumbled back to his feet just as the fire truck and the ambulance behind it were skidding to a stop. He felt Dax’s hand on his arm.

  “Hawk, you’re as white as a sheet. Madison is going to need you when she wakes up. Let the medics take a look at you.”

  Hawk used every ounce of strength in his body to throw Dax’s hand off his arm. He didn’t say anything, mostly because he didn’t have the energy to form the words. It was all he could do to keep from throwing up; just the motion of walking was making him even more nauseous. He could feel Dax following him, but he didn’t give a shit—he’d have to kill him to stop him. He walked, slowly, to the end of the burning house and stopped and listened. All he could hear still were the crackle of flames and more sirens in the distance.

  “Hawk…” Dax’s voice was starting to annoy him. He ignored it again and walked out away from the house toward the line of trees that surrounded it and suddenly he was able to hear voices, ones other than Dax’s, thank God. Two men were yelling and Hawk recognized one of them as that moron Walt who tagged along after Luger all the time. Moving as fast as he could, he went toward the sound, stopping to pick up a large-diameter tree branch along the way. When he broke through to a clearing, with Dax on his heels he saw Lion and Walt. Walt was on his back, bleeding from his mouth and nose, and Lion was standing over him with his boot in the center of the other man’s chest.