Lion

by Jessie Cooke

  “She’d be proud of you too, old man.” He left then, before one or both of them started bawling like idiots. It was enough just knowing how Hawk really felt about him…at last.

  After an exhausting day of searching the small city, Lion was parked down the street from the bar where Luger had been spotted the night before, hoping the son of a bitch would show back up. The brother from the Dirty Bastards told them that Luger had been asking a lot of questions about their club the night before and that was why he specifically remembered him. It looked like Luger was looking to start over, and Lion was more than happy to accommodate him…in Hell.

  Dax had sent six other guys with Lion, but they were just there for backup if he needed it. Cody was lead and he’d already told them all that once they found Luger, if they did, it was Lion’s call what to do next. So now they all just waited and after hours of nothing, it finally paid off. They had all spread out earlier and one of them was posted at each of the three blocks approaching the bar from either direction, except Lion…he was directly across from the little place and it would take him less than a minute to cross the street and be there. It was almost 11 p.m. when he got a group text message. This one originated from Jimmy, who was three blocks up to the South. “Single rider rolling by. He’s not wearing a kutte, but the bike looks familiar.”

  The next text came from Levi, who was a block up from Jimmy. “It’s him, I recognize the colors on the tank.”

  Another one, this from Cody: “He should be rolling past you, Lion…just about now.”

  Adrenaline, excitement, anticipation, it all filled Lion so full that by the time he stepped off his bike in the shadows and watched Luger pull into the small lot in front of the bar, he was shaking all over. He waited, watching the man go inside and seething with a kind of hate he hadn’t felt toward anyone for a very long time. This man was the reason his Me Maw was gone, and the reason he’d almost lost the only woman he knew he’d love.

  Once Luger was inside, Lion crossed the street. He walked around the outside of the bar first, checking out where there might be other exits. He got to a backdoor that was open with a screen door closed between it and the kitchen. It led out into an alleyway that fed into the spookier part of town, where the monuments were to the “witches” that had been hanged so many years ago. That was a point of contention with Lion as well. Had his mother and grandmother lived then, they might have both been burned before he was even born. Judgmental people made him sick…and he realized as he was walking back to the front of the bar, that was simply what Luger and his mother were. They were so extremely judgmental that they thought his Me Maw deserved to die, and he deserved to be tortured, just because they were different.

  He stopped near the front door and texted Cody. “Can you have someone posted at the back, and maybe down the streets by the monuments just in case he leg bails on us? I’m going inside. I’ll text if I need any backup.”

  He got a thumbs up from Cody and then he pulled open the door. The lighting in the bar was dim. By his initial count, there were maybe fifteen or twenty people inside. Two couples were on the dance floor, a few tables were filled, and there were about half a dozen men at the bar. Lion’s eyes fell on Luger’s back. He was sitting next to a tall, muscular guy with a red Mohawk. The bartender was at the far end of the bar and the waitress was out on the floor. Lion began walking toward Luger, his eyes locked on the man’s face in the mirror that ran behind the bar. Luger didn’t see him, until he was about two feet away. The look of shock, and then terror that crossed his face was a thing of beauty. He jumped to his feet and reached behind him, underneath his t-shirt. Lion lunged at him, but before he got there, the man next to Luger, the one with the red Mohawk and tattoos from his neck down, casually reached over, grabbed Luger’s arm in his big hand, and twisted it, causing him to drop the gun.

  Luger was yelling out when Lion grabbed him and tossed him onto the floor. The two men grappled, and people began to gasp or scream and move out of the way. The big red-haired man finished his beer and then casually stood up and looked around at those left in the bar and said, “The rest of y’all might want to take off.” Lion was throwing a punch at Luger’s face when he heard him tell the bartender, “Scotty, lock the doors and no, don’t call the cops.”

  The punch caused Luger’s head to hit the floor and bounce up again. Lion’s fighter instincts were in full force. He pulled Luger up to his feet and let him get his bearings before putting his fists up and telling him, “Fight me.”

  “Fuck you,” Luger said, blood running out of his mouth and down his chin. Lion threw another punch and that one landed on Luger’s nose. He felt it crunch underneath his fist and the warm spray of blood hit him in the face before Luger flew backwards and landed on his ass on the floor. He moved fast, picking Luger back up by the front of the shirt. He was almost supporting all the other man’s weight.

  “Fight back, asshole.” Luger smiled. His face looked like something out of a horror film after only two punches. His nose and lips were swelling and one of his teeth was loose in front. Blood drained out of his nose and mouth both and the smile showed how it framed each one of his teeth.

  “Your grandmother, the witch, she squealed like a pig before she stopped breathing.” Lion pulled his fist back, but before that blow landed, he felt the twist of a knife in his gut. He gasped and doubled forward. He felt Luger pull the knife out and raise it but before he reacted, the big red-haired man grabbed Luger’s hand from behind and Lion heard a snap as he pulled it back and Luger dropped the knife and screamed.

  “Fair fights only,” the man said. “My bar, my rules.” He spoke with some kind of accent—Scottish, maybe? He looked at Lion, who was holding a handful of blood and said, “You okay to go on, mate?”

  Lion nodded. He was sweating, and out of breath, but like with the burns the night before, the adrenaline was blocking out most of the pain. The big redhead tossed Luger forward and Lion grabbed him. He spent the next five or ten minutes turning Luger’s face into something his own mother wouldn’t recognize as the disgusting scumbag alternated between crying like a little girl and spitting out bloody insults. When Lion realized he was unconscious, he finally stopped pummeling him and struggled up to his feet. The redhead was there with a towel that he handed to him. Lion took it, gratefully, and pressed it to his stomach where the blood was still gushing. Then a shot of whiskey magically appeared in his hand. He drank that down and then looked around the bar. There was no one left other than the bartender and the Scot. Lion’s vision was blurring and he felt like he was going to fall over, but he focused his eyes on the other man and said, “Thank you.”

  “No problem, mate. I’m Eric, but they call me Crimson. I take it the dubber there had that coming?”

  The pain in Lion’s stomach was getting worse and his vision was growing blurrier. He grunted out a “Yes, he did,” and then said, “I have some friends outside. Mind letting them in before I pass out?”

  “Not at all, mate.”

  Crimson went over and opened the front door and the Skulls poured in. Lion heard Cody telling someone to call an ambulance and he said, “No! They’ll bring the cops, and I’m not done with this fuckface yet.”

  “You’re bleeding out,” Cody said.

  “You want to bring him in the back, I’ll stitch him up, mate,” Crimson said, cheerfully.

  “The owner of this place isn’t going to mind all that?’ Cody asked.

  “I own it,” Crimson said, “and I don’t mind. I was in the 225 in Scotland.”

  “And that is?” Lion knew Cody didn’t have much more of a tolerance for people than he himself did, but he wished they’d get on with whatever the fuck they were going to do; his gut was killing him.

  “The Scottish Medical Regiment. Five years. Just got out a year ago and moved here to the States.”

  Cody looked at Lion and Lion nodded. Cody helped him to the back, telling the rest of the guys to watch Luger and get the place cleaned up. There was
a small break area with a little table with a Formica top. There were all kinds of spices and utensils on top of it. Crimson swiped his heavily tattooed arm across it, knocking everything in the floor, and said, “Have a lie-down, mate. I’ll get my bag.”

  Cody helped Lion onto the slightly unsteady table and when Crimson was out of the room he said, “You sure about this?”

  Lion wasn’t, really…but he nodded. “The faster I stop bleeding, the faster I can take care of that piece of shit in there and get back to Madison.” Crimson returned with a bottle of whiskey and a black bag. He laid out a plastic sheet across Lion’s chest, cut his shirt open, and proceeded to pour the whiskey into his wound. If someone in the neighborhood didn’t call the police after Lion’s agonizing roar…it would be a miracle.

  Between the fire of pain in his gut and the burns that were throbbing again, Lion could barely stay conscious. He hadn’t known how he was going to ride all the way back to Boston, let alone make the stop they were at now along the way. Crimson had turned out to be one hell of an ally. A biker himself in Scotland, he told him, he was more than happy to help “fellow brothers.” He’d loaned them his car, a red four-wheel-drive Jeep, and Cody and Jimmy had gone with him to the harbor with Luger tossed in the back and tied up for safekeeping.

  When they got there, it was after 1 a.m. and everything was quiet. They weren’t sure if there might be a security patrol or not, so they had to make sure they worked fast. Cody backed the Jeep up to one of the empty boat slips and Lion got out. He walked around to the back and found their passenger awake, and with wide eyes that finally held the kind of fear in them that they should have all along.

  “Why?” Lion asked him. “She was a sweet old lady. She didn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Walt lit the fire, not me.” Snitching out his friend only made Lion hate him that much more.

  “Tell me why.”

  “If I do, will you let me go?”

  “Maybe.”

  Luger had tears in his eyes and snot running down his face. It was all mixed in with the blood still oozing from his mouth and nose. “She ruined my parents’ marriage, and my dad…he was so pathetic, he told her things that he never should have, personal things. He was such a fucking wimp. He couldn’t get it up, and he told her.”

  “And she was trying to help him, so you killed her?”

  “We didn’t know she was home.” Lion had to refrain from knocking him out again. There was one more question he wanted to ask him, just for curiosity’s sake, and because Kyle had helped him out, and this would help Kyle. Lion pushed Record on his phone in his pocket and said:

  “What happened to your old man? Did you kill him too?”

  “No, man. I didn’t kill anyone. Walt lit that fire…and then one day not long after, I came home and my mother had cut off my old man’s dick and let him bleed to death in the bathtub. She was my mom. I had to protect her. Besides, he had it coming. So I beat him, after he was dead, and I kept the body in our basement until she needed the death certificate. I dumped him out in Philly, the place she told everyone he’d gone to.”

  “Sick bastard,” Lion said.

  “She killed him!” Lion shook his head and made eye contact with Jimmy, who was looking at him from the back seat. Jimmy got out and came around to the back. Lion switched off the Record button on his phone and together they pulled Luger out of the Jeep. “Are you going to let me go?” He was sobbing, like a baby. The two men carried him to the end of the boat slip and dropped him onto the wood. He screamed again and a light came on in one of the boats a ways down.

  “Fuck, Lion, we need to hurry,” Jimmy said.

  “That circle of concrete there, is it tied down?”

  Jimmy went over to a round piece of concrete with a hole in the center like a donut. It was made to tie things to, but it wasn’t tied to the boat slip. “Nah. I saw some rope in the Jeep.”

  “What are you doing?” Luger yelled, in a shaky voice. While Jimmy was getting the rope, Lion tore a piece of tape off the pieces holding Luger’s legs together and he slapped it over his mouth. He’d said everything he needed to say. His eyes almost popped out of their head and the veins in his temples and neck bulged as he watched Jimmy and Lion tie the heavy concrete block around his waist. Lion imagined he could hear him screaming as they tossed him off the slip and into the black water of the bay. He stood there for a few minutes, making sure the bastard would sink…and then he and Jimmy got back in the car and they got the hell out of there. It was finally over.

  Epilogue

  “Madison? Can I come in?” Harley had knocked softly on the door and pushed it open. Madison was sitting at the vanity, brushing her hair. She’d been sitting there for forty-five minutes, knowing she needed to hurry it up. As much as this was a day she wanted to hurry through, she felt like she was sleepwalking instead.

  “Yeah, Harley, come on in.”

  Harley looked beautiful in a black skirt and white blouse with her silky red hair lying down across her shoulders and back. “You doing okay?”

  Madison smiled. She felt like she was dying inside, but there was nothing anyone could do about that. “I’ll be okay. Is everyone ready?”

  “Yeah. Jace and Beck and their guys just rode in. The cars are all ready, and Lion’s got the Harleys lined up.”

  Madison stood up. She was wearing a black pantsuit over a light blue shirt. She wanted to add just a little bit of color…maybe because it seemed to be what his life had been missing all those years. “I want to ride with Lion,” she said.

  Harley smiled. “I’m sure he’ll be fine with that. Come on.” Harley slid her arm through Madison’s, and they walked down the stairs and outside together. When Madison saw what was waiting for her, the tears she’d been holding back all morning began to flow rapidly down her cheeks. There were four big, black SUVs and someone had placed a Skulls decal next to a decal of a beautiful hawk on the side of each one. Behind the cars sat Lion on Hawk’s Harley, dressed all in black with his hair shining under the sun and his facial hair neatly trimmed. He had held her all night and let her soak his chest with tears, yet his green eyes looked at her now, as clear and bright as the beautiful spring day…ready to be there for her, and her dad, no matter what. Behind Lion sat an army of bikes. The Southside Skulls, in full force, were lined up two by two, and then came Wolf and his bunch from California, and behind him, Jace and Beck and all of their guys. It would take them all over an hour to get to the cemetery…but that would be made easier by the small brigade of police cars that were starting to slowly move toward the gate. The Brady boys and Angel had called on some old friends for the favor and as Madison walked over and slid on the bike behind Lion, she thought about how much Hawk would have hated all this fuss. She smiled and after slipping on her helmet she hugged into Lion’s back. It was her revenge, for not being able to tell anyone what an amazing man Hawk really was. She looked up, but just as she was about to tell him, “So there,” she changed her mind and looked down and said, “I guess the deal was finally up, old man…but God, am I grateful we had you as long as we did.” Lion revved the bike and they began to move and for the next hour as they followed along behind the SUV that would carry her father to his final resting place, Madison let the wind take hold of her tears. Everything in her life was about to change. Lion had proposed to her the night before Hawk died in his sleep, and she’d accepted. Hawk had bought the house for her in Phoenix, and Lion said he was willing to go anywhere with her. They’d even talked about maybe having a baby someday and although Lion didn’t agree to it, he didn’t outright object to maybe calling the baby Grant…

  Read Collin’s story next. Click Here!

  Excerpt from Collin:

  The Valentine Killer

  The killer clicked off the computer and the room went black. He sat back in the chair and breathed in the darkness. He loved the night, and wished it would never get light. During work hours he was forced to endure the company of fools whether he wanted it or not, a
nd he didn’t want it. The only thing he could honestly say it did for him to be around people was to provide fodder for his darkest fantasies. Some nights when he wasn’t able to go out…or he didn’t get called out…he would lie quietly on his pillow and picture all of their faces, one at a time, as he killed them. Just picturing it excited him and he’d lie there in the dark, trying hard not to wake up his wife as he let his mind play through it in intimate detail as he brought himself to climax.

  “Hey! Are you in there?”

  Shit! He opened his eyes at the sound of the grating voice. It was like nails on a chalkboard and he’d grown to despise it. “Yeah, what do you need?” The door handle moved back and forth but the door didn’t open. He had locked it specifically to keep the nosy bitch out. This was his domain and she had no business in here.

  “Why is the door locked? And why are you sitting there in the dark? You’re acting so strange lately.”

  “I just needed a few minutes of quiet time. Thanks for ruining it,” he said, standing up and stretching out his long limbs. He ran a hand through his thinning dirty blond hair. It was touching his shoulders. It was past time for a haircut.

  “Dinner’s ready. Are you coming out?”

  “Yeah, in a minute,” he said. He waited until he heard her footfalls recede down the hallway and then opened the French doors quietly and slipped outside. He walked quickly until he was away from the house. He would have to hear her nag later…but that was nothing new. He’d just tell her that he got called out and she would accept that. One of these days he would kill her too, but for now he still might have some use for her.

  He walked down the quiet street with his hands in his pockets, whistling a tune that he couldn’t even remember hearing before. He was nobody during the day. Just another unhappily married man working at a job that he hated and no one appreciated. He had shuffled through his life unfulfilled. But when nightfall came, it cocooned him in its protective folds and allowed him to rejuvenate, and one night it allowed him to finally do something that he knew now to be his destiny. Who knew what might happen? Maybe one day, he would become invincible.