by Jadyn Chase
I started shaking. The tremors didn’t stop even when I pulled the blanket around my shoulders. What was wrong with me? I hated this. I hated all of it.
Brayden stayed in the kitchen. He could see me over the counter, but he refused to come near me. Only now did I realize how bad I screwed up by making him mad. He would never be nice to me again.
I accused him of being my jailor. He wasn’t before, but he sure was now. I could have made an ally of him. Instead, I turned against me the one person who sincerely tried to help me.
He cast occasional glances at me. His features never softened again. He hardened himself against me and he would never slacken his vigilance under any circumstances.
A few hours later, he entered the living room and placed an enormous platter of nachos in front of me. He spun away on his heel and stormed off to the kitchen without a single word of encouragement for me to eat his food.
I blinked away tears staring down at the plate. No one ever treated me as well as he did. No one ever took the time or trouble to make me food as good as this and I threw his efforts back in his face.
A few minutes later, he stomped in carrying a plate for himself. He set it in front of his chair and took out his phone.
I swallowed hard. “I know you think I’m a monster for trying to break out of here.”
His head whipped around and his eyes widened. He stared down at me for a second. Then he dropped into his chair, reclined back, and set his plate on his lap. “I don’t think you’re a monster, Morgan.”
“Then you think I’m stupid. You hate me for trying to escape.”
He lowered his gaze to his chips. “I don’t hate you for trying to escape. I would probably have tried to do the same thing if I was in your position. You just gotta realize we’re doing this to help you. We took you away from The Desperados to help you. You’re one of our own. We couldn’t leave you there, and now that we know you’re in danger from them, we have to protect you. That’s what we do. We’re not doing this to torment you.”
My stomach groaned in hunger, but I couldn’t touch his food—not yet. I had to make some overture to peace before I accepted his kindness. “I never would have known who my father was if your people didn’t track him down. I never would have inherited his property.”
“Yeah, well, property won’t protect you from your enemies. There’s gotta be a reason The Desperados threw you in that cell. Whatever it was, they won’t forget it. Los Diablos’ protection is gonna be a lot more valuable to you than anything else you inherited from your father.”
My eyes crept up to his face. “Really?”
He raised his gaze and locked on me. “Really what?”
“I…..” I scarcely comprehended how to integrate all this. “I inherited Los Diablos’ protection from him?”
“Sure. We wouldn’t be trying to protect you now if you weren’t Los Diablos and you’re Los Diablos because of him.”
I looked down at the nachos. Melted cheese steamed where the coolness of the salsa didn’t touch it. It made my mouth water, but that overpowering cold wouldn’t leave me alone.
When he spoke again, he changed his tone. He murmured in a gentle murmur. “What’s wrong? Don’t you want our protection? You would be stupid not to take it.”
“It’s not that.” My voice cracked. Where did all this emotion come from? “I thought…..”
He waited for me to say something else. “You thought what?”
“I don’t know!” I wailed. “I can’t remember. It seems like…. Oh, I don’t know.”
“Just say it. Maybe you remember something and you don’t realize it. You thought what?”
“I thought he didn’t care,” I blurted out. “He wasn’t there. I don’t know. It’s all jumbled up.”
“Are you saying he never told you what his tat meant? He never told you what Los Diablos was?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t understand all the thoughts and emotions swirling in my brain. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to be alive.
He picked up a chip and ferried a load of guacamole to his mouth. “It will come back. Don’t try to force it. It will come in time. You’ll see.”
He went on eating and left me sitting there in my own turmoil. My father belonged to this biker club. He left me a bunch of money and property in his will. All mixed up in that knowledge, an insidious foreboding crept over me. It bulged the firm crust of my being and threatened to erupt all over my life.
Brayden focused all his concentration on his phone. His new guitar amp meant a lot more to him than I did, and why shouldn’t it? No, that wasn’t right. He cared—at least, he cared about as much as a total stranger could care.
If I wanted to talk, he would accommodate me. I knew that. He really was a nice guy underneath it all. He just had better things to do than think about me and my problems.
Toward evening, I curled up on the couch and tried to forget everything that happened over the last few days. I wished Brayden would turn on the TV, but I couldn’t summon the will to do it myself or even to ask him to do it. Maybe I was already dead or on the way to it.
The sun went down outside. I dug in for another long night when Brayden snorted. “Huh! How about that?”
I tried to ignore him, but he lurched forward in his seat and held up his phone so I could see the screen. “Take a look.”
I pried my head off the pillow. The phone revealed a beautiful little cottage set among flowering trees. While I watched in amazement, he flipped the picture to the right and another view came up. A wooden porch gazed over a stretch of pristine white beach to the ocean beyond. It reminded me of the beauty and serenity of the garden outside, but so much nicer. I sucked in my breath. “Where is that?”
“It’s a beach house up in Malibu. Your father owned it and now it’s yours. It looks like he had rental properties all over the place.” He withdrew his phone and leaned back. “Carlos just sent me the file from Logan. It contains all the title information on all the properties. I’m messaging him to ask if you can have your phone back so I can forward it to you. I’m sure he’ll say yes.” His thumbs danced across the screen in a rapid typing pattern. “You are one rich young lady, I tell you what. I’m jealous.”
He chuckled to himself, but I could only observe him across the coffee table. In a heartbeat, he reverted to his old comradely tone of voice. He wiped my faux pas out of his mind like it never happened. Not even I could do that.
I sank into my place and stared at the black TV set. I didn’t want to be rich. I didn’t want him or anybody being jealous of my good fortune.
While I laid there thinking over everything, that mysterious pocket of knowing raised its head one more time. It strained the Earth trying to break out. What was it? My awareness zeroed in. I scrutinized the cracks splintering the crusty soil. They swelled and retracted to swell again.
Grass grew out of it and I inspected it from ground level. My awareness expanded and I found myself in the yard behind the eucalyptus trees. Chopper wrestled with my dad and my mom laughed in the background. I jumped on my dad and hugged him.
Dad let go of the dog and straightened up. He got to his feet, still holding me against him. He carried me into the house with the dog loping at his heels. He slid back the glass door and entered the living room.
He sat down on the couch and set me next to him. He picked up a book and started reading it to me. My mom crossed to the kitchen and opened the fridge. I looked down at the book. It was a cardboard version of The Three Little Pigs.
My dad beamed down at me with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes. He dropped his voice into his chest and growled a fearful snarl to make the sound of the big bad wolf. My spine tingled, and I clung to him in fright.
When he finished, he laughed. Then he switched to the second little pig’s shrill squeal. “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!”
He broke into a laugh again, but at that moment, a deafening crash scared me out of my wits.
I looked up to see our front door crash open. Men streamed in wielding guns everywhere.
I screamed and jumped to get away from them. My dad rocketed to his feet, but the first men through the door acted faster. He swung a shotgun up to his shoulder and fired.
The blast hit my dad in the chest and sent him pitching backward onto the couch. Blood spattered all over his clothes and face and arms. I screamed again.
More and more of those strange men rushed into the house. My child’s mind couldn’t understand how they all fit between the walls. I didn’t recognize their round flat faces and slanted eyes. They wore yellow bandanas around their heads and a weird dragon figure marked their leather jackets.
My adult brain examined the design at the same time my child self shrieked in fright at the sight of these men. That patch didn’t look like any Los Diablos symbol I knew. Who were they?
My mom charged around the doorway yelling, “Josiah! Josiah!”
One of the intruders caught her by the hair and wrestled her off her feet. He wrenched her onto the kitchen table and crammed a gun against her head. Another ear-splitting boom ripped the house apart.
I didn’t wait around to see anymore. I bolted for the only hiding place I could think of. I dove behind the couch and scrambled into the space between it and the wall. I used to hide there when Dad and Chopper and I played hide and seek together.
I scurried into the hole and did my best to make myself invisible. The men chattered in a strange language. I held my breath waiting for them to leave, but to my horror, one of them appeared right in front of me.
My adult awareness kicked in. He was Asian—Chinese. I didn’t understand about that kind of thing back then. He crouched in front of the hole and thrust a long arm into my hiding place. He grabbed a fistful of my shirt and jerked.
I kicked and screamed, but he towed me out and held me down on the floor. I bit and scratched, but he overwhelmed me with his strength. I couldn’t get away. He towered over me, grim and terrible and utterly unmoved by my terror.
I grappled for a hold of his wrists. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he would do to me. He would probably try to kill me the way he killed my parents. Tugging at his arms did nothing so I shifted to his jacket. I put out my hand to grab it and beheld that curious dragon symbol on the upper chest lapel.
This dragon definitely had an oriental cast to it. Tufts of what looked like hair sprouted from its head and jaw. It rippled in a circle and a banner underneath displayed a series of Chinese characters along with the English word, Longtails.
I couldn’t grab hold of him. I had to stop him from killing me, but I couldn’t reach him. I rotated my arm up toward his face. He caught my wrist and started to force me down on the floor. I burst into a panic and flailed at him with everything I had. I screamed at the top of my voice. “No! No! Get off me! Let me go! Leave me alone!”
Powerful hands restrained my whirling limbs. A deep-throated voice thundered in my ear. “Morgan! Morgan! Take it easy. It’s me. Wake up! It’s me, Brayden!”
My eyes snapped open and I stared at him. He sat on the edge of the couch holding me down against my manic efforts to fight him off. For a fraction of a second, Brayden and the safe house and my dad and Chopper and all the past and the present existed simultaneously in my mind. I saw it all, then and now. I’d been dreaming.
He lowered his voice to a hush. “Easy, girl. Take it easy. Everything’s all right. You’re safe.”
I became aware of him pressing down on top of me to restrain my convulsions. His strong hands stopped me from fighting. His chiseled face hovered inches above my eyes. His words soothed my racing heart. I was okay. I was with him in this house. No one was coming after me to kill me.
“You had a nightmare,” he whispered. “It’s over now. You’re okay.”
All at once, I couldn’t cope with any of this anymore. I burst into tears and tried to cover my face with my hands. “They killed him, Brayden! They killed my father!”
“Shhh,” he murmured and his arms folded around me. “It’s all right. It’s gonna be all right. It’s over now.”
“They killed him!” I shrieked out all the fear and alarm from my dream. “I was right there! I saw the whole thing. They killed him right in front of me.”
He craned forward and his weight crushed me holding me down. He kissed my hair. “You’re safe now. It’s over.”
I couldn’t stop screaming in agony. If I could only scream loud enough, maybe I could make the universe hear me. Maybe it would understand just how much I hurt. “They killed him, Brayden! The Longtails killed my father.”
Brayden froze. He held me still for a second. Then he reared back and narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure?”
“I was there!” I screeched. “I saw the whole thing. They killed my dad and my mom and they almost killed me. I got into a fight with one of them. He was wearing his patch. I looked right at it.”
The memory flooded over me one more time and I dissolved in tears. I curled in on myself and Brayden closed me in his arms. He stretched out next to me on the couch while I sobbed into his chest. Whatever happened in that house between the Longtails and me, he was here. I was safe with him.
8
Brayden
I pressed my lips against Morgan’s hair. She fell asleep in my arms after crying her eyes out for more than an hour, but I dared not peel myself away.
So the Longtails killed her father. Los Diablos lore put the blame on La Muerta. We never suspected the Longtails.
This changed everything. The Desperados taking her prisoner never made any sense in the first place. Now the pieces started fitting into place. If they found out who she was or if one of them even caught a glimpse of her tat, they probably captured her to sell her to the Longtails. No other explanation fit the evidence.
I should get up. I should contact Carlos and tell him about this, but I couldn’t pry myself away from Morgan. She felt right in my arms. No one else could comfort her with this information. I was all she had.
She smelled good there under my nose. Every time I kissed her hair, I hoped I could impress some comfort and peace into her brain, into her being. Maybe no one would ever be able to do that again, but at least I could try.
She huddled in my arms making herself small and vulnerable. That was the first time since I first found her that she let herself show the slightest weakness. She worked overtime fighting everybody away. Now I understood why, but she didn’t fight me away—not anymore.
I resolved to stay here on this couch as long as she needed me. When she woke up, she might retreat behind her granite façade. I could handle that. For right now, she could hold onto me. She could sleep protected by one person who knew and understood what she was going through. I wouldn’t take that away from her.
She breathed easier with me here. Maybe I fooled myself into thinking I could change things for her, but I held this moment too precious to leave.
Over her head, I observed the dawn growing lighter outside. If she was right about the Longtails, they would be a thousand times more dangerous to her than The Desperados ever were. I had no reason to doubt her. She didn’t wake up screaming from that nightmare for the fun of it.
She breathed a gentle sigh in her sleep. A brief wave of tightness swept over her before she relaxed. When she did, she cuddled closer. She slipped her arms around my ribs and laid her ear against my heart.
Without meaning to, I lifted my hand and stroked her hair back. Could this be the same woman I cursed and fumed at yesterday? I knew too much about her now to stay mad at her.
The supple warmth of slumber faded from her and she rippled her body down the couch. She threw back her head and I came face to face with her countenance shining with inner light. Her cuts and bruises couldn’t disguise it. Her eyes drifted open and she looked up at me.
A feeling akin to reverence inundated my awareness. For a second, I didn’t know what to do. I glanced down at her mouth. I wanted to kiss her. Her lips qu
ivered and her pupils dilated in those bottomless pools of her eyes. I melted against her and bent down.
At that moment, a screaming alarm blasted through the building. It cycled to a calamitous pitch and stayed there. It blared its piercing ding into my ear and made me leap away from her.
I ripped myself off the couch. Morgan floundered out of the blankets. “What’s going on?” she bellowed.
“It’s the perimeter alarm!” I yelled back. “Someone must have crossed the barrier.”
“Who?” she cried. “Who would do that?”
“I don’t know?” I thundered. “Probably the Longtails.”
Her eyes popped. That’s right, girl. Time to wake up and smell the coffee. I seized my phone. God damn it, Brayden! I should have contacted Carlos when I had the chance. Now he’d have no idea what the Longtails had to do with this.
I navigated to the security cameras and the bottom dropped out of my world. Dozens of black-clothed figures swarmed over the wall. How the fuck did they get past the guns? It didn’t matter now.
“What’s going on?” Morgan bellowed.
I seized her by the wrist and yanked. “Come on! We don’t have much time.”
I jerked her across the room when, out of nowhere, machine gunfire exploded through the glass doors. Broken splinters sprayed into the room. Morgan ducked for cover and screamed, but I didn’t have time for that shit.
Men poured through the shattered door. I caught one glimpse of four figures all wearing yellow bandanas covering their faces. They leveled their guns at us and opened fire.
I made one desperate lunge for the hallway. Morgan followed me in a crouch. I thanked Holy Mary and all the saints I had a girl who could move. I dove for the nearest bedroom. The instant I reached the doorway, a blast of buckshot hit the wall next to my head.
I dodged to avoid it and my skull cracked against the door jamb. Morgan collided into me. I made another last-ditch rush for the room and hauled her in behind me. I swung the door shut and another barrage of lead splintered the wood in front of my face. They would break through that door in a matter of seconds.
