by Naomi West
Cage stiffens. I place a hand on him, calming.
“You think you’re tough then?” I giggle derisively. It’s the way the cool girls used to giggle at me in school. “Is that it?”
I can tell it irks him. When he next speaks, he’s getting angrier. “What’s so funny? I’ll keep you alive, bitch. I’ll keep you alive and flay you like the whore you are.”
“Boss, shall we get to it?”
“What’s the rush?” he snaps. “Or are you in charge now?”
The man replies in a small voice, “No, no. Boss. I didn’t mean that.”
“Right.”
“I’ve got a deal for you, sheriff,” Arvin says. “The girl and Morrow come out here together. We’ll let you and the officers live. Sound fair?”
Cage grinds his teeth together, looking at the sheriff like he might have to fight with him now as well.
“We don’t negotiate with terrorists!” the sheriff roars.
“Terrorists?” Arvin chokes out a laugh. “This man is the damn terrorist. He killed Uncle! He was my best friend, you know. He was a father to me. You killed him like a dog. He didn’t deserve that, Morrow.”
“None of these people deserve this!” I snap.
“Pigs deserve every damn thing they get,” he snarls. He sounds like he’s either drunk or on drugs. He seemed like he had control at the warehouse, but there’s a reckless quality to his voice now. It’s not something specific. It reminds me of when the guys at college would get too drunk. We could always tell that fights were more likely to happen. People were more likely to get into melodrama. Only now the stakes are infinitely higher.
“Fuckin’ pigs,” he goes on. “Give me a hundred pigs and I’ll gut every one of them.”
“So you think you’re tough?” I use a disbelieving voice. It’s amazing. Inside, I’m standing on the edge of a huge drop, staring down at the hard earth below. Outwardly, I am calm. I ignore my drumming heartbeat. The police and Cage are looking at me attentively, as though trying to figure me out. Though Cage is working his shoulders in his joints. I think he already knows.
“Think?” Arvin snaps. “I’m the toughest man you’ve ever met, little girl. You better believe that. I’ll show you once this is through. I’ll make you see. I’ll make you all see. Killed Uncle, dammit, just killed him like he wasn’t the most loyal man who ever lived. He saved me, you know. Saved me from my damn perv old man. Saved my damn life and that fuckin’ bastard just …”
“So it’s Cage you hate,” I say. I wish I could stop. I don’t want to sell Cage to this man. But Cage is ready. And we have a baby to think about now.
“Of course I fucking hate him!” he roars.
“Boss, we should—”
Everyone flinches at the gunshot. I take a step back. There’s a long pause, complete silence. Finally, Arvin shouts, “Does anybody else have an opinion about it, eh?” The silence continues. Arvin just shot him, his own man. “What were you saying, little slut?”
“You hate Cage,” I manage, struggling to maintain my façade of calm.
“Yeah, yeah. But that don’t matter much now. This’ll all be over soon. I’m gonna burn this town to the ground. Steep Rock isn’t worth a damn thing to me. I’m gonna burn it to the ground and me and my boys are gonna roam like the outlaws in the old days. They were the true outlaws. My great-grandfather was Billy the Kid.” I wonder if the math holds up, but I don’t pursue it.
“If you hate Cage so much, why don’t you fight him?”
I bite down on my lip. I scream ‘sorry’ at Cage with my eyes. He just looks back calmly. He nods shortly. He’s ready.
“What do you think I’m doing?” Arvin coughs out a laugh. Some of his men laugh too, but carefully, as though afraid.
“Man to man,” I say. “One on one. If you really hate him, and if you’re really tough, you should fight him, one on one. No guns, no bombs. No battle. Just a fight between two outlaws. Or are you scared?” I wince as I ask the last question. It could so easily send him over the edge.
Arvin is breathing heavily. So heavy I can hear it through the door. “That wouldn’t be a smart move,” he growls. But he sounds like he can be convinced.
My hands stray naturally to my belly. I hold onto it, thinking of the life in there. Thinking of being Cage’s old lady. Thinking of my world ending when it’s only just getting started.
“I thought you were tough?” I make myself sound genuinely confused. “I thought that was how tough men did things. Excuse me, I haven’t been familiar with this life for very long. I thought that tough men never backed down from a fight …”
“I’m not backing down from shit!” he snaps, uncertain.
“Aren’t you? So you’ll fight him?”
Cage starts practicing punches, hooking, jabbing, and upper-cutting the air as he paces back and forth. He kicks his legs out, loosening himself up.
“What do you think I’m doing now?”
“Where’s the toughness in that?” I demand. “If you’re scared, fine, then blow the door up and shoot us all. If you’re too scared to face him, fine.”
“You don’t think I know what you’re doing?” He sounds as though he’s getting weaker each second. “I know exactly what you’re doing!”
“Calling you out for being a coward?” I snap.
The police officers suck in a breath. Even Cage pauses to look at me.
“What did you just say?” His voice is death. “Do you have any damn clue who you’re talking to? What the fuck do I get out of it, anyway?”
“Me!” I exclaim. “If you beat Cage, you can have me—”
“Hold on a damn sec!” Cage barks. “I didn’t—”
“I swear on the club you can have me if you win!” I interrupt. I wave Cage down. He keeps talking. I talk over him. “If you beat him, who can stop you? You can have me, torture me, rape me, whatever you want.” I swallow bile. My legs feel suddenly weak. “Don’t lose,” I whisper to Cage.
He glares at me, face turning red. “They’re not taking you,” he whispers back, fiercely.
“Win, then.” I put my hand on his arm. “Win.”
“Do we have a deal?” I call to Arvin.
“I want all the guns you’ve got in there. Every damn one. And I want Cage to cuff the pigs up in the cells. Then we can talk about a damn deal. All right, Cage? You hear me?”
I turn to the room. “Give up your weapons. Cage, cuff them.”
“Now, hang on—” The sheriff rises from one knee, shaking his head.
“They have bombs. They have grenades. Isn’t a little embarrassment better than that?”
Eventually, the sheriff sees the sense in it. They don’t look too happy as I collect their guns near the door and Cage cuffs them all up in the cell. I walk over to Cage again, this time taking his face in my hands. His cuts haven’t even fully healed yet. Suddenly, guilt stabs at me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “It was the only thing I could think—”
He kisses me on the cheek, and then brushes my hands away. “Enough soft shit,” he growls. “It’ll be over soon.”
24
Cage
“You better fucking do this, Cage.” Henry tugs at the cuffs. “I’m not joking.”
“Yeah, sheriff. I’m not either.” I go to the door. “Hatter, if we’re gonna do this with your men out there, I reckon it’s only fair you let me call up a few fellas. What’s to stop your men goin’ feral if I beat you, eh?”
“Boss …”
“Don’t interrupt me!” Hatter roars. The man’s coked-up or something. I don’t know what, exactly. But he’s not the same Arvin Hatter who I met at the gun meet. “Do you really wanna test me again?”
“Who’s in charge out there?” I growl. “Is it you, Hatter? Am I talking to the man in charge?”
“Of course you fuckin’ are!” he snaps. “Call Boulder, the prick. Tell him what’s going on. I want his word, Cage. Given in front of all of us. I want his word that I get the gi
rl when I beat you.”
I’m about to tell him to go fuck himself when Scarlett shouts, “You’ll have it.” She comes over to me. She looks dead serious. I’m impressed with her, despite the circumstances. I always knew she had fire, but this is something else. “You have to,” she tells me. “For our baby.”
I grit my teeth. Release them a second later. “You’ll have your damn word!” I snarl. “Let me get him on the phone.”
“What?” Boulder growls. “We’re almost there, Cage. Fuckin’ hell.”
“I know, boss. But there’s been a change of plans.”
“Yeah, just a little. Can you take him, Cage?”
“What’d you think?” I grunt.
“I don’t know. We don’t know shit about Hatter. He could be trained.”
“And I’m not? I reckon I can handle myself, boss. Just give the bastard your word. It’s either that or he blows us all to hell.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Put me on speaker, then.”
“You all heard that!” Hatter exclaims once Boulder has given his word. “Everybody heard that, Cage. Now get out here and we’ll get to it.”
“The bombs, Cage,” Henry mutters from behind me.
“Take the explosives off the door, Hatter. We know you’ve been setting them up.”
“Men!” Arvin snaps.
His men are too scared to argue with him now. I reckon that’s the right move considering he just dropped one of them for having an opinion. They remove the explosives. I jab at the air, checking how my body feels. It’s been a hard-drinking hard-fighting week. But I feel pretty good. Nerves creep into me. I stamp on them, executing them. I can’t get nervous now. I have to be tough. I have to be the man I was before I found out I was gonna be a dad.
Only an hour ago, maybe less. And yet it feels like years.
“We good?” Hatter demands.
“I reckon I’ll wait for Jax’n Boulder. No offense.”
“If they come in shooting, we’ve got a big surprise for them,” he warns.
“They won’t. Boulder’s a man of his word.”
“I’ve heard that much,” Hatter mutters, almost too quiet to hear. “We’ll take those guns now, Cage. Then we’re waiting in the lot.”
The guns are all piled up near the door.
“This ain’t gonna blow if I open it?”
“We’ve got a deal, haven’t we?”
I make Scarlett get back under the bench, just in case. Then I open the door a crack, wincing the whole time. It doesn’t blow. I toss the guns through, one by one, and then slam the door again.
“How’d we know you haven’t got more in there?”
“We’re working on our words now, eh? So stop being so fuckin’ paranoid.”
“We’ll be in the lot. Take any longer’n five minutes and we’re blowing the place.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal!” Henry roars.
“It is now! Come on, men.”
The men walk down the hallway and leave the building. I turn to the officers and Scarlett.
“Cage …” The sheriff glares at me.
“I know, Henry. I know. I’ll end this bastard. Don’t worry about it. Stay in here, Scarlett. Don’t move. I’m going out there as soon …” The sound of their bikes is loud, there’s so many of them. “All right, see you soon—”
“Wait.” Scarlett runs over to me. She throws her arms around my shoulders. But she doesn’t kiss me. Instead, she just brings her face close to mine, standing on tiptoes. Her whisper is like the growl of a mother bear. “Do. Not. Lose.”
I take a step back, grind my teeth, and let out a growl. “Get back to the fuckin’ bench.”
She smiles for a moment, and then goes back into the cell.
Outside, the men are gathered in a circle in the parking lot. All the guns, Angels’ and Talons’ both, are piled up just off to the side. Equal distance between both halves of the circle. Arvin stands at one end of the circle, jabbing at the air. He spits on the ground, twisting his neck from side to side. “Where’s the girl?” he demands.
“She don’t need to see this, Hatter. That’s my old lady right there.”
“I’m sending a man in there to make sure she don’t run away.” The night is cloudy. Somebody has arranged their bike’s light so that it floods the lot.
“Then I’m sending a man to make sure your man don’t try anything.” I turn to Jax, nod. “Don’t let them touch her, brother.”
He grins like a wolf. “Yeah, Cage. Shame I’m gonna miss this though.”
“I know.” I clasp his arm. “But it’s gotta be you.”
He nods. “I know, Cage. I know. Come on then, Talon fuck. Let’s go’n make friends.”
Jax and the Bloody Talon go into the station. I pace up and down on my side of the circle. I take off my jacket and roll my shirt sleeves up, making sure they’re not restricting my movements.
“You’ve got height and size,” Boulder says quietly. “That’s half the fight. I’d say grab a hold of the prick and choke him out. Or throw him around some, try’n kick him in the damn head. Whatever you do, don’t let him try any fancy shit on you.”
“I got it, boss.”
“And don’t die. We need you. Your old lady needs you, too.” He half smiles.
“Are we fighting or what?” Arvin barks. “What rules you wanna do, eh, Cage?”
“How about we fight until one of us can’t fight anymore?”
He grins at that. I hate the man. I hate him for what he’s done to this town and for what he’d do to my woman if he won. But when he smiles like that, I can’t help but respect him some. There’s no fear in him at all. He’s ready to fight to the death.
“Sounds good to me. Let’s the old bastard count us in, eh?” He gestures at Boulder.
Several Angels bristle at that. Gunner looks at the weapons as though he’s going to grab for one. Boulder waves them down. “It’s all right, fellas. This prick’ll be done soon.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that.”
Arvin and I go to the center of the circle. Boulder stands just off to the side. I raise my hands, duck my head, and look just over my fists at him. He grins at me madly, his hands loose at his sides. “You ready to die, big man?”
“I’m ready to kill. Let’s hope you are, too.”
“Fight!”
He kicks me so hard in the leg, for a second I think it’s broken. It comes out of nowhere. I’m going in for a lead hook when he just blasts me in the side of the knee. I stumble for a moment, hardly able to believe he can kick that hard. The Angels gasp. The Talons smile for the first time since we came out here.
I’m forced to back off. He chases me, kicking at my knees the whole time. He catches me three more times. It’s already getting difficult to stand on one of my legs. I bite down, ignoring the pain. If I have to break my legs to kill this prick, then I’ll break them.
I charge forward just as he’s about to kick me again. He yelps, trying to leap back. I throw my whole body at him, grabbing at his neck. I headbutt him twice, exploding his nose. Blood pisses down his face onto his shirt. I headbutt him again. The bastard weaves, making to bite my ear off. I hook my hands behind his head and drag him down. At the same time, I bring my knee up as hard as I can.
Knee hits nose with a crunch noise. I leap on him, burying the little prick with all my weight. He falls onto his back. I fall on top of him, hitting wildly now. I can’t see shit. There’s blood in my eyes, but I don’t know if it’s his or mine. I drive my knee right into his belly, pinning him to the ground. My fists are in agony as I beat him. I find his neck. I dig my thumbs into the soft flesh there. I dig so hard, my thumbs disappear into his skin.
He kicks, he punches, he spasms. His face turns red.
Then the kicking stops. His arms drop loosely onto the ground. I only realize I’ve killed him when Boulder puts his hand on my shoulder. I’m still squeezing. My forearms ache with the effort.
&nb
sp; “It’s over, Cage,” he says quietly. “He’s done.”
I look down into his empty face. He’s right. I stand up and pace around the circle, still spoiling for a fight. This is Boulder’s chance to talk now, since he’s the boss. But I can’t stop myself. The words just pour out.
“Your leader’s done, fellas. He reckoned he was tougher’n the Angels and look what happened to him. What about any of you?” I walk close to them, staring right into their eyes. I’m willing to fight any one of them. I don’t think they can say the same. “You leave Steep Rock and you never come back, maybe we’ll let you live. But we want it all. Your businesses, your weapons, your cash.”
“No honor among thieves, eh?” Gunner swaggers over holding his shotgun.
The Talons move toward the guns.
“Too late.” Shotgun stands over the weapons, sawn-off in hand. “I’d listen to the man.”
I go over to Boulder. “Listen, boss …”
“Go, Cage,” Boulder says, grinning. “We’ll handle it from here. Oh, and Cage. You’ve got one helluva bonus waiting for you.”
I pat him on the arm, look one last time at Hatter, and then head inside to get Scarlett.
One of the pledges drives us back to her place. We don’t say much on the ride home. We don’t need to. I feel dog-tired and sick with killing. Scarlett takes me into the bathroom and forces me into the shower. She washes me. There’s nothing sexual about it. I hold her hand close to my chest so she can feel my heartbeat. Then I change into some clothes the pledge leaves outside her apartment door.
“Let me just hold you a while,” I tell her, taking her into the bedroom.
I drop onto my back, opening my arm for her. She crawls in. She kisses my neck, my cheek. She’s crying, I realize.
Then I realize that I am as well. Not many tears, but more’n I’ve cried in as long as I can remember.
“I love you,” I tell her.
She presses our faces together. Our tears mix, sliding down each other’s faces.
“I love you too,” she sobs.
