Ashby Holler

by Jamie Zakian

  “Help me up,” Sasha said. She gripped Otis by the arm, and Vinny’s hands clutched onto her waist, guiding her up. When she teetered, Vinny lifted her into his arms.

  “You said I could.” Vinny held Sasha tight to his chest, carrying her from the warehouse.

  “Don’t drop me.” Sasha all but collapsed in Vinny’s clutch, draping her hands around his neck.

  “Me and Dez will stay back, clean up this site,” Otis said as Vinny carried Sasha down the trail without a break in his steady steps.

  Sasha avoided Dez’s gaze. One more look at his desperate eyes, and she’d forgive him on the spot. Her body already wilted at the sight of him, but her mind wasn’t ready to forget what he’d done yet. Her mother shrank down as they walked by, like a scared little kitten standing alone in a pack of wolves.

  “Come on, Mom,” Sasha said, leering over Vinny’s shoulder.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Dez

  Night rolled in quick, surrounding Dez in shadows. Otis dragged a body from the bushes and up the trail, but he just stood there, watching his brother carry Sasha away. That should be him cradling her broken body. Her hands were supposed to be clinging to his neck, and they would be, if he hadn’t been such a pathetic excuse of a man.

  “You gonna help or sulk like a little bitch?” Otis asked, dropping the body in his grasp atop an ever-growing pile of corpses.

  “I fucked up.” Dez trudged down the hill, toward the legs that poked out from tall blades of grass. “Sasha would’ve been better off if I never came back.”

  “Cut your woe-is-me bullshit.” Otis seized the dead man by the ankles, yanking him from the weeds. “Your girl is still alive. You can go fix it.”

  The way Otis sagged his shoulder, the quiver in the man’s lip. It looked like he might cry. Fuck. Dez would hightail it right out of there if the dude started bawling.

  “Otis, man…I—”

  “Shut the fuck up and grab this asshole’s arms.”

  Dez clamped his lips closed the entire time they hauled the body up the trail. He couldn’t say a damn thing. Otis was right; Sasha was alive, and he could gaze into her deep eyes, catch a stray smile, touch her skin, even if she did punch him in return.

  “Now what?” Dez asked, releasing the body so it could join the others in their heap.

  “We wait.” Otis strolled toward the warehouse and sat on the concrete slab outside the bay door. “When the prospect comes, we’ll load them in the truck and get rid of ‘em.”

  A strong voice flowed from Otis’s mouth, betraying the crushed face that spoke it. That could’ve been Dez, miserable on a cold ground, thinking what if. It still could be.

  Dez pulled out his pack of cigarettes, knocking two loose. After lighting them both, he sat beside Otis and handed one over. “I talked to Candy a few times. She was…really special.”

  Otis nodded, looking away, and Dez did the same. Grief radiated around them, creating an orb where crickets didn’t chirp and light wouldn’t shine. Just time, stripping happiness to tatters.

  ***

  Sasha

  Sasha curled into the backseat of her mother’s Chevelle. Vinny scooted closer, drawing her under his arm and into the refuge of his affection. Her imagination failed to capture the true sensation of his touch. In her wildest dreams, she couldn’t replicate this type of connection. A cross between coming home after a long run and sliding into warm pajamas, but better. This moment would be fucken’ awesome, if not for the throb in her temples, spasm of her shoulder, tingle in her fingers, and her mother’s eyes scanning her over in the rearview mirror. On second thought, maybe she’d caught a chariot to hell.

  “You trying to read my face?” Sasha glared into the front seat but didn’t dare part with the only remnant of family in this car, Vinny. “I bet you’re just dying to find out what I know.”

  “Sasha, I—”

  “Here, let me.” Sasha sat up, leaning against Vinny’s chest. “If you would have known he’d beat me so badly…You had no idea his buddies would turn on him and try to rape me…Candy wasn’t supposed to die.”

  Sasha’s fingers curled around the bench seat that separated them, leather sinking under her nails. “I loved Candy.” She heaved herself forward, just to make sure not one word was lost. “You wanna know why I loved her?” The closer she got, the more her mother cowered down. An incredible experience, worth every hit she took. “It was the way she squirmed when I bit her nipple. Her cute little gasps when I went down on her. She tasted like peaches and felt like Heaven when I slipped my fingers in—”

  “Sasha!” Her mother hurled a leer that could only belong to a small-minded bigot.

  For the first time, Sasha saw a chip in her mother’s unbreakable armor, and she had the perfect-sized nails to drive into it.

  “What’s wrong, Mother? You don’t like that?” Sasha fell back against Vinny’s chest, and his arm circled her waist. “Then you’re probably not gonna like the type of shit that I’ll be doing on my property. The women I’ll be kissing, touching, fucking. In fact, I don’t think it’s going to be the best…environment for someone like you.”

  Vinny’s chest shook, his light smirk rustling Sasha’s hair.

  “I guess,” Sasha said, rolling her eyes, “since you are blood kin, I’ll give you twenty-four hours to get your shit and get off my compound.”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” The car skid to a stop, just outside the open front gate. “Some scribbles on a piece of paper don’t mean shit. I made this club what it is. You’d be a trashy, pleather-wearing skank if it weren’t for me. You should be thanking me right now, you ungrateful little bitch.”

  “Hey!” Sasha cocked her head to one side and wagged her finger in her mother’s face. “If you don’t give any lip, I’ll let you take my Chevelle.”

  “You’ll let me…Oh, you’re gonna be one sorry—”

  Sasha held up her hand, blocking her mother’s red face from view. The most colorful slurs dribbled from her mother’s mouth, Grade A shit Sasha would definitely reuse later, but she’d had enough for now.

  In between, “You couldn’t find your ass from your elbow!” and “Don’t call me from prison!” Sasha pushed open the passenger door. She squeezed from the backseat, taking in a lungful of crisp night air. After Vinny crawled from the car, Sasha slammed the door shut. Her mother finally gave the viper-tongue a rest, but it wasn’t a peaceful silence. The quiet held an eerie sense of danger, the way a sky would groan before a twister.

  Their eyes met through the window, and Sasha winced. She expected to find a fury sharp enough to slice but only glimpsed sadness in her mother’s stare, which cut even deeper. The engine revved, and Sasha backed away as her mother peeled wheels down the mountain.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Vinny said, walking into the road to stare at the taillights that glowed in the darkness.

  “Was it fucked up?” Sasha stood beside Vinny, turning her back on the squeal of tires. “It feels fucked up.”

  “Who knows anymore? We’re both idiots for believing her shit when we should’ve known better. Were you serious about her leaving?”

  “I was, until she drove away.” Sasha shook her head, as if that could jiggle out the crazy. There was something wrong with her. The most toxic element in her life had just driven away, and she wanted to chase it.

  “You think she’ll come back?” Vinny asked, glancing at Sasha.

  “I hope so. If not, I know where to find her.”

  Vinny glided his fingertips over Sasha swollen cheek, almost as lightly as the breeze chilling her skin. “I was so—”

  “Sasha?” Kev called out.

  Sasha braced herself as Kev ran out the front gate, coming in for a hug. He squeezed her tight, and the bone in her shoulder crunched, forcing her to yelp.

  “Hurt! Dude, I’m hurtin’.”

  “Oh shit!” Kev let go, giving her a light tap on the arm. “Sorry. I’m just…I didn’t think I’d ever see you
again.” His smiled faded as he glanced around the empty road. “Where’s everyone else? Are they…dead?”

  “No,” Sasha yelled, wishing she weren’t so sore so she could slap Kev for being so stupid. “They’re up at the warehouse.”

  “The warehouse?” Kev looked up the road, which narrowed as it stretched along the mountain. “Wait. The warehouse was right up the road this whole time?”

  It didn’t matter who knew now. Sasha would never step one foot in that warehouse again. “Can you get one of the prospects to go fetch my truck? I gotta go back, get the guys.”

  “You heard her,” Kev yelled, without turning to look at the two men straggling at the end of the driveway. In a shuffle of footsteps, they hurried up the hill and melded into the darkness.

  Vinny nudged Kev out of the way and took hold of Sasha’s arm. “Come on, you need to get cleaned up. I’ll go back to the warehouse.”

  “No.” Sasha yanked her arm back, groaning as a wave of what felt like broken razorblades rolled beneath her skin. “I have to go back. There’s something I forgot, but I do need you to pop my shoulder back in its socket.”

  “Ah, fuck, Sasha.”

  “I’m out,” Kev said, lifting his hands while backing away.

  “The fuck you are,” Vinny said. “Get your ass over here and hold her steady.”

  Kev cringed, but Sasha didn’t know why. He wasn’t the one about to have his arm bone slammed back into its socket. “Don’t be a pussy,” she teased as Kev walked behind her.

  Vinny smirked, taking her by the wrist. “All right, let’s see.” His other hand landed on her shoulder, nice and gentle, yet a fire still surged in her chest. She looked at Vinny’s face. A crinkled brow, beads of sweat. She was fucked.

  Before she could utter a word, Vinny yanked her wrist out and pushed her shoulder down. Bones scraped. She cried out as a million red-hot needles shot through her arm. Her legs turned to jelly, but Kev held tight, keeping her boots on solid ground.

  “You good?” Vinny asked, ducking to stare into her eyes.

  “Yeah.” Sasha shook the prickles from her fingertips, staggering away from Kev’s grasp. “Dang that smarts.”

  Headlights flooded the road, and a rumble echoed off the high rock wall. Sasha’s pickup turned off the gravel and onto pavement, idling to a stop beside her. The rusted truck sputtered as the prospect climbed out. A sad sound, one of looming demise, a reflection of everything she touched on her corner of the Earth.

  “Where’s Candy?” Sasha asked, glancing at Kev. “Her body?”

  Kev inched behind Vinny, nearly squirming out of his skin. “I made it look like an accident. Tossed a rock on the gas pedal and let the semi plow through the guardrail.”

  It seemed as though Kev wanted to say more, like he wanted to apologize for dumping the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen over the side of a mountain to lay under twisted metal in the cold night, alone, as if it were his fault somehow.

  “Okay,” Sasha muttered, battling to suppress the image of a head bursting to pieces. There were so many memories of Candy stored inside Sasha’s head. The way her golden hair shined the first time they spoke on the playground at school, the glimmer in her eyes when they first kissed. Those were the memories Sasha wanted to remember, not the feel of Candy’s blood splashing her skin.

  Sasha couldn’t take the sympathetic stares of her clubmates or the pound of her heart any longer than she could stand in the middle of this cursed road.

  The soreness of her body lessened as she limped around the back of the truck, heading for the open driver’s door. Sasha dropped inside, and the prospect shut her door, leaning on the open window.

  “I left something in there for ya,” he whispered, nodding toward the center console.

  An ice-cold glass of cola vibrated in Sasha’s cup holder, and a freshly rolled joint sat in her ashtray. She grinned and shifted into first gear, glancing out the window. “You’re all right, tall, wide one.”

  In a chirp of tires, Sasha took off up the mountain. Fate stole many people from her this night, and she planned to take one of them back. Tomorrow might be different, but right now, she couldn’t breathe until Dez wrapped his arms around her. Just one touch, one night. It didn’t have to mean forgiveness, only solace.

  The motor revved as Sasha downshifted, veering onto the dirt path. Every bump spread waves of broken glass beneath her skin, scraping but doing little to slow her determination. She snatched the joint from the ashtray, pushing in the dash lighter. Two puffs and a steep bend, then she could breathe again.

  ***

  Dez

  Dez jumped up when a motor revved in the distance. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yeah.” Otis stood, clutching a shotgun to his chest. “There’s headlights. Take cover.”

  It took only one step for Dez to realize he didn’t give a shit who was coming up the trail. He had nothing left to lose beside his pride if he cowered in the bushes, and fuck that.

  A click rang out as Dez cocked back the pump of the shotgun in his hands. He stood firm in the middle of the empty lot, aiming down the trail. A pickup truck cut around the curve, and a chill ran down his spine. He lowered the gun. Despite his mind’s protests, his body wouldn’t aim a weapon in that direction. Then the lights steered from his eyes, and he saw why. Sasha, his angel in a devil’s costume. Their eyes connected as Sasha parked, and Dez could’ve sworn he glimpsed a smile, which meant he’d gone delirious or she was there to kill him.

  “It’s Sasha,” Dez yelled over his shoulder, walking toward her truck. When she hurried toward him, he stopped short. A quick scan of her hands revealed no weapons, but he couldn’t gauge the look in her eyes. It was an intense stare, not anger or hatred. Nothing he’d ever glimpsed in her eyes, or anyone else’s, before now.

  Dez stepped back, but Sasha kept moving toward him, all but collapsing against his chest. The gun slipped from his grasp, and reflex took his hands to her body. She floated into his grasp like air, numbing his lips with her kiss. It had to be a dream. He squeezed tighter, kissed her deeper as his fingers curled into locks of silky hair. A hell of a dream, one he’d gladly dwindle in forever.

  Her soft hands skated along Dez’s cheeks, trailing a wave of sparks. Sasha drew back but didn’t get very far. Some magnetic force held her lips just above his, igniting the tiny space between them in electric fire.

  “I forgot to tell you I love you,” Sasha whispered, her fingers trembling on the back of Dez’s neck.

  Dez leaned closer to Sasha, his heart racing, and she jerked back.

  “But I hate your fucking guts too,” she said in a dead-serious tone. Her brow crinkled, but that blaze still lit her eyes.

  “I can take that.” Dez lifted Sasha’s chin, gliding his hand down her neck. Before his lips could touch hers, a throat cleared behind him.

  “This is disgustingly sweet,” Otis sneered, “but we got a lot of cleaning up to do here.”

  “Burn it,” Sasha said, glancing at the warehouse. “The bodies too.”

  Otis stared at Sasha as though she’d just spoken a foreign language. “But the runs, our pickups.”

  “We’ll have to get a new stash house.” Sasha limped to the back of her truck, grabbing a gas can. “This place might as well be listed in the yellow pages.”

  “I guess.” Otis shook his head, his gaze falling to the tall metal building. “It’s a shame. You grew up here.”

  “Yeah.” Sasha tightened her grip on the gas can, marching toward the warehouse. “I did.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Sasha

  Sasha squeezed against the driver’s side door as Dez and Otis crammed into her truck. An orange glow lit the woods around her. Flames groaned in the quiet night, but she didn’t look back. A fire had already devoured this warehouse in her memories. Witnessing the real inferno seemed unnecessary.

  After shutting the passenger door shut, Dez dropped his hand on her leg, and she sped off down the trail. For just a
second, she peeked in the rearview mirror then darted her stare to the road ahead. Now she couldn’t look. It had become an issue of pride, a dare to prove her back still held a solid bone. Sasha cut around a curve, ignoring the red flicker that danced on every tree. A squeak rang out from under her palm, and she loosened her grip on the hard plastic steering wheel, her gaze coasting to the side mirror.

  “Sasha,” Otis said, pulling Sasha’s stare just in time to keep her willpower in mediocre standing. “We should talk about your mother.”

  “She’s gone.”

  “What?” Otis grunted.

  Sasha looked past Dez’s stunned face and into eyes drenched in anger. This would be the point where she usually backed off, delved into la-la land, but she couldn’t stand to live another second in lies.

  “I sent her packing. Did you know I owned the entire compound and all its contents?” Sasha slowed the truck. It was getting pretty difficult to speed down a bumpy trail while sardined in a tight cab and keep track of Otis’s guilty expressions.

  “You do?” Dez asked, his eyes wide.

  Sasha waved her hand in Dez’s direction, bouncing her eyes between the road and Otis.

  “I did know that,” Otis said, leaning against his door, “but having your name on a piece of paper doesn’t give you the right to toss your mother out of her home.”

  “Did you know Dante was my real father?”

  That one must have hit Otis in the teeth, because he didn’t say anything for a while.

  “Sasha.” Otis exhaled loudly, shifting in his seat. “I know everything. About everyone.”