by Avelyn Paige
His arm peels away from my skin, while his friend looks on in confusion. From his point of view, all he can see is his friend Billy feeling me up and me whispering softly in his ear. I remove the blade from his crotch and flip it closed, before sliding it back underneath my skirt into its sheath. Sliding out from the booth, I stand and straighten my skirt to make sure the blade stays covered for the rest of the folks in the diner. His friend continues to look at us both clueless.
“As kind of an offer as yours is Billy, I think I am going to have to pass on that job interview,” I sweetly smile back. “Can I get y’all anything else?” I add making sure to play along with the good southern girl charms. Billy remains silent and Jerry shakes his head no.
I quickly turn from them both and head back to the counter top, where Susie stands wiping off the bar. It shocks me by how content Susie looks in this place, but I am bursting at the seams to get my brother and blow this popsicle stand again. It took less than a month here to remind me why I don’t do small towns anymore. Men like Billy and Jerry were lurking around every corner because of my mother and her reputation. Being the bastard child of the town bicycle, doesn’t exactly paint me in a good light, and the assumptions that I followed her in her career path, seem to be running rampant in the small-town rumor mill. You’d think they would have run out of rumors to spread about me by now, but sure enough, new ones just keep popping up.
Ripping off my apron, I toss it to Susie as I pass behind her.
“Where are you going, Ricca?” she calls out after me, brushing her long, blonde hair out of her face.
“On break. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” I respond, as I grab my jacket from under the counter and head towards the side door. Not even giving her a chance to respond, I am out of the door and into the early spring air. The brisk temperatures suck the air from my lungs as soon as I am away from the heated warmth of the diner. It’s usually not this chilly during April, but as they say in the Midwest, if you don’t like the weather blink and it will change. I’m just glad that it hasn’t snowed much this year because I am not exactly equipped for that kind of thing after living in California for so long. I like the sun and not this cold, gray stuff that is the Midwest, in the winter and early spring.
Quickly wrapping my jacket around my shivering body, I rub my hands together to generate more body heat. While most come out here to take a drag off of their cigarettes, I just want a moment to myself. The situation I found myself in, with guys like Billy and Jerry, have happened far more times than I would like to admit in my life, but now they snap me back to my time in the Tribe’s dungeon of horrors. I managed to keep my cool and somewhat of a level head this time, but from the moment I stepped foot outside, my heart began to race in the rumblings of a panic attack on the horizon. The façade of strength that I displayed is only surface glamor. I know how to put on a good show, and I also how to fake my way out of a situation, but the inside of me is filled with fear and nerves. The tough girl part of me died in the desert where the last shred of my innocence is buried. I emerged from that place a shell of my former self with the ability to play pretend, when the situation called for it.
Leaning against the cool brick of the diner, I close my eyes and focus on slowing down my breathing. The tension in my body slowly melts away over the course of a few minutes. I open my eyes to see the two men who caused this getting in their truck and eventually driving away.
While most would have reported the situation to the local police, I knew I couldn’t. The need for a job and to keep my nose clean, outweighed the need for justice for those two asshats who thought it was fine to proposition me. I just hoped that the next time they tried to pull something like this, that someone much braver than me would turn them in or worse, sick their boyfriend on them. I just had to wait for Karma to come after them like it had for me.
The door next to me flies open with a loud bang, startling me.
“Jesus Christ!” I exclaim, jumping out of the way of the swinging door.
Joe’s large frame appears in the door way as he scowls at me.
“Break time’s over, Erica. Get your ass back in here and do your job. Susie can’t keep covering your tables, while you’re out here sleeping on the job.”
I force myself to stow the one finger salute that I’d like to present to him. Joe may be my boss, but the day I finally get to quit this joint will go down in history for the best “take your job and go fuck yourself” moment in the history of quitting. Shoving away from the wall, Joe doesn’t move and forces me to squeeze past him in the doorway. My stomach rolls as I do, but I manage to keep my lunch down, while mentally taking a note to wash my work clothes tonight. The greasy food smell is bad enough, without adding in Joe’s unique aroma of body odor and three-day-old cheese, in the mix. I doubt even bleach could help him smell fresh and clean.
I make my way back to the counter, stow my jacket, and don my apron, before diving back into the daily grind of the lunch rush. A few short hours later, I wave goodbye to Susie and head home for a quick shower and change of clothes, before heading off to Willie’s for the night. At least there, my night of grabby men will come with a few shots of whiskey, and a hangover that might help me sleep through the nightmare that is my life.
It’s been days since I stamped Hog’s ticket to hell, but here I am still at the Heaven’s Rejects clubhouse and no closer to finding Ricca. For a woman who has a trail of bad choices behind her, she sure knows how to cover her tracks. To be honest, I thought for sure that she’d leave me some kind of breadcrumb to track her down, but she has always played her cards close to her chest, when it comes to dishing out personal information. She was a constant fixture in my room for months, before she even told me her middle name or how old she was. It might have been an odd arrangement when you looked at it from the outside, but it made sense to me. She needed protection, and from the first time I saw her at Red’s, I knew she was like me.
Try as she did, I could see right through her well-practiced acting. She wasn’t happy in her life, even before those Twisted Tribe fuckers took their hands and bodies to her. When I saw her chained to that table in their basement, I sighed in relief. Twisted as fuck, right? I knew she’d been put through hell, but in that instant, I knew she was also still alive. Broken but still breathing. Feeling her weakened body as I carried her up out of the cesspool, I made a silent promise to myself to keep on protecting her, even if she didn’t want me around. She wasn’t the first person I’d had to extract from a bad situation, but the outcome for her would be different. She deserved a second chance that so many people never get, and it’s on me to make sure that happens.
“Earth to Ratchet,” Voodoo calls out. “Come in, Ratchet.”
I sneer at him before taking another swig of my now warm beer.
Jesus, how long was I lost in space that even my damn beer is warm.
Voodoo plops himself down next to me at the bar top and motions for Daisy. She smiles and bops her way over to the refrigerator, grabbing a beer and sliding it towards him. Voodoo twists the cap off and tosses it back towards Daisy who just giggles from his attention. While most of the guys here take up with the free in-house recreation, it was never my thing. Before Ricca, I had a few girls outside the club that would be there when I was in the mood, but she changed all that for me. From the moment she leaned into me during her rescue, I was fucked. I’m not saying that I haven’t looked at another woman since because let’s be honest I have, but none have peaked my interest enough to make a move.
“So,” he starts, dragging out his words knowing that it annoys me.
“Spit it out, dip shit. I don’t have all day for your theatrics,” I gruffly fire back.
“Well now, someone’s in a mood this morning, and to think I was going to share some good news with you,” Voodoo chides.
I turn to face him as he takes a hit of his beer with a smile on his face. Voodoo has never been one that’s good with keeping secrets so
just by looking at him I know something is up. I just have to hope it’s good news and not bad.
“You know where she is, don’t you?” I intensely question, without breaking my stare.
The fucker casually takes another drink of his beer, before setting it back down on the bar top. His finger traces the lip of the bottle, stalling on his reply. I used to think his games were cute, but being on the receiving end of them, I’m not so sure that I like them anymore.
“You have about five more seconds to answer me fucker, before I punch that smile right off of your face,” I growl.
Voodoo flinches slightly, but just keeps on smiling like a god damn idiot.
“You know,” I say, “I used to like you. Hell, I even convinced the other guys to let your crazy ass into this club, but now I’m not so sure that I made the right call.”
“Ohhhh,” Voodoo teases. “Delayed blackmail for information. You must really want to know what I have to say.” He moves his hands to his face, cradling his chin like a child.
“Cut the bullshit Voodoo, and just fucking tell me.”
“Fine,” he sighs, with pretend exasperation. “I might have a lead on Ricca.”
“You might? How in the fuck is that helpful?” I spit back.
“Might is far closer than we’ve ever been in the last few months, so beggars can’t be choosers, Ratchet.”
I know he’s right, but I was hoping that he was going to be coming to me with more of a sure thing, than a maybe that could lead me nowhere.
“So, what’s the lead?” I question hopefully.
He fingers the lip of his beer again, before finally giving in.
“I know this will all sound like computer mumbo jumbo bullshit to you, but I’ll tell you anyway because I don’t think you appreciate my skills,” he says, while I impatiently look at him. He has a few seconds before I force the fucking information out of him, and my patience is about to run out.
“Anyway, I embedded a few illegal search alert notifications with her information into the system. It took hours of hard labor and beer, but I did it just for you, big boy.”
“Today, Voodoo. Just get to the part where you might have found something instead of giving me the play by play of what you do in your electronic device playroom. I don’t give a damn about that shit.”
“As I was saying,” he interjects with a growl. “I got a hit back, but it came from an unlikely source. An obituary dated several months back for a Deborah Delmont age 52 from a small town in Kentucky.”
“And some old broad’s obituary leads me to Ricca how exactly?”
“Well, that’s the interesting part. Ricca has had a few aliases in the past, and I’ve honestly not been able to track down which is her actual name until now. Listed under survivors for dear old Debbie was a daughter, Erica Delmont.”
Could it be her? Deep down, I had to have known that Ricca wasn’t using her real name, yet why should I have expected her to give me her real name, if she had planned to run all along. It’s not like I asked or expected her to be a fountain of truthfulness for fuck’s sake. She ran with a bad crowd and lies were second nature to her, before this club saved her ass.
“And you think she’s Ricca?”
“I didn’t at first, until I found this.”
Voodoo’s hand slides from the bar top to his back pocket as a white piece of paper materializes. He slowly unfolds it and lays it out on the bar top for me. Lying before me is a copy of an old black and white photograph from what I can only assume is a yearbook. I scan the faces in each square and smack dab in the middle of the page, I see her. No longer a blonde, but even a different hair color couldn’t hide the face I’ve studied far more than I care to admit, while she slept in my room. Her crescent-shaped, dark eyes that hide the pain behind them and her heart shaped lips blare like a spotlight from the page.
“That’s her, right?” Voodoo questions.
I stare a few seconds longer, before I nod in agreement.
“Look at the name, Ratchet.”
My eyes fall away from her beautiful face to the words written beneath the photograph.
“Erica Abigail Delmont,” I read out loud. Fuck, at least she didn’t lie to me about her middle name.
“The same name listed a survivor in the obituary.”
Relief rushes over me knowing that for the first time in months that I may know where she is, and I’m one step closer to having her back in my life or at least I hope she will be. Unlike any of the other women that have been in my life, Ricca understands the way I tick and after the things I’ve done, that’s not exactly easy to come by.
“Do you know where she is?”
“Like I said, it’s a small town in Kentucky, but having confirmation that this is in fact her real name, it shouldn’t take much longer for me to really pinpoint her location. Give me a few more days, and I’ll drum up whatever I can. We’ll find her brother, even if I have sell what’s left of my soul to the information black market devil himself. His name is Steve, by the way. Horrible guy. You’d probably like him though.”
Voodoo slides from his chair and heads back to his office with the photo in hand. I know he’ll work his tech magic on finding out more information, but knowing her real name alongside the revelation of her mother’s death has only opened a question can of worms. Jesus, was I that stupid to think that she was being up front and honest with me? What else could she be hiding? A kid? A husband? The possibilities of betrayal could be endless, and here I am playing the lost puppy seeking its old master in hopes that maybe she is the girl for me. But lies or not, I will find her, even if its just to make sure that she’s okay in her new life away from me and the club.
With Voodoo working on finding out the information I need, I have only two things left to do, talk to Raze about leaving and getting my ass on the road. The latter I know will take a few days as Voodoo suggested, but I think it’s time to put a check mark next to the first one right now. Pushing away from the bar, I stalk to Raze’s office, but find it empty. With his newly expanded family with Darcy at home, he doesn’t spend as much time here at the clubhouse as he used to when Maj was still around. Not that I blame him for trying to stay away from that crazy bitch that was his ex-wife. May the devil have no mercy on her fucking soul, but it would be fucking nice if he were around a bit more in times like this.
“You need something?” Hero asks, from the doorway of his office. “I heard footsteps and I thought it was Raze coming back from getting the boys from day camp.”
“Day camp?” I question with a cocked-brow.
“Never thought I’d hear Raze and day camp in the same sentence before, but hey, it is what it is as long as the man is happy in his new domestic arrangement,” Hero says with a smile and a shrug of his shoulders. “You need something, Ratch?”
While I am almost certain the entire club knows at least in part about my situation with Ricca, Raze is the only one who knows the extent of my pursuit outside of Voodoo. While I normally don’t hide a damn thing from my brothers, this is different. I may be a cold-hearted son of a bitch when it comes to club business, but having a weakness being paraded out for all of my brothers to see, isn’t exactly my kind of party. It doesn’t help the fact that Ricca played a part in Dani’s near fatal introduction into the Twisted Tribe world. Dani may have forgiven her, but I doubt Hero will ever follow suit.
“It’s nothing. Just needed to talk to the Prez about some time off.”
Hero cocks his eyebrow, waiting on me to elaborate.
“You going on a trip?” He questions me, with a look of suspicion on his face.
“Something like that,” I stammer slightly. “Raze and I had talked about it a few months back, but club business got in the way. Not sure how long I will be gone, but with that giant you picked up, I’m sure you’ll have enough coverage for the club and the security teams. I just wanted to let him know that I was going ahead with my plans is all.”
; “How soon are you leaving?” Hero inquires further, while analyzing my body language. For a military guy, he sure doesn’t know how to hide what he’s doing, but then again, he knows this isn’t my typical behavior.
“A couple of days. Just waiting on a few more things to fall into place, before I take off.”
Hero looks me over one more time, before he nods.
“I’ll let the Prez know when he gets back. I hope the trip is worth the time off,” he mumbles, before heading back into the office.
“Me too,” I mutter to myself. “Me too.”
Turning on my heels, I head off to my room to start packing for my trip. Between stuffing my saddlebags and checking my stash of cash, I begin to debate with myself whether or not I am making a huge mistake by wasting so much energy on a woman who left as soon as my back was turned. As much as I want to admit defeat, I can’t push the drive and will to find her out of my head. It’s almost as if she is calling to me like a siren singing wayward boatmen to our deaths, but like them, I can’t resist the chance of seeing her again.
Ready or not, Ricca. Here I come.
“Ms. Delmont,” the feminine voice says across from me. “Do you think that you could elaborate on your silence a bit more? I can’t exactly read your mind.”
Shit. I forgot she was even here.
Forcing myself out of my own head, I take notice of Dr. Matthews as she eyes me, analyzing me like a lab rat in its cage.
“Sorry, Doc. I didn’t realize that I wasn’t speaking,” I try to play it off with a chuckle and a shrug. “I’ve spent so much time on my own that I don’t notice when I get stuck in my own head.”
Dr. Matthews forces a smile before, lowering her face back down to the notebook she’s jotting her thoughts down on today’s session. She brushes away her long, black curls from her face as she continues to scribble her notes. I watch her for a few seconds, before I begin to look around at the bright white of her crisp and clean office that screams she’s a neat freak and lonely. She has book shelves filled to the brim with large scientific looking textbooks and diagrams of some sort of psychiatric mumbo jumbo bullshit. I bet if I looked more closely at her books, they’d have titles like Ten Ways to Know You’re a Psycho or Me, Myself, and My 1,000 Different Personalities.
