by Ker Dukey
“Listen, I need you to think real hard for me. When you left Rhiannon, did she have her cell phone with her?”
“You think I should call her to tell her?”
“No. No. Just think back to when you dropped her off.”
“Yeah, she was texting on it when I left.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
If Brig really does have Rhiannon then who the fuck has Avery?
“Brenner!” I yell, coming back through to where he and Scorch are moving Gears into a laying position and closing his eyes.
“The Cutters don’t have Avery, they have Rhiannon, so we need to go back through everything you remember. And why the fuck isn’t Prez here? Did he take those bodies to the desert?”
Brenner is staring at me and so is Scorch, the same look etched on both their features. Shock. “What did you say?”
“I said where the fuck is our father? Our baby sister is with the Cutters.”
“No. No, that doesn’t make sense.” Brenner stumbles, almost falling over.
“Let’s look at the video feed,” Buzz says from behind me.
Why the fuck didn’t I think of that?
“Scorch!” I bellow, chasing his shadow as he runs toward the exit.
“Where the fuck are you going?”
“I can’t leave her with them. Those motherfuckers have Rhiannon.”
“And you think I don’t want to get her back? We can’t go in there, one man fucking demanding shit. Call every brother back home to church. They’ve just declared war.”
“Dad was home,” Brenner pipes up, staring at our old man’s office door.
I shake my head to clear it because he said Dad is home. He must be confused.
“What?” Scorch, Buzz, and I ask in unison.
“He was here when they came.”
We all move toward Prez’s office.
My hand hovers at the handle but I can’t push it open. Mirages of me at seventeen opening the door to find my mother dead assault me. I don’t feel like a man, a brother of Lilith’s Army right now. I feel like a kid, learning the world is cruel and the people who promise to protect and love you can leave you with a big ‘fuck you’ on their way out.
“It’s okay.” Scorch moves my hand and pushes me back only slightly with a tap to my shoulder. He opens the door and rushes inside.
I’m fucking numb. I can’t move.
The silent seconds are the loudest I’ve ever lived through.
“He’s alive!” Scorch shouts.
The breath I was holding expels from me in a gush. Tears burn my eyes as I race inside and find my old man lying on the floor, a bullet wound to his shoulder, and an ugly purple bruise to his temple.
“His pulse is steady, but call an ambulance just in case.”
Buzz wastes no time in booting up the computer. Scorch signals for me to help him lift my old man on to the couch. He doesn’t stir as we lug his huge frame around.
“The feed was deleted.” Buzz growls. “Why would they bother deleting it? There’s a backup server. Dice always reroutes the feed to a backup drive for this reason. Stupid fucker who played around on here doesn’t know computer software very well.”
Scorch reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small vial. Unscrewing the lid, he holds it to Prez’s nose. “Smelling salts?”
I grunt. Who carries that shit around on them?
“She will be alright,” he says out of nowhere.
“I know. She’s a Walker.”
“Not Rhiannon. Avery.”
“I know. She’s a Walker,” I repeat. Where the hell is she?
I want to be happy that my father is okay, but Gears, Tats, and Kiwi are dead. Avery is gone and Brenner is shifty as fuck. I don’t know what to think or believe.
I didn’t want to fall for her, I just wanted to fix a problem for our club but she worked her way into me and filled a void I didn’t even know was vacant, and now she is missing and the clubs are going to war anyway.
Will she want to stay by my side once I’ve killed her father and all the brothers that follow him?
“Here,” Buzz announces, turning the screen for us to see.
The place is almost empty. Bullseye is lounging in the bar area and our old man and Gears leave, saying something to Brenner and Bullseye as they go. There’s no sound, just video, but body language gives us a good understanding of the mood. Brenner is asking Bullseye for something and Bullseye is questioning him on whatever it is. When Brenner loses his temper, Bullseye shakes his head and gets out his cell phone, rattling off a number that Brenner punches into his cell phone before slipping it in his pocket and walking off the screen. Bullseye’s eyes follow him, and then he jumps from the stall and hurries out of the exit, his cell phone pinned to his head.
“Switch to the outdoor camera,” I tell Buzz.
His fingers dance over the keyboard, bringing up the external camera, catching Bullseye as he sidles up to the side of the building. “Audio?” I ask, and Buzz smirks up at me.
“It’s only the bar camera that doesn’t have audio due to the music in there. It’s pointless.”
He hits a volume button and the gruff murmurs of Bullseye’s voice fills the room.
“Yeah, he’s going to call, and I gave him your number to intercept whatever the fuck it is he’s calling for. Can’t be anything good.”
My fists clench. “Who the fuck is he talking to?”
“No idea, but whatever the number Brenner wanted, he didn’t get.”
“Brenner!” I shout, but my voice echoes in the room and no reply comes. Scorch raises a brow and pulls his gun, creeping toward the office door then disappearing through it. When he re-appears, his eyes are wild and his jaw is tight.
“He’s gone.”
Cagey motherfucker.
“Bullseye left after this.” Buzz nods to the screen, showing his bike disappearing out the gate.
“Call him, put him on speaker, and then find where Brenner went after getting the number on the feed.”
Buzz brings up the cameras for the corridors while Scorch calls Bullseye’s cell phone.
It rings four times before his gruff reply. “Scorch, what’s up?”
“It’s Frost. Where are you?”
“Uh… in bed, it’s the a.m., why?”
“You’re sleeping when your Prez needs you?”
“I’m dying, Frost. I need to rest.”
Rest when you’re dead, asshole.
“Brenner asked for someone’s number from you. Whose was it?”
Silence and then a heavy sigh. “Brig. He didn’t say why but you know that asshole has his own agenda. I thought I’d let your old man sort it out.”
Buzz taps the screen, showing Brenner coming out of his room and calling someone.
“Hold for a second. Mute it,” I tell Scorch, and nod for Buzz to turn the audio on so we can hear the call Brenner is making.
“I have something you want. Frost has finished using your daughter’s cunt as a play pit and she’s ready to come home,” he snarls, pacing the corridor and checking to make sure he’s alone. “She’s not our fucking princess, she was a mistake, and you’re welcome to her.” He rolls his shoulders and places a hand on the wall and smirks. “You just have to come get her.”
My fists clench.
“You have one hour,” Brenner continues. “After that she gets put out with the rest of the trash.”
Tats appears from the room he shared with Buzz, and Brenner nods his head. “We’re on. You remember what to do?”
“Yeah, but what if Buzz comes back?”
“Then we will tell him the plan and he will execute it with us.” Brenner places a hand on Tats’ shoulder and smiles. “This is what we want. VP will be temporary, a few years of Frost being Prez and then he will have an accident, and I’ll take the gavel and you’ll be VP.”
Tats pops the lid of a bottle of pills he’s holding and tips it to his lips, nodding his head manically. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s do it.”
“Okay. First thing’s first. Let’s deal with this bitch.”
“Why don’t we just kill her?”
They’re talking about Avery, my fucking wife. I want to rip them through the screen and stamp on their tiny fucking heads.
Revive Tats so I get to kill him.
“They wouldn’t come here and kill her, they would come to take her.”
“Right. Right. Right.” Tats shakes his head, high as a fucking kite.
“Go keep watch for anyone coming back. Kill anyone that enters.”
Buzz’s fist pounds the table and he looks at me, torment storming in his grey eyes. “What the fuck is going on?”
I gesture for Scorch to unmute Bullseye. “Whose number did you really give him Bullseye?”
Silence. “I gave him Brig’s number.”
“Where are you now? Your place?”
“Listen, Frost, I don’t answer to you. If there’s something you need to know, get the Prez to call me.”
The line goes dead and I want to fucking rip everyone limb from limb. Our whole fucking club is on the brink of collapsing around us.
“Can you track where he is by his cell phone?” I ask Buzz.
He nods his head. “Yeah. I’ll get my computer from my room.”
He leaves us and Scorch checks Tank’s pulse again. “He okay?”
He nods.
“Is the ambulance coming?”
“We’re an outlaw motorcycle club. How high on their priority list do you think we are?”
Screams tear through the screen and my heart skips a beat. Scorch races over to look at the screen but it doesn’t show inside the bedrooms, just the corridors. That’s Avery. I can’t listen to her, whatever the fuck he’s doing to her. My eyes close and I will it not to be true. If she’s dead…
Scorch slaps my shoulder, my eyes spring open, and the air in my lungs expels. I can’t take in another breath. Brenner is dragging Avery through the club; there’s blood all down her back. I quickly flip from camera to camera as he moves through the club and exits with her.
Two Cutters brothers are waiting for her; neither I recognize. He throws Avery to the floor and they scoop her up and take off with her.
“Wait!” I pause the image on the screen. “Buzz!” I get to my feet to go look for him.
He meets me at the door, laptop in hand. “What is it?”
I march back to the desk and tap the screen. “Can you zoom in here?”
Placing his laptop down, he nudges Scorch out of the way and fiddles around. One of the Cutters’ faces expands on the screen and I recognize him, not as a brother, but as a fucking pig. He was with Sheriff Myers at the hospital. “He’s a cop!”
“Bullseye played Brenner and is a fucking rat.” Scorch growls. “The shipments.”
My brain is being tossed around my skull like a soccer ball. Bullseye has been my brother since before I was even a blip on this earth. How could he turn rat? The cancer. He’s not fucking dying, it’s his out. Tank wouldn’t question his illness, and would let him go off to die in peace. When, actually, he was no doubt going to be put in witness protection and given a new Identity, a new fucking life, while all of ours went up in smoke.
“Did you locate his cell?”
Buzz nods his head, picking up his laptop and turning the screen to me. “He’s at the hospital.”
“Can you search for health records?”
“I just need his name.”
“Robert Hazels.”
He nods and brings up other screens and flits his fingers over the keys effortlessly. It’s takes him less than a minute to bring up Bullseye’s entire health records.
“Any cancer?”
“No.”
Fuck! I didn’t want to be right.
“Let’s take Tank to the hospital ourselves, shall we?” I grind out.
“Fucking right,” Scorch agrees.
I stand but Buzz grabs my arm. Looking down at him, my stomach twists. So much pain in his eyes. “I need to see who did it first,” he tells me.
Knowing he means who killed his brother, I take his hand from my arm and place it on the keyboard. “That’s fine, I want to know as well. They shot our Prez and killed Gears. Whoever it is will pay with their life.” I try to convey that I mean Brenner as well because the hazy stirring in my soul is telling me Brenner set this whole thing up and Tats had no clue he was going to become collateral damage. Brenner wouldn’t risk him running his mouth.
“Let’s get Tank in the truck and come back for Buzz,” Scorch says.
“He’s a heavy bastard.” I groan, taking him under the armpits while Scorch gets to his feet.
“The smelling salts should have brought him round. I reckon he’s just pretending to get us to carry his fat ass.”
“It’s a good job he’s unconscious because he would shoot you for calling him fat. You know he’s sensitive about his weight,” I jest, feeling anything but amused, but we need to have this lightness between us or we’re going to go insane.
Copper comes through the door as we almost make it there. He’s so relaxed and casual. If he only knew what a shit storm he was walking into. “What the fuck?”
“Don’t just stand there. Help us get him to the truck.”
He hurries to take a leg. “Is he dead?”
“No!”
“We’re taking him to the hospital. Once all the other brothers arrive, lock this place down until I get back. Tell them to prepare for war.”
“What the hell is happening?”
I pull open the back door of the truck and we manage to pull and tug his body into the small space.
“If Brenner returns, don’t fucking trust him or let him leave.”
“What’s he done now? Tell me this wasn’t him.” He points to our Prez and I have no answers for him.
“Scorch, get the engine going. I’ll get Buzz.”
Copper follows me back inside and his feet falter when he sees first Gears and then Tats. I don’t stop to explain things, I go straight back to Buzz. I almost trip over when I enter the room and he’s standing up and aiming a gun at me.
My hands raise in surrender fashion. “What the fuck?”
“It was Brenner.”
“What?”
“He fucking killed my brother.”
Motherfucker.
“He was so loyal to him and he betrayed that.”
“Just calm down and stop aiming that fucking gun at me.”
“I should kill you. A brother for a brother,” he mumbles, his free hand pushing over his head, rubbing back and forth.
“And you think Brenner will give a shit If you kill me? You’ll be doing him a favor.”
Copper appears behind me with his gun out. He aims it over my shoulder at Buzz.
“It’s okay,” I reassure Copper, but he doesn’t lower the weapon.
“You’re right. He hates you.”
Well, that’s shitty to fucking hear. I gave that selfish prick everything and this is how he repays us?
“He needs to pay,” Buzz chokes out.
“And he will, in blood.”
Buzz’s head shakes. “It’s not enough. He needs to feel the pain.”
“And he will.”
“He fucking did it, you know?”
“Did what, Buzz?”
“He stabbed Stormy. Marie called him, freaking out. He knocked her up and she was going to tell Stormy everything. He had me track Stormy’s GPS. Went there to catch Marie before she could get to Stormy, but she was a no show and he said maybe she called him instead so he couldn’t risk it.”
So he tried to kill Stormy and has killed Marie and his own fucking baby.
I’m going to throw up.
“I’m leaving. Don’t stop me,” he barks.
“Don’t do this, Buzz. Don’t leave like this. You’re one of us.”
“I’ve never been one of you. Your old man just put up with the troubled sons of a brother who gave everything for his Prez, and look
where it got us all?”
He moves around the desk and toward me. “Don’t leave,” I tell him one last time, but he disappears through the door.
I exhale the tension that is keeping every muscle in my body coiled.
“I need to get Prez to hospital. Try and keep everyone calm when they arrive. The Cutters have declared war and they have Rhiannon. I need you to move the bodies as soon as you have someone here who can do it. We can’t risk a raid with fucking bodies everywhere.”
“I only count two.” Copper frowns.
“Kiwi is in my room.”
I leave him without waiting for a reply. Time is ticking and he knows what to do.
War is inevitable in the eyes of some of the brothers, Copper being one of them.
“And if Brenner comes back?”
“Shoot him.”
Avery’s cell phone keeps pinging to voicemail, and I’m going to lose my mind if I have to hear her soft voice telling me to leave a message one more time. It’s like a cruel tease. I need to get her back.
“One consolation; she’s not with that Axe bastard. Plus, if the cops have her, at least she will get medical attention,” Scorch tells me, indicating to come off the exit. How the fuck he always knows what I’m thinking about is eerie as fuck. “Why they would want her is what’s troubling.”
If he forces her to talk, we all go down for kidnapping, holding her hostage, and forcing her to marry. Fuck. This is bullshit. She could cry rape. She wouldn’t.
She might if she thinks us all going down would save her old man. There’s no war if we’re sent down.
“Get out of your head,” Scorch growls. “Let’s focus on getting Prez patched up and killing Bullseye, and getting Rhiannon home.”
There are groans from the back seat, and my old man sits up and hisses in pain. “Motherfuckers,” is all he says, his eyes unfocused.
“We have you, Prez,” I assure him.
“That little bastard shot me.” He growls, sounding like a dormant dragon coming to life.
“Brenner is AWOL.”
“He shot me and told me to play dead, and then hit me in the head.”
“Who?”
“Tats, that’s fucking who. I heard gun shots and then I opened the door. The little cunt shot me and hit me in the head with his gun.”
