by Zahra Girard
“My mom turned me in?” He whispers. “She did it? God damn it, how did she find out where I was?”
I lower my head. “I might have told her where you were. It slipped out. I was still out of it from our fight and from when we, uh…”
Razor and Crash trade a look.
Blaze just nods. “Not your fault. I have that effect on women.”
“You inspire them to call the cops on you?” Razor says.
“I was speaking metaphorically, you ass,” Blaze retorts.
“Blaze, that’s not a metaphor. Fuck, that isn’t even the same realm as a metaphor. Do you even know what a metaphor is?” Crash says.
“I might only have one good arm right now, but that won’t stop me from beating your ass if you don’t shut up, Crash,” Blaze snaps. Then he calms, and he smiles at me in a way he hasn’t since we fought. Even in this mess, surrounded by all this violence, it makes my heart bloom. “Tiffany, I am so sorry for doubting you. I should’ve listened to you earlier.”
“Blaze, it’s OK. We both should’ve listened to each other. And I should’ve taken into account how you felt and stopped trying to force you to do things my way.”
He chuckles. “Well, look what doing things my way has gotten me. How long have I been out?”
I shrug. “Not long.”
He looks at Stitch, who is still focused on Blaze’s wound. “Stitch, give me something for the pain and a little something extra as a pick-me-up. I’ve got work to do.”
“You are in no condition, Blaze,” Stitch says.
“My mom’s in danger. I don’t care what you have to do — inject me, give me pills, whatever — just get me fucking mobile. And you two — Crash, Razor — search the damn SUV. There’s some important shit in there we need to keep so we can get my mom out of this mess. There should be a laptop and a file folder. Find it.”
“What the fuck are you planning, Blaze?” Crash says.
“You know you can’t ride in your condition,” Stitch says.
I glare at Stitch. It’s time for me to take my man’s side whole heartedly. “You heard him. He knows his limits. Get him something for his pain.”
Stitch looks at me like I’ve sprouted a second head. And like he’s about to give me a fight for daring to speak out of turn.
But before he can say anything, Blaze sits up and grabs Stitch by the arm.
“I know I can’t ride, brother. But that sure as hell ain’t going to stop me from getting my mom back. I know where she is. And Tiffany is going to drive me there in my mom’s Volvo.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Blaze
My body’s on fire — an inferno of chemicals and rage courses through my blood as we scream down the road in my mom’s Volvo, half the club at our backs, the other half on their way to Anna’s father’s house, every single one of us with death on our minds and murder in our hearts; we will kill every single one of these sons of bitches and show the rest of the world what happens when you mess with family. Money, status, none of it will protect you if you cross that line.
Tiffany’s driving, her knuckles dead white from gripping the wheel so tight. From the second I asked her to drive and had Razor and Crash help my wounded ass into the front seat, she hasn’t said a word except ‘OK’. She knows this is serious, she knows the lives that hang in the balance and, though she doesn’t agree with it, she’s still here.
It’s just the two of us in this car — Crash and Razor are riding bitch with Sarge and Stone two bike-lengths behind us — and the unfinished business between us.
If I’m going to die in the next twenty minutes, I don’t want to go without saying my piece.
“We need to talk,” I say.
She looks over, disbelief and worry all over her pretty features.
“We do? You don’t think maybe we should do this later? Like, when I’m not covered in your blood and you’re five minutes removed from having your shoulder stitched up?”
“I don’t want to go into this without sorting this out. When I worked on the fire crews, we never held back. Because you need to trust the people you’re risking your life with.”
When she doesn’t answer, I reach over with my good arm and put a hand on her leg. It tenses beneath my touch.
“Tiffany, come on.”
Her knuckles pop from holding the wheel so tight. Then she turns, and the worry that was all over her face disappears, replaced by anger and fury.
“What do you want me to say, Blaze? That I forgive you? That I want you to forgive me for disagreeing with you? I am so far beyond knowing what I think. Just days ago, my primary concern was if I would have enough time to do some audits I was putting off because I was too busy trying to make my sales numbers. That’s it. My biggest worry was if I was going to have enough time to do math. Now my biggest worry is if I’m going to see you die and if the same people that kill you will kill me, too.”
I squeeze her leg. It’s shaking. “You’re not going to die. I will not let any of that happen to you.”
“Are you so sure? Because I seem to recall a point a few minutes ago where you were shot.”
“I’ve dealt with worse. Trust me, I will not let any of that happen to you. You’re going to be safe and back to worrying about spreadsheets in no time.”
“It’s not just me, Blaze. I worry about you. I don’t want to see you get hurt because I love you.”
That hits me like a punch in the gut.
“You love me?”
“I don’t know when it came over me; everything is such a blur of terrifying and exciting moments that I don’t think I could ever sit down and analyze when I started to feel this way, but it’s the only answer that makes sense. When your mom called the cops on you, all I could think about was getting to you in time to warn you — even though I was against everything you were doing. It was most important to me to make you were safe. And I would never go into any place like your clubhouse, because your friends scare me, but I didn’t even stop to think about it — I just charged in there because I cared more about helping you. Before I met you, I would never do anything close to that. And then, when you got shot back there, I was worried I would never kiss you again. The only thing that makes any sense to me is that I love you.”
She stops talking and leans over to give me a quick peck on the cheek, all while keeping her eyes on the road and her hands at a safe 10-and-2 on the steering wheel.
It’s awkward, it’s quick, it’s the best kiss I’ve ever had.
“You love me?” I say. That anger in my blood isn’t burning so bright at the moment; there’s something else lighting me up. “You’ve decided it, just like that?”
Her cheeks are red and she’s smiling. “Maybe. It’s scares me. It makes no sense at all. I feel crazy just saying it. But it also feels like the truth. I love you, Blaze.”
There’s an expectant silence in the air. And, for the second time in the recent past, I stop and think; I can’t go charging into a gunfight without telling her the truth. I stare out the window, watch suburban homes fly by, a quiet world that has no idea of the violence that’s about to erupt. And yet, the biggest thing for me is happening right now — I’m sitting next to a woman who bared everything to me, and now I need to do the same.
“I think I’ve been an asshole.”
“We both have.”
Shaking my head, I hold up my good hand to silence her. “Give me a second, all right? I sure as fuck don’t have all the same words you do, so this will be quick.”
She smiles.
“I was an asshole. You fucking stood by me, even when I was being dumb by my own standards. And that’s sure as shit saying something, because sometimes I make not-thinking an art. At some point, I should’ve stopped and realized that I have a fucking brilliant woman who, despite all the shit I’ve pulled, is still there by my side, doing her damnedest to help me,” I say. My voice is raw in my throat. I look over to her and she’s smiling and watching me, glassy-eyed. How fucking luck
y am I? I clear my throat and continue. “So, yeah, I fucking love you. I’d have to be the greatest fucking idiot on earth not to.”
Her eyes are back on the road, she’s still got her hands at 10-and-2 on the wheel, but I’ll be damned if she’s not smiling the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. That smile fades as the car slows, as the wheel turns and we come to a stop at the construction site.
“We’re here,” she says.
I lean over and kiss her like it might be our last time, though it sure as hell won’t. There’s no way I’m not coming back to this woman.
“Stay here,” I say. “This won’t take long.”
“Come back to me, Blaze.”
I ease my injured body out of the car. Look down at her and give her my most reassuring smile. “There’s no way anything can keep me away from you. I’ll see you soon, Tiffany.”
I shut the door and turn, just as my brothers bring their bikes to a stop behind me. Stone, Sarge, Razor, and Crash get off. Stone is the first to my side, with the others just behind him. The rest of the club is on their way to track down Anna’s father and make sure that rich bastard doesn’t leave town.
“You think your mom is in there?” Stone says, nodding toward the mass of concrete, rebar, and steel beams that makes up the construction site. The site is quiet, but I know it won’t stay that way long; we don’t have much time and there’s no chance that we can do this quietly; it will be quick and bloody. “You sure about this?”
“Anna said she was going to put my mom’s body under concrete.”
“Like the Mafia did to Jimmy Hoffa at Giant’s Stadium,” Crash says.
“I tailed her and her dad here a while ago. They had some meeting with the foreman. They’re still putting the foundations in on a lot of this place, which means there’s still plenty of concrete to pour.”
Stone takes a spare pistol from a holster on his back and hands it to me. “I pray you’re right, Blaze.”
I check the gun; I’ve got one clip. I better make it count.
“Me too, Stone. Me too,” I say.
We split up — Stone and Crash and me in one group, Razor and Sarge in the other — and we circle the site, a big warehouse development in a quiet area on the outskirts of Torreon. The construction site is dead quiet. Vehicles sit unattended, cement trucks and backhoes sit motionless at the perimeter. Tools sit abandoned on the ground — sledge hammers, jackhammers, axes, shovels — and we move through the yard as stealthily as we can, every sense on high alert, just waiting for the lightning-fast moment that signals all Hell is breaking loose; Stone and Crash sneak along like pros, but I fucking hobble along with my gun ready. I don’t give a damn about the quiet, I just want to find my mom and make sure she’s OK. And then put a bullet in between Anna Ebri’s eyes.
Sand and gravel mingle beneath my feet, and I scan the surroundings, gun up, eyes boring into every nook and cranny, every corner, looking for a flash of bleached blond hair.
I get ten steps before shots ring out. In an explosion of force, bullets scrape by my face, and one digs a deep line across the surface of my cheek, sending hot blood flooding down my chin.
“Get back,” Stone shouts as he and Crash return fire.
I drop to the ground, roll to the side, and take shelter behind a giant spool of cable. Grunting, I prop myself up on a knee and fire. There are three sons of bitches out there. They’re firing from three different spots, with automatic weapons and the high ground to their advantage, raining death from the second floor of an unfinished secondary structure.
There’s no way around them. We can only go through them.
Elsewhere in the site, I hear more shooting. Razor and Sarge running into their own fun.
Bullets crash into my hiding spot in a deafening roar. Sparks fly and spray across my face, smoking in my hair and beard, and I bat them away like angry, burning flies.
“Give me some fucking cover. I’ve got an idea,” Crash yells, and then he turns and runs back toward the perimeter while Stone and I raise our guns and lay down some lead protection for our brother.
I portion out my shots like a tight-assed bastard, even though every part of me is screaming to unleash; I’ve only got a single clip and one of these bullets has Anna’s name on it. Stone and I buy Crash some time with lead, alternating our shots while the man runs.
“Oh, that fucking lunatic,” Stone yells as he glances over his shoulder; his eyes are wide, but his smile’s wider; he looks like a kid about to sneak into his first R-rated movie. “Keep firing, Blaze, and get ready to get the fuck out of the way.”
Then there’s a roar. An engine with enough horsepower to make me hard fires to life, and gears scream against each other as a heavy-duty transmission kicks into gear.
The roar grows.
Bigger and bigger, like an approaching monster.
Giant tires grind gravel beneath their treads.
And one of the cement trucks comes into view, chugging along at an ever-increasing speed, heading straight towards one of the columns holding up our enemies’ hiding spot.
The door to the truck flies open and Crash dives out, just seconds before the multi-ton behemoth rams itself into the concrete column; there’s an explosion of steel and cement shrapnel that drowns out the screams of the construction workers as the structure collapses around them in a cloud of gray dust and twisted steel.
I hobble towards the wreckage, gun ready, fingers aching to pull the trigger that’ll snuff out the life of one of these bastards. Two bullets remain in the chamber, and I will make each one count.
A bloody head appears in the thick cloud, a body emerges, along with an automatic rifle that lowers itself right at me.
I fire. One shot catches him in the arm. He staggers, then raises his gun again.
I don’t hesitate — I fire, catch him right in the chest, and he falls face-down into the dirt.
There’s another crack and I look to my right to see Stone standing over a twitching body, gun in his hand and a wicked grin on his face.
“Really gets the blood going, doesn’t it?”
I shove the empty gun down the back of my pants and grab the assault rifle from the downed thug. Two seconds looking it over and I realize I wasted a bullet on him — the gun’s busted and doesn’t have a chance at shooting again. I chuck it aside and look around for another weapon.
I smile as I slip my fingers around the handle of an ax. For a moment, I flash back to being a firefighter. To being a hero. And I smile. This is my chance to recapture a bit of that, to be a hero again, even if it’s a lot darker and bloodier than before.
“Yeah, you might say that, brother. This will be fun,” I say.
Stone laughs. “First thing I’m going to do when we get finish with these motherfuckers is book a room in the seediest hotel in Lone Mesa and have Trish meet me there. We’re going to do the kind of shit that teenagers do.”
Behind us, feet crunch on gravel and busted cement. I turn, ax ready, and see Crash with the biggest, stupidest grin on his face.
“You fucking see that?” He says.
Stone and I meet eyes for a second. We need to tone him down or we’ll never hear the end of it.
Stone grins. “Nice job there, brother. You made a mess of that truck. You want me to celebrate your poor driving skills?”
“I knocked the fucking pillar down. I saved your lives,” Crash insists.
“Looks to me like you wrecked a fine piece of machinery and ruined countless man-hours of quality construction work. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo,” I say.
Crash’s smile melts, and Stone gives me a subtle nod.
“Come on, let’s stop staring at the giant mess Crash made and finish these assholes off,” he says.
The three of us advance through the wasted construction site, wary, pissed off, covered in blood and ready to spill more. The air is thick with smoke and the sound of a firefight in the distance. The ax sits light and familiar on my shoulder and my hand aches to bring it down on Anna E
bri’s skull, so I can see what it looks like when the blade splits her head open.
We advance deeper in to the half-finished wreck of a warehouse.
Stone holds up a hand.
“Hear that?”
I shake my head.
Crash does the same.
Stone points off toward the left. “Voices. One of them’s a woman’s.”
“That old and you still have hearing like a teenager, huh?” I say.
He grins. “Yep. Though the key to a happy marriage is knowing when not to have it.”
“I’m telling Trish,” I say.
“Oh, she knows. And she puts up with plenty of my shit, too. Another key to a happy marriage. You remember that,” he says.
We creep forward, drawing closer to the sounds of the voice. Room to room we move, until we’re looking out the back of the warehouse at the foreman’s trailer. The shades are pulled, then one of the two doors opens and shuts long enough for two armed thugs to emerge, followed by the angry shouts of Anna Ebri. Beneath it all, I hear my mother’s scream.
We take cover.
“I need in there. Now,” I growl.
“We’ll get you in,” Crash says. “Stone, you feel like getting noisy?”
“I think I can manage,” he says, chuckling. “What do you have in mind, brother? You want to crash another truck, don’t you?”
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say that was a fucking blast, but I have a different idea. Follow my lead,” Crash says. He makes a circling gesture towards the trailer. “And don’t be cheap with your ammo. We’re going to light this place up so that bitch inside can’t resist taking a peek. Blaze, you be ready, all right?”
I nod, and then they each split up, sneaking in different directions to circle around to the opposite side of the trailer.
I kneel, watching, waiting for my one chance.
A gunshot rings out from the opposite side of the trailer. A shot that makes the two armed guard trade looks. And then the storm erupts. A torrent of bullets that sends the guards scrambling in pursuit, leaving their post at the door.
I see motion inside the trailer. The curtains stir.
