by Zoey Parker
Cain had become a prospect at the age of seventeen, and in the nine years after that, he'd done everything he could to demonstrate his commitment to the club and the code they lived by. He'd proven himself to be a capable hijacker, cool under pressure, and talented in the art of violence when it was deemed necessary. He'd even managed to do a four-year stretch upstate without picking up a drug habit and without snitching, no matter what tantalizing rewards the feds and state's attorneys dangled in front of him.
He'd become almost as trusted and invaluable a resource to club president Hunter Dermott as Skipper Hammond had been. And when old Skip had a little too much to drink at his cousin's anniversary party and crashed his bike into an eighteen-wheeler on his way home—promptly going to that great biker rally in the sky—Hunter knocked on Cain's door, handed him a VP patch, and solemnly informed him that his time had come. At 26, Cain would be the youngest VP since 1972, when the Eagles were founded.
The patching ceremony took place in the Lost Knife, the bar that served as headquarters for the Blood Eagles. It was a shack at the outskirts of Micanaw, surrounded by about an acre of oily blacktop that served as the club's parking lot, drag strip, arena, shooting range, repair area, and open-air bazaar, depending on the needs of the moment.
Micanaw had been the Eagles' base of operations since the beginning. It was a small town full of poor folks with failed dreams who happily spent what little money they earned on the weed and opioids the Eagles sold, and local cops who were eager to take bribes to supplement salaries that barely let them survive on dog food.
Hunter used to say that Micanaw was an Indian word that meant “bloody soil,” but Hunter liked his tall tales, so Cain doubted it was true. He reckoned if it really was an Indian word, it probably meant “stinkweed” or something.
Still, it was home to the Eagles, the only real family Cain had ever known, and he didn't see himself leaving it anytime soon.
The party following the patching ceremony was held outside. There were long folding tables heaped with bags of chips and bowls of chili and dip, plus platters of burgers, chops, and steaks to toss on the fire pit. There were deep, icy coolers filled with beer.
And there were women. So many gorgeous women, and all of them eager to hang on Cain's neck or sit in his lap. In fact, there were only two he could remember who hadn't—Hunter's girlfriend Marian, and Hunter's sister Missy.
They were the second reason Cain knew he'd never forget that night.
No one noticed Missy much at first. She hadn't been dressed in a bikini and miniskirt and throwing herself at the men like the other girls were. She wore a black t-shirt and jeans with steel-toed work boots, her bright red hair pulled up in a blue kerchief as she kept the music playing on the loudspeakers and kept the tables full of food.
But a few hours into the party, Missy stomped over to one of the port-a-johns that had been rented for the occasion, stood in front of the blue plastic door, and put her ear to it. Even with two scantily-clad women massaging his neck and vying for his affections, Cain still couldn't help but watch the strange scene, wondering what Missy was up to.
Suddenly, Missy took a step back and slammed both hands against the door of the port-a-john, throwing all of her weight behind it. There were murmurs of amusement from the Eagles standing around her, and confused yelling and pounding emanated from inside the portable toilet moments before it fell over on its side with a crash and a splash. Anguished shrieks came from within, and for the first time, Cain realized there were two voices—a man and a woman.
There was laughter and applause from some of the Eagles who thought Missy had executed a brilliant prank, the first one they'd ever seen from her. But then Missy opened the door and reached in, dragging Marian out by her hair and tossing her onto the blacktop. Marian was sputtering and screaming, trying to wipe the shit, piss, and blue chemicals from her face and failing miserably.
A prospect named Tooth tried to climb out of the toilet after her, and the laughter and clapping died off almost immediately as the Eagles realized what Missy had already suspected.
Marian had been cheating on Hunter.
And worse, she'd been doing it just a few feet away from him, in the trashiest setting imaginable.
“You fucking bitch!” Marian whined. Her tears slid through the human waste caked on her face, and thick blue slime dripped from her hair and clothes. She reeked of used diapers and chlorine. Bubbles of snot formed around her nose and mouth as she spoke through lips that were almost pressed together, trying unsuccessfully to keep the muck from oozing into her mouth. “You goddamn cunt...look what you've done to meeeee, fuck...!”
“You cheated on my brother, so I put you in the fucking toilet where you belong,” Missy said with a steely voice.
As this happened, two other Eagles named Keith and Bones walked over to the port-a-john and shoved the lid down on Tooth's head. Then they rolled it upside down so the door was pressed against the pavement with the weight of the toilet on top of it. Tooth banged on the inside a few times, then fell silent.
“I'll put you in the morgue, you psycho!” Marian wailed, lunging at Missy with her fingers hooked into claws.
Missy side-stepped Marian smoothly, then kicked her hard in the lower back, sending her to the blacktop face-first. Before Marian could try to get up, Missy planted the sole of her boot on the back of Marian's head and steadily applied pressure, pushing her face down until her nose was squashed against the ground.
“You're right,” Missy said. Her voice was low and steady, but burning with rage. “I am a psycho. And I'm telling you to pick your bony ass up off the ground and run it as far away from here as you fucking can. Because if I ever see your face again, Marian, I swear to God, you will be picking your teeth out of your shit and trying to glue them back together. Understood?”
Marian's shit-splattered hair moved up and down in a weak nod as she sobbed. Missy took her boot off Marian's head and kicked her hard in the backside, leaving a muddy blue boot print. “Good. Now go.”
Marian staggered to her feet and started to limp away, her high heels dragging on the blacktop. After a few seconds, Bones took out his gun and pointed it at the sky. “Faster, bitch!” he yelled, firing it once.
Marian immediately started clip-clopping away much faster, heading toward the highway.
Missy nodded, scraped her boot against the port-a-john to remove any excess sludge, and stomped back to the Lost Knife, slamming the door behind her.
Cain turned to look at Hunter, and what he saw was the third and final guarantee that this would be a day he'd always remember.
They'd been through more high-pressure scrapes together than Cain could count, and every time, Hunter had shown himself to be utterly unflappable. In any situation, no matter how sudden or shocking, Hunter was the first to spring into action decisively. Nothing could faze him or make him hesitate.
But in that moment, Hunter was absolutely paralyzed, his face frozen in an expression of surprise that was almost comical.
After that, of course, everyone participated in stomping Tooth into a gibbering bag of bloody pulp and tossing him in a ditch next to the highway. Then the party continued past dawn the next day, and life went on pretty much as usual. Missy stayed in the background and never had another outburst like that, at least not in front of Cain or any of the other Eagles, and after a while, Cain mostly forgot about her.
Still, Cain thought as he zipped up his jeans and headed around to the front of the motel, that had been one hell of a night.
Now he was here at the Teepee Motel with Keith, doing a routine errand for a VP. A dealer had set up shop in one of the rooms, selling small quantities of meth and 'shrooms. And even though these drugs didn't directly compete with those the Eagles sold and the Teepee was so close to the county line that it was barely Eagles territory, principles were principles. Anyone who deals on anything resembling Eagles turf needed the MC's blessing, and more importantly, they needed to kick up thirty percent of th
eir profits as a cost of doing business.
This dealer hadn't bothered to reach out at all. The Eagles had to find out from a third party.
That would cost him an extra tax. And a stern warning.
Keith was waiting in the parking lot in front of the Teepee, leaning on his bike. Keith had the body of a wrestler, broad and beefy, with arms like slabs. His black hair was shoulder-length and greasy, and he had a long, braided beard.
“Can't believe you pissed back there, man,” Keith said, shaking his head. “Right on the ground, in public. Fuckin' disgusting.”
Cain raised his eyebrows. “Seriously? Public pissing offends your delicate sensibilities?”
“Breaks the social compact an' shit,” Keith grumbled. “We live in a developed fuckin' society that took thousands of years to invent aqueducts, sewer systems, an' eventually, indoor goddamn plumbin', to say nothin' of a social construct that includes simple niceties like not exposin' other people to your bodily functions. An' here you are just leavin' your piss around for people to step in like you're some kinda animal.”
Cain laughed. “Aqueducts, Keith? Holy shit. Have you been watching the History Channel again?”
“Never mind that,” Keith said. “What about if one of the guests here is lettin' his little two-year-old daughter run around back there barefoot, huh? What if she loses her balance an' falls face-down on the grass you pissed on? Would you feel good about that?”
“That area back there was full of broken glass, rusty nails, dog shit, and snakes,” Cain replied. “So I figure this hypothetical toddler of yours has worse shit to worry about. Especially since if she's staying here, it probably means her mom is a hooker and her daddy's on meth.”
“That's a good point,” Keith conceded. “Still, we're a few seconds away from entering a room that's got a bathroom in it.”
“Oh, yeah? And how's that scene gonna play out, do you think?” Cain smirked. “'Hey, assholes, we're here to collect what you owe us and let you know that if you ever sell without our permission again, we're gonna cut your fucking throats and yank your tongues out through the holes. Oh, but listen, before we go, can my friend and I hit up your bathroom for a tinkle? My molars are floating.'”
“Well, I'm damn sure gonna say somethin' like that,” Keith answered.
“You're joking,” Cain said.
Keith shook his head. “Nope. Too late. We been talkin' about it so much that now I have to go. An' I ain't gonna do it on the ground like some kinda dog. My mother raised me better than that.”
Cain rolled his eyes. “All right. Guess we'd better get this over with, then.”
The two Blood Eagles walked up to the door marked “19” and Cain knocked on it loudly.
It would only take seven minutes to make him wish he hadn't.
Chapter 2
Missy
The alarm on Missy's cell phone went off and her arm shot out to silence it before she was even fully awake. She pulled off her sleep mask, squinted, and opened her eyes slowly, letting out a small groan. The sun was setting, which meant it was time for her to get up. Most of the Blood Eagles' business was done at night, which meant that for her and Hunter, the day began when most people's ended.
It took some effort for Missy to convince her body to get out of bed. This wasn't because she hadn't gotten enough sleep—she was a heavy sleeper and had managed a solid nine hours. It was because as the den mother to the Eagles, her daily routine almost never changed, and it generally wasn't very exciting.
Wake up, brush teeth, get dressed, make breakfast for herself and Hunter, head over to the Lost Knife, tend bar, politely fend off the advances of a dozen or so drunken perverts, collect the Eagles' profits from their various drug deals and shake-downs, count it, weigh out the pot and pills into their appropriate baggies, go home, do some cleaning, cook dinner, have a few drinks, go to sleep, and then do the whole thing again tomorrow. And the day after that. Seven days a week, every week of the year. The Eagles and their customers didn't take weekends or holidays off.
Just once, Missy thought, it would be nice to at least wake up knowing there's something new waiting for me.
“Sis? You up?” Hunter called from downstairs.
“Yeah, yeah, I'm up,” Missy answered. She tried not to snap, but it came out a little bitchy anyway. “I'll be down in a minute. Just put the coffee on, okay?”
“Fine, jeez,” Hunter muttered. “You don't need to bite my head off.” She heard his heavy footsteps trudging toward the kitchen.
Missy rolled out of bed in her panties and walked over to her dresser, pulling out socks, jeans, and a t-shirt. The ensemble she chose wasn’t meant to be sexy. But as she got dressed and glanced in the mirror, she knew that she'd get plenty of flirtatious remarks tonight anyway like she always did, just like she knew she'd be going home alone at the end of the night.
The Eagles could be a fun group of guys. Some were funny, some were smart—or at least smarter than most people would expect bikers to be—and some were even kind of handsome. But all in all, the ones who chose to hit on her were a bunch of scruffy, smelly, good-natured gearheads who reminded Missy of her father and brother, and she knew that sex with them would feel incestuous. The only other men who visited the Lost Knife were generally clean-cut wimps who'd accidentally wandered into the wrong bar or criminals that the Eagles did business with. Neither appealed to her.
So Missy stayed single, which suited her fine. She knew there were occasional rumors floating around the clubhouse that she was a lesbian, especially after she'd kicked the living hell out of Marian in front of the whole MC. Those rumors didn't bother her, and whenever she got lonely, the vibrator in the drawer next to her socks kept her company.
Besides, it wasn't like she could bring guys home and fuck them in the house she shared with her older brother. The house had belonged to their parents, and they owned it free and clear. Since most of their income came from illegal activities, it wasn't practical for either of them to move out and get places of their own.
But Missy knew it was more than that, too. The truth was, Hunter had simply become used to having her around to cook, clean, handle the club's money, and do all the other things their mother had done for him when she was alive. Hunter was a strong leader to the Eagles and a quick thinker, but in some ways, he was still a big kid who wanted someone to take care of him. Their father, the former president of the Eagles, had been the same way.
And now Hunter had inherited their father's job and Missy had somehow inherited their mother's, despite the fact that she could ride and shoot and fight as well as most of the club's members. There were days when that didn't seem fair to her, but there it was.
Women simply weren't allowed to become full members of the MC—they never had been, and Missy knew they never would be. There were other MCs that were exclusively female and Missy sometimes daydreamed about joining one, but her loyalty to the Eagles ran too deep for her to seriously consider leaving them behind.
Missy walked downstairs, and the moment she stepped into the kitchen, she felt something warm and wet soak through her sock. She looked down and saw that a lake of coffee had spread across the floor. The coffee maker on the counter was overflowing.
She closed her eyes and sighed. “What the fuck, Hunter?” she called out angrily. “When I said to put the coffee on, I didn't mean put it on the fucking floor!”
Hunter was a short, stocky man with a shaved head and a red beard. He walked in from the living room and stared at the coffee maker, bewildered. “Well, Jesus, I didn't know how much stuff I was supposed to put in,” he said. “You always make it, so...”
“It's a coffee maker, not a neutron microscope,” Missy replied, going to the closet for the mop. “You put the coffee in the filter, you pour in the water, and you push the button to set it. That's it. A four-year-old could do it. Now get out of the kitchen before you step in it and track it all over the house.”
“Fine, fine,” Hunter said, returning to the livi
ng room. A moment later, she heard the TV switch on as Hunter watched a program about the history of firearms.
Once Missy finished mopping the floor and sponging off the coffee maker, she brewed a fresh pot, scrambled some eggs, and heated up maple sausages in the oven. By the time Hunter's show was over, breakfast was ready. He peered into the kitchen to make sure the floor was dry, then sat down at the table and took a sip of his coffee, savoring it.
“Sorry 'bout the mess,” Hunter said through a mouthful of eggs. “I swear, I dunno what I'd do without you.”
“You'd better hope you never find out,” Missy answered, “or you'll need a canoe to navigate the river of coffee you'd spill in here each day.”
Hunter chuckled, taking a bite of sausage. “So, you ready to pour some drinks an' count some cash tonight, sis?”
“Speaking of jobs toddlers could do, yeah, I guess so,” Missy said. She could hear the bitterness in her own voice again, but couldn't seem to soften it.
