by Brook Wilder
“We need to confront Wendell,” Emmett said grimly. Charles just stared blankly into the fire but Knox had a skeptical look on his face.
“He’s not a rational man, Emmett,” he said. “All of us know that. It’s not like we’re going to talk him down.”
“No, but we need to do something other than hide and run,” Emmett said. “He’s already come after us and Olivia’s boss, and I’m afraid Lizzy is next.”
“I’m not trying to discount you, but there’s a reason he’s called Capone,” Knox said. “He’s got blood on his mind, and he’s not going to stop until he’s satisfied.”
“I know that,” Emmett said. “That’s why we need to confront him before he takes this shit any further. We can’t stay on the run like this forever.”
“True enough,” Knox said. “I have a real bad feeling about this, but if you want to schedule a meeting, I’m in.”
“Great,” Charles said. “Once we get back to the motel, I’ll call and set up a meeting with Wendell.”
We all stood except Knox, and Emmett looked expectantly at his brother.
“You’re coming with us too, right?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “Why not?”
We helped him pack up his camping gear and put the fire out before making our way back to the highway. Emmett led the way back to the motel and we all pretty much collapsed the second we crossed the threshold. True to his word, Charles set up the meeting for the following afternoon.
“He said to go the Field,” Charles said. “You two know where that is, right?”
“Yes,” Emmett said and his brother nodded. He then turned to me and continued, “It’s a stretch of land on the outskirts of town that the Martyrs use for meetings with outsiders.”
“But why not the Hole or something on their property? I’m the only outsider,” I said.
“Wendell uses the Field when he thinks a meeting might get bloody,” Knox said somberly. “It’s far enough out of town that no one will mind gunshots.”
We were all silent after that and began the process of preparing for bed. Emmett and I shared the bed, while Charles took the pull out couch. Knox was more than fine in his sleeping bag on the floor. As we all drifted off to an uneasy sleep, I snuggled closer to Emmett. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me in tight. I think we all knew that tomorrow was going to be a life or death situation, and as I drifted off I prayed that we’d all survive the meeting with Capone.
Chapter 32
The morning came too soon, and Emmett shook me awake about an hour after sunrise. At first, I just wanted to roll back over and fall asleep, but as the memories of last night and the anxiety of the coming day returned to me, sleep became impossible. The three of us took turns showering and I could tell by the dead expressions on my companions faces that none of us had truly rested. We were all nervous, but I could tell that Emmett had something particular on his mind when he came back from returning the room key.
“What is it?” I asked. He didn’t speak at first, but I waited patiently. I almost knew what he was about to say, and I hoped my expression conveyed that I was in no mood to play games this morning.
“I think you should stay somewhere safe for the afternoon,” he said.
“You know my answer to that, Emmett,” I said sternly.
“I know you want to be brave,” he said quietly. His gaze met mine and his eyes were filled to the brim with worry and sadness. “But I need to keep you safe. Capone has already tried to kill us once, so he might just shoot us on sight. I don’t think I could stand losing you, and I definitely don’t want you killed on my account.”
“It’s not about being brave,” I said, taking his hand in mine. “It’s about owning up to what I did. If I’d kept my mouth shut and never told the cops what I’d found, none of this would be happening. I want to stay by your side, Emmett. No matter how dangerous the situation gets.”
“Liv, the answer is no,” Emmett said.
“Where would I be safe?” I asked. “They know where I live, they burnt down Knox’s trailer, and they found us at the last place we tried to hide.”
“She’s right, Emmett” Charles chimed in. “There’s nothing to say that Wendell wouldn’t send someone out to find her if she’s not with us. I didn’t specifically name names, but I’m sure he’s at least expecting the three of us to be there. She held her own well enough against Tex, but they won't underestimate her again.”
“That’s true,” Knox said. “She definitely wouldn’t be safe on her own. She might be alright if we take her far out of town, but we don’t have time for that now.”
“Fine,” Emmett said with an empty chuckle. “I give up. It’s up to you, Liv. I won’t think less of you if you skip the meeting.”
“I want to come,” I said.
Without another word, we left the room and started off toward Black Rock. The day grew hotter as we rode, and the sun was almost unbearable by the time we reached the town limits. Since we were running early, we all agreed to duck into a fast food restaurant near the meeting location for a quick lunch. I’d found my appetite had abandoned me, though, as I stared at my hamburger. Judging by the way the others picked at their food, I could tell they felt the same way. After eating in silence for a few minutes, we all stood and threw out our half-eaten lunches.
“Ready to go?” Emmett asked as we prepared to ride to the Field.
“Ready as I’m going to be,” I said. My stomach lurched as we set off and I tried to keep my mind off of how badly this meeting could go. Emmett was right. Wendell was certainly crazy enough to just shoot us point blank. Were we about to waltz into a trap?
Minutes later we arrived at an abandoned stretch land. The only landmark was a rundown shed by the road that indicated that this might have been a farm at some point in the past. As we walked to the middle of the Field, I saw disconcerting dark stains on the dusty ground that only made my pulse race faster. This was definitely a trap. We were walking right onto the Martyr’s favorite execution spot.
There was no one else in sight, and the minutes ticked by excruciatingly slow as we waited for the Martyrs. It was well past our arranged time when we finally heard the low rumble of engines approaching from the distance.
“How many brothers did Wendell say he was bringing?” Emmett asked as we watch bike after bike park at the side of the road.
“He didn’t say specifically,” Charles replied. “But, by the looks of it, he has the whole membership in tow.”
“Great,” Knox said with a grumble. “There goes my plan of killing Wendell and making a run for it.”
Bikes continued to stream in, but no one approached us. I fact, it felt like they were all pointedly ignoring us. Wendell arrived last and walked toward us with a confident swagger in his step. The other bikers, who had been milling about on the side of the road, followed their leader, forming an intimidating line behind him. I heard a shuffling behind me and realized that Knox had stepped behind his brother, and it looked like he was trying to hide from Wendell. What was he up to? I heard the twins whispering to each other, and it seemed like a plan was forming between them.
“Glad to see you all made it!” Wendell said cheerfully. The glint of instability was still in his gaze, and I felt like it had grown stronger since I’d last seen him.
“We have,” Emmett said. “Can we talk civilly this time?”
“I’m afraid we’re long past civility,” Wendell said. He gestured to two men behind him, the same two that had come to Charles’ house the night before. “Tex, Buster, grab that traitor and bring him to me.”
I made a move to jump between the bikers and Charles, but Emmett gripped my elbow tightly and kept me rooted in my spot.
“We need to stay calm,” Emmett hissed. “Provoking Wendell will just make things worse.”
I stood my ground and watch Tex forced Charles down to the ground in front of Wendell. I looked around the assembled Martyrs and realized that every
one of them was very heavily armed. What kind of shoot-out were they expecting? They had to know that we were almost completely unarmed.
“Any last words, traitor?” Wendell said as he brought the barrel of his pistol to Charles’ forehead.
“Knox is alive, Wendell,” he said quietly.
“Bullshit,” Wendell said as he cocked his gun.
“He’s telling the truth,” Knox said as he stepped out from behind his brother.
Wendell snapped his gaze up and as soon as he saw Knox, his expression changed into one of utter disbelief. The warm, desert breeze whipped around us and you could hear a pin drop while we all stood frozen, waiting to see what Wendell would do.
Chapter 33
“That isn’t Knox,” he said confidently. I watched as a ripple of confusion went through the bikers behind him. I was perplexed as well. Was Wendell really that detached from reality? He’d revealed some of his delusions to us the last time we had met, but it now seemed like he had fully gone off the deep end.
“It is, Wendell,” Knox said, stepping closer. “There’s no trickery. Drop the gun, and we’ll talk. I promise that’s all I want to do, and I’m sure we can work through this mess somehow.”
Wendell removed the gun from Charles’ head and swung his arm up to point it at Knox instead. Charles remained still, though. He knew as well as I did that any sudden movement could set Wendell off.
“You’re dead,” Wendell said. “All three of you are supposed to be dead, in fact. You two burned up in the trailer, and there was blood by the side of the road by Knox’s bike. Don’t you try to fool me, I saw it all with my own eyes!”
“That was a rabbit I killed, Wendell,” Knox said. “That blood wasn’t mine. We can fix this if you would just put down...”
“But I saw your body!” Wendell yelled. There was a new tone to his voice, and it took me a second to recognize it as fear. “Right next to that blood!”
A murmur rippled through the group of bikers behind Wendell. I could tell by the looks on their faces that if they hadn’t been doubting their president’s ability to lead, they were now. I couldn't blame them. Paranoia about his position was one thing, but full-on hallucinations?
“There wasn’t a body, boss,” a biker said as he stepped out from the group. "Just the blood and the bike. I was there and saw it as plainly as anyone else."
Wendell whipped around and aimed his gun at the man. His eyes were wild now, and it was plain to anyone that Wendell was now truly insane. Charles took the opportunity and sprang to his feet, sprinting back to join us. Wendell didn’t seem to notice or care, his focus zeroed in on the biker who had contradicted him.
“There was! Don't tell me what I saw!” Wendell screamed. He pulled the trigger, and the biker slumped to the ground clutching his stomach. I recoiled in horror at the sight. “Does anyone else have something to say? Anyone else here thinks I'm seeing things?”
No one made a sound, save for the two bikers who scooped up the injured man and carried him away from the group. The dynamic of the meeting suddenly changed. The Martyrs were no longer our opponents. They were in the same boat we were, trying to avoid death at the hands of their psychotic president. Though I doubted they would actively help us, I was certain that if we survived the afternoon they would no longer be a threat to us. After the dust settled, Wendell turned back to us and re-aimed his gun at Knox.
“You’re all dead,” he said again, his voice calm, “and now you’ve all come back. What’s your plan? Kill me so this traitor can take my place, or just to torture me?”
“What the hell are you talking…” Emmett said.
“Shut up!” Wendell interrupted. “I’m trying to figure all this out.”
He started to pace back and forth, though he never lowered his gun. I looked behind him and saw the Martyrs muttering to each other and slowly backing away to put a few steps between them and the trigger happy Wendell. I had known this meeting wasn’t going to go well, but I definitely hadn’t expected this level of disaster.
“How can I solve this?” he said. The tone of his voice made it clear that he was talking to himself, so no one dared to answer him. “Obviously, I could kill Charles. I mean, I have to. He betrayed me and somehow managed to bring them back from the dead to haunt me…”
He continued speaking, but his words were not becoming an incoherent mumbling. Every so often I heard the words ‘demon’, ‘torture’, and ‘solve’. His dialogue was becoming more and more frightening, but the upshot was that he was distracted enough to lower his arm. The immediate threat was lowered, but I wasn’t naive enough to forget that he was capable of snapping at a moment’s notice. As Wendell kept pacing, Emmett turned to me a shocked look on his face, and I saw similar expressions on Knox and Charles’ faces as well. The original plan had been to talk to Wendell and resolve our issues without bloodshed, but how were we supposed to do that now? Wendell was beyond reason and rational thinking, so, obviously, those tactics were beyond us. What else was left?
Suddenly, a plan came to me. It wasn’t great, but it was the only thing I could think of that might get us out of here alive. I glanced at Emmett briefly but then turned to keep my gaze on Wendell and the rest of the Martyrs as I spoke quietly to avoid Wendell’s attention.
“Maybe if we keep him talking,” I hissed. “We can get him to back down.”
“You mean to play into the delusion?” he asked incredulously.
“Yeah. I admit, it might not work, but you saw what happened to that guy who tried to tell Wendell otherwise. Delusion is a powerful thing, Emmett. We might night be able to convince him we’re alive, but maybe we can steer him away from thinking we’re demons.”
Emmett nodded and turned to Wendell. While he spoke, I stepped over to Charles and Knox to discreetly fill them in on our new plan.
“We’re not here to torture you…” he started. Wendell snapped his gaze up and stopped in his tracks. He then stepped toward Emmett, raising his gun with a shaking hand. Emmett barely flinched, though I could see beads of sweat forming on his temples as his jaw clenched.
“Why are you haunting me then?” Wendell asked.
Charles, Knox, and I stood behind Emmett and waited anxiously to see what his answer would be.
Chapter 34
“We were, uh, sent here,” Emmett started, “by God.”
“Yes, we were brought back to help you, Wendell,” I chimed in. Knox looked at the both of us like we were as crazy as Wendell, but, thankfully, he played along.
“We were told to make sure that no one else died today,” Knox said, his voice almost a little too dramatic. “Charles, especially.”
“I don’t believe you!” Wendell said. He shook the gun at Emmett menacingly. “Charles is a traitor to the Martyrs and by law, he has to die!”
“No necessarily,” Emmett said, straining to keep his voice even. “The bylaws state that he has to be punished, not necessarily killed. What did we do to the last traitor, Wendell?”
“We stripped him of his colors and sent him out of town,” Wendell said flatly.
“That’s right,” Knox said. “We didn’t kill him.”
“How do you know that?” Wendell said. “That was before both of you were born!”
“Dad told…” Emmett started. I gave him a sharp elbow to remind him, hoping he’d take the hint. “I mean, uh, we’re dead so we can see everything now.”
“Yeah, death does that to you,” Knox said as he raised his eyebrows at his brother.
“I see,” Wendell said thoughtfully.
He lowered his weapon and began pacing again, but with a much calmer look on his face. I glanced toward my three compatriots and we all shared the same expression of surprise. He was really buying this. We watched as Wendell’s expressions rose and fell and it looked as if he was having another conversation with himself. Down on the road, the two men were still huddled around the injured biker and though I couldn’t be entirely sure, I thought I saw one of them with a cell
phone in hand. Before I could point this out to Charles, Wendell suddenly started talking aloud again.
“But I still need to kill him,” he said. His tone had changed slightly, and it seemed we were now having a calm and rational conversation about killing a man in cold blood. “While I was sure Emmett was the ringleader of the rebellion within the Martyrs, I now see that he had chosen Charles to carry on the mission. If I don’t kill him, he’ll eventually take my position from me.”
“If you do kill Charles,” I said, “Then you will guarantee a rebellion. Look behind you, Wendell. How many of these men look like they still support you?”
He whipped around and scanned the crowd. I hoped my bluff paid off, considering I still couldn’t get a real feel on how the rest of the Martyrs felt. They stared stonily back at their leader, and though none jumped forward to verify my claim, their silence spoke volumes.
