by Fox, Nicole
“So she escaped.” It wasn’t even a question, and he was scribbling calmly in his notebook.
“There wasn’t anything to escape from!” I lurched toward the cop, furious now. They weren’t on my side, but it was clear they weren’t really on Bambi’s side either. Two other officers grabbed me by the arms and yanked me backward, keeping me well clear of the sergeant. The flashing lights from the cars were burning into my eyes.
“Easy, now.” He turned to one of the other cops. “I think we’re going to have to put this guy in a cell all his own. He might get killed otherwise, and I don’t feel like doing the paperwork.” Sergeant Bixby stuffed the notepad back in his pocket and shook his head.
“That is, if we even have a cell open,” the policeman replied with a wicked grin. “We can’t help it if we’re a little full. But you’re right, that girl is the treasure of the county, and I don’t think even the jailbirds are going to be too happy with him.”
“Are you aware that your ugly mug has been all over the news?” The sergeant was in my face now. “You’re the most wanted man in this entire area. Don’t you watch television?”
“I have better things to do with my life,” I spat. “And I’m telling you she was never kidnapped. I don’t know where she is, but I need to find her and make sure she’s all right.”
“You keep saying that, but how am I supposed to know it’s true if the girl isn’t here to tell me so?” He put his fists on his hips and turned to walk back toward his vehicle.
“I’m right here.” The voice behind the crowd made us all turn to look. Bambi stood there, just outside the ring of light from the squad cars. Tears had streaked her face, but in that moment she looked more beautiful than I had ever seen her. She was alive and safe.
At the same time, pure anger lit me up like a blazing bonfire. How dare she run off without telling me? How dare she make me worry about her and come looking for her, especially when she was perfectly safe? Upset, yes, but safe. If I hadn’t had the damn handcuffs on me, I could have grabbed her and slapped her. I wouldn’t, but I could have. I had pulled her away from a horrific life she wasn’t happy with. Without question, I had taken her in and I had taken care of her. She had plenty to eat, a roof over her head every night, and the clothes she wanted. How could she do this to me?
“Bambi! Tell them the truth! Tell them I didn’t kidnap you!” I pulled at the handcuffs, and the metal pressed into my skin. I was bound, but not just physically. I had to get everyone to understand, but I wasn’t sure that anyone could hear what I was saying.
The pure anger that took over her face was a look I had never seen before. She tipped her head back so that her eyes were lidded as she looked at me, and the contempt in her eyes was enough to keep me in my place even if the cops hadn’t been. I opened my mouth to say more, but the door of the pool hall burst open and slammed against the brick side of the building.
“What is all this?” Bruiser shouted as he charged forward. His fists were balled at his sides, and his cratered face was contorted with anger. He wasn’t a fan of the law, and there were incidents in more than one town of him hitting an officer. “Let him go.”
Several of the other men came out the door behind him but gave him leeway to be first. They filtered out, fully clad in their leathers and bandanas and tattoos. Individually, they weren’t as intimidating as Bruiser, but their numbers certainly made a difference. In the flashing lights, I recognized Moose, Rusty, Rubble, and Axle. They pushed their way around several of the other bikers until they were directly behind our leader.
The sergeant puffed up, his chest pushing out against his uniform. “I suggest you go back inside and resume whatever it was you were doing. This isn’t any of your business.”
“It sure as hell is,” Bruiser argued. “You’ve got my boy there, and I know he hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s almost too nice to be one of us, if you ask me.” The rest of the men laughed.
“That’s only to his benefit, then, but he still hasn’t been nice enough. Now get back inside, please.” The cop pushed his hand out toward the building, as though he could push Bruiser away by simply moving the air.
But the skinny man pulled his wallet out of the back of his jeans. “I’ll pay his bail money right now, or maybe a little extra if that’s what you need. What is he charged with?” He knew there were plenty of officers who could be bribed. I’d seen him do this successfully before, and it gave me a small sense of hope. I could get out of these handcuffs, drag Bambi back to the motel room, and ask her just what the hell her deal was.
But this officer thought himself too moral for such a thing. “Are you aware that it’s illegal to bribe an officer?”
Bruiser shrugged. “Hey, whatever gets the job done, man.”
“All right, let’s go.” The sergeant pointed at another officer and directed him toward Bruiser.
He was a small, skinny man, but he was a little crazy. Bruiser knocked the officer aside with ease, and more came after him. The rest of the Warriors joined in the brawl, rushing forward to punch and kick. This whole thing had been bred of a misunderstanding, and it was now resulting in disaster. Fists flew, and the parking lot became a blur of dark uniforms and darker leather. I did what I could to help, but I the handcuffs stopped me from fighting like I should have. Still, I managed to trip an officer as he ran up behind Rusty, and I headbutted another one who came at me out of revenge.
“Stop! Stop!” Bambi’s shouts had a magical way of controlling the men. The police officers and the bikers alike paused and turned to her. She stood at the front of the lead squad car, her hands out beseechingly. With her hair loose around her shoulders and the lights shining from behind her, she looked like an angel. “Sergeant, let me talk to you.”
The sergeant let go of Bruiser’s sleeve with a look of regret and stepped over to her. The bikers backed off a few feet, but they watched the uniformed men carefully. The tension was still high, and it would only take the wrong word or look to resume the fight.
The conversation between Bambi and the cops lasted less than a minute, and it consisted mostly of her talking. “He didn’t kidnap me. I went with him because I wanted to. My mother is just claiming I was taken because she wants the attention.” She kept her chin in the air as she spoke, putting on a strong front.
“I don’t know.” He scratched the back of his head uncertainly. “She was the one who filed the charges, and until she has officially dropped them …”
“She’ll drop them as soon as I’m home,” Bambi promised. “Just take me back to Myrtle Creek, and everything will be fine.” She stepped toward the back door of the squad car. “Just be careful with me, I’m pregnant.”
I felt more than I saw the guys stiffen when they heard the words. My own muscles seemed not to know what to do, tensing but unable to move. I had lied to them in order to get them to shut up, but I had been right. Maybe I had known on some subconscious level, or maybe I had just been so hopeful. Either way, this beautiful woman was carrying my child. “Bambi …”
She looked at me over the car door, scorn and sadness mixing in her eyes. “I’m glad I helped you win your bet.” Bambi got in the car, and the sergeant shut the door.
I didn’t even feel the handcuffs coming off my wrists, and I didn’t quite register Bruiser as he grabbed me by the arm and led me back toward the bar. There was only one way Bambi could have heard about the bet: she had heard everything the guys and I had said around the pool table. That was why she hadn’t come back to me after the trip to the store and why she had left in tears. Hell, that was why she had gone to the damn pharmacy! She wasn’t sick, she was just pregnant. It was no surprise the pharmacy clerk had refused to tell me what Bambi had bought in there. I had to wonder if Bambi had called in my location to the police, but I instantly denied the idea. She had left me, and that was bad enough.
“Come on. I’m gonna buy you a drink or six. You look like you need it.” Bruiser guided me inside and sat me down at the bar. “Get hi
m a beer,” he ordered, “and keep them coming until he’s passed out on the floor and swimming in his own puke.”
Rusty plopped down on the other side of me and clapped me hard on the shoulder, somewhat jolting me back to reality. “Hey, you’re better off without her anyway.”
I turned a gimlet eye to him. “Why do you say that?”
He spread his hands wide as though it was obvious. “She was just weighing you down. Now you don’t have to worry about taking care of anyone. You’re free to just be yourself. That’s the life we wanted to live, right? Isn’t that why you joined the Warriors? I know that’s why I did.”
“She didn’t weigh me down,” I argued though gritted teeth. Bruiser wrapped my fingers around the handle of a beer mug, but I kept it firmly on the surface of the bar. “She was with me because I wanted her to be. You’re just talking shit because you couldn’t get anyone to stay with you for more than a night. That manager of that motel wouldn’t have come with you if you paid her.”
“Hey, now.” Rusty’s face was flushing, as it usually did when he got mad. It was a constant joke for the rest of us when the big, ginger-haired man became even redder than usual. But at the moment I didn’t find it funny, and neither did he. “You don’t have to go attacking me just because you had a bad night. That bitch was nothing more than a bet, after all.”
I launched myself at him, knocking him backwards off his barstool and landing on top of him as we hit the floor. My fists flew, impacting his jaw and his cheeks as he tried to ward me off. But I had knocked the wind out of him, and I had the upper hand. “Don’t you dare call her a bitch or a bet, you asshole! She was mine, and what happened with her was my business, not yours! I ought to beat the holy living shit out of you!” And I was. It felt good to let my fists fly after they had been bound in the parking lot. Blood poured from his nose.
Hands grabbed me by my arms and around my waist and dragged me off of him. Someone turned me around, and I was facing Bruiser. He grabbed me by the shoulders and got in my face. “Stop! Calm the fuck down! Now you can sit here and have some drinks or you can go back to the motel, but I’m not having any more of this shit tonight! It’s not worth it.” He shoved me back toward my barstool.
Axle and Rubble helped Rusty back to his feet, and handed him a rag to press against his nose. He disappeared into the bathroom to clean up.
I picked up the beer Bruiser had bought me and tipped it back, chugging until only a little foam clung to the inside of the glass. Yes, it had been a bad night, and it was going to be a long one.
Chapter 12 Bambi
I scrolled through the list of available classes and frowned at the computer screen. There were so many options, and it was impossible to wrap my brain around what I needed to do. There were some that I could take online, but I longed to get out of the house and interact with other students. I wished I could go to the local college and actually speak with a counselor, but that wasn’t going to happen. No matter what decisions I made, there was one big obstacle that I had to get out of the way before I could do anything about them.
I was back to living under Mother’s rule. It was even worse than it had been before. I couldn’t take one step out the door or hardly even look out the window without her jumping out of nowhere and yelling at me. “It’s not safe out there!” she would scream, or “You don’t want the newspeople snapping pictures of you when you aren’t ready, do you?” This was usually followed by a detailed critique of my skincare routine and how much conditioner I was using. And in some sense, I couldn’t quite argue with her when it came to the news. She had created a media circus with her claims of my kidnapping, and she had been effective in keeping me away from anyone whom I might tell the truth. There was no way Monique Bidwell was going to be made a fool of, especially if her daughter was the one who wanted to do it.
The last few weeks had passed with a painful slowness. Every day, I woke up with my stomach lurching up through my throat as though it was trying to escape the child growing within me. I had taken to keeping crackers and a glass of water at my bedside, because I couldn’t seem to get up in the morning without it. Of course, there was little reason for me to get up. There was no place for me to go, no friends to talk to, and no real idea of just what I was going to do with myself. Most of all, there was no Snake.
That was what hurt the most. Snake was a biker, a rough guy and a badass. Going on his looks alone, I never could have expected him to be a decent man. But he had shown me, in those tiny little ways he had, that he really was more than just a man on a motorcycle. There were no grand gestures other than the one he had made when he had taken me in and let me go with him after Mother kicked me out. But I knew now that he hadn’t been gallant or kind, he had just been out to win a bet. After all, what better way to get a girl knocked up than to keep her close so you can have sex every night?
As mad as I was at Snake, I was angry at myself. I had been stupid enough to fall for him and to fall for his games. It was my gullibility that had gotten me into that situation, and I wasn’t much better off with Snake than I had been with Mother. After all, he had essentially kept me prisoner, swearing that he would never let me leave. I had been adapting to his lifestyle without question, doing what he wished and when. I was nothing more than an idiot.
Mother had pretended to be grateful when the police had brought me home that night, but as soon as she was done with them she had turned to me with fury. “How dare you run off like that? Don’t you see all the trouble you’ve caused? Not just for me, but for the police and the citizens of Myrtle Creek and everyone else who worried about you? At the very least, you could have called.” Her hair was sticking up in all directions, making her look just as crazy as she sounded. She had tearfully swiped at her eyes as she had spoken to the police, making a long dark smudge of eyeliner across her temple.
“Mother, you kicked me out!” I had protested. In that moment, I didn’t mind standing up to her. I was angry at Snake, angry at myself, and angry at her for lying about the situation and causing the whole fiasco with the cops. “You knew perfectly well I hadn’t been kidnapped.”
“I most certainly did not!” She stood tall—well, as tall as she could—and indignant. “You left here, but I had no way of knowing that awful biker man hadn’t captured you and made you his slave! Forgive me for thinking my daughter had better taste than that. I know I raised you better than that!”
“Did you?” I challenged. “Did you really even raise me at all? You’ve done nothing but stuff me into dresses and pouf up my hair and teach me how to wear makeup at far too young an age. You only cared about how I looked and how I performed. As long as I was putting trophies on the shelf, you were happy, but heaven forbid I should want to do something for myself for a change!”
“How dare you?” She poked one manicured finger into my chest. “I did far more for you than most mothers do for their children. You never would have won those trophies without me.” Mother threw her shoulders back and gave me a challenging look of indignance.
“I didn’t even want them in the first place!” Tears had streamed down my cheeks. “I would smash them all right now into little golden pieces if I felt I had the strength. And you know what? I’ll never win another one, because I’m pregnant!”
That had been the very last straw. The news had shut Mother’s mouth instantly. She pursed her lips as she trembled, her entire body shaking with hatred. “You horrid little brat,” she finally whispered, barely opening her mouth enough to speak. “I hope you know you’ve ruined your entire life. You’ll never be anybody now. All my hard work has gone right down the drain.” She had turned and gone to her bedroom, slamming the door so hard that the trophies on the mantel clinked against each other. She didn’t emerge until the next day.
After that, we lived like two strangers in the same house. We were in the same room when we had to be, but we each kept to ourselves as much as possible. I had noticed, though, that in the last few days she seemed to be in a far
more pleasant mood. She smiled to herself as she made her coffee in the morning, and when she looked at me it was no longer with distaste but something else I couldn’t quite identify.
“Mother? Could you come in here for a moment?” My stomach shook, either from the baby or from fear. I had to have her permission if I wanted to do this, because I had no money to do it on my own. She hadn’t like the idea of college when I had graduated high school, thinking there were “better” opportunities out there for a young lady like me instead of burying my nose in a bunch of useless books. Clearly, that hadn’t worked out so well.
Mother came into the living room from the kitchen, where she had been flipping through numerous catalogues strewn about on the kitchen table. “What is it, dear?” she asked pleasantly.
The lilt in her voice sent a chill down my spine. I ignored her pet name and pointed at the screen. “Come look at these classes. They’re not too expensive, and I could take them from home.” My finger trembled, and I quickly set my hand back down on the mouse.
