Life to My Flight

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “The seed’s been planted, hasn’t it?” Cleo asked as he settled next to me, pulling me into his chest.

  I snuggled deep. “Yes, the seed’s most definitely been planted.”

  Chapter 18

  Life isn’t a fairytale. Sometimes one has to pull up her big girl panties and get the fuck over it.

  -Life Lesson

  Rue

  Rue: I took a naked picture of myself. You’re welcome.

  Cleo: It’s black. I can’t see anything.

  Rue: There’s only so much one can do while in the dark.

  Cleo: Tease.

  Rue: Yep. You want to know why? Call me ASAP.

  It’d been two months now since I’d been on Cleo’s helicopter and a lot had changed.

  The trial that I was testifying in had started, but I’d yet to be on the witness stand.

  Neither side wanted me there.

  In all honesty, I was as neutral of a party as I could get and neither side had a need for somebody that wouldn’t help their case.

  In the past month, Silas had bought Life Flight.

  Layoffs had started at our hospital, and my Nonnie had gone into a decline.

  The one positive thing about the last month was that Cleo and I seemed to be doing really well.

  Even though I knew he was keeping secrets.

  It didn’t escape my attention that he had people following me.

  I wasn’t stupid. However, I wasn’t sure they were trying to keep it from me, but more or less just not talking about it.

  I guessed it had something to do with the damage that was done to my car that was related to the break in.

  Cleo had asked me to stay at his place when he couldn’t be with me and I’d obliged.

  I couldn’t tell you why, though.

  Maybe because I was comforted being surrounded by all of Cleo’s things. Or maybe it was because I knew he was just making sure I was safe.

  Whatever the reason, I’d practically moved in.

  It was my day off and I was hotter than hell.

  The power had gone out twenty minutes ago, and I was so hot that I’d stripped down to my bra and underwear in a vain attempt to try to keep cool.

  It wasn’t working, though.

  Sadly, Cleo was on the back half of a forty-eight hour shift, and that text I’d just sent him was the first one he’d answered in well over twelve hours.

  They really must be busy.

  I’d reported the power outage myself, yet some drunk on the highway that ran along Cleo’s place had taken out a power pole with his big rig. Effectively stranding nearly two hundred people in the entire grid without power.

  So there I lay…doing nothing.

  A timid knock came from the direction of the living room, and my body froze.

  It was nearly eleven at night…who would be over here that late?

  Then I heard Molly’s voice, annoying and soft, as she yelled for Cleo to ‘open up.’

  Sighing, I reached down for the discarded shirt of Cleo’s instead of my sweats and tank top.

  Shuffling carefully though the doorway, I took it slow, not quite remembering if I’d picked up all the socks I’d been pairing only an hour before.

  It was amazing how somewhere in between Cleo taking off his socks and the dryer that he could lose so many, but he managed to do it.

  So I started a box of mismatched socks, and today it’d been so full that I thought it time to pair them.

  Out of the thirty pairs I’d made, only five of them had been mine.

  “Cleo,” Molly’s enraged voice came through the front door. “It’s dark out here, I’m in heels and I need to pee. Open up the door.”

  If I wasn’t mistaken Molly sounded a tad drunk, too.

  Joy, oh joy!

  Unlocking the three locks on the door, I swung the door wide and was nearly ran over with Molly’s rush to get inside.

  “Jesus, it’s about time. Turn on some freakin’ lights,” Molly whined.

  She must’ve been walking to the bathroom, because her voice got less annoying the further and further away she got.

  Then I heard an, “Eeek!”

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Must’ve not gotten all of the socks after all.

  Heh.

  “Owww,” Molly groaned. “Why aren’t there any lights?”

  Sighing, I answered. “The power’s out.”

  “What are you doing here?” Molly seethed.

  I wanted to shout out, ‘I live here,’ but I felt it prudent not to. That wouldn’t be good to diffuse her anger.

  I really wished I knew why they hated me so much. What had I ever done to them other than make their brother happy? I didn’t break his heart, he broke mine. I didn’t leave him, he left me!

  What had I done, I wanted to wail.

  Did I do any of those things? No. Of course I didn’t.

  I never yelled at anybody.

  “I’m staying the night at Cleo’s, but he got called into work. Are you okay?” I asked, staying where I was so I didn’t fall on top of her.

  It really was pitch black.

  With Cleo’s place being in the middle of nowhere, and the lights being out on top of that, there was only pitch black darkness. There wasn’t even a moon tonight, on top of it all.

  My phone was also on the verge of a low battery to boot, so I couldn’t use that for a light if I wanted to be able to use it to make a call later.

  “I’m fine,” she snarled. “Can you take me home? I got the cab to drop me off here since I was closer to Cleo and I only had ten bucks.”

  I thought about the fact that Cleo probably wouldn’t like me driving without him knowing I was out, but then I thought about the alternative of having Molly here all night, and I came to a quick decision.

  “Alright,” I said as I walked slowly forward. “I’ll go get some clothes and shoes on. I’ll meet you by the front door.”

  ***

  Rue

  “Thanks for the ride,” Molly said reluctantly.

  I nodded, and watched her step out of the car and slam the door without waiting for a reply.

  “You’re welcome,” I said to empty air.

  Bitch.

  I watched her as she wobbled up the stairs, praying that she wouldn’t fall backwards.

  I gave a sigh of relief as soon as she made it through her door, and pulled a U-turn before heading back towards Cleo’s place.

  The purple taco bell sign called my name, and I may, or may not have stopped and gotten three tacos.

  I’d just finished the final taco when I pulled into Cleo’s drive, and was stunned with what I saw.

  In the thirty odd minutes I’d been gone, huge stadium lights had been erected sporadically throughout the area, and no less than five police cars, six bikes, and two large four wheel drive trucks filled the small area.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  The blue and white lights on one police car was on at the bottom of the drive, and he stopped me when I turned in.

  Coming to a stop, I rolled down my window and was blinded by the cop’s flashlight shining into my eyes.

  “Ack!” I said as I flinched away from the light. “Why?”

  “Ma’am, we have a situation here. You’ll have to turn around and go back the way you came.” The police officer said.

  I blinked. “But…I live here!”

  The cop turned his head, and then reached for the radio on his shoulder.

  “Yeah, we have a woman down here claiming to live here,” the cop said.

  I pursed my lips. Why on earth would I lie about that? Who in their right mind would say they live somewhere where there were five cops and who knows how many bikers all standing around looking pissed?

  I put the car in park, and turned off the engine in just enough time to see Cleo coming out of the house at a full sprint, barreling straight towards me.

  “Shit,” I hissed.

  He looked really, really mad.

  W
hy on earth was he running so fast?

  I’d just gotten my belt off when my door was yanked open and, like a rag doll, was pulled into Cleo’s arms.

  They felt like steel bands around me.

  He squeezed so tight that I was having trouble breathing…not to mention tasting the three tacos I’d just eaten.

  “Can’t. Breathe,” I squeezed out.

  His arms loosened some, but just enough that I wasn’t in danger of losing my midnight snack all over his chest.

  “What’s going on?” I asked awkwardly.

  My arms were down straight at my sides, and my head was bent at an unnatural angle due to Cleo’s face buried deep into my neck.

  He was shaking so bad that I started to get really scared, even more so when it took him nearly five more minutes of standing like that before he answered.

  “Thought you were gone,” he rumbled into my skin.

  Shivers raced up my spine. “I was…but your sister came over drunk and falling over, and there was no way I was spending the night with her whining about no air when I could just take her home.”

  He laughed.

  Not just a chuckle, either.

  No, it was an all-out, body shake, throw your head back, kind of laugh.

  One that you felt from down deep in the pit of your stomach.

  I wiggled until I got one arm loose, and then smacked him on the shoulder. “What the hell, Cleo?”

  He let me loose, allowing me to take my first full breath in ten minutes.

  “I got a call from Dante Hail. He’d gone out to recover the vehicle that took out the power line out by my road. The man that did it was moaning about seeing a man dressed in black running across the road towards my property,” Cleo explained harshly.

  I looked at him like he was crazy. “And? And anyway, why would you know him well enough for him to call you? You only met him a few months ago.”

  He shrugged. “Seen him around. We’ve made nice. He uses my boat ramp now when he goes fishing.”

  I blinked. “The power company said it was a drunk. Maybe he just hallucinated that he saw something.”

  Cleo shook his head and took my hand, leading me through the multiple vehicles, past the scary looking men of The Dixie Wardens MC, around the front of his house, and up the back porch steps.

  That was when I gasped, and felt bile running up the back of my throat.

  “When did that happen?” I asked quietly.

  He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into his chest. “Within the last two hours. My guess was as soon as the lights went out. The power company said they’ve been out for two hours and five minutes now. The guy that hit the power pole only did this guy a favor by taking out all the lights.”

  “It was my fault, wasn’t it?” I asked quietly. “She was raped because of me.”

  Cleo didn’t give any false platitudes. He knew it just as well as I did. Oh, God. Oh, my God. Audrey.

  “Audrey must hate me,” I said on a deep inhale.

  I didn’t want to cry, but I could feel the ball of sadness welling in my throat, and my eyes were filling up with tears.

  “She doesn’t hate you, honey. She knows you didn’t want this,” Cleo rasped.

  I read the words that were splashed across Cleo’s deck in white, bold letters.

  I told you what would happen. Back off the case, or this’ll happen to someone else.

  “What happens if I don’t testify?” I asked as I surveyed the hundreds and hundreds of pictures that were laid out all over the deck.

  Some of them weren’t too bad.

  One of me leaving the grocery store. Another of me walking out of my apartment. One talking with Cody as I left the hospital.

  Then there were the ones of me naked.

  Or the ones of me and Cleo pressed against each other in an intimate embrace.

  The ones that really got me, though, were the ones of my friends.

  Cody and his husband. Their daughter.

  Cody’s mother.

  Cleo.

  Cleo’s sisters.

  The club.

  And Audrey. The girl that was raped…all because of me.

  There were pictures of her on the ground with her pants and panties around her ankles.

  Some of her on her hands and knees with her face smashed into the grill of a car.

  I closed my eyes, not wanting to see anything else.

  “This can’t be happening,” I cried, finally letting the tears spill over.

  Cleo turned us, and started heading down the back stairs. “We’ll go to your place tonight, and then tomorrow I’ll get some security sensors and a generator so the system doesn’t go down again.”

  I nodded, numbly. “Okay.”

  ***

  Cleo

  I walked out of Rue’s apartment door, closing it quietly behind me before turning the corner and coming to a stop on the side of the building.

  Loki, Trance, Torren, Sebastian, Silas, Tunnel, and Kettle were all there, waiting for me.

  “She asleep?” Loki asked once I’d made it close enough to them.

  I nodded. “Yeah. She wasn’t doing too well.”

  “Audrey wants to come by in the evening, if it’s all right,” Tunnel said quietly.

  I nodded once. “She’d like that.”

  Audrey started back to work only a few days ago, and she seemed to be doing just fine.

  Rue hadn’t been there for those two, she ended up on opposite shifts than Audrey and that was something she planned on rectifying tomorrow when she went in to work.

  It’d be a long day for her with only three hours of sleep, but she’d said that she wanted to go in, regardless, and I wasn’t one to argue.

  Usually.

  “Got some prospects on the friends place, as well as your sisters,” Silas rumbled.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I called Meredith’s husband and Mikayla’s husband while I was inside. They’re going to keep an eye out.”

  “What now?” Sebastian asked.

  Something we were all thinking.

  “I don’t fucking know,” I said, lifting my hands up to run through my hair.

  It’d gotten long.

  My beard had gotten long, too.

  I was getting soft.

  Only six months out of the Air Force and I was growing my hair out.

  What would DP and Cord think of me if they saw me right this second?

  My phone rang DP’s ringtone, and it was as if he could tell I was thinking about him.

  We’d done that quite a few times before, too, guessing when the others were in trouble.

  If I had to say that I had a best friend…or friends…it’d be those two.

  They got me.

  They let me brood in the corner if I felt like it.

  They listened to me moan about Rue.

  They went to my mother’s funeral with me.

  They saved my life more times than I could count.

  They truly were my best friends.

  Not that the men standing in front of me right this moment didn’t mean something to me, but they didn’t get me as well as Cord and DP.

  Stepping back away from the still discussing men, I tapped answer and held it up to my ear. “Are your ears burning?”

  DP’s dark chuckle rang in my ears. “Yes, sir. I was just watching a TV show and thought of you. We haven’t spoken in a few, so I thought I’d come down for the weekend. What do you think?”

  I thought about all the shit swirling around in my life right now, and couldn’t think of a better man to help me deal with it. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

  Rue would be pleased, too.

  She’d made a friends with the two men and their wives…now ex-wives, and I knew she’d be excited to see them. It may just be the thing to keep her mind off of what was going on at the moment, too.

  “10-4. I’ve called Cord, but I’m not sure if he’ll be able to get off in time. He started with the Sherriff’s department last week,” D
P said.

  “Alright, well you know where I live. I can’t promise clean sheets, but there’s bound to be some around somewhere. I’ll see you this weekend,” I said.

  We hung up, and I walked up in time to hear the back half of the idea that Torren had.

  “So why doesn’t the DA just call her up to the witness stand. Get it over with. See what happens,” Tunnel asked us.

  I thought about that for a moment, and couldn’t find a single thing wrong with the idea…other than the obvious threats she’d been getting.

  However, we were a lot more aware now. Nobody would be getting to her. Not without going through me and the other men standing here with me at the moment.

  “I can’t find any flaws with that,” Silas said.

  Sebastian and Kettle were nodding.

  Trance and Loki were looking thoughtful, as was Torren.

  “Okay, well Silas, since you’re closest to Dortea, how about you bring that up with her and see what she thinks. She already knows about the threats, but maybe she’ll see a flaw in it where we don’t,” I offered.

  Silas nodded. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll head out, then. I’ll let you know what she has to say in the morning, okay?”

  I nodded, and the lot of them dispersed one by one, all offering a handshake before they rumbled off into the night.

  I was only left with one question.

  Would it work?

  Only one way to find out.

  Chapter 19

  I would do Christian Grey-ish things to you.

  -Text from Rue to Cleo

  Rue

  “Guess who’s coming in?” Cleo said over the phone the next morning.

  I looked over the chart that was in front of me and said, “Hmm?” distractedly.

  “The boys,” his deep voice rumbled, making the cold knot in my belly warm slightly.

  “That’s great. When and what time?” I asked.

  Good thing I had the whole weekend off.

  “This weekend is the bike rally in Jefferson,” he continued; however, my mind stayed on the patient’s chart who’d signed a DNR because she wanted to die with dignity.

  She was a twenty nine year old mother of four young children with stage four breast cancer.

  She’d contracted the flu, and her immune system was nearly nonexistent.

  She was having trouble breathing, and was refusing even the basic of medical interventions, including oxygen.