by Marata Eros
The door clanks shut with an echoing thud. I rise where I fell and sprint along the side of the building.
I round the corner, my fingertips skating along the rough concrete texture of the blocks, and strong arms catch me, then jerk me off the ground.
“Gotcha!” Riker says triumphantly.
All my hard-won resolve swims away like a bottle taken by a swift current.
I didn't just murder a man to have Riker pick up the reins. I did not survive four years of taking my clothes off for money to build a future for my daughter only to end up here. In this moment.
With this monster.
I open my mouth and bite his face.
Riker howls, rearing back, and I hang on like a pit bull. I think he was expecting all kinds of reactions.
Me doing a Mike Tyson was not one of them.
I try to meet my teeth, and blood pours around my lips, seeking entry. I gag—then bite down harder.
Riker wails, trying to toss me off.
He doesn't sound very triumphant now, I think with a fierce joy as the taste and smell of metal fills my mouth, my nose.
His fist bashes into the side of my head.
My vision trembles. I sink my teeth with everything I have. They hit bone, and he starts to beat at me with real purpose.
But I didn't last through his beatings before to be taken down now. I drive my thumbs into his soft eyeballs, and he shrieks, tearing at my arms that are clenched around him like a monkey.
I dig deep, mining for his fucked-up brain. I don't think about the deed, I just do. React. Survive.
He finally manages to throw me.
I fly through the air. Weightless. Hit what feels like a tree.
Can't breathe. Sliding down the rough bark lifts my shirt and abrades my skin.
I watch Riker come for me, his bloody hands wavering in front of him like a drunk sleepwalker, and I can do nothing. A flap of meat hangs off the end of his chin, swinging as he lists forward, one eye a hole of torn flesh and bleeding freely. The other one still works because it's trained on me.
I open my mouth to scream. My back arcs, my arms extended, reaching for oxygen.
“Stop! Police!”
I hear them, but my lungs are one big fiery inferno of drowning without air as I claw at nothing. Everything.
Snare appears suddenly, and I clutch his hands, relief flooding me. His mouth moves, and I don't hear his words. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Riker spinning in a spray of blood, twirling in a graceful pirouette of forced movement.
He topples like a gutted ballerina onto the ground.
Snare holds my hands. His handsome face, scarred and beautiful, turns, shouting something.
Don't leave me, I mouth as he turns back.
His bright blue eyes lock onto mine. But there's something in there I can't figure out. Worry.
I'm okay, Snare, I say. But not out loud. Sara isn't okay anymore, guys. I lie there like a broken doll while Humpty Dumpty's men come put me back together again. Navy angels without wings and packs with a medic cross flock around me, saying something to Snare.
He shakes his head, snarling like a wolf guarding its mate. Some other men pull him away.
My hands are no longer held by the man I love but by air. I float, as a great weight descends on my lungs, crushing them. Crushing me to bits.
To nothing.
21
Snare
Mover herds us into a room. This one is clean and looks like it's part of their meetings. Church.
We're in the Chaos Ridersʼ church.
I turn to look at Mover—speechless. Why would the prez of CR let a Road Kill rider step foot in their inner sanctum?
Then I see Viper. He puts his finger to his lips, and I feel like a fish chucked out of water.
“What the fuck is going on, Viper?”
Viper looks at Wring and sighs.
Mover holsters the gun, jerking a badge out from underneath a Chaos Rider's cut.
“Okayy,” Wring says. “Somebody better fucking talk!” He doesn't roar like a lion, but he's definitely part of the jungle.
Mover puts up his palms in a universal inoffensive peace offering.
“Why am I not putting you out of your misery?” Wring asks in a quiet voice. His stare lasers on Viper with crystal clear accusation.
I'm right there with him.
“I'm FBI,” Mover says quietly.
So there's Puck—the cop—and now Mover is FBI?
We say nothing. Viper nods. “I just found out.”
“I want proof. If you're a feebie, man—do you know how to fool people?” Wring gives him a harsh up and down. Lariat's eyelids droop.
Mover's eyebrow shoots up. “That's the point. It's a sting. Ned was the first piece of the trafficking puzzle. But until we were able to get the drug part of this handled, we had to behave as though I was just that underhanded.”
He did a stand-up job. Still wanting to kick his fucking ass.
“Swell.” Wring glares at Mover. “Then put your money where your mouth is and get Lariat to a hospital.”
He frowns. “We will. Had to get you out of sight for the moment while my men move in.”
“Your men?” I ask, then shoot the next question at him like a bullet, “Sara?” Her name reverberates between us. Frantic, vital.
I don't trust Puck the cop is all that concerned about Sara. At least not as much as I am.
His eyes cut away from mine, and I remember what he made her do. What other things did this prick FBI agent do? All in the name of justice.
“Sara's fine.” His eyes meet mine. “I've done things. Things that I'm not proud of.”
I rush him, wanting to feel his neck underneath my fingers. I thought it was only Riker I was protecting Sara from. And humanity wonders why there's one percenters. This is why. There's a fuck ton of wolves in sheep's clothing.
“Snare!” Viper shouts.
Too late. I leap at Mover, and he deflects, but I'm not a fuckwad. I grab him, and we both go down. Hard. I get it in the gut from his gun. The metal doesn't give and hits me right where I got the beating. Fuck it. I tear Mover over on his back and begin pounding the fuck out of him.
Eventually, I get pulled off. Takes about four guys but they clear me off Mover like determined gorillas.
I'm shouting, cursing him loud and clear, spittle flying as I toss one guy and two more come.
They're all suits. No riders. But I'm Road Kill, and I won't be put down like dead meat on the road. Finally my ass gets tased.
When I wake up, Lariat is gone, and Wring is standing over me, kicking my boot with his toe. “Nice back there, bonehead.”
I pick my head up. Groan. Fucking thing is pounding, and it feels like someone tore off all my limbs then put them back on. Wrong. I put my head back on the floor and close my eyes.
A scream pierces the silence. I'd recognize it anywhere. I jerk to my feet, sway, and promptly fall on my ass.
Wring pulls me to my feet for the second time.
“Gotta puke.”
“Be my guest,” Wring says and hangs on to my cut as I spew chunks.
My heart roars as I do the psychedelic yawn on the floor. I rise, wiping a shaking hand over my mouth.
Wring raises an eyebrow. I frown, and even that hurts.
I nod, not taking stock of dick and jog outside. The feds have a bunch of riders and other dudes on the ground, their hands cuffed. I flick sweaty hair off my forehead, whipping my head left and right, pain blooming like a horrible flower in pulses at my temples.
At first I don't see Sara, only the man. Bloody and uncoordinated, he twirls in a death spin as graceful as anything I've seen by someone shot. More slugs slap that body as it moves downward in a slow-motion spiral.
The guy's face looks half chewed off, part of the flesh of his lower jaw smacking up and down as he appears to slowly float to the ground in a death fall.
It's not until the one good eye in his face looks into mine that I rec
ognize him as Riker.
Goose bumps crawl over me like marching ants. Sara. I give a frantic look around. My clothes are covered in grass, pine needles, and blood.
I see her. Sara looks like a frail, tossed toy—busted and propped against a tree, her palms raised to the sky and limp by her sides. Not breathing.
I run. Adrenaline spins its web inside my body, lighting off in invisible runners of false energy. I suck it up like a lifeline, sliding in beside her.
Her small hands lift, trying to claw at the air, and I can see she can't breathe. Her frightened eyes light on me. Blood spatter and other bits decorate her fingers to her elbows. I hesitate over the evidence of killing and focus on the instant relief sweeping Sara's features, but she's still panicking. I grab her hands, and her eyes close briefly.
Medics are talking. “Sir, you need to step back so we can see to her.”
“Fuck off,” I say without looking.
I think the same fuckers that tased me will be the go-to boys for round two of let's fuck up Snare. Yup.
Don't leave me, Sara tries to say with lips that are turning blue.
“I'm never leaving ya, baby,” I say right back. Then those fucks are hauling me off my girl, and the medics move in.
I should let them patch her up, but I can't bear not to touch her. I punch the first guy in the face and lurch forward, grabbing Sara's foot. I hold on like my life depends on it.
To me, it does.
“Leave him,” I hear a familiar voice say.
“He's violent,” says another.
“True, but I think he'll be more violent if we take him away from Sara.”
Finally somebody grows a fucking pair. They leave me clinging to Sara's foot.
When they pack her into the ambulance, I just look at them. Daring them to keep me from her.
They stow me in there, along with a Fed and his gun. He keeps us company with sirens and lights.
And my hope.
*
She wakes up. My Sara looks up at me with wide, gorgeous midnight-blue eyes.
“Snare.” Her voice is raspy.
I blink back sissy tears. Seeing how my dad worked her over kills me inside. Riker had broken two ribs and given her a concussion. They'd checked for blood on the brain, but I guess she'd been lucky.
We can stand some fucking luck about now.
I push her long hair away from her face. A trembling smile crosses her lips, a relieved sigh sliding out.
“I'm here,” I say, swallowing past a lump of my own. I keep stroking the dark strands away from her expressive face, and she leans into my touch like a cat seeking a pet. I close my eyes, just living in the moment of touching Sara. And the great news.
Riker's dead.
I open my eyes, and Sara's staring at me like she's seen a ghost. “Don't go,” she blurts.
I shake my head, wince at the movement, and reply, “Not going anywhere, baby.”
She nods, fresh tears sliding over her face. “You're all beat up,” she says and hiccups. Pain flashes across her features, and I laugh suddenly, stark and loud, and she does too. I nod.
“Yeah, got on the wrong side of some fists.” I smirk.
Her mouth gets a crooked slant. “Oh, you just what—happened to fall into them?”
I shake my head more slowly. “Not exactly.”
Her smile fades. “Riker?” she asks softly, and I nod, understanding her question perfectly.
“He's gone.”
The tears come faster. “No—don't, Sara. No more tears for that demented fucker.”
She laughs, and the sound turns into an abbreviated sob. “He was demented.”
I raise an eyebrow. I had identified the body, after all. “Nice cannibal job on him, by the way.”
Giggles peel out of her. After a minute, I get worried. Her laughter sounds close to hysteria. “It's what I could reach.” She falls back on her pillows with a sigh.
I'm bent over her, stroking her shoulders, and we stare at each other.
My lips turn up. “And the eyes?” I ask softly.
“Those too,” she says, then hesitates before her next words. “I should feel guilty—for killing Riker. And”—she rolls her bottom lip between her teeth, not meeting my eyes—“that other man.”
“No.” I give her the hardest glance I've given anyone in my life. “It's the least of what Riker deserved. I'm fucking thrilled he's gone.”
Sara bites her full lip, nodding quickly. “Ecstatic.”
I nod in agreement. “And the other guy? He was a prospect. Just about to patch in. Cops and feds say he was a cheerful go-between with the flesh trafficking.”
Her face sours. “I still”—she plays with the edge of the hospital sheets—“should have—I don't know.” She leaves her thought unfinished.
“There's no still, Sara. If you hadn't done him in, he would have delivered you straight to Riker.”
Riker dead is a special kind of happy.
Sara nods, giving me a quick glance, then looks down at her twisted fingers again.
Her guilt won't be an easy road. Killing someone, even to survive, is no easy thing for a girl like Sara to get over. A girl that lived and nearly died by Riker's violence.
A nurse comes in, breaking the moment, and takes Sara's vitals. “Good girl.” She pats Sara's leg.
She nails me with a battle-ax glare, and I throw up my palms. “I'll leave soon.”
“Sara will be released tomorrow,” she says as though that oughta make me shake right out of there.
Wrong. “I hear ya.”
“I hope so, young man.” She tears out of the room, the door shutting decisively behind her.
“Ouch.”
“She means well.” Sara looks full of words. Words that she doesn't speak.
Then she does. “I have something to tell you, Snare.”
I lean back, crossing my arms. I promised myself not to be pissed. And after what she's been through, it's going to take Sara a long time to heal.
It doesn't matter that Riker needed doing. Or that the prospect that held her, she'd killed in self-defense. Sara's no killer. And now, suddenly—she is.
Her eyes meet mine. Wistful, hopeful, nervous. “I have a daughter.” Sara looks down briefly at her clenched hands. Then her eyes meet mine. “Her name's Jaylin.” She hesitates for a second then whispers, “We have a daughter.”
I knew already. But hearing Sara confirm the kid's existence makes it real.
I don't say anything for a long time, and Sara looks away, the drying gems of her tears glittering in the sunlight from the window.
I stand, and her eyes follow me, clearly waiting for my rejection.
Instead, I kick off my boots and fold my cut over the hospital chair. I slide into the bed beside her, wrapping my arms carefully around her.
The narrow hospital bed isn't really made for two.
We manage.
22
Sara
Two weeks later
Lola rolls her eyes for the millionth time. “Monkey missing some days at preschool is not the end of the planet.”
I agree, but my entire life has been upended. Quitting my job, taking care of Jaylin without the worry of making ends meet... killing two men.
Yeah, I'm not really myself.
“So today's the big day, huh?” Lola asks, twirling her curl of hair between her finger then releasing it. The hair boings back into coiffed perfection. Big band music from the '40s surges softly in the background.
I nod. My hair, courtesy of Lola, slides over my shoulders, tickling the small of my back as I toss it behind me.
She gives me a critical eye. “I meet Mr. Perfect Stepbrother first, then I go and leave the happy family alone.”
I laugh, and my ribs give a deep twinge. I grimace but don't clutch my side anymore.
“Still hurts?” Her arched brows come together in a frown.
“Yeah.”
“That needle dick.” Lola sees my face crumple and hugs m
e. “Don't you dare screw up that makeup.”
I nod quickly. “I can't stand that I did what—I did.”
Lola pulls away, scrutinizing my face. “You did what you had to do. You survived. For monkey.”
“For me,” I whisper.
“Yes—finally. I can't believe what happened to you.” Lola's face suddenly breaks into a grin. “Is it too soon to make a joke?”
I give her wary eyes. “I don't know,” I admit, crossing my arms. “Depends.”
“I love you took a bite out of Riker,” she chortles.
I nod, not able to smile about it yet, but I guess I can see her point. Kind of.
“Come on. If you concentrate on the humor, the pain is so much more bearable.”
I look sharply at her.
She just nods. “I've been through some shit. I'd rather laugh than cry anytime. I did. I have.”
We don't talk about what things Lola felt like she needed to laugh through because she wouldn't survive the sadness.
A knock comes at the door.
She claps her hands together. “Stud's here.”
I smooth my long skirt down and stand there frozen.
I've been to the Road Kill Clubhouse. A really big warehouse full of bikes in the back and a maze of rooms in the front. It looks like a pool hall at first glance. Until I explore and get lost in all that the club offers.
I met some cool people. And some scary people. I have one friend who I think might be someone I can confide in. She wasn't a club girl before. And she's married to a Navy Seal guy. She's got a nephew close in age to Jaylin, and a new baby. Rose is living the dream.
Maybe I can too.
Lola gives me a gentle push forward, and I move to the door. Open it.
Snare stands perfectly still, his ebony hair recently cut, his blue eyes just as bright.
He doesn't speak, and neither do I.
Snare steps across the threshold of my room, sees Lola, and turns back to me as though he never saw her. He wraps me in his arms and kisses me like he'll consume me.
Eat my breath, taste my soul, hold my beating heart in his hands.
I give him all of me. Because I can. We have no one to stop us. We're not even stepsiblings anymore.
