by Jadyn Chase
I could never forget the horror in her face when she found out about me. She backed away pointing at me. Getting together with me and having a son from me petrified her. She couldn’t imagine anything more awful than that.
I made a big mistake hooking up with her. I could forgive myself for wasting three years of my youth on a woman who thought I of some kind of monster. I didn’t know any better and neither did she.
Now I knew the truth about myself and now I knew the truth about her. She couldn’t accept it. I disgusted her. She would rather gouge out her eyes than remember how good it felt the other night.
Fuck, it felt good, so good! I never dreamed it could feel that good and now it was all over. Her reaction tainted all the sweet memories going all the way back to the day I met her. She hated me and her reaction made me hate her right back.
I didn’t need her. I could flick her off like a squashed bug. I never had to see her again and I sure as fuck didn’t need her body. I could get that anywhere.
The boy, though—he was a different story. I could never flick him off. I could never turn my back on him. I didn’t give a fuck about her. I had to be there for him. I would fight her in court until the day I died to be a constant presence in his life the way my father was for me. Christopher deserved that. If I was his father, then by God, he was going to have me as one.
I didn’t want to fight her. That was the last thing I wanted. I wanted to be there with her, too, but she wouldn’t let that happen. She didn’t want me around the kid, so I could plan on this thing getting sticky. Bad luck. Too bad, so sad.
Damn! Here I was, just coming to realize I wanted a wife and kids and all that stuff. Now one dropped out of the sky into my lap. How was I supposed to feel about that? My emotions got all jumbled up with the picture of Ruby backing away in terror and revulsion.
Why did she have to do that? Why did she have to ruin everything? I couldn’t even be happy about having a son because of her. She robbed me, even of that.
A lump stuck in my throat. What was I thinking? I turned my brain off to screw around with her the other night. Now I reaped the rewards. I never should have gone near her. She fucked my life over once, and now she was doing it all over again in spades.
I got just stupid enough to let myself believe it meant something. No, that wasn’t right, either. I wanted it to mean something. I wanted it to go somewhere even though she told me a million times that it never would. That was my one big mistake. I let myself feel something for her.
I did my best to swallow that lump down. Feeling something for her wouldn’t help me. In the end, it meant nothing. Only the boy mattered.
Christopher. He was a good kid. When I thought about him, my heart exploded with all the joy and hope and excitement I should have felt for her. God, I loved him and I didn’t even know him. I ached for a future with him, for being there for all his little challenges. My soul needed to do a whole lot of growing before it got big enough to contain everything I felt for him.
My feelings for him merged with my feelings for my own father. I wished like anything my dad could be alive to meet Christopher. I would give anything for Christopher to grow up in a long dynasty of dragons. He could take his rightful place in that line instead of floundering around trying to figure everything out on his own.
He wouldn’t grow up in a lineage like that, so it came down to me to help him do it. He wouldn’t do it on his own, so help me God.
That resolution startled me out of my depressive funk. I yanked my arm off my eyes and stared up at the ceiling. I had my work cut out for me making this happen. Plans materialized in my head. I had to talk to The Boss about this. He would be able to advise me on my work schedule and my club obligations. Hopefully, we could work something out. He was a father, too. He was bound to understand.
I needed to contact a lawyer in case Ruby decided to play hardball. I would talk to her first, but I still needed to be prepared for the worst and to understand my rights. I needed to work out my financial situation so I could start leaving the kid something to get him going in life. I never saved a penny before. I never needed to. I spent what I earned and enjoyed it.
I needed to start taking notes. I grabbed my phone and flipped to…..I didn’t even have a decent note-taking app. Christ, how did I wind up so behind the eight-ball on this? I fished in the bedside table searching for a pen when, without warning, the door smashed off its hinges and cartwheeled into the room.
I ducked to avoid getting my head lopped off. The second I recovered, ten armed men in ski masks charged into the room. One of them rushed me and smashed me across the nose with his rifle butt.
My instincts ruptured to fight. I bounced off the mattress ready to rip someone a new asshole and caught a shotgun swinging around to deal me another blow. I snatched it out of the air, but the guy on the other end turned out to be a lot stronger than I expected.
For a terrible second, we grappled for the weapon. More attackers flooded into the room faster than I could think. Someone came up next to me and slammed me in the ribs with a lead pipe.
I groaned but maintained my hold on the weapon. Whoever these shitheads were, they bit off more than they could chew coming after me.
I told myself that, but in reality, one man against so many didn’t stand a chance. Another gun landed against my neck and I buckled at the knees. I sank down on the bed and blows rained around my skull.
I heard the concussions and felt the dull, distant impact of dozens of blows. I sensed my flesh bruising and swelling, but I couldn’t feel any pain. Everything happened a long way away from me.
I slumped over still sitting up and stared in front of me. I blinked and saw something curious. The man directly in front of me, the man whose gun I grabbed—he raised his arms. I glimpsed under his vest flap to the t-shirt underneath. A circular emblem in the shape of a tornado whirled in a tight funnel. A dragon snaked around it and through it and out of it. Clouds of dust and smoke plumed at the logo’s corners.
A banner in italic lettering underneath read, Furies. Of course. I should have known they would retaliate. I was the last Diablo left in Barstow. Who else would they come after?
I was the last Diablo except one. Logan. My mind told me to go after him, to protect him, but I couldn’t move or even think clearly enough to stand up. I definitely couldn’t fight.
The man stepped back and I lost sight of the patch. None of the others wore their patches—not in view, at least. What did they think—that they would keep their identity secret? Maybe they only planned to hide their membership from outsiders who might see them. They couldn’t expect to hide it from me.
The man retreated far enough that my gazed focused on his face. His dark eyes glittered behind a black bandana. He hauled back his weapon and delivered a devastating crack across my nose.
I felt that one. Piercing arrows of agony and wrongness fired into my brain. I tumbled back on the bed and flopped staring up at the ceiling. I couldn’t die like this, alone in some no-name hotel. I had a son. I had to live for him if not for myself.
The fucker climbed onto the bed and straddled my chest. He cocked back his shotgun and jammed the barrel into my forehead. He lowered his face to within inches of my eyes. He hissed low and his breath made the bandana flutter. “Alfonzo Salazar sends his regards, asshole.”
His knuckles whitened on the trigger. This was it. I always wondered what dying would be like. Now I was going to find out.
Way down deep in my being, another voice whispered, No. Not today. Not like this. Not as long as I can stop it.
The human part of me just didn’t care anymore. I hurt too much. I was too sad and too lonely and too bored and too fed up with all the petty frustrations and annoyances of life. Christopher lived without me all these years. He would survive just fine without me. Ruby would take care of him.
The primal animalistic soul inside me refused. A distant ember of ancient fury revolted against this. It didn’t think. In a way, it didn’t e
ven have to know about Christopher. None of those pointless considerations meant anything to the dragon.
The man on top of me narrowed his eyes and pulled the trigger. The gun erupted burning gunpowder against my forehead. In a fraction of a second, the skin on my face shifted to scales. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t summon the dragon to fight these enemies, but I could do that much.
The buckshot drilled into me. The devastating shock wave pummeled me into the mattress and I lay still. My eyes stared up at the ceiling seeing and comprehending nothing.
10
Eli
The Furies converged around me. Their weapons dangling at their sides. “That’s the devil taken care of,” one of them declared.
“Fall back to the depot,” another ordered. “We’ll rearm before we go after the woman. We’ll take her out quick and clean so we don’t leave any witnesses. This one was easy. Her, we need to take our time and plan. Let’s go. Make sure you take everything with you. Don’t leave any trace behind”
They trailed out of the hotel room one by one. They muttered to each other but I couldn’t make out the words. My brain pretty much shut down. I didn’t even blink.
Alfonzo Salazar. So that fuckwit was still alive. For all I knew, he was never in the limo to begin with. Maybe he or his father suspected The Boss would retaliate so they sent someone else in Alfonzo’s place.
Either way, he was alive enough to take revenge. They must have tracked me down or maybe picked up some scrap of evidence at the railyard. If Alfonzo came to Barstow when we hit that limo, he or his men may have followed me to the baseball field. The woman. They were going after Ruby.
I couldn’t move. The buckshot hurt embedded in my skin. The scales receded within seconds of catching the shot and preventing it from penetrating my skull. Now those little pellets burned into my forehead.
I had to get them out. I had to get up. I had to go after them. I had to stop them hurting Ruby and…. Not Christopher. I couldn’t let them hurt Christopher. The rest of us could go straight to Hell, but not him. Not him.
No matter how I ordered myself to get up, to do something, nothing worked. I commanded my hand to flex my right index finger. Nothing. I couldn’t even force my eyelids to blink.
Another section of my awareness brought every detail around me into startling clarity. The sun crossed the window. The square of glaring light slid across the floor with leisurely slowness. Would this day never end? Would I remain paralyzed here forever—or at least until the cleaning lady found me lying in a puddle of blood?
Alfonzo Salazar. Ruby Lewis. The depot. So they were meeting at the depot. Where might that be? They could only be talking about the historic train station across town. It housed a couple different railway museums and a bunch of government offices. It wasn’t the most likely place for an armed gang to hold hostages.
Hostages! What was I thinking? These idiots didn’t plan to hold Ruby hostage. They planned to kill her the same way they planned to kill me. They wanted to send Los Diablos a message that we missed our target. Alfonzo was alive and well and on the warpath.
Get up, Eli. For fuck’s sake, get up.
I didn’t get up. I only lay there going over the ground one inch at a time. The platform behind the train station looked over Barstow, but a few other buildings in the complex afforded a view to some scattered warehouses, sheds, and other forgotten buildings.
If The Furies planned to set up operations in town, they would need a base close by. Alfonzo, on the other hand, would stay somewhere that didn’t involve some greasy old railroad shed. He’d stay in the most luxurious hotel on the block. Harvey House was the closest hotel to the rail station, but he wouldn’t care about location. Harvey House wouldn’t be fancy enough for his tastes. He’d choose Ayres Hotel or the Wyndham.
For the love of God, Eli, get the hell up. To my amazement, it actually worked. I could contract my muscles and heave myself into a sitting position. When I did, my head split with shattering pain and I collapsed face-first into the carpet. I landed flat on my nose, which sent an even more brutal explosion of agony into my brain.
I lay groaning in a heap for a long time. I could not for the life of me get my mind to stop dwelling on the buckshot buried in my forehead. I obsessed over each tiny pellet in microscopic detail. I could locate each one and trace around their spherical shapes with my mind’s eye. It drove me batshit, but just staying conscious demanded all my concentration.
Another pang of despair seized me. While I crouched here in a pile of blood and confusion, those bastards were homing in on my….my son and my…. I couldn’t think of Ruby that way. She wasn’t my anything and she never would be, but I had to save her. I couldn’t let her fall victim to The Furies.
Poor girl. She worked so hard to keep herself and Christopher away from Los Diablos. She spent seven years protecting him from situations just like this and I couldn’t exactly blame her.
If Christopher wasn’t a dragon himself, that might have been the best thing she could do for him. Now here I went and led the danger right to their door. Christopher wouldn’t be in danger right now if not for me. Neither of them would be.
My heart wrenched at the thought. Maybe Ruby did right keeping him away from me. If I never came back to Barstow, if I never bumped into her at that diner, he would have stayed safe forever—right up until the moment he found out he was a dragon. Then he would need me and I wouldn’t be around.
Now that I thought about it, I lost my ire toward her. I no longer hated her for keeping Christopher from me. She did it for him. She did what was best for him. That made her a good mother and I thanked her for that.
Now it was my turn to do what was best for Christopher, but only if I could get to him before The Furies did. I couldn’t depend on them to kill Ruby and leave him alive.
No one was going to kill Ruby. No one was going to scare her or threaten her. No one was ever going to even think about her in the same thought as killing and scaring and threatening. She was mine to defend and save and help.
I loved that woman. I loved her a long time ago and I still did. I wouldn’t hurt so much over her if I didn’t love her. I finally admitted that to myself. If she didn’t want to be with me because I was a dragon or because I belonged to Los Diablos, that didn’t change my feelings.
I could at least save her. She earned that much consideration from me. I got her into this mess, and no one else in the world could get her out of it.
The Boss. Los Diablos. If I could only get in touch with them, they could help me. Then I wouldn’t have to battle The Furies alone.
I peeled my cheek off the carpet and did my best to look around. My jacket draped over a nearby chair. My phone lay face up on the carpet where I dropped it when The Furies broke in. I just had to stretch out my trembling hand and pick it up. Thank the stars.
I craned back to reach for it. Every nerve hurt. Squeezing my fingers around it took a heroic effort. The minute I got a hold of it, I toppled over on my side sobbing in agony. This was bad. This was really bad.
I blinked blood out of my eyes and tapped my contact list. I pulled up The Boss’s details. Roman Santiago. Please, dear God, let him answer.
My hands shook holding the phone to my ear. It clicked and switched straight to voice mail. “I’m not available to answer your call right now, but if you leave your name and number, I’ll….”
I howled in despair and barely stopped myself from hurling the phone against the wall. I had to think. I had to hold it all together a little longer. Any second now, my body would regenerate and I would be able to move again without passing out.
I turned off the phone and switched back to my contacts. I found Kane and dialed. I went through the same tortured anticipation before his gruff voice belched into my ear. “What’s up, man?”
I gulped. “You…. you gotta listen to me, man. The Furies are in Barstow, and Alfonzo Salazar is alive. He wasn’t in the God damned limo after all. He’s alive and he just tried to fuck
ing kill me, man. I’m in my hotel room shot in the head, and he’s…..” I almost burst into tears getting it out as fast as I could. How could I explain to this hardened biker about Ruby? None of Los Diablos knew a thing about her. “He’s going after a girl I used to know. I dated her in high school, and I bumped into her at the diner that first night. Do you remember? I went out to dinner with her once after that and now he’s going after her. You gotta help me, man.” My voice cracked again before I pulled it together. “I need you to contact The Boss and let him know what’s going on. I’m injured, and I’m all on my own up here. I need backup and pronto.”
Kane, bless his heart, listened to all this in silence. He must have realized in a few seconds how serious the situation was because he didn’t answer right away.
When he did finally speak, he took a deep breath and responded in a low murmur that shot straight to my guts. “Now you gotta listen to me, man. The Boss just left headquarters with seventeen dudes all armed for the Last Day if you get my meaning. While we were up in Bartow, The Furies sent another truck into our territory and hit two of our warehouses within minutes of each other. They set up a delivery station in the neutral zone between us and the Longtails’ territory where they could thumb their noses at us in defiance of all decency. The Boss is arming everyone to burn and destroy. I’m stuck here guarding the fort with Rico and Miguel until he gets back and that won’t be for at least twelve hours. I’m sorry, man, but you’re on your own until then. I wish I could help you, but I’m under orders to maintain radio silence until he tells me otherwise, so I don’t think he’d take it too kindly if I contacted him about something that’s happening a hundred miles away if you know what I mean.”
He stopped. Deafening stillness echoed down the line. So that was it. I was on my own. I couldn’t count on any of my brothers coming to my rescue.
