Devil's Fall: Dust Bowl Devils MC

by Britten Thorne

  "Why, what the fuck, someone die or something?" He meant it as a flippant comment, but when their eyes slid away, he realized he'd guessed right and his stomach sank into his shoes. Someone had died. "Get out."

  They shut the door behind them but he could hear them hovering in the hall, speaking low, behaving as if they were waiting for some shit to go down. Waiting for me to fucking explode.

  If I'm calling my father then that means it isn't him, so what's the big fucking deal? The coppery taste in his mouth as he picked up the phone told him that he already knew. His clenched fist shook and he made himself release it and flex his fingers. If I don't make the call and hear it, then it doesn't exist. I haven’t talked to him in almost three years. Haven’t thought about him in months. I can go on pretending all is well.

  The phone rang in his hand, lit up with the name, “Nomad.” He cursed himself, fucking coward, before answering the call.

  "Dad?" He never called the old man that anymore but it just slipped out. He realized he was shivering and sat back down in his chair.

  "I'm sorry," Nomad said, "It's Jay."

  No first names. We called him Alvarez. Gunner closed his eyes. "What happened?"

  His father sighed. "He shot himself. They're keeping him alive but it’s not good."

  Shot himself. It echoed in his mind as if it had been shouted into a canyon. After we spent all that time together trying to not get shot. Protecting each other.

  "Son? Are you there?"

  Could I have protected him from this? "I'm here." Why did he feel so cold?

  "Come home. Don't worry about club shit for a while. His mother is looking for you, she says you ought to come say goodbye."

  Gunner groaned. "Keeping him alive" had sounded like there was a chance.

  "I know there's a lot of shit going on right now," his father went on. You have no idea. "You can stay with Lily and me if you'd like."

  He would have preferred to have his father berate him for losing touch with his friend for so long, accuse him of not being around when Alvarez needed him, blame him. Not this kid gloves bullshit.

  "I'll think about it." He hung up and stared at the wall, unable to form a complete thought.

  His whole world was in shambles.

  Alvarez, his brother in arms, had tried to kill himself. He was dying right now.

  The man's face came to Gunner's mind, unbidden. The way he'd looked sitting in that bare hospital room where Gunner lay injured, when the rest of their friends were cold in the morgue below.

  He'd looked like a ghost, then. Hollowed out. Insubstantial.

  There'd been six of them, together since basic, brothers in every way but blood. Four years together, two tours, and four of them killed on the same day, in the same instant.

  They'd all thought they were invincible when they were together. Like a bunch of fucking children. He thumbed his tags, deep in his pocket, and squeezed his phone until the screen cracked. He felt no better.

  Fuck Alvarez. Like I don't have enough shit to deal with right now. The bastard.

  He jumped from his chair and paced the office. Three steps one way, two steps back. Again, then again.

  Too much.

  Trouble begets troubles. Bad luck draws more bad luck. The only way out is to break the cycle, and Gunner hadn't figured out how to do that yet. Giving a shit about anything would have helped, starting with himself. Not being such an angry, arrogant bastard to everyone he met. Eschewing violence as a first resort.

  We weren’t even talking anymore. It shouldn’t feel like this.

  His phone woke him from his thoughts. The screen revealed "Jester" as the caller.

  "What?" he answered. The two rarely got along, and he was one of the last people Gunner wanted to talk to.

  "Brother. We heard. Wanna get fucked up?"

  ◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

  Home was a six hour drive away but Jester and Irish were already on the road and in town when Jester called. Bill hadn't sent them. Neither had Gunner's father. Hell, they were probably going against Bill's wishes, seeing as how they were in the middle of building some partnership with the Eagles. But their fellow club member had some troubles to drink away, and damned if they weren't going to help him do it.

  "Let's tell all the girls they're on tonight!" Jester announced as he stepped into the back office that evening, "Where's your motherfuckin' Rolodex?"

  Jester was poison. He was a junkie and an alcoholic and partying with him could only result in a whirlwind of self-destruction for all involved. Irish, being the youngest and newest member, would have the delightful task of staying just sober enough to keep an eye on the front door and make sure neither of them tried to take off on their bikes. With what Jester had planned, though, they wouldn’t be able to find their way out of the parking lot if they tried.

  Gunner looked the younger biker up and down. Irish had been a member for only two years and there were currently no prospects at all. Does he know he’s gotten himself sucked into an old man’s club? At least Jester and Gunner himself had the excuses of their fathers.

  There was something I wanted to ask him. About some damn picture. About his old lady. He still had that photo in his pocket...

  It was quickly forgotten. That night, Gunner didn’t care about anything but shattering the aching numbness that had lodged in his chest.

  Most of the girls did show up at Jester's behest when he let it be known he was the Devils’ president's son. It was barely past sundown when the club was packed, word of "a crazy fuckin' night" spreading thanks to all the employees.

  As the lights turned down and the music picked up, as scantily clad girls danced on stage and surrounded him, Gunner figured he should have no problem forgetting fast.

  Jester led him into one of the VIP booths - nothing more than a roped off couch and table towards the back of the room where suckers with deep pockets could get bottle service. And blowjobs, depending on which girls were on duty.

  "Take this," Jester said, slipping a pill into Gunner's hand, "then this." He passed him a shot. "Then her." He pointed at a girl smiling and biting her lip just on the other side of the rope. Trudy. A strange, grandmotherly sort of name for a stripper. Maybe it was a growing trend. He'd known an Agnes, too.

  "Come on," Jester prompted, downing his own pill and following it with a swallow of beer. “No brooding.”

  Jester wouldn't kill him with his cocktails of drugs, but he'd get him close - just where Gunner wanted to be. He followed the man’s instructions and soon was sitting in the booth with Trudy grinding on his lap to the tune of some pulsing techno track. The effect was hypnotic - her smoky eyes wide, grinding against his thick cock, coaxing it to life to the deep vibrations of the pulsing bass. He looked up at her face, the low red lighting making her blurry - but maybe that's just me - and said "Off." He slapped her ass as she rose and turned away. He liked her well enough but he wanted more of what Jester was carrying first. Strange, for him. Under most circumstances he thought with his cock first, fists second, and the rest of his pieces after them.

  But he wasn’t quite the same person that he was just a few days ago. Too much had happened since then.

  Maybe I'm getting more superstitious, he thought as he downed three shots in rapid succession to cheers he didn't hear. That was four. It needed to be six.

  Six shots - two for each trouble, downed with each in mind.

  Three lines, done off Trudy's lower back in the bathroom stall.

  It wasn't a good high - it was ugly, and angry, and only Irish's intervention kept fights from breaking out between him and other patrons, and between him and Jupiter. He had a serious beef with the older biker.

  He just couldn't recall what it was.

  "Come on." Irish dragged him away while he considered crushing the withered old face into pieces. He's a part of one of the three, he deserves to be hit. Even in his altered state, Gunner knew that was a bad idea. One strike of his fist would kill the old man.

>   The red lights turned darker, dimmer. Strobe lights flashed. “Three what?" He was at the bar with Jester again. Houlihan was laughing at something - if he was laughing at him, he’d have to break his face, too.

  "Mind your business," Gunner mumbled.

  Two more pills to make it three. Jester made him space them out, but Gunner didn’t care, as long as the total was correct. His world shrank to the size of the room, and it wobbled around him.

  Three girls, he declared, gesturing at Trudy, and Valentine who would only kiss him but that was okay, and some other woman he didn’t know - she was dressed right, but did she even work here?

  Who hired her?

  And who was playing all that awful music?

  The room and the party swam before him like he was underwater. Thumbing his dogtags no longer felt like a good luck gesture. It brought physical pain to his chest and he couldn’t remember why. Yes you can. But no, he wouldn’t remember. Let’s finish this night without remembering. We can suffer tomorrow. Tonight’s about brothers.

  But that word made his heart constrict in the exact same way.

  A shot for each punch thrown. That’s three more. They were all in good fun, though, as long as no one’s bleeding it means we’re having a good time.

  Taking that back; sometimes there’s bleeding.

  Someone started a fight onstage. Blustering and posturing, the regular patron and weekend warrior scratched his beard and challenged the room. Any other night he’d have been kicked out and banned.

  But this was Gunner’s night, and Gunner was itching for a brawl.

  “You’re on.”

  Bare knuckles. No weapons. Kiss his three girls for luck.

  Gunner let the man dance at him, tried not to laugh as he bounced back and forth across the stage like someone imitating a boxer. The guy closed in and took a swing. Gunner let him land a hit on his ribs. He wanted the bruises. He wanted that feeling of having the very breath knocked out of him - though this clown couldn’t hit him hard enough for that. He was tall, but lean and untoned. Too skinny to stand a chance.

  He let the guy land three hits (for luck) before breaking open his knuckles on the man’s jaw.

  His three lucky girls following him back to the booth. Gunner had peeled all their bras off before becoming distracted by a need for more lines (three of them) more drinks (three of them). That was six tits. We’re doing okay. We’re holding it together.

  Then three a.m. struck and his world went crooked.

  Just because Senna did not believe in the rule of bad things coming in threes didn’t mean that she was immune to its effects.

  She was making no progress on finding her sister.

  Her father’s angry client - or clients, she couldn’t be sure - was surely on her trail. It would be foolish to assume otherwise.

  And she was painfully attracted to a motorcycle gang member who currently held her life in his hands. What if his buddies found out he’d let her live? The one that had committed the murder she’d witnessed - she doubted he would be as merciful as Gunner had been.

  Thoughts of calling the police still scrolled through her mind, but how would it look, now? Oh yes, officer, I witnessed a murder and I thought I’d get a motel room and take a shower before I called.

  That and she was hesitant to turn Gunner in.

  Senna felt as though she ought to be angry at the way he'd taken off, running out the door as if a swarm of angry bees were swarming around his neck.

  Instead, she felt relief. She had lost herself enough - any more time with him, who knew what may have happened. She needed to sort it all out in her head - why had she gone with it when he started talking dirty through the door? Why had she let him lay her out on the floor and touch her like that? It was completely out of character for her - and it couldn’t just be about the hair.

  Senna hadn’t dated in a very long time and she wondered if that were part of it. Or, most likely, it simply came down to her brush with death. There was a reason more people fucked after a funeral than after a wedding. Facing death is a reminder of life and you feel it. She certainly had - she felt it everywhere. She felt her lungs expanding, her heart pumping; she felt every nerve, every inch of her skin buzzing with life. Perhaps it was that hyper-awareness of her body that made her so subject to his charms.

  Either way, it hadn’t been enough.

  She’d had to jump back in the shower for a quick rinse, washing away her sweat and his seed. She could still feel it on her skin long after it had washed away, as if he’d somehow marked her. A scary thought.

  She fell asleep early that evening, listening to the news reporting on her father's death, and woke to the voice of the morning show's host discussing the same. "Perhaps it was a hit," they speculated. There were plenty of reasons to assume so.

  She jumped when she saw her own face on the television. They'd managed to dig up a picture of her with her sister, probably off the internet. "His two daughters inherited his shares of the company, though it is still under investigation. They have been unavailable for comment," the correspondent read.

  No shit.

  She didn't want a single piece of his shady investment company, whatever the hell it actually did. Who in their right mind would want to be a client of theirs? She didn't want to be on the news. What she wanted was to go back to school and finish her degree. But that's not an option. Not after all the threats. She eyed her phone warily - no matter how far she ran, no matter how many new phones and new numbers she started and new email addresses she opened, the messages still followed. At least she hadn’t received any physical notes since hitting the road - no pieces of paper with the threats scrawled across them in black ink, slid beneath her door, sometimes when she was home, sometimes not.

  She sipped coffee from the room's pathetic little one-cup device. It tasted burnt and bitter but did she dare venture outside yet?

  May as well. There was a good chance Gunner would deliberately forget her and her sister. Being unwilling to kill her didn't mean he wanted to help, either. He was sure to have enough to deal with on his own. Like disposing of the body. She held her abdomen as a wave of nausea passed. Don't dwell on it. You can't change what happened. Push it away. She could still see the strange man falling, the red mist lingering in the air for a moment before settling to the ground after him. He'd worn a biker vest, too.

  It took her grumbling stomach to convince her to go. He’d brought snacks from the convenience store but chips and pretzels were not “food.”

  Not that her rich girl sensibilities had known “food” since she’d left home. Her stomach had taken a long time to adjust to her new diet of cheap burgers and greasy pizza eaten behind the wheel. She’d come from a world where everyone only ate healthy because appearances were so important. There’d been times in her life where they’d had a personal chef in the family’s kitchen. I really had no idea how goddamn spoiled and lucky I was.

  There was a small grocery store across the road and down the block a short way. It would take a matter of minutes to run over, grab a few things, and run back. But my face was just on the news. Was it too risky?

  She made it to the early afternoon before deciding to brave showing her face. She knew it was dangerous, but she'd have to eventually anyway, and she couldn't wait around for Gunner all day. She was in a lot of trouble but she wouldn't be some silly damsel in distress. She could handle going to the store.

  She felt eyes on her the minute she was outside. It was a familiar feeling -she'd been experiencing it since the threats began - but it was stronger now. More ominous. Because it might not just be Dad's client. It might be more of Gunner's friends.

  How did I land in such an awful mess?

  Even inside the grocery store - down the bread aisle, amongst the fruits - she felt like she was being watched and followed. I'm going crazy. I've become paranoid and I've lost my mind.

  But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't anyone after you. Just because you know you'
re being overly fearful doesn't mean you shouldn't be afraid. All her fears proved true when she returned to her room. She should have trusted her own intuition instead of telling herself she was going crazy.

  She sighed with relief as the door swung shut behind her, only to gasp in terror as she turned and found a man seated at the desk next to the dresser. He wore a suit, marking him as one of her father's associates rather than a biker. She didn't know which would have been worse. A biker. He would just shoot me. This guy, I can stall. I can negotiate.

  She swallowed and took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing heart. "How did you get in here?"

  He held up a room key. Unlimited money and power - what's one little locked door?

  "Let's get a drink," he said.

  She followed him from the room in silence, dropping her groceries to the floor with a dull thud. Who was he? How the hell had he found her at all?

  I should run, she thought as she followed him back across the street. But where would she go and how far would she get on foot? And the cops? She didn't need a second lesson in how little they could help her against the rich and powerful.

  So she trailed after him into the roadside bar, where very little sunlight filtered through the windows, where only dedicated drunks came to hang out in the middle of the day.

  She slid into a stool next to him and said, "You're buying."

  His gray eyes blinked with amusement. He was too young to be one of her father's close associates. As if they would do their own dirty work. This guy was someone's assistant. Dressed as he was in an expensive suit, she guessed he was new at this part of the job.

  "The daughter of Glenn Moore can't afford much anymore, can she?"

  "Do I know you?" There had to be some reason for his spite. "Who do you work for?"

  "Don't you worry about that. Call me Colin." He waved bartender over and was deliberately ignored.

  "Your sister knows you're looking for her," he said, pretending the snub hadn’t happened. "One of the... dancers told her." I only met that one girl. Valentine? "I got to her first." Or he’s lying.