by Raven Dark
Well, that makes sense.
Wait… Protect me? He’s never used that word when referring to me before. My heart gives a little ping. Stupid heart.
He sets me down against the wall behind a large boulder.
I swallow hard, bile rising in my throat. “What about Cap?” I squeak.
“I’ll get him.” He squeezes the back of my neck. “Stay there. Don’t you move.”
He’s gone before I can reply.
I let my head drop against the cold stone wall. My heart races a mile a minute.
Alone in the dark with no way to defend myself, I half expect the shooters to appear at the mouth of the cave and put a bullet in my chest. I know nothing about fighting. Spider could have left me his gun, but I don’t know how to use one.
I hold my breath and remain still, listening for the sound of footsteps.
Spider returns a few minutes later. I gape at him. He comes to the back of the cave carrying Cap’s large form over his shoulder like a soldier carries a fallen comrade.
“I see how it is,” Cap mutters sleepily. “You left me behind for pussy.”
“Shut your face, old man.” Spider’s voice sounds strained. “Fuck, you need to go on a diet. You weigh a ton.”
But there isn’t an ounce of fat on him. He’s muscled, just like Spider, if not as large.
I gasp when Spider draws close enough that I can make out the blood dripping from Cap’s leg even in the near darkness. Spider sets him carefully down in front of me. In the dim moonlight, I can see a large wet patch of crimson halfway up his thigh, soaking through his blue jeans.
“Good heavens. He’s been shot?”
There’s a lot of blood. The moonlight illuminates a trail of dark red that runs across the ground at the mouth of the cave where Spider just walked.
“You should have…” Cap’s chest shakes on a pained breath. “Should have left me behind, boy.”
“Shut up.” Spider glances behind him as if looking for the shooters, then starts taking off his cut. “Gotta take care of that wound. Guess those fuckers are gonna have to get away this time. I--.”
“No.” Cap grabs his shoulder. “Go. Take care of business.” Cap looks at me and gives a strained smile. “I got an angel watching over me. Go. Kick their Bastard asses.”
In the distance, I hear bike engines getting closer. Are they searching for us?
“Cap…” Spider looks at me, and then at the cave entrance.
I can see he’s torn between not wanting to leave his friend to die, and risking the shooters coming back to finish us off.
Without thinking, I shift myself onto my knees at Cap’s side and reach out, laying my hand on Spider’s shoulder. His eyes snap to mine.
“Spider, go. I’ll take care of him.”
His brows furrow, and questions are written all over his face, along with surprise at what I’m suggesting.
“Go,” I repeat firmly. “Trust me.”
Spider slips his cut back into place. “All right, I’m going, but only because I don’t want them coming back and…” His eyes flick to me. Then he gets up and takes the gun from the holster at his hip. “Stay quiet. I’ll be back.”
He’s a shadow moving toward the mouth of the cave, his gun pointed toward the ground in a two-handed grip, like the cops did in that movie I saw.
A few moments after he disappears, a bike engine roars to life and then fades to nothing.
“All right, Cap,” I say, hoping I sound more confident than I feel. “Let’s see what we can do about that leg.” I find the hole in his jeans left behind by the bullet and tear it wider so I can examine the wound.
I’ve dealt with minor wounds before, cuts and scrapes, but nothing like this. With the amount of blood, I’m hoping the shot didn’t hit the femoral artery. If it did, he doesn’t have a lot of time.
“Are you in a lot of pain?” I ask him, immediately realizing how stupid that must sound. I strip off the best piece of clothing I’m wearing for putting pressure on the wound—my shirt.
“I was.” He grins, taking in the sight of my naked chest. “I’m not now.”
I give a shaky laugh.
“Well, they say you should distract a patient in a situation like this. Whatever works, I guess.” I tear the shirt into two strips, then ball up one and put pressure on the wound. Blood squirts out from the sides and I turn my head, willing away a wave of nausea.
Cap groans in pain.
“Sorry.” I press a little harder and he hisses between his teeth. “Hold the shirt there,” I tell him. “Keep the pressure constant while I tie it off.”
“Where’d you learn how to do this?” he grunts, sitting up and pressing down on the shirt.
“First aid training,” I say, giving the only answer I can as I carefully, but quickly wrap the other half of my shirt around his leg and tie it tight over the wound.
Cap grunts between his teeth, biting back the pain.
The answer is not a total lie. I don’t have the formal training that people get certificates for, but like a lot of women in the Colony, I chose to gain the medical training they offer. First Aid training is required to work as a nanny, but getting said certificate would have required giving ID and personal info I couldn’t provide. I’d told them I had the training. I was lucky they didn’t check.
At my reply, Cap looks at me calculatingly, but he doesn’t press.
I glance at the entrance to the cave as I tie a second knot, but see no sign of Spider. Worry cascades through me. Those men were shooting to kill. My heart gives an unpleasant twinge.
“Cap, you got a phone?”
He mutters something unintelligible that I hope is an affirmation.
“Where is it?”
His one eye droops and his head lolls forward.
“Rats.” I move to his shoulder and shake him. “Cap. Cap, stay with me.”
He mumbles something I can’t make out.
“Cap. No. Wake up. Stay with me. You hear me, stay awake.”
He goes slack and doesn’t move.
Tears blur my eyes. “Cap…” My chest tightens painfully, but I tamp down the rise of panic.
I fish through the pockets of his cut until I find his phone.
When I switch it on, a request for his thumbprint flashes on the screen. “Heavens to Betsy. Stupid technology. “I grab his hand, pressing his thumb to the icon.
I wouldn’t be able to make the call in here. I cross the cave and step out, looking around for any sign of danger. When I don’t see one, I start to call 9-1-1, but stop myself. Something tells me the club wouldn’t want me to call a hospital.
Unsure who to call, I find his contacts.
Dragon’s name shows up, first on the list.
Dragon. The president.
I gulp, push down the nervous flutter that knots in my gut, and call the number.
“What, Cap?” Dragon’s voice sounds thoroughly ticked.
For an instant, any appropriate response flees from my head. I don’t know much about MC life or protocol, but I have a feeling my calling him goes against every law in the MC handbook. Plus, I have absolutely no idea what to say to the leader of an outlaw Motorcycle Club.
“Um…Prez, it’s Stephanie. I—”
“What the fuck are you doing with Cap’s phone, woman?” he snaps.
I wince. I was afraid of this.
“Did you steal his fucking phone, thief? Oh, Spider is so fucking dead.”
“Dragon, it’s Cap. There’s been an accident. Shooting—”
“Where?” he says roughly.
“We’re hiding in a small cavern off the 93.” I’ll have to guess about the distance. There’s so many rock formations, I just have to hope that if he comes down the 93, he’ll see Cap’s bike and find the right cave. “We’re about twenty minutes from Casper’s. Cap’s been shot—”
“Stay where you are. I’ll be right there.”
The phone goes dead.
I return to Cap’s side and sq
uat at his shoulder. His hand seizes my arm and I jump, almost crying out.
When I look at him, his eyes are dazed, but he’s wearing a lazy smile. “Sorry.” He nods to his phone in my hand. “Who’d you call?”
“Dragon.”
“Didn’t call no ambulance?”
I shake my head. “Should I have? I just had a feeling I—”
He shakes his head and squeezes my arm. “No. No, you did the right thing.” He huffs in pain. “You did good, Angel.”
“Yeah, except I think Dragon’s mad at me now.”
“Don’t worry about him. He’ll get over it.” His eye starts to drop again.
“Talk to me,” I tell him, shaking his shoulder. “Why do they call you Cap?”
He focuses on me with effort, his eye glassy. “I was a Captain in the army,” he says. “The guys kept calling me that when I joined the club, so when I got patched in, it became my road name.”
“You were army?” I smile with respect.
He nods.
I look at his leg. The once white cloth has turned deep crimson, already soaked through. He’s lost so much blood. “Why were they shooting at us?”
“Don’t worry. Spider’ll take care of them.”
I’m not sure if he heard my question, or if he’s deliberately evading it.
“I shouldn’t have let Spider go.” I flick a glance at the cave entrance but still don’t see or hear any sign of him. “He’s going to get himself killed.”
Cap smiles weakly. “You could…could not have stopped him.”
“Why?” I have a feeling he’s not just talking about making sure those guys don’t double back and find us.
“Because. It’s club business, Angel.” His voice is fading. He’s passing out.
Desperation squeezes my chest. “Tell me. Tell me about club business.”
He swallows. When he answers, he sounds drugged, and barely there.
“The club is about brotherhood. Fam…family. We have to defend our own. Respect is first and foremost…” He swallows. “Spider was born into the club. It’s in his blood, it’s his life. Those fucks attacked the club. If he lets them get away, he’s waving a red flag at them, telling them to come and pick us off. You understand?”
I try to wrap my head around what he’s saying, but this kind of violence is so far out of my wheelhouse that I feel utterly lost.
Cap squeezes my arm. “Angel.” When I look at him, his eyes are surprisingly intense. “Spider…” He winces. “Spider is a good man. He’d kill me if he knew I told you this, but he is.”
“Cap…” Is he seriously trying to play matchmaker right now?
He squeezes my arm harder and I wince, surprised at his strength, considering his condition.
“Listen to me. I know he’s not easy to deal with, but don’t give up on him. He’s not a monster. And he needs you.”
“Cap, you’re in shock. You’re talking nonsense.”
He smiles and shakes his head. “No. He doesn’t see it now, but he needs you. Spider’s got a lot of demons, and one day, if someone doesn’t pull him out of his hell, he’ll destroy himself. You can keep him from going over the edge. You have to.”
“Me?” My eyes sting, hope I have no business entertaining blossoming in my chest. “Why me? I don’t know how to—”
“You’ll figure it out. No one else can do it. It has to be you.”
“But I don’t want…I can’t… How do you know I can…”
“Because.” He shakes my shoulder. “You got under his skin, little angel. No one has ever done that.”
“But how can you know that?”
His eyes sparkle. “I know him. Trust an old man to know what he’s talking about. You belong with him.”
Before I can press for more, Cap’s head drops back. Then his eyes close.
I cover my mouth with my hands on a sob, my heart squeezing painfully. “Cap? Cap!”
His chest shudders, and then goes still.
17
Chasing Justice
Spider
As soon as I’d darted out of the cave toward my bike, I’d seen the two shooters riding off across the desert, but they’d turned around and headed for me the minute they saw me.
Coming back to finish the job. The fucks.
I’d lay odds they’re wearing Satan’s Bastard patches. Wolf’s sent his jackals to pay me back for taking out Gunner and the others that night at Rickie’s.
I’d meant to put in a call to Dragon and tell him what was going down, but when I’d made the call, it hadn’t gone through. I’d tried several times before mounting up, but the battery on my phone was too low.
“Son of a bitch.”
Shitty timing if ever there was one. I’d charged the piece of shit thing that morning. How is it already dying?
With Cap’s bike busted and him unable to ride, I’d need help getting him to the clubhouse so Axe could treat him. A hospital is not an option, and even if it was, I had no way to call them, either.
I’d have gone back to Stephanie and Cap so I could use Cap’s phone, but with those assholes headed for me, I couldn’t lead the shooters straight to where I’d hidden them.
The only option was to chase the fuckers down as quickly as I could and make sure they couldn’t finish them off.
Starting up my ride, I speed off across the desert after the two men, pushing the motorcycle to its limits. As soon as they see I’m giving chase, they wheel around and peel off in the other direction. They’re a good hundred feet off, too far to see their patches, and their wheels are kicking up clouds of road dust, but I don’t need to see them to know who they are. If they aren’t Wolf’s crew, I’ll tear my own damned patch off my cut myself.
The image of Cap lying on the pavement beside his totalled ride slashes across the inside of my brain. It’s more than just club justice I’m chasing down.
I’ve known Cap my whole life. When my asswipe of a father had passed, I’d been sixteen. As a hitman for the Outlaws, Dad spent years passing himself off as the perfect biker father, a family man who respected the club and killed only to protect the MC. One who doted on his son. All the while, he tried to break me, to turn me into a monster that did his bidding.
No one in the club knew what he was. He was one of Bone’s officers, and the prez didn’t have a clue he was beating his wife and kid every night.
After dear old dad finally ate his own gun, Cap worked for months undoing the damage he’d had done. He taught me what club life was really supposed to be, what a real family looked like. Vouching for me when Bones thought I was too damaged to make it. Cap taught me how to shoot, how to fight. Most importantly, he showed me how to channel my anger, directing my thirst for violence and blood so that it served the club, so that I could use it to bring down those who needed dealing with.
Cap is one of my best friends, but he’s more than that. He’s the father I should have had. Without him, I probably would have let my demons destroy me. I owe him my life.
A cold hand of fear reaches for me, and I crush it to dust in my fist. Fear causes a man to make mistakes, and I can’t afford to lose my head now. Cap and Stephanie are alone in that cave. They need me to keep my head on straight.
Stephanie. Protectiveness for her causes my fists to strangle the handlebars in a white-knuckled grip. The intensity of it jolts me, and I crush it down, pulverizing it. Refusing to accept its embrace. How that little thief got so far under my skin, I have no idea, but that kind of animalistic protectiveness makes men weak. It’s as dangerous as any fear.
The club is what’s important. Justice is what matters.
I follow the shooters through a narrow pass between two rock formations a few minutes from where I left Cap and Stephanie. The path winds this way and that, a dozen forks shooting off in all directions.
Shit. I could lose them easily in this maze, and I’d bet one of the roads would take them back out toward the cave.
Closing in on them, I force them down anoth
er path, headed for a cliff I know drops into a deep canyon. If I can bottleneck them there…
I roar toward the opening between two high formations, pushing them toward the cliff.
One of the men swears, his voice laced with terror.
Gotcha.
An opening appears up ahead, and twenty feet away, the cliff juts out, dropping off. The two jackwads are turning around, obviously intending to go back the way they came. I bear down on them.
Both are wearing helmets with visors that cover their whole faces, but they visibly freeze, and I know what they’re seeing.
Death is coming for them.
I skid to a halt in front of them, and they back up like two cornered animals. Dismounting, I point my gun.
“Hello, boys.”
I walk right up to them and put a bullet in each of their chests. The bodies drop to the ground like stones. The force of the shot sends one of them pirouetting, spinning around so that he falls on his front.
I kick him over onto his back with my boot and rip his helmet off, confirming the kill.
Familiar, blank eyes stare up at me, a glassy, unseeing gaze. He has the same big nose and black hair as Gunner.
It’s Helix, Gunner’s brother.
I’m not surprised Wolf let Helix take this one. I’d made the right decision going after them. This wasn’t just a hit for them. It wasn’t just club mandated retribution. It was personal, and that kind of vendetta doesn’t let a man rest until the mark is dead.
I check the other guy. Fuck. I’d know that crazy salt and pepper hair and wild beard anywhere, even if I hadn’t seen the Enforcer patch on his cut.
It’s Wolf’s brother.
“Shit.”
This changes the game entirely.
I shake my head. My killing Gunner means the Bastards have to seek retribution for their fallen brother. It means that for Wolf, taking me out is mandatory. My killing Gunner’s brother and our clubs now having casualties on both sides locks us in a never-ending cycle of retaliation. But killing the brother of the Satan’s Bastard’s prez? That’s a whole other level of trouble.
One at a time, I dispose of the bodies in the quickest way possible—kicking both over the side of the cliff and leaving them at the bottom of a two-hundred-foot deep canyon.
