All of which presents a huge problem for me. Because I have no way to clean myself up, and no idea where I’m going to go.
I can’t go home. If I show up looking like this, there’s no way I can conceal what happened from André. And if I do tell him, the only thing he’ll care about will be saving his own skin from Pecher’s men. He would never defend or help me. Even worse: if Pecher’s men somehow figure out I was the one who stabbed him and track me to André’s house, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will throw me to the wolves to save his own skin.
A wave of nausea hits me so hard it doubles me over as I’m driving. I retch, one hand on the steering wheel and the other braced against the door. The force of it brings tears to my eyes. When I’m done retching, I roll my window down and do my best to suck in lungfuls of air for a few seconds to try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
No one saw me leave the restaurant. And no one saw me going in except the hostess. But still, they must have cameras around the place. Pecher is — was — too involved with criminal shit not to have that kind of security. So I have to assume I didn’t get out of there without being clocked. I have to assume they have video evidence of me as the last person to see Pecher alive. They will be able to figure out who I am, and what I did.
And when they do, they’ll come searching for me.
Oh, my God.
Trembling, I lift my right arm up and stare in horror at a small scar in the fatty part of my upper forearm.
The scar that marks the spot where André implanted the tiny RFID tracker a year and a half ago.
If Pecher’s men come looking for André, he’ll tell them where I am.
Because he’ll know.
I have to get this tracker out of my arm. Now.
By the time I find a place to pull off the highway that will hide me from view, my stomach is churning and I’m full-on crying. Instinctively, I reach up to wipe my nose, but then howl in pain when my wrist hits the broken cartilage.
“Fuck!” I scream, fear pitching my voice up half an octave higher than normal. Shaking, I reach down to my boot and pull out the tiny Ka-Bar knife. I hold it up, and see it’s still covered in blood. Pecher’s blood.
The image of his body lying on the floor, throat pulsing blood, almost makes me gag, but I force the thought away. I can’t afford to let myself lose it any more than I already am. It’s not easy to find a place on my shirt to wipe off the blade, but I clean the tip as best I can, trying not to think about anything but the necessity of what I have to do next.
I swallow, then suck in a great, shuddering breath. I brace my right arm against the dashboard. With the blade in my left hand, I place the tip right above the scar. I press. I try to press harder. I start to sweat.
Seconds later, I let out a scream of frustration. I can’t do it.
“God, what a fucking weakling!” I wail, hating myself and my cowardice. “Do it, goddamnit!”
But it’s no use. I try, but I just can’t bring myself to cut myself open.
My sobs turn erratic as I fight the panic rising in my chest. What am I going to do? I can’t return home, and with this chip in my arm, anywhere else I go — anyone else I involve — would be in danger. But I don’t have any way of surviving on my own. I have no money, nowhere to stay. Any attempt to escape would just be prolonging the inevitable.
Think! Think, goddamnit, Lila!
And then, it comes to me, all at once. So suddenly it almost makes me dizzy.
Someplace I could go. Some people who could help me.
I haven’t seen them in a while. Not since I abruptly stopped going to Brooke’s gym in Tanner Springs two years ago, and stopped answering her texts and phone calls.
In some ways, Brooke is the only positive role model I’ve ever had. She’s the woman who taught me how to defend myself. In a way, her training is probably the only reason I’m alive right now.
I can’t go to her, though. Not directly. I won’t put her in danger like that.
But I can go to her husband.
Travis Carr.
Better known as Beast.
Vice-President of the Lords of Carnage Motorcycle Club.
The Lords will help me. I know they will. Their doc, Smiley, can take this tracking thing out of me. I bet they’d even give me some money. Enough to disappear. Maybe they’d even find me a place to go, to start fresh. Somewhere new. With a new identity.
The Lords are the only hope I have.
The drive to Tanner Springs is terrifying. The whole way, I’m fighting against the terror that Pecher’s men will catch up to me, or that André will find out what happened and come for me. By the time I finally do get into town and pull into the parking lot outside the Lords of Carnage clubhouse, I’m faint and sick. I stumble out of the car, ignoring a shout from a leather-clad club member I don’t recognize, and make a beeline for the door. I stagger inside, like a refugee begging for sanctuary.
My terror-shocked brain barely registers the people milling around on the inside of the clubhouse, focused as I am on finding Beast. A few men peer at me with surprise or suspicion, including one tall one with a duffel slung over one shoulder. He, unlike the others, feels familiar, and at first I’m not sure why. But when he turns around and his eyes meet mine, I realize why.
“Holy shit. Lila?”
Jude.
He’s older now. Of course he is. But the last time I saw him, he felt more like a boy to me. This Jude, though… he’s a man. All man. His features have matured, the bones in his face grown more angular. He’s bulkier now, more muscular. His eyes, always flashing with a joke, seem harder, too.
But as he stares at me, first in surprise and then in shock, the years fall away, and suddenly he feels like the boy whose ass I used to hand to him at video games.
“Jude!” I croak. “I need help!”
“Oh, my God! Lila!” He rushes to me. “What happened? Shit, you’re covered in blood!” He shouts to someone else, “Get Smiley!”
“It’s okay,” I mumble. “It’s…”
My legs start to buckle under me. Jude puts his arms around me and guides me to the floor.
“Fuck, I think she’s gonna faint!” he yells. “Get help, now!”
“I’m okay. I’m…” I wheeze, suddenly out of breath. “I’m fine.”
“You are not fucking fine!” he protests.
“I…” But I can’t finish. Now that I’m finally here — finally safe — my body has chosen this moment to give out on me. “I’m not hurt. Find Beast. Or Angel.” I gasp as my vision starts to tunnel. My words turn into an almost animal moan as I collapse. “Please, Jude. I need help.”
5
Jude
Holy God. It really is Lila.
I barely recognize her at first, with all the blood soaking her shirt and jeans crimson. Her long red curls are a matted, tangled mess, and the delicate features of her face are currently swelling with what looks like a broken nose and two black eyes. But it’s her. Even as torn up as she is, I can see that she’s grown into a real beauty in the couple of years since I last saw her.
“Please, Jude.” Lila’s amber eyes bore into mine, eyelids fluttering as she struggles against passing out. “I need help.”
“Smiley will be here in just a minute,” I choke, unable to stop staring at all the blood on her face and shirt. “Just hang on.”
“Beast first,” she insists.
“No! Lila, you’re bleeding! God, what happened to you?”
“It’s… it’s not mine,” she pants. “The blood. Except for the nose.”
“Deep breaths,” I say automatically. “Are you sure?”
She nods weakly, and does as I say, inhaling through her mouth.
I relax a little, relieved. “Then whose is it?”
She exhales, looking stricken. “Please,” she moans. “Just get me Beast.”
“I’m here,” Beast’s voice barks as he strides toward us. “What… Jesus Christ! Lila!”
“She says the blood on her shirt isn’t hers,” I tell him immediately. “But I think her nose is broken. And I think she might faint.”
“I’m not gonna faint!” Lila mutters, like she’s offended. In spite of everything, I almost laugh. The spitfire reaction reassures me. This is the Lila I remember.
“Let’s get her to a couch,” Beast orders.
“I got her.” I bend over Lila and scoop her into my arms. Something stirs inside me, holding her so close. I’m not sure I’ve ever even touched her before, except a hand brushing against hers as she handed me a video controller back in the day. My gut flips over as I go to one of the low couches, depositing her on it as gently as I can.
“Now Lila, tell me what the hell is going on,” Beast demands. He crouches down and sits on the low coffee table, facing her. “You say the blood isn’t yours. Whose is it?”
“Lila’s eyes fill with tears. “Can we talk about that later?” she whispers. “I need help with something first.”
“With what?”
“With this.” She holds out her right arm, facing up, and points at a spot on it.
Beast leans forward, squints. “I don’t see anything.”
“It’s a tracking device. I need it taken out. Now.”
Beast cocks his head in surprise, then waits a beat. He turns toward the room. “Has anyone called Smiley yet?” he shouts.
“He’s on his way,” Tweak calls back. He approaches the couch, where Lila is already amassing a small crowd. “Should be here in a few minutes.”
“Lila says she’s got a tracking device in her arm,” Beast tells him, pointing.
“Some people are going to be looking for me,” Lila cuts in, a desperate note in her voice. “I don’t want them to follow me here.”
Tweak chuckles. “You really have something in there?”
Lila nods. “I tried to dig it out myself, but I couldn’t do it. I was too much of a coward.” Her face is pinched, angry.
Tweak leans forward, gently prodding her arm where she points. “Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” he says. “Smiley can remove it for you, but it ain’t a tracking device, whatever it is.”
“What?” Lila protests. “Yes it is. I saw him put it in.” Lila doesn’t clarify who ‘him’ is.
“How long has it been in there?” Tweak asks.
Lila hesitates. “About a year and a half.”
“Yeah, no. It ain’t a working tracker,” Tweak tells her. “That’s bullshit movie stuff. A subcutaneous implantable GPS tracking device might be a possibility in the future, but right now, it’s nonsense.”
Lila is dumbfounded. “But wait… are you sure?”
“Absolutely positive. A GPS tracker would have to send a signal at regular intervals, which would drain the battery too quickly to work. Especially a battery that small, even if it existed. Which it doesn’t.”
She blinks. Then blinks again.
“That son of a bitch,” she whispers, eyes turning hard as flint.
The front door to the clubhouse swings open. Smiley pushes through, ambling as fast as his considerable girth will allow. “Who’s hurt?” he asks as he strides toward us, bag in hand. “Well, hell’s bells, if it isn’t young Lila!”
“The blood on her shirt’s not hers,” I tell him immediately, not wanting her to go through the same rigmarole a third time. “She’s got a broken nose, probably. And she’s got something in her arm that she wants taken out.”
“Well, then, let’s get her looked at,” Smiley announces, with his typical calm demeanor. “Sorry to see you again under these circumstances, my girl, especially because if your nose is indeed broken, I’m going to have to manually realign it. Which, I’m sorry to say, will hurt.”
“I can take it,” she says, chin jutting.
“Well all right,” Smiley grins, amused. “Let’s get you taken care of. Come on back.”
Lila stands up from the couch, a little shakily, and goes with Smiley to a room he uses as his examining room. When they’re gone, Beast lets out a loud groan and scrubs his hand over his face.
“Jesus Christ, I wonder what the hell that girl has gotten herself mixed up in?” he muses. “Brooke is gonna flip her shit when she hears about this.”
“Have they been in contact at all lately?” I ask. “I know Lila hasn’t been around the clubhouse in forever, but I guess I thought she was still hanging around Brooke’s gym, at least.”
“Nope. Lila stopped going to Super Girls a while ago. Just kinda disappeared. Brooke would call and text her a bunch, but Lila would just say everything was okay and that was it. Brooke tried going over to her house once, if I remember right. Lila answered, and Brooke said she looked fine, but it was pretty clear she didn’t wanna talk. I don’t think Brooke ever did figure out what was going on with her.”
“Huh.” I pause. “I wonder if whatever happened to her today has anything to do with why she stopped coming around.”
I don’t know a lot about what brought her to Brooke’s gym in the first place, but I do know she had a rough childhood up to that point. I don’t know the particulars. But I’ve seen a lot more of the world and the bad things in it than most guys my age. Enough to know that there are any number of things that could have happened to Lila. Things I don’t really want to contemplate right now.
The storm on Beast’s face tells me he might be having similar thoughts.
“I’m gonna go get hold of Angel,” he growls. “Something tells me he might wanna hear Lila’s story first-hand. And then I’m gonna call Brooke and try to figure out how to tell her Lila’s here in a way that doesn’t make her lose her shit. Get Lila settled in, will ya? Let her get cleaned up, give her some time to calm down before we ask her to talk about what happened.”
“Will do.”
When Lila comes back into the room a few minutes later, she’s a little pale, but the blood is washed off her face and there’s a small bandage on her arm.
“You all good?”
"Better.” One corner of her mouth turns up just a little. “Smiley wasn’t kidding about resetting my nose. That hurt like hell.”
“I didn’t hear any yelling.”
“That’s because I’m tough as nails,” she shoots back.
I burst out laughing. “Good point.”
“Where’s Beast?” she asks, glancing around.
“He’s in the back, calling Angel. And I think he’s calling Brooke, too.”
“Shit…” she hisses.
“Nah, it’s okay. He’s not gonna tell Brooke anything but the basics, that you showed up here needing a little help. He told me to tell you to get cleaned up, and he’ll be back in a little while to hear your story. Probably with Angel. He says to relax until then. Whatever’s going on with you, you’re here now, so you’re fine.”
“Okay.” Lila’s shoulder’s sag a little bit, but the lines of tension in her forehead ease a little. “Damn, Jude. This sure has been one hell of a birthday.”
“It’s your birthday?”
“Yep. Eighteen today.” She sighs. “But I’ll tell you, if this is what adulthood is gonna be like, you can have it.”
“Well, I think you might have just got an especially bad intro to it. In my experience it’s not normally quite this bad.”
“Even for a Lord?” she asks, eyeing me.
“Even for a Lord.”
“Congratulations, by the way,” she adds, glancing at my cut. “On getting patched in. When did that happen?”
“‘Bout two years ago. Not too long after you stopped coming around.”
“Huh. That a tattoo?” She indicates the bandage on my arm.
“Yeah. The start of one.”
“Looks like you’re covering up that scar, huh?”
Direct and blunt as always. Same old Lila. I’ve never been all that bothered by the scar tissue, but all the same, I resist the urge to move my arm out of her sight.
“Yeah,” I shrug. “Figured I may as well.”
“Looks like burns,” she remarks, peering at it. “How’d you get that?”
“Long story. I can tell you later. Let’s focus on you right now, okay?”
Lila closes her eyes, squeezing them shut a little, like she’s hoping when she opens them again whatever brought her here will just be a dream.
“I came in a car,” she says when she opens them. “It’s outside. It probably shouldn’t be here.”
“Understood. I’ll get rid of it.”
“Just dump it somewhere in town. Doesn’t matter where, as long as it’s not here. Keys are in the ignition.”
“Okay. Meanwhile, if you’re really feeling all right, let’s get you a shower and some clean clothes. You’ve got a little while until Beast and Angel are gonna want to hear about what’s going on. You okay to stand?” She nods. “Okay, good. Come on.”
I give her my hand and pull her up. It feels frail in mine, like a wounded bird. For some reason, I don’t let go of it as I lead her back to my apartment. I show her the bathroom and where the towels are, and grab one of my T-shirts and a pair of my sweats out of the duffel I’m still carrying.
“Here, these are clean,” I say handing them to her. “I imagine you’re not gonna want to put your other stuff back on until it’s been washed.”
Lila exhales, then winces in pain. “I’m not sure those clothes are gonna come clean. Thanks, Jude.”
“Don’t mention it. I’ll leave you be.” I walk to the door, open it. “Take your time, okay? No rush. Just come out when you’re ready.”
6
Lila
Standing under Jude’s shower with the water turned as hot as I can stand it, eventually the adrenaline shakes I’ve been suffering from finally start to go away.
My face is starting to throb now, even though Smiley gave me some nasal spray to numb my nose before he re-set it. He told me the fracture will begin to heal within a few days, but it may take a week or more for the pain and swelling to go away. In the meantime, he said I might have some difficulty breathing, and I’m supposed to use ice packs to keep the inflammation down.
JUDE: Lords of Carnage MC Page 3
