“Gotcha.”
Thirty minutes later, they were parked outside a twenty-four-hour diner, their bikes tucked into the shadows at the side of the parking lot. Inside, framed in the window, her reflection dancing across every shiny surface inside, was Ester. She was laughing, talking to a waitress who had taken the booth across from her, the cook coming out from the kitchen and leaning, elbows to the counter so he could take part in their conversation. Ester concentrated on the table for a few minutes, positioning things in places that illustrated her story, then flung her hands out in a voila motion, and she grinned broadly at the two people laughing along with her. They were friendly with her, they liked her, and Bones made a mental note to come back and find out what they knew. Leave money for food.
“Who is she?” Shades paused, and when Bones didn’t immediately respond, he expanded the question. “She the reason you been different?”
Without taking his eyes off her, Bones asked, “Different how?”
“Less pissed off.”
With a chuckle, Bones nodded. “Probably.”
“Who is she?”
“She is mine.” Bones left the statement between them, unwilling to give her name. He drank her in with his eyes. The cook left, coming back in minutes with a plate he handed to the waitress. She slid it in front of Ester who lifted her hands, seeming to argue for a moment, then she smiled brilliantly and nodded. Bones watched her eat, fork to the plate and then to her mouth, her head tipping back as she savored each bite. He wondered what it would be like to see her eat food made with his hands, see her in his house, at his table. Cobweb dreams.
Finally, he motioned to Shades, and the two men started the engines of the bikes they rode, and Bones saw Ester’s head swing towards the window. Unsure if she could see him in the darkness, he still lifted a hand in farewell.
Thirteen
Ester
Diamonds sparkled at the wrists and necks and ears of the two women leaving the museum party, and I watched the lights playing across the surface of stones so valuable people had killed to own them, died to find them, and I was amazed these people wore them so carelessly. Didn’t they see the men in the shadows beside the car park, the dark shadows where the street lights didn’t fall as brightly?
I pushed up from the bench where I’d decided to sleep, because it was close to the twenty-four-hour store where they had a shower in case of chemical spills. The graveyard shift worker would let me use the bathroom, so I was guaranteed to be squeaky clean in about five hours. Standing on the curb, I tracked the women’s progress with my eyes, looking between the women and the men. Those men now milling around in agitation, ready for this thing to get moving, ready to get it on like Donkey Kong so they could move to the next scene of violence they would create. I was vacillating in my mind and my body, shifting back and forth from involved to uninvolved, moving from foot to foot, dancing in place. One step forwards, one step backwards, one step forwards.
Involved. Uninvolved.
The men moved and metal glinted.
Involved.
Decided, I shouted my warning. “They’ll injure you to possess those diamonds.” I lifted my hand and pointed towards the shadows, watching with one eye as one of the men disappeared into the pitch darkness beside the building. The women stopped and looked at me, so I shook my hand, trying to emphasize the danger. “You should avoid that location.”
My words weren’t what I wanted to say. I wanted to shout and scream. Wanted them to see the blood in their mind like I did, wanted them to anticipate the fists falling and rising. But my mouth, as it ever did, failed to cooperate. “Returning to the party for an escort is highly advised.”
This was why I didn’t talk a lot, because what I wanted to say and what actually emitted from my lips were hardly ever the same thing.
I heard motorcycles in the distance, tracking them with my ears effortless now, because I did this kind of thing all the time. I was on the edge of Bones’ territory, and I liked knowing I was at least on the fringe of being his, because everything within his borders belonged to him and so if I was inside the boundary, then it meant in some small way I might be his, too. The engine sounds grew louder, and I anticipated when they would sweep into view.
Distracted as I was, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that I lost track of the disappearing man because there was a lot to watch. The women returning to the museum, slowly at first, then quicker when the remaining men shouted their anger.
The motorcycles could mean I would see Bones again, this the thirteenth time, a not particularly lucky number sequence, but you couldn’t skip numbers, not like floors in a hotel where they ignored the fact that renumbering thirteen to fourteen didn’t actually change the count. Lighted numerals in circles in an elevator could lie just like a person, this not even an omission, but a commission because it boldly stated twelve, and then fourteen, as if the elevator car could will the thirteenth floor away.
Even staff elevators told the same lie, and the thirteenth time I talked about it as I carried dirty linens to the basement to stuff into the bins and baskets for the laundry staff to deal with, the man with the key who ran the elevator slapped me. So thirteen meant blood to me.
I was thirteen a decade ago, and for me, that number had been no more or less lucky than any other year, so maybe this meeting wouldn’t be bad. Then a voice appeared in the air right behind me.
I would say the man appeared, but he didn’t. He had traveled the full distance in the usual methods. I’d heard his footsteps but lost them in the idea of seeing Bones again. So, the man’s appearance was startling, and I jerked, but not fast enough because he had my elbow. Pinching fingers unable to be pried away and I saw the hit coming so I tried to move with the swing, failing miserably when the hand those fingers belonged to tilted me back and into the blow. Bad luck falling on my face with force.
***
Bones
“Christos.” Bones cursed, seeing the woman knocked to the side by the power of the blow, the man not pulling his strength but striking with a closed fist to her face. Without thinking, without considering, which was very unlike him, Bones pulled his gun, and still traveling about thirty miles an hour, shot the man’s hand which was pulled back for a second blow. Her attacker fell at the woman’s feet.
Ester stood there, staring down at the man as Bones pulled to a stop behind her, sleeve of her shirt ripped at the shoulder, not even lifting a hand to her cheek. The women she had warned away screamed at the gunshot, running pell-mell up the sidewalk towards the museum’s exhibition party, those attendees now spilling out into the street in reaction to the noises.
***
Ester
The man screamed as if touching me had injured him, had bloodied him, had wounded him deeply, and I wanted to tell him the injury was mine, my face stinging with an imprint of his knuckles. His hand had fallen away from my arm. Then a blazing heat hit me with velvet strokes on my skin, far less painful than his fist had been, but that fist was fallen with his body to the gutter, and he gripped the trunk of his wrist with his other hand, the holding one, now fisted as a constrictor to hold in velvet liquid. My eyes stung, blurring red, so I closed them.
“Should not have hit her.” A hand at my back, searing hot, but not a hit and I finally heard the report echoing from the buildings. “Ester, are you well?”
“I’m lucky.” Luckier than thirteen would make you believe, luckier than blood diamonds would let you know.
“Let me see your face.” Eyes still closed, I turned and didn’t have to use my eyes to know he was smiling, because it was in his voice. “Beauty.” A piece of fabric, soft from years of use which meant he was touching me with something he frequently touched himself which made me giddy with glee. He touched my face, brow to chin, one side of my nose, then the other, eyelids, left then right, gentle over my cheekbone where I felt the swelling already making itself known. “You will need some ice, Ester.”
“I’ve four and a half hour
s before I shower. I can get ice then.”
“This needs ice now, baby.”
The world stopped spinning, held in place with that word. My ears rang with the force of things clashing against time as it tried to push forwards, locked tightly by his gift. “You give me the nicest presents.”
A puff of breath danced across my skin, scented with beer and pot and perhaps ice cream. I wondered what flavors he liked, because vanilla was my favorite and wouldn’t it be cool if we liked the same ice cream? “I do like vanilla. I will get you some, but I would like it if you let me get you some ice, too.”
Mind readers didn’t exist, so I knew he hadn’t lifted the word from my thoughts, which meant my lips were traitors to the cause of keeping myself secret from everyone. “You’re not everyone. You’re Bones. I’d know you anywhere.”
The touch stroked, surging upward along my hairline, then back down. “I would know you, too, Ester.”
Sirens sounded, and I sighed because I would have to find a different place to sleep. “My shower will wait.”
“Yes,” he said, agreeing with me. “We shall both have to wait.” A finger curled under my chin, lifting my jaw, brushing along the edge of the bone there. “Will you open your eyes before I have to go?” The shouting, hitting man had moved away, with assistance it sounded like, dragged back to the darkness near the building on this side of the street, opposite his previous placement by the garage. Men were talking to him, using words and force to impress something they felt it important he know. Sounds muted, their bodies a fortress between him and me and I knew he would no longer threaten me even in my dreams.
I blinked, my eyes tearing after being in the darkness behind my lids for so long, then I slowly focused on his face. Right there, not twelve inches away.
I considered a moment. Maybe thirteen.
“You got a new picture.” His lips, lines drawn so near them with needle and ink, lifted in a broad smile. They were full, the bottom one bowed down gently, and I wondered if they were as soft as they looked.
“I like you noticed, Ester.”
I notice everything about you, I thought, and my lips for once stayed faithful, and sealed.
Vengeance
Bones
He folded the bandana he had used to wipe her assailant’s blood from her face, tucking it into an inside pocket of his vest. Entirely trusting of him, she didn’t falter in her gaze upwards into his eyes. Not the first time he had touched her, but the first where she had given herself to him in this way. Following his directions without question.
“Prez,” Shades shouted, and Bones heard bike engines starting behind him. A reaction to the quickly approaching police presence. Security assigned to the museum had likely called, perhaps even before the bikes showed on the scene. Bones nodded, indicating he understood. Lifting a hand, he whirled a finger, the clear command followed by all except Shades. All but one bike roared off, passing as they moved up through the gears, gaining speed and distance from the man they had just killed on his demand. “Prez, we gotta hit it.”
Ester, her eye already nearly swollen closed, smiled up at him, making no indication it ached to do so, even if he knew it must. “You gotta go.” She urged him earnestly and took a half step backwards, likely thinking space would return his sanity.
“Come with me.” At his plea, her face turned to stone, and the half step became three, a river of separation she didn’t want him to cross. “Ester….”
She allowed the trailing sound of his voice to clear the air before she spoke, and as ever, her words were confusing, something he would spend hours deciphering, counting it worth the work. “Thirteen’s my luckiest of the luckies.” She pointed to his face, where he had the set of numerals inked just two days ago, then to his vest, where they resided inside a diamond, positioned to the side and underneath his 1% patch. “Means you’re my lucky, too.”
“I would be honored to be your lucky any day of the week, Ester,” he called across the distance between them. “Ice.”
She mouthed something, a word, and then snapping a sassy salute, she grinned and he winced along with her as pain from her cheek made itself known. Ester whirled and with footsteps light and quick, raced between buildings, lost to the dark in moments.
“Bones,” Shades clipped, and Bones reacted, moving to his bike. They were away in moments, mirrors reflecting the lights rounding the corner behind them a few seconds later. Down the street to the first major intersection, then a right that took them across the bridge, into the part of town where they had grown up, where they had the upper hand over the cops.
Twenty minutes later they rolled through the wire gate of the Skeptics’ compound, a prospect lifting a hand as he swung the gate closed behind them. Backing into his parking spot nearest the door, Bones was ready, and Shades didn’t hesitate to give it to him.
“Are you fucking insane, Bones? Are you, huh?” A hand lifted, pulling the bandana from Shades face, bringing it down to his neck before going to the back to work at loosening the knot. “Sitting there on the posh side, citizens watching from the lobby as you fuckin’ shot a man. Wearing your vest like it’s a goddamned tea party and you don’t care who knows you’re there. And then—” Shades shook his head, disbelief in every line of his body. “then, you stand and chat, like it is a party.”
“He hit her.” Bones didn’t get off his bike, didn’t shift, didn’t give any indication that having a screaming 230 pounds of club member in his face made him uneasy in the least. Bones had ample practice at this last, having worked at it his entire life, where controlling his responses was how he lived. “Struck an unarmed, unprotected woman in the face with his closed fist. It would not have mattered the who, the wrong is the same. Then I saw the who and determined he would never again have the opportunity to take his frustrations out so. You did not protest until you failed to leave as ordered.” Bones leaned forwards an inch, crowding into Shades’ space. “An order, my friend.”
“Like I’m gonna leave you uncovered, boss.” Shades sighed, shaking his head, then changed the topic slightly. “That’s the girl, right? The one from the diner?”
In the months since he had first met Ester, Bones had shared only small pieces of their encounters, and with no one except Shades. Watcher was the only other person who had seen her, and like with Shades, only from a distance. Ester had followed Bones to a meeting, not willing to be dissuaded until she had her chance to tell him about the beauty of a rare flower blooming at the botanical gardens she had seen the day before.
Bones had noted her appreciation of small things before, in her rapt stares at the power of a storm as it swept offshore on the lakefront, her drenched in the downpour, eyes to the clouds as they raced away. In how she slumped in disappointment after the sun rose, colors bleeding from the sky with the strengthening of its rays, turning to Bones to tell him, “Don’t be sad. They’re still there. We just can’t see them right now.” Words she used to comfort herself, brought out to ease a sadness she imagined echoed in him.
Now, he was faced with a dilemma, to confirm what Shades had already sussed out, or play his interest in her false, in an effort to keep her off any compiled lists of people interesting to his enemies. Neither felt right, so he chose a third route, that of confession. “Yes, that is her.” He sighed, then offered even more trust to this man who had earned it a hundred times over. “That is Ester.” Then Bones stepped across a line he never expected to see in front of him, but in his mind knew he had already crossed long ago. “My Ester.”
“Snuffed the guy,” Shades told Bones, and he knew it, because he had given the signal for terminal force. “She worth it?” It being the potential heat, because they hadn’t time to deal with the body, hadn’t time to pick a place and time with no witnesses, hadn’t time to look for cameras and disable surveillance. This had put the entire club at risk, because Shades was right; they were all wearing their vests, the leather with the club patch proudly displayed on the back.
“A
thousand times over.” Bones statement gave her worth in Shades’ eyes, and he knew it when the man pounded his fist to his heart. Even without the Rebels’ words, the action alone told Bones he understood. “Let us go inside, see where the threat will come from, impede progress if we can.”
Two days later, Bones had a brief interview with the police, ending with him walking out their doors, shoulders back, lawyer trailing behind. His casing had been picked up by one of his men, leaving no evidence he had fired at the scene. His weapon was registered, and he was licensed to carry it in all the ways Chicago hated.
Mason’s man Myron, a tech wizard, had assisted with the museum’s video feed, rendering it unusable. This left a group of privileged people who saw a group of men, all wearing the same apparel, and a dead body which was not connected with either group. As the club’s lawyer pointed out, the police hadn’t called any of the fete attendees in for questioning, which begged the question if they were profiling in a way that was outside the narrowly defined laws associated with such a thing. In the end, the police were glad to see the back of him, and Bones was just as glad to leave.
But he knew, and it burned in his stomach, that he had put the club at risk for Ester. It burned even more to know he would do it again, without hesitation.
***
“Why would he do such a thing?” The woman sitting at the table across from Bones wept into her hands. He waited, and her sobs slowed, hands falling to press against the surface of the tabletop. They sat at her kitchen table, in her kitchen, in her house, in a western suburb, and Bones had just given her proof her husband was a pedophile. In the backyard, her two daughters played with a neighbor, the singing bounce of the trampoline springs testifying to their activity. Aged seven and eight, they were innocently beautiful, sweetly obedient when ordered outside by their mother.
Bones (Rebel Wayfarers MC Book 10) Page 6
