“I thought I told you to stay in my room?” Red tried to give her a stern look, but she was adorable and disheveled in a way that made him want to march her right back to bed.
She shrugged, “I’ve never been very good at following directions.” He bet that was a lie. She looked like the poster child for following directions.
“This isn’t your concern Sidney,” he nodded towards the other guys, “This is Club business.”
“But you can’t ‘fight to the death’ like some king in a bad historical romance novel. This is real life and in real life people don’t do this stuff.”
“In your version of real life people also don’t shift into wolves, do they?”
“… That’s different, that I can live with.” She bit her lip and Red wanted to take her in his arms and devour those pink lips himself, “I can’t live with this, this is too… “
“What?”
“Inhuman, no one should be forced to fight for their life.”
“Honey, this is how it is. We fight to protect our community, and if I have to fight this asshole by myself to keep everyone else from having to live with them then that’s what I’ll do.”
“But…” he walked over and tipped her chin up so he could look into her eyes.
“I don’t expect you to understand or agree with everything I do, but you’ve got to learn to deal with it. This is just how things are for us, and it’s how it will always be.”
He watched as tears filled her eyes and she nodded.
But he’d just lied to her. This most definitely was not the way things were for them. This was an attempt to kill him in a way that would look legitimate. They’d never settled disputes this way before and to give up such a numbers advantage and take a chance on a one on one fight was ridiculous. They could easily push the Hellhound out of town, one more push would have been all it would have taken. But instead Big Dog, who just happened to be unable to get here, had chosen, the riskier option. The option that would, or so he thought, kill Red.
Red wondered what kind of plan Big Dog had with Lynard and the Hellhounds. They had to know that no matter what he’d promised, the Dogs of War would never give up control of Three Rivers. Or maybe they were too stupid to see through his plan like Red could. Big Dog had no intention of sticking to this little agreement. He’d let whatever brawler the Hellhounds chose to fight Red do his worst, probably through deceptive means and then when Red was dead he’d cry foul and unleash the vengeful club on what was left of the rival gang. He could see it crystal clear, but the best laid plans had ways of coming unhinged, and Red was going to make sure that this was one of them.
He stepped away from Sidney and looked at the rest of his brothers, “Ok, let’s do this.”
They looked unsure but with his head high and determined he stepped through the front doors of the place he’d always thought of as home and into the night. He was ready to meet whatever fate had in store, but he wasn’t going to go down without taking a few others with him.
Gravel crunched under his shoe, the sound mingling with the blood rushing through his ears as he walked into the parking lot. He wasn’t a fool, he knew the odds weren’t in his favor, that whoever the Hellhounds chose to fight him would be hard to beat and in a fair fight, and he had no doubts that this would not be a fair fight.
Someone in the Club wanted him dead. Wanted him dead bad enough to risk their whole territory over it.
“Alright, I’m here,” Red looked at Lynard, hoping it’d be him who he’d have to face, but knowing that he’d pick one of his flunkies. He wouldn’t risk his own precious neck that way.
“You gonna fight for The Dogs? You look kinda scrawny to me, like an afternoon snack when we were hoping for a full meal.” The men perched on their bikes laughed at their president’s joke. Red just crossed his arms and waited. There was no use letting Lynard goad him into an argument, he needed a cool head and it was hard enough to keep one with the sting of betrayal so fresh.
Lynard shrugged, “Whatever man, it’s your death. Fight well and we’ll put up a statue of you in the town square when we run this shithole.” He turned in his seat and let out a whistle.
Red had been assuming that one of the guys who had turned up in the parking lot would be his opponent, but around the edge of the old cinderblock fence a shadow began to emerged, shifting as it turned the corner from wolf into human. The man, who must have weighed 300 pounds and be every inch of seven feet tall, kept walking towards him, muscles glinting in the orangey glow of the street lights.
“Do you want to fight as men or in our other forms?” the man asked, staring down at Red without emotion, his voice strange and soft. Not the deep grumble you would expect from someone who looked like him.
“That’s Tinker for you, always so considerate,” one of the Hellhounds called out. The man, Tinker, ignored them and continued looking to Red for an answer.
The size difference was too great as humans. Red stood a few inches over six foot and had always considered himself a large guy, but he wasn’t sure speed could make up for the size discrepancy in this fight. If he pinned him once he’d be done.
“Wolves,” Red answered. Tinker nodded at him and stepped back and Red saw the tell-tale shimmer of air over skin that always came before shifting. He looked around, the guys had gathered in a semi-circle behind him. There was no reason stall, it’d be better to get it over with one way or the other. He pulled off his cut and handed it off to Donny-O, along with the rest of his clothes, and began to shift.
The transformation always felt like an elongation of his body, the stretching of his skin, his bones pop and settle into their new alignment, the emergence of the soft warm fur that protected him, nails turning into claws that could rip and tear, teeth lengthening into razor sharp blade meant to cut. The first few times had been painful and scary but after so many years it felt natural, like putting on the most comfortable clothes he owned. And the power. He felt strong and sure of himself as a wolf, no fear clouded his mind, only confidence. He was a machine built to perform, his body conditioned for survival.
He’d never told anyone but sometimes he felt cramped in his human form, like there was too much of him and not enough space to be. Maybe they all felt like that and they’d just never talked about it. It would be something he’d miss, the shifting into his other form, the release of no longer being confined. But there was no sadness in the thought of his death, only the regret of lost opportunity. There were things he should have done, a man he’d meant to be, and he hadn’t taken the time to become him.
Tinker’s dark disinterested eyes watched him, waiting for him to finish his transformation. The lack of interest in his eyes was negated by his body, he was tense and ready to spring the moment Red made a move. The huge muscles bunched under black and gray fur, waiting to jump, to claw, to fight.
Red moved in measured steps, his eyes never leaving Tinker’s and Tinker’s eyes never wavering from his. They circled, each waiting for their moment to strike, each looking for the opportunity to land the first blow, draw the first blood. Red heard the door to the clubhouse open and Sidney’s gasped cry as she saw the scene before her. His eyes must have shifted for a half second, but that half second was all Tinker needed to make his move.
The dark wolf landed on him sending him sprawling sideways, teeth barely missing his throat and instead raking across his shoulder without doing much damage. Red used his back legs to hoist the larger wolf off of him and jumped back to his feet, lips pulled back and teeth bared, snarling. He wouldn’t wait for Tinker’s attack again. He lunged in, teeth searching for purchase, trying to grab the thick coat that shielded Tinker’s throat, but Tinker was faster than he looked, he darted sideways avoiding Red altogether.
Circling each other again, the fight continued. They each lunged and darted away. Each landing minor blows to the other with neither seeming to be able to get a solid grasp, or land a good blow. But Red was beginning to tire, and he was hoping Tinker was too, h
oping that the amount of dodging was taking more of a toll on the big wolf than it was on him.
Red ran, trying to come up behind Tinker and jump on his back, a tactic that would prevent the other wolf’s teeth from reaching him, but at the last moment Tinker moved and Red landed with a crunch on the ground. He heard the snap and knew he’d broken his ankle when he’d landed, he tried to get up anyway but then Tinker was on him, teeth snapping and tearing at him. If he didn’t do something fast that he throat would be ripped out within moments.
A ringing filled his ears and he winced, it was more painful than the grip on his throat. Tinker must have heard it too because he let go of Red’s throat and whined, hunkering down as if getting lower would let him escape the noise.
Red felt like the sound was going to burst his eardrums, but he had to take the opportunity that was presented. He jumped, heedless of the broken ankle and knocked Tinker off his feet, teeth already buried deep in his neck, his shook his head tearing skin and muscle, lost in the fight, the sound no longer bothering him. He could feel the hot rusty liquid spurting into his mouth and he knew that Tinker was done. It was over and he, amazingly, still alive.
He limped away from the prone wolf and back to his brothers, all who seemed to be coming out of a daze, some had fallen to the ground and were getting up. What had happened to cause that noise? It didn’t really matter, he shrugged the question off, regardless of what it was, it had saved his life.
He shifted back into his human form so he could talk to Lynard, “It’s done. Your man is down and dying. Take him and leave, I don’t want to ever see your face anywhere near this town again.” Red turned around, giving Lynard his back, grabbed his clothes from Donny-O and slipped the pants on. Lynard hadn’t replied so he started back into the Clubhouse, he didn’t have time to bother with them anymore, he had to figure out what was going on in the Club and he had to do it fast, before he gave someone another chance to put his life on the line.
“You might want to reconsider that,” Lynard said.
Red turned around again and walked up to him, only a few inches separated them, “Oh I don’t really think I do. You’re pretty much outnumbered and fucked if you stay, so your only options are to go or to die.”
Lynard nodded at the guy beside him, “Show him.”
The fat balding man pulled a phone out of his pocket, touching the screen several times. Red was out of patience, “I’m sure your dick pics are very impressive, but I’m really not interested.”
“Oh you’ll be interested, just wait.”
So Red waited, wondering what the man had on his phone that could possibly make him not want to kill them all where they sat.
Finally the guy found what he was looking for and handed the phone off to Lynard, “Look.” He turned the phone in Red’s direction. It was a video of a small room, a storage locker probably, he was about to tell Lynard to go fuck himself when the first person came into view. Price. Price was their treasurer and he’d been with Big Dog all afternoon, but there he sat, blindfolded, tied and gagged, up against a metal wall. The video panned moved to the side and another person came into view. It was Maria, Moose’s old lady, she was positioned just like Price but he could tell she’d been roughed up, fresh bruises ran up and down her arms and across her face. She’d fought hard, a fierce pride rose inside him, they might have gotten her but she hadn’t made it easy for them.
Then another face came into view, a smaller one. All the air wooshed out of his body leaving him nothing to breath, his vision dimmed and everything seemed to spin.
The last face in the camera was huge and white with fear, big blue eyes with tears in them asked whoever was holding the phone, “Can I call Grammy? I want my Grammy!” Her pink nightgown with jumping teddy bears torn and dirty, her hair a snarl of blonde curls, her little lips trembling as they asked again if she could call her grandmother, and the little freckle on her chin that she called her ‘boop’, shook as she tried to hold back the tears.
Reds hands dropped to his knees and he tried to pull in a breath, tried to calm the racing heart that pounded out the fear in his chest. But he couldn’t seem to hold onto the thread of sanity he needed to function. They had Morgan, they had his baby girl.
“So you want to reconsider us leaving and never coming back?”
Red couldn’t move. He didn’t know what to do or to say, he needed whatever the words would be that would make this nightmare end.
“The guy, eh, we ain’t got much use for him. We’ll just kill him, but the woman. Man she ain’t much to look at but she’s got a nice fat ass, she’ll make us some good money on the streets when the Arabs get ahold of her. And that little girl,” he laughed and looked at the other guys, “A little young for my tastes, but do you know what some of them sandniggers would do to a pretty little blonde like that? God, I don’t even want to think about it.”
Red exploded, his fist connecting with Lynard’s chin shattering bone and tearing skin. Lynard flew off his bike, landing in a pile yards away. The guys came and pulled him away before he could jump on him and kill him like the rage inside him was telling him to do.
The Hellhounds were all off their bikes now, ready to start a fight that would leave them all dead in the parking lot. Lynard got up shakily, holding his face, and limped back to his motorcycle.
He massaged the jaw that already seemed to be healing, “Tell him,” Lynard mumbled to the fat man with the phone.
“You’re going to pay for that asshole,” the fat man promised but Lynard waved for him to get on to the detail, “You’re going to be the ones who leave, all of you. We’ll drop the filthy mutts off and tell you them where to pick them up once you’ve moved every sinking member of the Dogs out of town.”
Red nodded, there wasn’t much else he could do. If he killed them all where they stood he’d never see his little girl again and Moose would never see his wife. He watched them ride out of the parking lot and a rage so big he felt like he couldn’t contain it rose up inside him, it was more, bigger than he’d ever felt in his life and he didn’t have anywhere to direct it. He screamed at the sky, the moon shining brightly down on him, a beacon that usually gave him hope. Tonight the blood in his vision turned it red and glowing, and he knew everything he needed to know. People were going to die.
Sidney was shaking, and not just from being cold outside in nothing but Red’s tee-shirt and boxer shorts. The violence had been bad, and scary, but the raw emotion in Red’s scream was what really left her shaken. A little girl, a woman, and a man all taken. Just like she had been. A shudder ran down her spine. This life they’d chosen, it was a hard one, a life where there was nothing guaranteed and no rules that seemed to matter.
“What do you think you’re doing?” It was Rock, he looked down at her as she bent over the injured wolf.
“He’s hurt.”
“He should be dead,” he said. But the wolf they called Tinker wasn’t. He was bleeding out and if she hadn’t run over to him to staunch the flow of blood he would have been dead, but he wasn’t.
“He isn’t dead?” Donny-O came over, staring at the prone figure Sidney was squatting over.
“Not yet,” she looked up at him, “but he will be soon if I don’t get him patched up.”
“You want to patch him up? The guy who just tried to kill Red?” Rock sounded incredulous. She shrugged. It was her job. She hadn’t really thought about what she was doing when she came over and put her hands over the wound that was spitting blood.
“What’s going on?” Red asked, the madness seemed to have left his eyes, leaving only a hard edge.
“Doc here, thought she’d fix up that beast that tried to kill you,” Rock explained.
Red looked from Rock to Sidney, she felt uncertain like maybe she had broken some kind of code by helping the enemy. But Red just nodded, “Good, bring him inside and fix him up. We’re going to have some questions for him.”
Rock and Moose just looked at each other and then bent to pick T
inker up. Sidney scooted out of the way to give them room but kept her hands firmly in place, hoping he wasn’t beyond help at this point.
They put him on floor in front of the fire and Red told Squirt to get her whatever she needed. She waited for the supplies and watched Red pace back and forth.
“Has anybody tried calling Big Dog again?” Red asked. Nobody responded, “Well get on the phone and do it. Tell him it’s urgent that he gets here now.”
“What’s up man, what did that asshole show you on his phone?”
Red looked over at Moose, who was watching the flames jump in the fireplace. Sidney knew what he was going to tell them. She’d been in a better position, kneeling on the ground close to the bikes, to see and hear the video and the conversation than the rest of the guys had, she already knew what a shock Red was about to drop on them.
“He’s still not answering,” Squirt said, phone held to his ear.
“Everybody pay attention. The Hellhounds have Price, Maria, and…. Morgan,” Red looked Moose in the eye. Sidney could see the sick fear when it entered Moose, but he kept standing listening for what Red was going to say, “ They say if we don’t all leave, us and everyone associated with the Club, that they’re going to… kill all the hostages.”
“No,” Moose said, barely above a whisper, “No, Maria is at home. She went and got her nails done today and she was going to have some friends over to watch movies and drink.”
“We’ll get her back Moose, we’ll get her back.” Rock patted Moose on the shoulder, trying to lend some support, “So what are we going to do Red?”
“That should be Big Dog’s call,” Squirt said, handing Sidney the things he’d collected for her.
“Do you fucking see Big Dog here asshole?” Rock asked him.
“Call everyone, get them here right now. Tell them they don’t have a choice in the matter but don’t tell them what’s happening. I don’t want anyone going off halfcocked and getting someone hurt.”
Wounded (Dogs of War MC Book One) Page 9
