by Lane Hart
“Oof,” she groans as she finally lays down her fork in surrender. “I give up, Chase. I wanted to try a little bit of everything, but there is no way to keep up. Everything here is wonderful, and I can’t handle anymore.”
“The best way to try everything is repeat visits. I’ll make sure to bring you back more often so you get a shot at everything.” I drag a crust of bread around my dish to soak up some sauce, then finish it off. “So, you ready for that cheesecake?”
She laughs. “There is no way in hell I’m going to fit anything else in tonight.”
“You sure you didn’t save any room at all?” I ask, while reaching under the table to place a hand on her knee.
Sasha grins at that and says, “There’s always room for…” before trailing off when our server appears.
“Can I get you two anything else?” she asks.
“We’re ready for the check, please,” Sasha replies, a flush rising in her cheeks.
“Perfect, I’ll take this when you’re ready,” the server says, pulling a thin black book from her apron and laying it down on the table.
Sasha grabs it before I can get my hand out from under the table, spinning it towards herself and flipping it open. Her eyes bulge in shock as her gaze scrolls down to the totals at the bottom of the page. “Holy shit, Chase, you should have told me how expensive this was going to be! You didn’t have to bring me here, we could have gone to an Applebee’s or something!”
I reach inside my cut and unzip the pocket in the inner lining, then draw out a tightly-rolled wad of money. “I like this place,” I reassure her. “And I wanted to introduce you to it. I’ll be bringing you here again, believe me. The money isn’t an issue.”
Sasha just watches me for a moment as I deftly unwrap the rubber band from around the roll of cash, then begin peeling off one hundred-dollar bills. I place three of them with the bill, then slide it to the edge of the table before re-wrapping and tucking the cash back into my cut.
“Rubber band banking, huh? If I didn’t think you were a biker boy before, I definitely would now. Jesus, Chase, how much was that?” Sasha asks me.
“Few grand,” I reply nonchalantly, even though I know damn well it’s more money than I’ve ever had in my hand at once in my entire life.
“When we met at the beginning of the school year, you were having to scavenge bike parts out at the scrapyard, and now you’ve got enough to buy one straight-out in your pocket! You know, I’m starting to think I’m a good influence on you. You’ve really come up in the world since you started hanging around me,” Sasha says.
“It’s definitely you.” I laugh. “What can I say? You drive a man to perform his best. Truth, though? At the end of January, my Uncle Deacon came to me with my share of the monthly earnings. The club did good business over the New Year, so everyone got a little extra in their cut.” My cell phone begins to buzz in my pocket, but I reach down and silence it without giving it a second thought.
“You were serious about the club being a job, not just a hobby or lifestyle,” Sasha observes. “I’m glad, Chase. I’ve already seen how happy it makes you. Being able to make a living doing something you enjoy, with people you like, that’s honestly priceless.”
“Yeah it is.” I let out a pleased sigh as I sink back into the booth. “How do you think you’ll make out after college, if you go into journalism? Any money to be made there?”
Sasha had told me her dream was to be a reporter, maybe even on the international stage, but I had no idea if that was something that could pay the bills. My cell phone buzzes again, but I silence it just as quickly as before.
“It just depends on how good I am at it,” she replies. “You see the newscasters and reporters from your local channels shopping in the same grocery stores we do, their kids going to the same public schools, so it’s not like they’re making biker bankrolls,” she adds, rolling her eyes. “I expect I’ll make enough to get by, though.”
“Well, you won’t have to worry about supporting me,” I tell her as the server picks up the cash.
“Keep the change.” I wave to the server as she begins to walk away, before continuing to speak to Sasha. “Whatever you want to do in your life, you do it. I’ll have your back every step of the way, for as long as you’ll have me around. I mean it, sweetheart.”
“Chase…” Sasha trails off, her eyes filled with emotion as she takes my hand. “Thank you. You have to know, I…”
My cell phone buzzes again, and Sasha has noticed the sound the vibrations are making. Whatever she was going to say trails off as she glances down towards my pocket under the table. She lets go of my hand with a sigh.
“You better check that, it might be something important,” she says.
“Shit,” I mutter, hating that our moment was interrupted. I dig out my phone, ready to raise hell with whoever had derailed our date. As soon as I get it out, my stomach churns unpleasantly. The caller I.D. shows “Kings Clubhouse,” the name I entered when I punched their main line into my phone.
“This is Chase,” I say by way of greeting when I answer.
“You’ve created a problem for us,” the voice on the line tells me.
“Reese?” I ask, trying to verify who the voice belongs to.
“Do you know a boy named Robbie Jordan?” the voice I think is Reese asks.
“Yeah, why?”
“He’s in our clubhouse with a girl who appears to be dying. He’s asking for you. Here,” the voice tells me as the phone is passed. At least I can be pretty sure it was Reese. He’s the only one at the clubhouse who talks to me that way.
“Chase, you there?” Robbie gasps as he takes the phone.
“Yeah, man. What the hell is going on, why are you out at the clubhouse? They said you had someone injured with you?”
“No, Chase, listen! Remember I asked you about getting some weed? I did what you said and got some stuff from this other dude at school, some pills and shit, but when April took it, she started having a seizure or something, man!”
“Wait, Robbie, what the fuck?” I interrupt him. “Why the fuck did you bring her to the clubhouse? Call an ambulance or something!”
“My phone was dead, and we were out here near the place. You were the first person I thought of, man! Shit, our parents can’t find out about this! I thought, maybe if she got a drink, a Coke or something, we could see if it passed…” Robbie’s voice breaks and I realize he’s crying, right on the verge of becoming hysterical.
“Robbie, get it together, man. What did you take, exactly? Do you know what it was? Who did you buy it from?” I ask him, trying to keep my voice level to calm him down.
“I asked a couple of people who couldn’t help me, but then that dude, Brian Lehmann, found me and told me he could hook me up. You know, Bald Brian? I thought the dude was just some straight-edger, but he said he had a connection. I got these pills from him, man, and he said it would be a good time, but…”
“Brian Lehmann? Robbie, Brian’s not some straight-edger, he’s a fucking skinhead!” I cover my mouth to try to keep my voice down, as I can feel my anger rising. Sasha leans closer to me across the table, looking shocked.
“I don’t…what?” Robbie asks in confusion. “What do you mean, like a Nazi?”
“Yes, like a goddamn Nazi. He runs around with the Aryans. Christ, Robbie, he got expelled last year, don’t you remember?”
“I thought they let him back into school. I mean, I see him down the road at the gas station all the time…”
“Put Reese back on the phone,” I order Robbie. “Go check on April.”
“Oh shit, April…” I hear as Robbie’s voice trails away, before the phone is picked back up.
“Reese, is that you?” I ask. Instead of an answer, I hear a wailing cry in the background from the clubhouse.
“Reese, are you there? What the hell was that?” I demand.
“The girl died,” Reese says tonelessly.
“She…oh fuck, no, no, no. Reese,
did you…” I begin to ask.
“Deacon has called the law,” Reese interrupts. “Did Robbie tell you anything?”
“Yeah, yeah, he told me he bought some drugs out at the school from a dude who runs with the Aryans, guy named Brian Lehmann. He’s a kid who got expelled from our school last year…”
“That’s enough,” Reese interrupts me again. “I can find him. We need you here, Prospect.”
I know by the way he says my title, it’s a command, not a request. “I’m on my way,” I reply, but the line is already dead.
“I heard part of it,” Sasha says, as I close the phone. “Except for the last bit. Where are we going?”
I get up from the booth and help Sasha to her feet. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’ll tell you everything in the car. I need you to get me to the clubhouse, fast.”
Sasha’s eyebrows draw down as her forehead crinkles in irritation, but she takes my hand and we leave the restaurant quickly. We jump into the car, Sasha not even caring that her dress rides up, and as soon as she kicks off her shoes, the engine roars to life. As she peels out of the parking lot, I tell her everything I know from the phone call.
“They said April Neil is dead?” Sasha gasps. “It was some sort of drug reaction?”
“The club asked me to keep my eyes open for anyone slinging shit around the school,” I explain. “Someone in the area has been pushing some new drug that’s been causing bad reactions. They’ve been selling to high schoolers and college kids, primarily. Robbie told me who he got it from, so if nothing else, at least we’ve got a lead. The Savage Kings don’t allow shit like this in Emerald Isle. Ever. It’s one of the reasons we get a pass from the locals on so many other things.”
“But what do they need you there for? Just because of Robbie, or are they planning something?”
Sasha sounds worried, and I try to think of something to say to reassure her. I can’t, though, because the truth is, I don’t know myself. “I haven’t got a clue, really,” I tell her. “I’ll always be honest with you, Sasha. If I knew, I would tell you.”
“They’re going to do something, and you’re going to get dragged into it!” Sasha says, throwing a worried glance over at me.
“Probably,” I admit. “And the night was going so well too. I mean, we covered all the Valentine’s bases…”
“No, we didn’t!” Sasha says. Her tone is so sharp that I lean forward to get a better look at her in the dim lights from the dashboard, and I see the tears threatening to fall from her eyes.
“Sweetheart, no, don’t worry about me,” I try to soothe her, but she hushes me with a wave of her hand before swiping at her eyes.
“We didn’t cover all the bases!” she says. “You got to third, sure, but I didn’t even get to second with you! Dammit, Chase, I wanted to hit a home run tonight!”
“You wanted…a home run?” I chuckle before I burst into outright laughter. “Sweetheart, I’ll let you walk all my bases anytime you want,” I joke with her, trying to make her feel better. We’re almost at the clubhouse, and I don’t want her leaving me upset.
“You know you’re my first, Chase,” Sasha whispers. “You mean so much to me, and if anything happened to you, I…”
“Nothing is going to happen to me,” I say, interrupting her sentence, but not her thoughts. “I’m going to be fine, and together we’ll make your first time magical, I promise you that.”
“No, goofball, not my first dick!” Sasha snorts. “I mean, yeah, you’re the first one of those too, but you’re my first… I love you, Chase Fury. I love you, and if this club takes you away from me, I swear to God, I’ll burn their clubhouse down. You hear me?”
Sasha had pulled into the Savage Kings clubhouse parking lot as she said this, stopping the Mustang just behind a group of police cars and an ambulance. She’s still looking straight ahead, as though she’s afraid to see my reaction.
“Come here, sweetheart,” I tell her softly as I cup the side of her face. I turn her towards me, our lips crashing together in a kiss that is so fierce our teeth clash from our awkward position. “I’ve loved you for weeks now,” I tell her as I break away. “It might have been the moment I saw you, hell, I don’t know. I just know that you’re everything to me, and the only reason I didn’t stand outside your house singing my love to you was because I thought it was too fast, and I’d scare you away.”
“My parents would have tried to chase you away, your singing is awful.” Sasha laughs, her hands tangled in the back of my hair. “Go, Chase. Do whatever you have to do. Text me tonight and let me know you’re okay, then I’ll see you in the morning. Deal?”
“Deal,” I agree. “I love you, Sasha. God, you’re going to get sick of hearing it from me, I’m going to be shouting it everywhere I go.”
“I love you too, Chase,” she says as she pulls me in for one more kiss.
I finally have to pull her hands down from my head so I can get going, but I lean back in for one more quick peck before I jump out of the car. “Get on out of here before these boys decide to ask any questions,” I tell her, nodding to the police cars. I close the door, then wave as she backs out of the lot.
I can see more blue lights on the horizon coming from town, and I know our time is short. I’ve thought it over, and I might have an idea why Reese wanted me here. With April dead, they had to bring in the police immediately. Robbie will undoubtedly tell them everything he knows, and that will lead them straight to Brian Lehmann. Brian will never give any information to the police, that’s just basic outlaw code. But if we can get to him first…well, we have ways to make people talk.
I’m walking over to the clubhouse when a low whistle gets my attention. Reese is standing to the side of the building, and once he knows he has my attention, he gestures sharply for me to come to him. I follow him out back, where a black cargo van sits, idling. Reese opens the side door and motions for me to jump into the back seat.
Once I’m inside, I see Fast Eddie is sitting in the driver’s seat. “Hey, boy,” he greets me as Reese steps up into the van and then quietly closes the passenger side door. “Deacon and Rubin are inside dealing with the police and that boy, Robbie. The three of us are off to make a house call.”
“You know where Lehmann is?” I ask Eddie. I’m surprised when it’s Reese who answers.
“Knowing he was expelled from your school last year made it easy to get contact information,” Reese says. “From there, I got all of the phone numbers on their family wireless plan. Then I tracked all of those phones. The phones assigned to Brian Lehmann and his parents are currently pinging together, at the same address the school files have as his home. Once I accessed their home security cameras, I could see that they are currently on their back porch, cooking what appear to be steaks and potatoes. We should be there before they’re done baking,” Reese concludes.
I stare, wide-eyed, at the back of his head, in awe not just that he spoke so much at once, but at what he was able to find out in such a short amount of time. After a moment, my mind latches onto the most immediate concern, given that Reese has already covered so much ground. “We know where he is and what he’s doing…what are we doing? I mean, what’s the plan here?”
Fast Eddie glances at me in the rearview mirror. “I’m going to drive you young’uns over there lickety-split, then you two are going to counsel the Lehmann family on the error of their ways, as it were. You get the idea?”
“A girl died,” Reese pronounces in a solemn voice. “A price has to be paid.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I demand. “The police are going to be there in no time. Are you planning on murdering the family and just walking off?”
“No,” Reese says.
“Settle down, boy,” Eddie grunts. “Y’all ain’t gonna kill nobody unless they make ya. You’re thinking with your head, and not your emotions, boy. That’s good, that’s real good. We got to make sure these fellas understand that they broke our laws, selling drugs ’round here and h
urting people. Now, I’m heartbroken about that poor girl dying, that’s the Lord’s truth, but we need to see if these fellas knew them drugs were deadly, or if it was just a terrible accident. The police will handle most of this, but if this was the Aryan boys passing out this shit, well, they know the rules ’round here. We’ve made it real clear to them before. They’re going to have to suffer our punishment as well, you see?”
“Of course, I get that, I’m just trying to figure out what you guys mean by ‘our punishment’? If you want to hand them an ass-whooping, you know I’m all aboard and I’ll give it everything I’ve got. But look, Reese,” I say as I lean up and place a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got to understand, man, you’re hard to read. If you’re planning on walking in there and murdering this dude and his family in cold blood, you have to let me know.”
“Could you?” Reese asks, looking over his shoulder to watch my reaction.
I don’t even hesitate before answering. “No. I could kill a man if he deserved it, or if he was a threat, without a second thought. Hell, maybe this dude who sold the drugs does deserve it. But you said there were other people there, some family members. I won’t kill someone that wasn’t involved, and that’s the end of it. If you want to take my cut for it, so be it.”
“Good,” Reese says, as he turns back around.
Eddie lets out a chuckle as he turns off the highway onto a side road, then says, “Boy sounds just like Deacon sometimes. We’re almost there, they’ve gotta place down in the woods back here. I’m gonna let you out up the road a bit. You can traipse through the trees and get a look at ’em, then make your move.”
Reese nods, then turns to look back at me. He takes a deep breath and braces himself, as though preparing for some unpleasant task, before he says, “The Savage Kings are not murderers. We are killers. You already understand the distinction. I will not kill this drug dealer for what he has done. Death is too easy, too quick. Death is mercy. What he has done requires suffering. We will make sure the drugs are removed from our streets and begin administering pain for the insult they have committed us. The pain may be physical, emotional, financial…I will decide once we face them. Are you ready?”
