by Nicole Fox
Wheeler stiffened. I could tell he was getting annoyed with this person.
“I was getting ready to, after I got her some decent clothes to walk around in.”
The man’s eyes fell to me again, roaming over the bare skin of my exposed belly, breasts peeking out, my legs. I felt more self-conscious in the presence of him than I had ever felt in my entire life around anyone—man, woman, child, didn’t matter.
He smirked at me.
“Well, it’ll be nice to have some new meat around here anyway—”
“She’s not new meat. She’s my guest.”
The man scoffed.
“Whatever you say, Wheeler. This place is big, and you can’t be around her all the time.”
The man walked away. As soon as he was out of sight, I let out a breath that I didn’t realize I was holding.
“Who the fuck was that?”
“Leech,” Wheeler said. His voice was tense, like his teeth were gritted. I looked up and his eyes were narrowed in the direction of the man—Leech. I frowned.
“I take it I should stay away from him.”
“Yeah. He’s not good news.”
Well, I’d figured that out for myself.
I kept my quip to myself and followed Wheeler back up to his room. He nudged me in.
“I’m gonna talk to Satan real quick and explain a little of what’s going on,” he said. “He’s not gonna care so much about the fact that your name was dropped, but he needs to know that you’re here, in case shit hits the fan.”
Well, that was reassuring.
“Hey—you okay?”
I hadn’t moved from where I was. I didn’t realize that I was looking at the floor, avoiding Wheeler’s gaze. I bit my lip and looked up at him. I hated feeling so … vulnerable. It was discomfiting and I didn’t know what to do with the sensation. I also wasn’t going to admit to Wheeler that I was feeling out of place, either. I shrugged my shoulders.
“Just—thank you. For all this. I guess it’s probably a little weird and out of place for you, but I appreciate this anyway.”
He smiled.
“Don’t worry about it. Like I said—we’re the ones that started the shit up to begin with. You didn’t have anything to do with it. Don’t worry about the others; I got your back, okay?”
Wheeler left, and I watched him disappear into a room just down the hall from his. I didn’t understand how he was so different from the other men that were surrounding me, but I wasn’t going to question it. I could have ended up with the freak guy we met downstairs.
Counting my gains instead of my losses, I went into Wheeler’s room and changed. Some of the clothes that Elise had given me were as skimpy as the ones that I was in, but there was a pair of shorts and a cute crop top that passed as something that I could wear during the day. They weren’t what I would usually wear, but looking at myself in Wheeler’s bathroom mirror, I didn’t look half bad.
I came out of the bathroom. Wheeler still wasn’t back. I plopped onto the bed and waited for his return. When he came back, he had a frown on his face.
Not good.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He sat down on the bed beside me and heaved a sigh.
“He said you could stay for now, but he was going to make a final decision based on what happened over the next few days. I think he’s sobered up a little more from Leech talking up the bullshit that they pulled. I think that he realizes that we’re not in as safe a place as he thought we were. Which—isn’t good that we’re probably going to be facing some hell soon, but it’s good he’s aware.”
I nodded.
“At least he’s not kicking me out on my ass,” I said. “That’s a plus.”
Wheeler laughed.
“It’s a plus, for now. Let’s just hope that it stays one.”
I smiled, and despite the situation, I was happy that at least Wheeler was here to make it a little bearable.
Chapter Seven Wheeler
Ember could take care of herself, that much I could tell. She was a little spitfire.
That being said, I did my best the next few days to keep her out of trouble. I expected lip from her—but I think the eyeful she got the morning I introduced her to Elise and Bones—the meeting with Leech I hadn’t planned—had opened her eyes and made her more agreeable to staying close to me and out of sight from the others.
Not like I was complaining. She was a bombshell, a fucking treat. If I had been planning on keeping her around, I might have fucked her again … it was tempting. I wanted to. That seemed like it would cause more problems than I wanted, however.
Still. Guy could fantasize in the shower and damn, if I didn’t do a lot of that.
The lull in activity didn’t last long though. It wasn’t even a week before we were called into a meeting with Satan. I’d I thought that he was going to say that her welcome was up, or maybe that her welcome now came with stipulations. No—it was something that I had known would be coming but had hoped would not be so soon.
“It’s been three days since the tragedy at the Freefall Music Festival. While there are no reported casualties as of now, there are still two people missing, and more than one million dollars reported in property damages. The suspects in this horrific event include unnamed members of the Satan’s Sons motorcycle club, and fire dancer Ember Amor. I have a local officer here with a statement.”
A middle-aged officer appeared on the television. He might have been older, but there was a fire in his eyes that told me that he was here, and he meant business.
“My name is Officer Bradbury ,” he said. “Following the events that took place at the Freefall Music Festival, the discovery of the drug paraphernalia, and heavy push from public desire, I have made the decision to bring in outside forces to help disassemble this violent ring of debauchery and disregard for human life. We will send the message that these action and violent behaviors will not be tolerated. We will not be bullied.” He continued on. “In the case of Ms. Ember Amor, we ask that she submit herself to questioning of her own free will. We will make full efforts to have her brought in. However, we would prefer that she come in of her own volition.”
The television was cut off.
All of the sons were downstairs, meeting with Satan. He had made his way down just for this—to discuss the utter shit storm that was this situation with the boys in blue, the music festival, and inevitably, Ember. She stood with us, too, looking incredibly small and out of place with all the bikers in the room. It was odd to see her uncomfortable, but I supposed I could understand it a little. We were all looking at her. Some of the stares weren’t too friendly or benign.
I didn’t have time to coddle her, though. She stayed close to my side and that was what mattered. No one would touch her right now since it’d been made clear from the get-go who she was with.
“Well, that was interesting,” Bones spoke up, getting the attention turned to him. “They’re gonna bring the heat on us, and they’re trying to pin the drugs too. We didn’t bring in the drugs that were there; that was those rich boys.”
“Pft. The drugs won’t stick, and we’ve handled the heat before,” Leech brushed off. He still had his little tick. “It’s nothing we can’t handle.”
“That’s easy to say now, but it’s a real issue,” I said, shooting him an annoyed look. “We can’t take this lightly.”
“Says the one holding little Miss Fugitive in his room.” Leech leaned over in Ember’s space, and she leaned right back. “Maybe we just give the cops the girl in exchange for overlooking everything else—”
“That’s some low shit, Leech—”
“Like any of us need to go down over some pussy—”
“Fuck off. This is mostly your fault to begin with you—”
“Boys.” Satan spoke up, and Leech and I got quiet. I drew in a deep breath and turned my eyes to Satan instead of his dumb ass son.
“Sorry, Boss.”
Satan waved me off. Unlike the day b
efore, he seemed troubled.
“Listen, Pops,” Leech said. “I—”
“Ember.” Satan turned his attention to her instead of Leech. Ember tensed beside me and I put my arm over her shoulder, squeezing to assure her that things were fine. She relaxed a little.
“Yes, sir?”
He laughed.
“You don’t need to call me sir. Did you do those things they said you did at the festival?”
“No. I didn’t. I was trying to put the fires out.” She glanced around to the other Sons. “While they were being made.”
“I see ... Well, I’m not going to apologize for my boys doing what they did, but you didn’t have to get caught up in it. So that’s a problem, isn’t it? I kick you out, that gets some heat off our backs, but it’ll be putting you in a bad place. I keep you, that’s more issues for us.”
“I don’t want to be here to cause trouble,” she said.
“I can see that. That’s why you’re going to be Wheeler’s problem. Wheeler?”
I straightened up a little.
“Yeah, Boss?”
“She’s your issue. Her room, board, whatever. Keeping her out of trouble. Since you decided to bring her here.”
I nodded.
“That’s fair.”
“In the meantime, I’m going to call some other chapters for backup in case the boys in blue decide they’re going to get serious about what they’re doing.”
“Whoo!” Leech cheered. “So it’s gonna be lit up like Christmas around here!”
The others yelled with him.
“Yeah!”
“Fuck those blues!”
“Can’t touch the Sons!”
I shook my head. This was ridiculous. How could they be celebrating, honestly? Were they all so delusional to think that anything about our situation right now was a good thing?
Dumb question. I knew the answer to that.
Satan didn’t seem to mind, however. He waved us off.
“Go on, you assholes. Go have some fun. Remember what I said, Wheeler.”
I nodded to him.
“No problem, boss.”
I let the others file out before leading Ember out. I groaned.
“God this is such a shit storm.”
“You need to talk about it?”
I laughed incredulously.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
She chuckled.
“You could. I’m about where you are at the moment with all of this.”
“At least we’re on the same page.”
“Joy.”
I snorted at her apathy and put my arm over her again. That was becoming a comfortable position for me, and that in and of itself should have raised red flags, but it didn’t. Impending war was right on the horizon if we weren’t careful. Ember was in my care, though I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with that responsibility, shy of making sure she didn’t end up in the hands of the police over some shit that wasn’t even her fault.
“Hey.”
I looked down, head tilted.
“Yeah, what?”
“Let’s, like ... I dunno. Do something,” she suggested. “Get out of the house for a little. Get loose. I think we need it and—no offence—but your friends are kind of scary, and that’s saying something even for me.”
I laughed.
“You think they’re scary?”
“To be fair, they did burn down a forest, and they’re very … leery. They leer a lot.”
“All right. That’s fair.”
“Exactly. Come on. Show me a good time?” She looked up at me, smirking. “You honestly don’t expect me to just stay cooped up in here forever, do you?”
There was a part of me that knew that we should probably lie low for now. That was the smart part of me, the one that had no problems telling a woman no.
But … she had a point. And I wanted to unwind. It had been a long time since I had felt able to do so here, with the other Sons.
I wanted to see more of what Ember was made out of.
I gave her a huge, dramatic sigh, as if it were a big deal for me. It really wasn’t—I just really liked fucking with Ember. It was fun.
“Okay, fine. I guess I could do that.”
She grinned.
“Cool.” She tugged on my hand, pulling me toward the front of the clubhouse. I laughed at her enthusiasm.
“You’re really excited about this, aren’t you?”
“Well, in my defense, I’m looking at a lifetime of running from the cops, or something equally crazy, at worst. So I think for now this is good. It’ll get my mind off things—though, actually.” She paused a second. “I can’t believe that I haven’t even thought about this, but my phone. I never got it from the festival. I’ll need to call my mom, Wanda, definitely just to let her know that I’m alive and not a crazy arsonist.”
“You think that’s wise?”
“My mother lives a few counties over and she doesn’t trust cops. Wanda—Wanda’s like a sister to me; she wouldn’t turn me over to the cops over something that I know she would know that I was never involved in.”
“You trust that?”
She nodded.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Well,” I said, giving a shrug. “Just don’t tell them where you are. You never know who’s trying to listen in or trace calls and shit like that. Satan meant what he said: you’re my problem, and it’s my job to keep you from being a club problem, you know?”
“I think I got it.”
“Cool.” I grinned down at her. “Come on. I know a bar I think you might like.”
Chapter Eight Ember
To say that I was a little disturbed by all the Satan’s Sons would have been an understatement. They all had this cruel look about them, and I couldn’t really place why Wheeler didn’t feel that way to me, but I wasn’t going to question it. Nope, I was going to make him drag me out and show me a good time so that I could get out of my head for a little while and let my loved ones know that I was safe so that they wouldn’t worry about me too hard.
Totally, one hundred percent easy.
So I was on the back of Wheeler’s bike, again. More clothes on than the last time, but they were still a little skimpy. While Elise had been kind enough to supply me with some of her things, I hoped that I got the chance to go out and get some clothes of my own choosing at some point. I’d remind Wheeler about it when we got back to the clubhouse.
We pulled up to a bar that I’d never been to. It looked like your typical biker club, all rustic and rugged with a ton of bikes out front and loud rock music blaring, even though it wasn’t even evening yet. There were a few bikers out front drinking and laughing loudly with each other, and women in skimpy clothes seemed to be the norm. This wasn’t my crowd, but at least in the clothes that I had borrowed from Elise, I didn’t stick out in the “she doesn’t belong here with us” kind of way. Tight, tight, jeans and an impossibly low-cut red shirt had eyes on me, but the men had their eyes on all the girls.
As we walked into the bar, Wheeler had his arm around me, which was comforting and seemed to send the message to people not to mess with me. I was beginning to be fine with this contact and those signals—both in this situation and at the clubhouse.
Just don’t go getting used to it.
“You know, I’ve been around bikers before, but never like this,” I said as we walked inside. We were seated; Wheeler just found us a table near the bar.
“You mean in the thick of things as opposed to just seeing us wherever for gigs and shit.”
I nodded.
“Yeah.”
“I take it your general opinion isn’t very favorable.”
I laughed.
“Well, at least there’s you,” I said. He gave me a strange look and I realized how that must sound to him. “Oh, well, you know what I mean.” I rolled my eyes and held out my hand, refusing to let him think too long and hard on that one. “Go on, give me a couple quarters. I nee
d them for the phone calls.”
Wheeler snorted, but fished inside his pockets and pulled out some change. I took it and winked at him.
“You’re a doll.”
Wheeler snorted and I got up, weaving through the huge crowd of people to get to the back where the payphones where. All the older places had them, and I was grateful for it. There was one out of the two that were back there that was free, and I slotted in one of the quarters before hovering my fingers over the dial pad. Who did I call first? Wanda, or my mother?
