by A. J. Downey
“So the safe house is this one,” Data ringed it in red Sharpie, “You leave the bikes here,” made an ‘X’ along what was obviously a road, “You can creep up on ‘em this way without even being seen.” He used the pen to make an arrow for direction of travel.
“There are no windows on this part of the house. Should get right up in it, take them out easy peasy lemon squeezy.” He beamed at us.
The four of us gave him blank looks.
“You are such a fucking nerd,” Duracell commented dryly, and Dray and I cracked up while Blue smiled big, and Reaver hooked an arm around Data’s neck and shook him back and forth.
“How did you find all this out, anyways?” Duracell asked, looking over the images on the table. He took several more sheets out of Data’s hands, all pictures of the outside of the house from every different angle.
“You can find anything on the internet, Man, it’s what I do.” The narrow dude shrugged his shoulders and tossed his head back to get some of his lank brown hair out of his eyes.
“Hell if I know how he does it, who cares? I want to finish this and get my woman back home.” Dray pulled back the slide on his gun, chambering a round, popped the clip, and added another round to the magazine before slamming it back home and tucking it into the waistband of his pants up under his jacket and cut.
My eyes automatically went to Reave, whose woman still thought he was dead. His eyes were as distant and cold as ever when his monster was let out play. He said nothing, just shoved off the edge of the table where he’d had his foot propped, tying and tucking the laces of his shoes.
“Good to go?” he asked, all humor whisked away.
“Good to go,” I affirmed after looking from one to the other at each of the guys. We trouped out the front door and got astride our bikes and rode out.
The house we were headed out to was in the middle of the country. An old, abandoned farm, way out in the far reaches of East County. After our assault on their club, the remaining Suicide Kings had pretty much gone to ground. It was just Bandit, Pipes, and Skid, along with Griz now.
Evening was coming on, the afternoon gloaming starting hard. We pulled off where Data had indicated and parked our bikes at the edge of the road, backing them in a line under a huge old oak.
Reaver used his gloved hands to yank up hard on one strand of wire while he planted the sole of his sneaker hard on another. We carefully utilized the gap he provided in the humming electric wire fence to duck through to the other side. Duracell repeated the process from this side for Reave to get through but the smartass Reave was, he planted a palm on the nearest fence post and vaulted himself neatly over.
Dray snorted a laugh, “No denying it. You’re feeling entirely too chipper for what we’re about to do.” Reaver’s eyes got real wide, showing entirely too much white, and he grinned, nodding his head rapidly.
“I know the feeling, Brother!” Duracell crowed and slapped Reave on the back of his cut. They started up and across the field, the tall grass swishing against their leathers and jeans. I exchanged a look with Dray, who rolled his eyes. Blue, grinning, shrugged his shoulders and drifted through the tall grass after the two resident psychopaths.
“Gotta love those guys,” Dray said ruefully, head bowed and shoulders shaking with silent laughter. We set off after them, crouching low and staying there when the house came into sight. It was a one-story rambler, the once dark blue paint on the clapboards cracked and faded from the elements.
Data was right. There was only one small window, set high in the side. A small, narrow thing a squirrel would even have a tough time getting through. The glass was frosted, which told me it was likely a bathroom. We all lined up, crouched low, on our knees in the dirt, waiting for the sun to sink just a little bit more before making our move.
To the right was a wide back deck, to the left, the front of the house. Dray scraped his bottom lip between his teeth and looked to Reaver, who raised an eyebrow. Dray’s eyes widened and he shrugged his shoulders. Blue’s shoulders shook behind Reave and Duracell, who was between me and Dray, rolled his eyes and sighed, a quiet but harsh exhalation of breath. I bowed my head and shook it, a grin of my own splitting my face.
Reave snapped his fingers quietly and we all stopped, suddenly alert. He pointed at Blue and Duracell, and to the front of the house. He pointed at me, Dray, and himself, and jabbed a finger at the back. He held a hand up at Duracell and Blue, a classic sign for hold up and then looked pointedly at me and Dray and rolled his hand at the end of his wrist, index and middle finger pointed, indicating we would be the ones to go in through the back and flush anyone inside out the front and into Blue and Cell.
Reaver came around to the left and stilled, his face as serious as I had ever seen it, blue eyes cold, calculating, and totally inhuman. We waited and he gave the signal. We kept low and made for the side of the house, back against the wall, and edged along it. Reave peeked around the corner and drew back. He gave us the thumbs up and loosed two throwing knives out of his tactical vest beneath his cut. Dray rolled his eyes and frowned.
We all had body armor on but only Reave would bring fucking knives to a gun fight. I moved from the end of the line, leap-frogged them both, and put my body up front. Reave grinned and bounced his eyebrows, nodding with excitement for me to go ahead. I scowled at him and brought my weapon out from the back of my waistband. I was hot, between the body armor, leather, and adrenaline, I was sweating and more than ready to finish this and get back to my girl.
I sighed out counted down from three and, with Reave and Dray at my back, went around the porch, ghosted up the few back steps, raised my weapon, and blew out the rear glass slider. You never follow your own breach. It’s a rule. So Reaver went in first, letting fly with one then the other of his knives. There was someone, by the glimpse of build I’d say Skid, who stood from the couch in the living room, but he immediately went down. When I got a good look, he had a knife in one shoulder and one in his thigh. Not killing blows. Another appeared in the other shoulder when he reached for his gun but I had mine up and trained on him before he could clear his holster up under his arm.
Dray stepped in behind Reave, who was on his knees in the glass. He’d thrown and then gone down so Dray could fire up over his head, which our VP did. Five times into Bandit’s chest, the man jerking and wobbling on his feet like a damned marionette before falling back onto the loveseat.
Pipes went out the front door, the wood panel swinging on its hinges, and we heard a single shot from out front. Blue appeared in the doorway a second later and disappeared down the hall. Cell followed him up.
I held my gun on Skid while Reave went to clear the rest of the house with the other two. Dray turned and had my back so no-one could sneak up on me. Skid looked up from where he knelt on the floor, hands in the air, a resigned look on his face.
“Clear!” The shout came from the back and was echoed a second later, and then echoed again by an unfamiliar voice that must have been Blue’s. They returned to the front.
“Where is he?” Dray demanded at my back while Duracell took up position. Blue went back to the front door, looking out.
“Ain’t here. Went to handle some business of his, didn’t tell us what.” Skid was looking me over carefully, “She alive?” he asked.
Reaver went to Skid and pulled out his blades one at a time. Skid groaned and bowed his head, sucking his breath in and out between clenched teeth.
“Who you talkin’ about?” Cell called.
“Coon, Dani, she alright?” Skid asked. I crooked a sad smile, my girl’s words coming back to me.
“Yeah, she’s good,” I told him, “Said outta all of you bastards she might spare you if it was up to her.”
Reaver looked down at Skid and cocked his head to the side. He sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and moved off to stand with his back to the wall, leaning against it.
“What’s your problem?” Dray asked.
Reaver fidgeted and, looking slightly uncomf
ortable, stated, “He ain’t afraid.” He scratched his back on the corner of the wall, twisting side to side, and shrugged. Dray let off in a string of muttered Spanish and Reave grinned.
“Sorry,” he said. But by the light in his eyes you could tell he wasn’t. Not one damned bit.
Skid sighed and moved, and I trained my gun more solidly on him. Reaver had two knives fisted, one in each hand in the blink of an eye, but all Skid did was chuff a laugh. He pulled a pack of smokes and a lighter from his pockets, the movements causing him obvious pain, his shoulders bleeding freely inside his leather jacket. He shook one out of the pack part of the way and grasped it with his lips.
“It’s good she’s alright, I worried about her.” He lit the smoke and dropped the lighter with a clatter.
“Yeah, she’s alright.”
“Don’t deserve her charitable attitude none. Didn’t try to help her near as much as I could have.” His cigarette bobbed in his mouth as he spoke, and he sucked on it. The cherry flared orange and he looked up at me plaintively, an eyebrow raised, blowing a plume of smoke out of the side of his mouth. I saw it then, in his eyes, this… just deep-seeded sorrow. Skid had given up a long time ago and he was totally cool with this being the end of the line.
Resignation took hold of me. I didn’t want to put him out of his misery, but all it took to give me the will to do it was the image of Dani, bruised, crying, splayed on her back on the Suicide King’s pool table. The pain in her eyes as she’d turned away, knowing that I’d watched it once but Skid… Skid had seen a hell of a lot more than that.
“No, you really don’t,” I intoned and I leveled my gun and put one right in his face. He toppled over like a felled tree and shuddered, shaking on the ground. I stepped up and leveled my gun once more and blew his head apart in a welter of blood and bone. Tissue and gray matter spattered my boots, blood misting my jeans. I stared down at what I’d done and the only regret I tasted was the regret I had for not getting Dani out sooner.
“Jesus.” Dray grunted and crossed himself. I looked at him, then to Reaver. Reaver’s eyes met mine and they held a deep sorrow for a flicker of a heartbeat before he nodded. An understanding passed between us and he pushed off the wall. He threw an arm over my shoulders and we went out front. Cell and Blue dragged Pipe’s corpse into the living room and dropped it.
“Do whatever the fuck it is you do,” Dray said darkly to the ginger and Duracell nodded. Blue and Cell policed our brass, meaning they scoured and searched until every shell casing from every round we’d fired was accounted for. I shoved the little sandwich baggie with the spent casings into my pocket after Blue handed it to me.
“Do it,” Dray ordered.
“Gotta go back to the bikes,” Cell grunted.
We did, and Duracell took back off through the tall swaying grass while we stayed, after he’d fetched something out of his saddle bags. About a half hour, maybe forty-five minutes later he came back.
“We’re good,” he declared.
Dray snubbed out his fragrant clove cigarette on the sole of his boot and he put the butt in his pocket. None of us were keen on leaving any evidence behind. We climbed on to our bikes, me after kick-starting mine, the rest of them after they’d flipped their ultramodern ignition switches. I was maybe just a little jealous. My baby could be temperamental to start.
None of us had spoken while we’d waited for Cell to return. None of us spoke now. We just all went back to the club and, like before, shared a stiff shot before parting ways. I looked in on Dani. They were still working on her, her back becoming a riot of color between the flowers and the night sky they were inking in across the top. The tree was a living thing now and she was still as oblivious as I’d left her. So beautiful, expression so at peace.
I showered and took my bundled clothes I’d been wearing out back where I met the rest of the guys in the grass beside the garage and Dani’s shop. I threw my tee, jeans, shoes, and whatnot into the burn barrel. Blue trudged up in some comfortable sweats from the low outbuilding and waited for my shit to catch and start burning before he added his.
Dray took a pull off a fifth of bourbon and held it out to me. I took it. Watching the flames reflected in our VP’s black as sin irises. Maybe it was just my mood.
“We’ll get him,” Duracell said with confidence, and stretched.
“We’d better. He’s the mind behind all of this, last thing we need is him putting a new club together somewhere and bringing this war to our table all over again.” Dray spit.
We stared into the fire that consumed the evidence of our misdeeds, and not one of us looked happy. Each of us weighed with our own demons riding our backs. We’d been so fucking close. So goddamned close.
“And then there was one…” Reave muttered cryptically.
“Yeah,” Duracell agreed. Blue nodded, his gray eyes distant as he stared hypnotized into the flames.
And then there was one…
I turned and left the guys by the burn barrel and went back in to the club. I found myself leaning in the doorway to my room, watching Revelator work. Dani looked tranquil, she was definitely heavily sedated. I pushed off from the door and rounded the massage table. Doc looked up from the thick paperback in his hands before going back to reading. I sat on the floor by Dani’s head and buried my fingers in the silken strands of her deep, dark hair, massaging at the base of her skull. Her eyes fluttered open and she turned her head in my direction.
“How you doing, Rocket?” I murmured and her lips smiled faintly but there was a wrinkle between her eyes, a tightness there.
“It hurts,” she whispered, “But not too bad…” It was surprisingly coherent and I looked over to Doc.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Think she’s coming out of it.”
“Almost done back here,” Rev stated, his voice a study in concentration, “We’ll be able to move her, put her to bed, in just a few more minutes.” I nodded.
“You need something for the pain, Baby?” I asked her softly.
“No,” she huffed a sigh, “Just promise you’ll stay with me.”
I gathered her hand up in mine and pressed the knuckles to my lips. It wasn’t enough so I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Her eyes drifted shut and, my lips beside her ear I promised her. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Doc pushed something and she closed her eyes. He gave me a look and I nodded my thanks but kept my lips pressed to her hair, breathing her in.
“I love you, Dani.”
I did, didn’t matter if she heard it, I needed to say it. I was deeply affected by the killing I’d done. While I couldn’t, Hell, I wouldn’t regret it, taking a man’s life had a weight to it. A certain gravity. To not be affected by something like that made you something less than human in my book. Even if you found yourself feeling bad for not feeling bad about doing it. I rested my forehead against Dani’s hair and continued to massage her neck. A mindless action of affection that was doing more to soothe me than my oblivious girl.
God, how I wanted to leave this part of things far behind… We were almost there. The lot of us. Almost back to being able to go -and stay- completely legit.
And then there was one… Just one… standing all alone. We just had to make sure to keep it that way.
Chapter 26
Dani…
It’s surprising to me. Go through something once, know what to expect, and take all the mystery from it, how easy it is to adapt to it. Bath time the next morning after having the color go in still sucked, but not as bad as the first time, and I didn’t find myself spending two days pretty much in bed before getting up and moving around, but rather just the better part of the morning.
Thirteen, after helping me get the rest of the ink off the surface of my skin and anointing the raw areas with thick, moisturizing goo, had kissed me and gone back to bed. He wasn’t just tired, something weighed on him and I was betting he had gone somewhere while Revelator, Trigger, and Disney had worked on my
back-piece the day before.
I found myself wandering out to my shop, moving slowly, gingerly. It wasn’t that it really hurt, I mean, it was uncomfortable but it was more that the skin felt drawn tight, like the skin over a drum. Any time I moved, it pulled, and I loathed the sensation, and so I moved carefully so it wouldn’t pull too much. I slipped up gingerly onto my stool so I could start sketching at my little drafting table, ideas for new pieces.
Reaver came out at the appointed time to slather my back with more moisturizer. There wasn’t a way I could reach it all and I was perfectly content to let my new friends and Thirteen’s brothers help me with it. I was surprised at how comfortable I had grown with them, after such a short amount of time. Each of them moved around me like I was made of china or might break at too harsh a word or gesture. It hadn’t taken me long to realize I was likely not the first lost soul or abused girl to find my way here, a suspicion that’d been confirmed by Trigger one night while we’d all eaten dinner together in the common area. His woman, Sunshine, had come from a bad place too.
“It’s good you’re up and moving around the first day after a piece this big. You had more done with the color than you did the last time. Looks like you’re getting used to it.” Reaver’s comments broke me out of my reverie.
“I guess. Maybe I’m just still used to having to adapt quickly,” I murmured.
“Aw, yeah. Shit, sorry,” he looked sheepish when I glanced over my shoulder.
“Its fine,” I shrugged and winced a bit, right after the lotion went on it always felt better, looser until it absorbed again, which happened rather quickly.
“So you hooked yet?” he asked with a teasing grin.
I rolled my eyes and smiled back faintly, “No. I’m done. This is most definitely the last piece I will ever do. Somehow I think if I wanted any more, Doc would be a whole lot less inclined to drug me into next week to get it done. And honestly, with the way those drugs make me feel…” I made a face, “I don’t like being that numbed-out.”
