Deserter

by Myers, Shannon

  I nodded, even though I felt like I’d failed my daughter.

  Tears flowed steadily from the corners of my eyes and I began shaking uncontrollably, sending the streams into my ears.

  With Kate, I’d known what to expect. I’d read all the books and had Jamie by my side, coaching me through each breath.

  Now, I was completely helpless, unable to do anything but lie still while the doctors and nurses worked to get my baby out.

  I groaned out an exhale and gasped against the weight settling over my abdomen. It was as if one of them had decided to jump up and down on my ribs to get her out. “I can’t breathe.”

  The nurse squeezed my hand. “That’s just the anesthesia. You’re doing great, Celia.”

  They were going to kill me because they found out about the club. I jerked my head back and forth, as the pressure intensified, trying to get the mask off. “My baby!”

  “Celia, just hold still. They’ve almost got her—”

  “No—let me go!” My entire right side was numb, but I dug the nails of my left hand into the nurse’s skin, trying to shake her off.

  She jerked back with a look of surprise and I tore off the oxygen mask before begging, “Please don’t hurt my baby! Please don’t hurt my baby!”

  “No one’s hurting the baby, Celia!”

  There was another tug and then nothing. They began talking excitedly from the other side of the curtain and I looked to the nurse. “Is she?”

  Her eyebrows drew together as she watched the other side of the curtain. “Celia, we’re going to give you a little something to help you relax, okay?”

  I shook my head and sobbed, “No, please don’t. Is she okay? Why isn’t she crying?”

  The lights on the warming table kicked on and I craned my neck, fighting for a glimpse of my daughter. A nurse laid a small blanket down and my chest tightened.

  She was blue.

  Several more nurses came running in and grabbed the warmer before leaving just as quickly. I looked back just as they finished injecting something into my IV.

  Someone placed a warm blanket across my chest and my eyes immediately began to drift closed in exhaustion. “You just rest. Everything will be okay when you wake up.”

  “No… it won’t,” I said, just as everything went dark.

  * * *

  “She’s a feisty one, isn’t she? Making all that racket.” The NICU nurse noted with a smile. “Yes, I’m talking to you, little missy.”

  So many of them had come and gone over the past twenty-four hours that I hadn’t made any real efforts to learn their names.

  Kara was different though. She’d been in the delivery room when my daughter was delivered, and when they couldn’t get her to take a breath, she’d been part of the team that raced her down to the NICU.

  She hadn’t left her side once.

  I’d expected there to be more babies, but it was just my little girl and two others. The hospital had done what they could for privacy, with curtains that could be pulled around the high-backed vinyl chairs, but it still felt like I was on display.

  “What did the doctor say about her lungs?” I asked, trying to coax the baby into breastfeeding again. Anytime I offered, she’d blink up at it in confusion before falling asleep.

  Nothing like the reaction I usually got from her father.

  “Dr. Thorne said they’re starting to clear. Sometimes, these preemies just give us a little trouble in the beginning. How are you feeling?” Her eyes narrowed in concern.

  I shrugged. “Like I got hit by a truck.”

  Both physically and emotionally.

  “That’s to be expected. You just worry about healing and we’ll focus on getting this little one ready to go home and meet her sister.”

  As if on cue, the baby fell asleep. “Why won’t she nurse for more than a minute or two?” I asked with a sigh. “She’s got to be starving.”

  “She’s little, Celia. Remind me again, was she five pounds at birth?”

  “Yeah, five pounds, three ounces.”

  Kara nodded. “Well, she’s just trying to take everything in, but these little ones tire so quickly. Just keep trying and give her some time to figure it out.”

  I mashed my trembling lips together and nodded. She patted my shoulder and pulled the curtain closed a little more before walking across the room to do paperwork.

  We’d created a little bit of a routine in the past twenty-four hours. She’d visit with me before reviewing her charts while I sat and cried.

  The first time I broke down, Kara had assured me that it was just postpartum hormones, but I think even she’d begun to suspect that there was something more going on.

  “Has anyone called for me? Like family?”

  She glanced up from the chart in her hand. “Not that I know of, I’m sorry.”

  Molly and Lucy had come up to the hospital not long after the baby was born, but neither knew anything about Jamie. From what Lucy had been able to gather from Wolverine, the club was doing everything they could to get him out, but it didn’t look good.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and shifted in the large vinyl chair, trying to find a comfortable position. My movements woke the baby and she went back to eyeing my breast warily.

  “Oh, I think you might be in the wrong place.”

  I looked up at Kara in confusion, only to realize she was speaking to someone at the door. I wiped the stray tears from my cheeks and closed my eyes.

  When I reopened them, Jamie was standing in front of me. I blinked several times, convinced I was dreaming. My breath hitched in my chest when I realized it was really him.

  “Hey,” he said. I wanted to be mad, but the familiar tone of his voice was like a warm blanket wrapped around my shoulders, protecting me from the world outside.

  Jamie looked like a man who’d been gone for years instead of just one day. His face was harder than before, as if he’d seen things that couldn’t be unseen. His lower lip trembled as he stared down at the baby and raked a hand over his face. “She’s perfect. You did good, Mama.”

  I held my head in my hands, my body shaking as the grief inside of me fought for a way out. Jamie knelt beside the chair and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me up against his broad chest. “Don’t cry, baby. Don’t cry.”

  “I thought—” My voice broke and I tried again with a whisper. “I thought they were going to keep you in there.”

  Jamie shook his head. “Ain’t no one keeping me from my girls. Did you use the name we picked out?” When I nodded, he leaned against my arm and cooed, “Hey, Dakota Mae. It’s Daddy.”

  She startled and immediately went for my breast, as if she’d just needed to hear her daddy’s voice.

  Maybe we both had.

  I realized Kara was still standing in the corner of the room, slack jawed, and a look of complete shock etched on her face.

  “Kara, can you—” I paused. “Can you fill my husband in?”

  I wanted him to know but couldn’t form a coherent sentence if my life depended on it. I’d let her tell him about the delivery and then he could tell me what was really going on.

  Her eyes widened as they darted between the two of us. “Sure. I’m sorry I don’t know your name.”

  “Jamie,” he responded. “Dakota’s daddy.”

  He stared up at me in horror as she began telling him about the emergency cesarean. His eyes went dark and a vein throbbed in his neck as she explained Dakota’s respiratory issues and how they had to sedate me just to piece me back together afterward.

  A part of me wanted to pull him up against my chest and comfort him, while the other wanted to claw his face to ribbons and demand he tell me what the hell was going on.

  “Fuck, Celia.” He sagged against the chair and my heart broke.

  I wiped at the tears on my face and forced my voice to remain calm as I said, “It was so hard without you. I—I needed you.”

  He looked up at Kara. “Can you give us a minute?” When
she left, he turned back to me. “Are you okay? Do you hurt?”

  I pressed my lips together and nodded.

  “Where? Where’s it hurt, princess?”

  I placed my fingers over my heart. “Here.”

  He leaned in closer, breathing me in, before letting his mouth trail along the backs of my fingers. When I moved them to stroke his beard, he pressed his lips to the skin underneath.

  “Shouldn’t have had to go through all that alone. I should’ve been here, holding your hand.”

  “How bad is it, Jamie?”

  His eyes slowly came up to meet mine and I knew the truth before he said a word. What had happened with the cops was obviously just the tip of the iceberg.

  “I started a war.” Jamie toyed with the wedding ring I’d put on a simple gold chain to wear around my neck during pregnancy when my fingers were swollen.

  He didn’t look like a thirty-year-old man; whatever had happened in the last twenty-four hours had aged him.

  “When?”

  Ol’ Ladies weren’t supposed to know about what went on within the club, but he and I both knew I’d never been one of those.

  He looked down again and confessed, “Night Molly got hurt. Guy was a gangbanger and we went after him. They were hanging out at a strip club run by a rival and the minute we stepped foot inside, we broke the goddamn agreement.”

  I was familiar with the syndicate; I’d asked him once why there wasn’t constant fighting between clubs, expecting a non-answer. Instead, he’d given me the truth.

  “If the syndicate’s gone, then the clubs will go back to fighting over territories, won’t they?” I swallowed down the fear and forced myself to hear him out. No matter how bad it was, we’d face it.

  Together.

  He ran his hand down his face again before nodding. “Yeah, and once one fell, everyone else followed.”

  “So, the cop that pulled us over was on their payroll?”

  “Cop belongs to the Outlaws MC. Once he saw my ID, it was game over. Thank fuck Brenden was there to get you to the hospital.”

  I looked down at Dakota, fast asleep in my arms and asked, “What happens when they come for us, Jamie?”

  Jamie’s eyes widened. “Come for you? I ain’t letting anyone come for you.”

  It was a bold declaration and one I wanted to believe, but if the clubs had police officers backing them, how was he going to guarantee our safety?

  “You don’t believe me?” he asked skeptically.

  “Should I? I just went through the most traumatic event of my life and I had to do it alone because my husband was in jail.” I heard the bitterness in my tone but didn’t apologize for it.

  He’d just destroyed any illusions I might have had about what our lives were—what our lives could’ve been. The syndicate had always sounded too good to be true, and maybe it was.

  If it hadn’t happened with Molly, then something else would’ve managed to take it down.

  Maybe it had been naïve to think that men like that could ever live in peace.

  “The club will be fine; a few assholes forgot their place and just need to be reminded. I’ll call in Slim and the other Nomads and the problem takes care of itself. I won’t let anything hurt you, Celia. You know that.”

  His eyes begged for me to agree.

  It had to be the fatigue setting in, but I found myself nodding, suddenly too tired to fight. “I trust you.”

  He was beside me now, everything would be okay.

  Maybe I would’ve believed both of our lies had I not seen firsthand just how little control he still had. Last night had only proven that he couldn’t protect us.

  He couldn’t even protect himself.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Grey: 1996

  A wise man once said, “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” I had a sneaking suspicion that Sun Tzu wouldn’t have been lying in a chair and getting a tattoo while war raged on all sides of him, but what the fuck did I know?

  But, what the fuck did I know?

  So, I’d gotten cocky.

  We’d been at war with almost every MC around for over five years and hadn’t lost one man. I couldn’t say the same for the other clubs.

  Wolverine and Comedian stumbled in and fell onto the nearby couches, drunk after our latest victory over the Outlaws.

  Comedian spread a line of blow on the coffee table in front of him, rubbing his hands together like he was settling in to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast.

  Wolverine stayed quiet, having moved into the overthinking stage of drunkenness. I could feel his concern from across the room. He’d done it for as long as I could remember; never letting himself celebrate for too long.

  There was always something he could’ve done better or smarter. It drove me up a fucking wall. If I lived my life like he did, I would’ve ended up in a padded cell years ago.

  Luckily, he wasn’t in the mood for talking, so the only sound in the room was the buzzing of Dagger’s gun as he inked Thor’s trusty hammer, Mjölnir, across my chest.

  Dakota didn’t say much yet, but I’d watched her little face as she sucked on her pacifier and studied the covers on my old Thor comics. She was only two, but she was already following in her sister’s footsteps.

  Kate didn’t want the traditional bedtime story read to her. It had to be a Spiderman comic, or she’d cross her arms over her chest and lift up her chin, looking so much like Celia, it was uncanny.

  I’d gotten a spider web inked on last year and I’d never forget the look on her face the first time she saw it. Her fingers had traced over it like it was a rare jewel. She bent down and kissed it and for whatever reason, it stuck and had become a nightly routine.

  I had a feeling Dakota was gonna be just like Katydid.

  Maybe I’d be the one to take them to get their first comic book when they were a little older—hell, maybe I’d be the one to take them to get their first tattoo. I might even convince their mama one of these days. The thought made me smile.

  “You gettin’ Celia’s name?” Comedian asked as he ran his index finger along his gums, needing to soak up every last bit of blow.

  I glanced down at my chest and then back up at him. “You got eyes, don’t you? It fuckin’ look like I’m getting my Ol’ Lady’s name tatted on my chest? You know it’s bad luck, right?”

  He shrugged. “I’d get her name tattooed on my body and let every man know she belonged to me.”

  Dagger paused and turned to look at him. “You don’t have your Ol’ Lady’s name, Comedian.”

  “I guess I don’t, do I?” His head fell back against the cushions and he stared up at the ceiling.

  He was fucked out of his head.

  “Don’t matter anyway—worthless cunt ran off on me and took my kid. We still got no updates on that?”

  I kept a poker face and shook my head. “Not a goddamn thing. You said she’d done this before though. She’ll come to her senses once she runs out of money.”

  Unfortunately for him, I’d ensured that she’d never run out of money. I’d taken her down south to Slim and he was under strict orders to keep an eye out and stop her from doing something stupid, like dragging my son back to his abusive fuck of a guardian.

  My newest prospect, Tony, sauntered in with a wide grin. “Nice job tonight, Pres. You really showed those Outlaws who’s boss.”

  I narrowed my eyes and stared at him until he looked away. He was a nice enough kid but felt the need to congratulate everyone by name after the most menial of tasks. I half-expected to see him playfully punch one of the guys in the arm with a giggled, “Oh, you.”

  Kid was gonna have to toughen up and cut the shit or he’d never earn his patch. If Nails hadn’t vouched for him, I doubt I would’ve even considered him for a prospect.

  “Why don’t you make yourself useful, Prospect. Get us a drink,” Comedian grumbled.

  “Sure thing, boss—”

  “Prospect, I look like your goddamn boss? I fuckin
’ earned the name Comedian. Use it.”

  Tony seemed to deflate a little. A few more slip-ups with Comedian and he might just be where we wanted him. “What would you like, Comedian?”

  “Bottle of Jack, Prospect.” He turned to Wolverine. “You want anything?”

  Wolverine shook his head, still busy calculating all the mistakes we’d made tonight. I was sure of it. “I’m good.”

  Tony turned to me. “I know what you want. Tequila. But, none of that cheap ass shit. You’ll only drink the ultra-premium stuff. If your Ol’ Lady asks, you’ll just say you had a beer or two.”

  The buzzing from the tattoo gun stopped again and the room went deathly silent.

  “And how the fuck would you know all that?” I asked calmly, even though his every word had just settled in my gut.

  “I watched you. I feel like if I’m gonna be a biker, I better learn from the best, right?” He held up his fingers like guns and fired them in the air. “I’ll be right back.”

  I pinched my lower lip between my thumb and index finger, knowing what Tony’s actions meant, but not wanting to believe that I’d missed it.

  “Didn’t even break a sweat,” Comedian noted quietly, all traces of his smile gone.

  Any other prospect would’ve been down on his knees, shaking in front of me. The only people who knew my drinking habits were the men who’d been riding with me for years and they didn’t go around sharing that shit like a bunch of southern ladies gettin’ together for tea.

  The new guy had been tipped off and that meant one thing in my mind—we’d been infiltrated. Wolverine held a finger to his lips and began lifting cushions. Comedian got down on his hands and knees and searched underneath.

  When their search turned up nothing, Wolverine unplugged my office telephone and lifted the handset before unscrewing the mouthpiece. He held up a small silver disk with green markings. “Bingo.”

  I took it and turned it over in my hand, marveling at the fact that something no bigger than a half dollar was going to sink my entire club.