Possession

by T. M. Frazier

  Through the debris, I can just barely make out headlights. It’s a truck with a battering bar attached to the grill.

  “All aboard! This train is leaving the motherfucking station. Literally!” shouts a voice. I can’t see who it is through the windshield which is shrouded in what remains of my cell. I don’t have time to ask any questions of the mystery voice.

  There’s no time to question anything.

  The passenger door flies open. Two officers appear behind me. One fumbles with the cell keys while the other shouts at him to move faster.

  It won’t be fast enough.

  I leap into the truck and slam the door. The tires spin in place for a few seconds until they finally grip the concrete. My head hits the headliner as we reverse over the broken bricks until we’re clear of them and are able to make forward motion. It isn’t until we’re through the field and on the road when I finally get a good look of my getaway driver.

  “Preppy?” I ask. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Preppy may not be part of any official organization, but he runs a tight ship over in Logan’s Beach. Belly and I have worked with him and his friend King a few times in the past. I haven’t seen Preppy since before he was thought to be dead only to later be rescued from an underground cave where he was held captive for the better part of a year.

  “Grim? Fuck, I thought I was rescuing Bear. Get the fuck out,” he teases. “Just kidding. If Bear was locked up I wouldn’t help him escape. That fucker could use some ‘me time’ to contemplate his grumpy nature.”

  He holds the wheel with one hand and straightens his signature bowtie with the other. His white dress shirt is rolled up to his elbows revealing arms heavily covered with both tattoos and angry jagged scars.

  He lights a joint and tugs on the wheel, making a sharp turn off the road into a dark heavily wooded area. When we’ve made it in far enough to be fully camouflaged by trees and brush, Preppy kills the engine.

  He passes me the joint, and I take a much-needed hit, holding the smoke for as long as I can before slowly exhaling.

  “Thanks, man. How the fuck did you get sucked into this?”

  Preppy types out a text on his phone then sets it back in the console. “Bethany. I owed her a favor. She got my boy, Bo, out of some trouble recently.”

  “Isn’t your kid like ten now?” I ask. “What kind of trouble can a ten-year-old get into that needs Bethany’s kind of help?”

  “He’s eight,” Preppy corrects. “And my boy catches the kind of trouble most kids his age don’t know is out there to catch. My girls are easier. Twin toddlers. Miley and Taylor. The three of them, along with their mama, are the loves of my fucked-up life. Bo’s a good kid. He’s just…well, his brain arrow doesn’t exactly shoot straight. Its target is usually more…”

  Preppy shapes his hand like an arrow aimed at the windshield then changes the aim to me.

  “Human.” He drops his hand. “And the incident in question wasn’t that bad. It may or may not have had something to do with the unfortunate disappearance of a certain…”

  He waves the rest of his sentence away like there’s a gnat flying around his head.

  “Let’s just say he’s grounded. VERY grounded. For life. Or like a week. Minimum a few days. Or a day. Maybe, an hour or two. Poor kid. Maybe, I’ll just take him to the movies.” He sighs. “You’ll see. Wait until you’ve got some sex trophies of your own. You’ll understand.”

  Kids. I’ve never thought of myself with a kid before. I picture Tricks holding a baby in her arms. Our baby. Much to my surprise, I don’t fucking hate it. Although, the thought isn’t helpful to my current situation and only makes me more impatient and enraged.

  One thing at a fucking time.

  Sirens wail through the night. Preppy remains cool and calm like he’s driving a parade float down Main Street, and not at all like he’s running from the law with a fugitive.

  Blue and red flashes light up the woods. After a few seconds, the vehicles pass, and both the lights and sirens fade off into the distance. “That’s our bat signal. Let’s get you the fuck outta here so I can get home to the missus and eat her cookies.” Preppy pauses, probably realizing his odd choice of words. “I do actually mean cookies. Dre makes a mean batch of chocolate chip.”

  I stare silently out at the passing trees.

  “I’m going to eat her pussy, too. You know, after the other kind of cookies. Just so we’re clear.”

  “Thanks, man. We’re clear. And if you ever need anything and I’m not dead or serving time, I’m there,” I assure him. I mean it. I owe him a debt. A huge one.

  “Hhhhmmm,” he considers, taking the joint I pass him. “How do you feel about babysitting?”

  I smile at his joke until I look over at Preppy only to see he’s not doing the same.

  In fact, it’s the only time in my life I’d ever seen him with a straight face.

  “I uh…”

  He looks straight ahead through the scratched and broken windshield. Bits of concrete from our escape attempt cover the dashboard, and some of it is lodged into the glass. “Never mind. You can do me one favor, though.”

  “Anything within my power. It’s yours.”

  “Don’t tell King about this,” he says. It comes out as a sheepish high-pitched question.

  “Why? He wouldn’t want to know that you broke me out?”

  King was a friend of Belly’s and a good ally to Bedlam. It wouldn’t make sense that he’d be against helping me. I’d do the same for any of them if the roles were reversed.

  Preppy shakes his head. “Oh no, he knows I broke you out. I just sent him a text to tell him it’s over. The grand escape is complete.” He steps on the gas. “But he don’t gotta know I used his truck to do it.”

  Twelve

  I scan over the faces of my family. Marci, Sandy, and Haze and I are all in the war room behind my office at the reservation. Neither the police, the feds, nor the task force have jurisdiction here, so for the time being, it’s the best place to come up with a plan.

  “Lemming’s got cars posted at the exit of the res. The second you try to leave he’s going to take you in,” Marci says.

  “I thought as much. I’ll talk to the Chief and figure a way to get out undetected when it’s time, but right now, we’ve got two major problems. The first being Tricks. Bethany’s got a source inside Los Muertos. Gabby, Tricks’s friend. We know that Tricks is alive, but it’s all we know.

  Marci wraps her hands around the steaming mug in front of her and leans her elbows on the table. “Emma Jean is one of the good ones. There aren’t many out there left like her. So, go get her the fuck out of there and bring her home.”

  I place my hand over hers.

  “I’ll grab the duffle bags and round up what ammo and weapons we have available here. I’ll check the storage room and take a look into a few of Digger’s old hiding spots to see what he might’ve stashed,” Haze offers.

  “Good,” I reply. “Sandy, you do what you were doing before Lemming interrupted. Get back on the phone and continue to round up as many of our men as you can. Tell them to meet us here as soon as possible. We’ll need all the trigger fingers we can get.”

  “It’ll take a little time,” Sandy tells me, pulling out his phone and dialing.

  I shake my head. “Time is not something we have, brother.”

  Sandy holds the phone to his ear. “I’m on it.” He assures me, leaving the room.

  “What’s the other major problem?” Marci asks. “You said we have two major problems, but only addressed the one.”

  I look her in the eyes and take a deep breath that does nothing to make me any more prepared to tell her the truth. “Belly didn’t die of heart failure. He was poisoned.”

  Marci’s face pales.

  “How? By who?” Sandy asks, jumping from his chair.

  “Not sure, but Lemming showed me the coroner’s report.”

  Marci sniffles and wipes her teary eyes. “We�
��ll figure it out and take down those responsible. AFTER we bring Tricks home.”

  “Uh…” Haze says, looking down at his phone.

  “What fucking now?” I ask.

  Haze leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Hate to even bring this up now, but I just got a text from the human internet himself, and it’s not good, brother.”

  I immediately know who he’s referring to. Preppy’s younger brother and a genius hacker who goes by the name of Nine.

  Haze continues, “Nine hacked into the police reports from the night we were taken in. Lemming might have told you about Belly being murdered, but he failed to mention something else.” He shows me the picture on the screen. It’s several bricks of H. Next to the drugs are plastic yellow triangles with letters marking the evidence. None of this is new, but when I look closer, there is something startling about the picture. A small shamrock pressed into the packaging on the side of each of the bricks.

  I blow out a breath of frustration. “That’s not cartel heroin.”

  Haze turns his Bedlam ring around on his finger. “No, which means it’s not Marco’s.”

  “Then who the fuck does it belong to?” Sandy asks, coming back into the room with his thumb paused over the keypad.

  I scrub my hand over my jaw. “It’s fucking Irish.”

  Sandy’s eyes widen. “We may run guns for the clan but we don’t push their H. You think they’re the ones that set us up instead of Marco?”

  “Clan Egan has no reason to pick a fight with Bedlam,” I explain. “That wouldn’t make any sense.”

  “Uhhhhh,” Sandy says, rocking on his feet.

  “Spit it out, Sandy,” I order. “What do you know.”

  He takes a deep breath. “I talked to Bear after we got out of the clink. I didn’t think anything of it until right fucking now. But the word is that Callum Egan is on the rampage. One of his shipments was hijacked in Miami a couple of months back.”

  “Shit,” I swear. “It’s only a matter of time before he finds out that Bedlam was arrested with his stolen H.” I pause as realization hits. “Marco. That son of a fucking bitch. He knows he can’t take us down himself, so he steals a shipment of H from the clan and plants it on us.”

  “He wants the Irish to do his dirty work for him,” Haze says, tapping his fingers on the table. “That way not only does he take us down…”

  “But he gets the Clan’s gun business as well,” Marci finishes.

  Sandy tugs at his hair. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  I ball my fists pound them against the table. I lean forward, bracing myself. “We need to get ahead of this shit before it blows up in our fucking faces.”

  “I know Callum,” Marci says. “He may not be a rational man, but he’s a reasonable one.” She smiles confidently. “Let me handle him, son. You focus on Emma Jean.”

  “Marci,” Sandy starts. “Maybe, while this is all going on you should go— “

  Marci plants herself in front of Sandy, pointing an accusing finger his way. “I swear to fucking Christ, Sandy, if you’re about to tell me I should go somewhere or cower or do whatever it is you want me to do until this is over or some other sexist shit, I’ll cut your goddamned balls off myself. There’s no time to compare dick sizes here, but if we did, you should know, my hypothetical dick has been around much longer than yours and it’s much fucking bigger.”

  Sandy raises his hands in surrender. “I believe you.”

  Marci pulls down on the hem of her shirt and flips her hair out of her eyes. “I’ll reach out to Callum. I’ll be here holding it down until you get back.” Her expression goes slack. “I’m the foundation of this house and I’ll continue to hold it up like I always have, but it’s up to you to make sure it doesn’t burn down.”

  Thirty minutes later, I’m standing before my men gathered in the war room behind my office. We’re a group of thirty tonight, and although it’s only a fraction of what Los Muertos has behind the gates of the compound, we don’t need men, we need skill. And we have it in spades. These men are the best of Bedlam. Most are former military. Some were special forces.

  A room full of trained killers, thanks to good ole’ Uncle Sam.

  It’s the first time since Belly died that I’ve had them all in front of me in an official capacity, and it feels wrong that Belly’s not here, but right all at the same time, which isn’t how I was expecting it to feel. And although this mission is for Tricks, a small part of me wants to prove to Belly he wasn’t wrong by leaving Bedlam in the hands of a man who up until the age of sixteen didn’t even speak.

  “Marco has my girl,” I start. The room grows quiet.

  “You got a woman?” a man asks from the back of the room. “Like a real one?”

  I’m about to answer, but Sandy beats me to it and gets right to the point. There are none of his usual jokes or antics. He’s all business tonight. “Grim calls her Tricks. Some of you might know her by her affiliation with Los Muertos. She also goes by EJ or her full name, Emma Jean Parish.”

  Sandy holds up a blown-up picture of her from the casino security camera, then hands out black and white photocopies the men pass around.

  “I know some of you are wondering why Grim’s woman is an affiliate of Los Muertos, so listen up because I’m only going to say this once. Grim met her a long time ago, and then, she disappeared. He’s been looking for her for over five years, and they recently reconnected. Little did he know that the entire time he was looking for her, she’d been held as a prisoner against her will right here in Lacking by Marco and Los Muertos. We have reason to believe that she’s in danger, and a whole fuck of a lot of it since we’re pretty sure Marco has learned of her connection to Grim.”

  I lean over and grasp the back of the chair in front of me. My knuckles go white as Sandy’s words land square in the center of my chest like a goddamned battering ram.

  “Why?” Rollo asks, his deep, booming voice vibrates from the back of the room. Rollo is a beast and a head taller than most men. His voice literally travels right over everyone’s heads. “What does Marco want from her?”

  I shake my head. “Not sure. He’s obsessed with her. That’s all we know. Any other reason he has doesn’t matter. Not right now anyway.”

  Rollo crosses his arms over his big chest. “But then again, it’s Marco. He’s a fucking sociopath. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a reason for most of the stupid shit he does.”

  “True,” I say. “But we still need to be careful. The most important part of all of this is getting Tricks out of Los Muertos alive.”

  “You boys are gonna need a lot of firepower,” Marci says, entering the room.

  “Gonna need a lot of everything,” I add. “Weapons are on the way.”

  I take a deep breath and look around the room to all of my brothers. I ask myself what Belly would say if he were still here. The answer comes to me instantly in the form of his voice and his words as clear as if he were standing next to me. I’ve lost too many men. But none who didn’t know beforehand that losing their lives was a possibility.

  “Storming Los Muertos without a doubt means war,” I begin. “War leaves a bloody and twisted tangle of corpses in its path. The dead are the ones who suffer the consequences of their leader’s failure to negotiate terms. So, that being said, let me make something very fucking clear. I’m not standing up here demanding that you fight this war with me, brothers. This war is of my own making. It’s not what I want for you. It’s definitely not what Tricks wanted. She’s only there now because she wanted to avoid all of this. But it’s her I’m fighting for, and although she might have been forced to wear yellow, she’s my family just as much as any of you in this room, if not more. Going in there means there’s a possibility you won’t come back out breathing. Anyone who wants out of this can opt out. I’m not demanding you fight this one with me…I’m asking.”

  “You’re family. My brother. If you say Tricks is family, that’s all I need to know,” Sandy says. “I�
�m in. You know that. Always.”

  I nod, feeling grateful for my brother’s support.

  “No doubt you’d do it for any one of us. No question. I’m in,” Haze says, standing beside me.

  “This is ridiculous!” shouts Trent, one of our men who helps with security at the casino. All eyes look to him. He smiles. “It shouldn’t be a question. We are all here because we’re all Bedlam. That motherfucker’s got your girl. If you’re going in, we all are. We fight for Bedlam. Always.” He laughs, but when it fades, his face grows serious. He leans forward with his hands on the table, lowering his voice to a deep whisper. “I’m so fucking in.”

  The rest of the room erupts in the sound of chairs sliding back and the words “I’m in” being repeated in rapid succession.

  “My life!” Sandy cries with his fist in the air.

  The rest of the men close their fists and pound them against their chest while they join in on the rest of the Bedlam oath. “My death. My honor. My loyalty. For Bedlam. For Brotherhood. For always!” The oath feeds both my determination and my fury. Snaking inside my ears and exploding inside my body with a power unlike any I’ve ever felt before.

  I stand tall, and the feeling of power surges into an overwhelming surge of pride, swelling in my chest as I look around the room at my brothers who are now arming themselves with every weapon in our arsenal. These men, men who are willing to risk their lives for both me and Tricks, pull guns from the table and blades from hooks on the walls and other more inventive weapons like axes and brass knuckles from hiding spots beneath the floorboards.

  Sandy clasps his hand on my shoulder. “Looks like we’re about to show Los Muertos the meaning of their own fucking name.”

  I nod. “Once we get in there,” I start, remembering the reminder Belly always gave us before we headed out. I pause while the men quiet down to listen. “No killing kids. Or women, unless they shoot first. Understood?”

  The men nod in agreement and continue to arm themselves.