Fearless

by Lauren Gilley

  Collier pulled one of the tablets out, a bright pink one, and showed Mercy the sugar stamp on its surface: the silhouette of a bucking bronc and cowboy. “Your design?” he asked.

  “No. No way, man. I don’t mess with that kinda shit. I just stick to the recipe. Cook what you know, right?”

  “Then where’d you get it?”

  “Dude, I can’t breathe.”

  Mercy pressed harder. “The story, Joe.”

  He took a wheezing breath. “I got a phone call,” he said through his teeth. “ ‘Bout two weeks ago. Guy said he had something new that was selling like crazy; said he’d split the profits with me fifty-fifty if I’d move it for him.

  “Clearly, you did.”

  “I haven’t even sold a quarter of it! I stopped, man. I sold a few bags, and then I let my buddy try it – Tate, remember him?”

  “All too vividly,” Collier said.

  “He took one, just one, and put it on his tongue like you’re supposed to do. And he died! He puked and passed out and shook all over. It was awful.” Tears flooded his eyes. “My best friend, and he died right over there on the floor.”

  “I share your grief,” Collier deadpanned. “What’d you do with old Tate? Roll his corpse under the Ford in the yard?”

  “I gave him a proper funeral!” Anger reddened his face. “I drove him up the hill and buried him under that tree he always liked.”

  Collier sighed. “You’re just lucky we don’t feel like reporting unsanctioned burials today.” He tossed the baggie on the floor beside Fisher’s head and gave Mercy a little nod.

  Mercy withdrew his foot and Fisher sat up, gasping, clutching at his chest. Mercy’s boot had left mud on the front of his wifebeater.

  “You heard about the Stephens kid, then?” Collier asked.

  “Yeah.” Fisher drew his knees up and hugged them. “I went by the school last week – I’m probably on the fucking security cameras – and went up to him at lunch, told him I needed the stuff back, that it wasn’t safe. He threw fifty bucks at me and said not to bother him at school. He called me ‘fucking hillbilly trash,’ ” he said, indignant.

  “What is it?” Mercy asked. “Your source didn’t tell you?”

  “He said it was like E. A party drug. A new one. I just thought it would, you know, make everything all pretty and shiny. I had no idea…”

  “Drug dealer with a heart of gold,” Mercy said. “It moves me, really it does.”

  Fisher glared up at him. “I never meant for anybody to die.”

  “Right. ‘Cause meth never killed anybody.”

  “Not like this! This wasn’t an OD. Tate took one.

  “I tried to take it back to the guy who cooked it, but the house was empty, all cleaned out, like he’d moved, and I couldn’t get in touch with him. It was like he didn’t even want the money for what he gave me. Who hands over that big a bag of shit and doesn’t even want to collect?”

  Mercy had a bad feeling the collection would happen at some point in the future, and it would involve Fisher’s life. “So you were going to destroy it.”

  “Yeah.” Fisher propped his chin on his knees, miserable. “I didn’t want you guys to know.”

  Collier massaged the bridge of his nose. “Fish, this violates so many parts of our agreement. Namely, selling inside Knoxville. Selling to kids.”

  “I know,” Fisher groaned. “I know. I’m sorry, man. I’m so sorry.”

  “So why do it?” Mercy asked.

  “The guy, he said the rich kids would want it. He said they’d eat it up like candy. I dunno why I did it, man. He sat down with me, and he poured me this fancy drink, and we talked, just man-to-man, you know? And he made it sound like a good idea. Like the best idea. I dunno,” he repeated. “I dunno.”

  Mercy shared a look with Collier.

  Collier said, “This guy got a name?”

  Fisher shook his head. “He said to call him William, but I know that ain’t right.”

  Collier nodded and retrieved a notepad and pen from the inside pocket of his cut, looking very official. He handed them to Fisher. “We need the address of this house you mentioned.”

  Mercy collected the tablets, plucking them up in his too-big fingertips and depositing them all back in the baggie. “This is all of it?”

  Fisher nodded. “I don’t ever want to see that shit again.”

  “We’ll be in touch,” Collier said, almost gently. “And Fisher, I mean it, no selling in the city limits.” He ruffled his thin, greasy hair.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You may wanna put some duct tape or something on that doorjamb,” Mercy said on their way out. “I kinda broke the fuck out of it.”

  When they were back breathing clean air and walking to their parked bikes, Collier said, “I hate to be paranoid–”

  “But someone’s trying to make the Dogs look bad in this town.”

  “Yeah.”

  Ava was setting out fresh flats of yellow mums with Mina in the long covered aisles of Green Hills when Leah arrived.

  “Isn’t that your friend?” Mina asked in her low, sweet voice.

  Ava glanced up and saw Leah coming toward her at a bouncy power walk, her sleek black hair streaked with platinum, her turquoise romper topped with a satin bomber jacket. Her face was pinched with concern.

  “Girl! Oh my God. Why didn’t you call me?” Leah asked as she closed the distance between them and pulled Ava into a fast hug.

  For some reason, the sight of her worried best friend made Ava want to cry. She hadn’t told Leah she was going out with Carter, hadn’t so much as texted her about everything that had occurred.

  “It was all anyone could talk about in homeroom,” Leah said. “The story going around is that you poisoned Mason and beat Ainsley across the face with a folding chair pro-wrestler-style.”

  “I–” Ava started.

  “I didn’t believe it,” Leah went on. “Of course I didn’t believe it.” She stepped back and propped her tiny hands on her hips. “But what the hell went on last night? And why didn’t you call me?”

  Mina, pretty and petite and all swallowed up by her Green Hills polo with its Manager label stitched on the chest, excused herself and drifted a tactful distance away, giving them some privacy.

  Ava pulled off her printed garden gloves and let them dangle from one limp arm, staring down at the scuffed toes of her work boots. “I knew you’d tell me I was an idiot for going out with Carter. And I knew you’d be right, and for some reason, I was dead set on being stupid.”

  Leah didn’t respond right away. She folded her arms. “I might not have said that. You don’t know.”

  Ava lifted her brows to say really?

  “You should’ve at least let me have a chance.” She was hurt, Ava realized. “What good’s a best friend if I can’t tell you you’re out of your mind?”

  Ava hugged her again, on impulse. “I’m sorry,” she said as she squeezed her narrow shoulders. “I really am stupid. So stupid.”

  “It’s more fun if I get to be the one to say it,” Leah said, and they laughed.

  “Come on.” Ava set her gloves aside. “I’ve been here since seven. I’m due a lunch break.”

  They snagged Snapples from the mini fridge under the register and went out front, to sit on a concrete bench beneath the birch tree, amid the concrete statuary and birdbaths. It was cool, but cloudless, the sky a bright blue bowl arcing overhead. The breeze tickled the leaves and set them to dancing.

  In the lacy shade, Ava recounted all that had happened since yesterday’s tutoring session with Carter, leaving out nothing, rehashing all her teenage angst over Mercy, citing it as the reason for her momentary insanity the night before.

  “Ten days,” Leah said when she was done. “Damn. And the whole school’s wanted Ainsley to catch a fist in the face.” She dropped her voice. “And we all wanted Mason to bite the big one, too.”

  “Don’t let anyone hear you say that,” Ava said, smiling in spite of th
e situation. “They’ll start believing I really tried to kill him.”

  Leah dismissed her with a shrug, the spark in her eyes a tell that she’d already changed mental tracks. “So let’s talk about the real story, here.” She grinned hugely. “You want to do the nasty with the actual most terrifying biker in this joint. I’m sooo impressed with you right now.”

  “Don’t say it like that,” Ava groaned.

  “But it is like that! Look, we’ll ask your mom.”

  Maggie’s black Caddy was sliding into a parking spot just across from them, Maggie’s mane of rich blonde hair swirling in the breeze as she exited the car.

  “We will not,” Ava said, shaking her head for emphasis. “I know you think she’s a ‘cool mom,’ but no one is that cool.”

  Leah lifted her brows.

  “Mercy is thirty. That’s bad math for any mother, even mine.”

  Then she closed her lips because Maggie was bearing down on them.

  “You playing hookie?” she asked Leah with a grin.

  Leah beamed back at her. “No, ma’am. I’m doing that senior intern program, so my lunch period I get to spend working in my dad’s shop.” She pulled a face. “If anyone asks, I’m on a run for more coffee filters and swizzle sticks.”

  “Gotcha.” Maggie sat on the end of the bench, beside Ava, her expression becoming concerned. “Do you feel alright?” She reached up to press the back of her hand to Ava’s forehead. “You look…”

  “Like shit?”

  “Tired and pale,” Maggie continued. “Why are you working today, anyway? I called this morning and told Mina you were going to sleep in.”

  Ava shrugged. “I didn’t have anything better to do.”

  Maggie pressed her lips together, nostrils flaring with temper. “Well, now you do. I went by the school – those bastards – and after I got done chewing their asses out, I picked up your work for the next week.”

  Ava cringed, imagining the scene in the front office. “Am I suspended for another ten days now?”

  “No.” Maggie flicked at her shoulder with her fingertips, barely making contact. “But they understand exactly how angry I am.”

  “I don’t think anyone ever wonders that,” Ava said under her breath.

  “Mrs. Teague,” Leah said, “can you come talk to my biology teacher and convince him to give me an A on my last test?”

  Maggie snorted. “See?” she told Ava. “Someone appreciates me.”

  Ava felt Leah’s elbow in her ribs on her other side, and could imagine her friend’s message: Tell your mom about Mercy.

  But she couldn’t. Because there wasn’t anything to tell.

  Fifteen

  Five Years Ago

  Ratchet pushed his reading glasses up onto his shaved head and frowned down at the blue Wild Bill tablet in his palm.

  “Thoughts?” Ghost asked him.

  The secretary set the little pill back on the bar in front of him. “If it’s sending people into grand mal seizures – killing people” – he glanced up at the gathering of brothers around his stool – “then I’m gonna guess this is a mix of prescription drugs, narcotics, and something inorganic most like.”

  “And that means what?”

  “It ain’t baking soda, that’s for sure.” He scraped the tablet into a tiny paper packet and slipped it inside his cut. “I’ll take it round to Jesse,” he said of his cousin who worked in the lab at the hospital. “See if he can do some tests on it for me.”

  “The hospital will have tested what was in the Stephens kid’s blood,” James said, “but yeah, let’s see what Jesse thinks too.” He looked at Ghost. “Fisher broke our arrangement.” He said it in his usual placid style, but everyone present knew what he was getting at.

  Ghost considered a moment. “I think he’s still useful. For right now, anyway.”

  James nodded. “I won’t have him sell that shit in our district, though.”

  “No,” Ghost agreed. “We’ve got too many assets at stake these days.”

  There were murmured agreements. Fisher was one of many of his kind – dealers the clubs had liens against, who relied on the generosity and mercy of the club, left alone so long as they kept to the fringes. It was a way in which the Dogs could control the counterculture – bending and manipulating it to suit their own needs, maintaining an illusion of legitimacy with the masses.

  “Leave it to my sister,” Aidan said, “to bring shit raining down on the club.”

  Mercy squashed his instant spike of anger. He liked Aidan – he loved him; they were brothers – but it was Ava he’d spent nine years protecting. It was Ava who’d talked with him for hours about things his brothers didn’t care about, like the poetry his grandmother had so loved. He remembered Ava at twelve, cross-legged on the floor while he cleaned his guns at the table, reciting Wordsworth to him. Poetry was soothing. Poetry was peace amid the raucous fury of his mind. Ava could read Blake, Yeats, and Robert Frost to him without a shred of self-consciousness. The groupies didn’t want poetry, not girls like Jasmine, no. They wanted to be fucked and slapped and treated like shit.

  Just like his mother.

  Stop, he told himself. He didn’t need to go down that mental path. It was littered with broken glass and flat tires.

  Ghost said, “Watch yourself,” to his son. “This isn’t her fault. Mason Stephens has been after us for a long time,” he told all of them. “This thing with his kid gives him a little more leverage, but that’s all. Nothing’s changed.”

  “Right,” James agreed. “It was only a matter of time before the little shit became a problem. The kid, I mean.”

  He was met with nods.

  Tango gestured to the security monitor and said, “Heads up.”

  There was a Mustang parked in front of the clubhouse, and Mercy recognized Ava’s blonde football-playing student climbing from behind the wheel.

  “I’ve got it,” he said. “That’s Ava’s football dick.”

  Ghost nodded, his trust immediate and complete. Go take care of it. You look after my girl. He didn’t for a second suspect…He didn’t ever wonder…

  That trust should have been flattering, but in the moment, it just pissed Mercy off. You don’t have a fucking clue, he thought, conjuring the first ever bitter resentment of his vice president. She’s throwing herself at me and I’m two seconds away from giving in, and you don’t even see it.

  The afternoon was blazing out in the parking lot, and Mercy hadn’t properly stowed his pointless energy by the time he crossed paths with Carter Michaels.

  “You lost?” he asked, and took satisfaction in the way his shadow fell across the kid, the way Carter’s face blanched.

  To his credit, the blonde took a step back, then gathered himself and said, “I wanted to check on Ava. Make sure she was alright after last night.”

  “How’s that any of your business?”

  The poor little guy had an honorable streak. “She wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me.” He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “Is she here? I wanted to apologize.”

  Mercy gave him his nastiest smile. “I’ll tell her you said that. Alright? Now get lost.”

  Carter took a step back, his expression fretful, but he didn’t retreat. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

  Mercy sighed. “What are you talking about?” But inwardly, he felt the first stirrings of panic. People knew. People were noticing. He was too obvious and he didn’t know how to stop it.

  “Ava’s crazy about someone,” Carter said, voice growing wistful. “She’s too distracted and she daydreams in class. She’s into someone, big time. And it’s you.”

  “You have five seconds,” Mercy said sweetly, “to get the fuck outta my sight.”

  “Tell her, please. That I’m sorry.”

  “Four…”

  Carter’s eyes widened and he turned away, heading for his car.

  “Three…”

  He slid behind the wheel, slammed the door and the engine turned
over with a snarl.

  Mercy stood there a long moment after he’d driven off, long enough that someone came to look for him; he heard the boots on the pavement and didn’t turn, judging by the pace of the stride that it was Ghost.

  The VP drew up alongside him, joining in his stare toward the street. He dug a pack of smokes from his front cut pocket and lit up with a certain dramatic purpose of movement. He was magnetic, Ghost. Mercy had never had any trouble wondering how a sixteen-year-old Maggie Lowe had been captivated.

  “Kid’s been bitten,” he finally said, speaking of Carter. “I knew that would happen – eventually – that she’d catch someone’s eye. But I’m not ready for it, ya know?” His glance was sharp and sideways. “Nobody likes to watch his little girl grow up.”

  “No,” Mercy agreed.

  “This just doesn’t seem like Ava, though.” Ghost turned fully, his attention on the side of Mercy’s face. “Did she say anything to you? About this kid, I mean.”

  “Nah. Why would she?”

  “She likes you.” Ghost made a sound in his throat that could have been contemptuous. “She likes you better than she likes me.”

  “No she doesn’t,” Mercy said, because it was what he had to say. He couldn’t say that “like” wasn’t a part of the equation anymore.

  “She trusts you,” Ghost continued. “She talks to you – tells you shit a daughter wouldn’t tell her old man.”

  If only he knew how terrible that truth was.

  “Do me a favor,” Ghost said, and Mercy was ready for the request; there’d been an air of favor-asking about this little moment staring off toward the street. If Ghost was going to grow contemplative and start unraveling the inner workings of his soul, he wasn’t ever going to do it with Mercy. No, it was only ever about the club, about work, with Mercy.

  “Go by the house a little later,” Ghost went on. “Mags sent Ava home with her books. I’m worried about her. This thing with the Stephens has got my hackles up. I don’t trust that something else won’t happen.

  “And while you’re there, see if you can get her to talk about last night. I just don’t understand how she got herself in that spot.”