by Naomi West
“Got it, Tanner,” Blade rumbled. “You holding up alright?” he asked, concern in his voice.
“No,” Tanner said, “I'm not. I'll keep looking out here. If you hear anything, let me know.”
“Yep,” Blade simply replied, then the line was dead.
He tossed his phone down on the table, next to his coffee. He ran both his hands back through his hair, staring down into the deep abyss that was the swirling black liquid in front of him.
That's where she was. In the abyss. Deep enough, and far enough, away that he couldn't reach out and touch her. But all he could do was make a desperate grab for her and try to pull her back to him. The struggle to set things right was all he had anymore.
Tonight wasn't a good night for Tanner Skinner. Or Star Bentley.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Tanner
The sun peaked up over the horizon, sending its wake-up call across town. Tanner, parked at a gas station half-way between the college and home, heard a rooster crow three times in the distance. The previous night had been cold, and mist and dew covered everything in a fine, wet patina.
The last few hours had been for nothing. He'd gone by the crackhouse apartment where they'd found Brendon. The door had been locked up, so he'd gone around to the balcony Aaron had originally escaped out of and broken the sliding glass door. The glass fell in a thousand pieces, covering the floor and the patio.
The apartment was deserted, except for the same sense of despair that had weighed down the air before. Needles littered the carpet, and more cigarette burns scarred the furniture. But, no Star. He'd ducked out before the cops could get called. Which, knowing that place, could take hours. But, there was no sense in taking chances. Especially since he needed to be out to find her.
He wiped a hand down over his face and rubbed his eyes before taking another sip of black coffee.
His thoughts circled back around to Aaron's words: “Frozen out . . . like I was.”
The guys had searched all the frozen coolers they could think of, places that a guy like Aaron could get access to without raising any suspicion. No dice. They hadn't found a thing.
Tanner thought back to his time knowing Aaron. They'd played in the woods as kids, riding around, causing whatever trouble they could get away with. Honestly, they hadn't been bad times. Maybe just misguided. Just the kind of stupid things teenage boys got into when they had idle hands.
They'd had a little spot in the trees, a ways away from any back road, and far enough away from any of the main roads. Giant oaks had surrounded the place, giving them shade throughout the spring and summer, and they'd had a little clubhouse of sorts built around the base of one of them, and a small fire pit just outside for when the weather turned cold. They'd pile up logs and dead branches and huddle in close to the flames, trying desperately to keep warm.
And, man, had it gotten cold out there. One would think that the trees would form a sort of windbreak and offer some protection, but around this time of year that wind would start whipping out of the west like it was nothing.
That was when the realization hit him.
The old woods, where they'd gone as kids.
Damn it all to hell, why'd he have to be so blind?
He tossed his cup and the last of its coffee on the ground, adrenaline pumping through him as a more–than-ample replacement for caffeine, and hopped back on his bike. He took off out of the parking lot and got onto the highway. He opened up the throttle and took off, stitching a line through the early morning traffic.
“Star,” he mumbled against the cold, biting wind, “I'm coming for you.”
# # #
“Star?” he yelled, using both hands as a megaphone for his hoarse voice. So many years had passed, he barely recognized the place. The trail they used as kids to bring their mopeds and bikes down was overgrown and washed out, and he'd had to park on the back road. Now, he was scrambling through the prickling and grabbing underbrush, yelling her name every twenty feet or so.
No luck, though. All he could hear was that biting wind as it laced itself through the trees and sent up a rattling of dead branches and fallen leaves. The trees around him seemed to moan, taunting him with their cries, as the air itself shook them. The place felt deserted, abandoned, dead.
“Tanner?” a distant, weak voice called back from somewhere deeper in the woods. “Is that you?”
He heard the despair in her voice and took off at a breakneck run, low-hanging limbs tearing at his clothes and hair. A big scraggly branch ripped across his cheek, tearing his skin and releasing a trickle of blood. It rolled down his cheek as he sprinted through the tree's grabbing branches.
“Star?” he called again.
“Here!” she called back from somewhere off to his left. “I'm over here!”
He turned her direction and took off at a sprint, batting away branches as he pounded the earth with his booted feet. He broke through a line of evergreens and came upon their old clubhouse, its corrugated metal walls and roof rusted through. The old, makeshift structure had barely stood the test of time.
“Tanner!” Star called, drawing his attention up to the little ridge that overlooked the remnants of his youth.
He'd at least left her sitting against the base of the tree, but he'd tied her hands above her head to the trunk. Her legs were coiled in the dead, rotting leaves and grass, with several thick cords of rope looped around her waist to prevent her from moving. Leaves littered her hair, and small abrasions marked where her face had been scratched by the underbrush and dead branches when he'd brought her through.
Tanner swore. This motherfucker was going to pay!
“I'm coming, babe!” He scrambled up the short ridge, rocks and dirt falling beneath his feet as he climbed to the top. His heart pounded in his throat, and blood rushed in his ears. He topped the ridge and ran to her, stumbling but then righting himself, as he made his way across the forest floor.
“Tanner,” she sobbed, tears of relief running down her face as he pulled his pocket knife and began to cut through the restraints.
“It's okay, babe, I'm here, I got you.”
“Please,” she sobbed again, her tears flowing like Niagara Falls, “please, I want to go home. I just want to go home.”
Tanner cut her hands loose and they lamely dropped into her lap. He circled around and cut the bonds from her wrists. He went to pick her hands up, to examine the dark welts that had formed in the skin form being bound all night, but she snatched them away.
“Please, Tanner,” she rasped between sniffs as she cradled her hands to her chest. “Just take me home. I want to go home.”
He took his heavy jacket off and draped it over her shoulders, saying, “It's okay, babe. I got you.” He knelt down in the loam and rotting leaves, looked her in the eyes. “I'll get you home, and won't leave your side.”
She forcefully looked away. “Please, just take me home.”
Tanner's heart sunk. First the argument, and now this. He'd never rebuild the trust that had been lost. He'd never come back from the damage done to her, all because he dragged her into his world.
# # #
Star
She walked around her apartment, just looking. She'd sent Tanner away, despite his protests. But, she couldn't feel safe with him around. He had been the one to drag her into this, into this miserable world of his. She'd just wanted to have a child, then disappear from this shitty town to raise it on her own. But, her feelings for him wouldn't let her.
But, then Tanner had to get wrapped up in this turf war with the Roaming Wolves, and this Aaron guy. All over honor. It was just like a man to fight over something that stupid, over something you couldn't hear, see, taste, or hold. What about her? Wasn't she better than honor?
Honor couldn't hold you tight at night and keep the cold away. Honor couldn't wipe away your tears when you were sad, and the world was caving in around you.
And honor couldn't raise a baby. Mothers and fathers did that. Of course, at this rate, her baby
might not even get to see the light of day. Not if she stuck around Tanner, at least.
She touched her hand to her belly. Even though she wasn't showing yet, she knew her baby was inside her, struggling to live and grow. It was like a seedling, and she had to give it good, healthy soil before it could break the surface and see the light.
Between her landlord invading her space, and now this man Aaron, she knew she couldn't raise her child here. Never. This was poisoned ground, now. She didn't even know if she could stay the night by herself surrounded by these four walls, and she'd be damned if she was going to have Tanner spend the evening with her.
He was the root of this. She may have loved him, and she may have still cared about him. But, none of these things would have happened without him in her life. None of them.
Something needed to change. And that something was Tanner.
Tanner Rainier would still have his baby in nine months, she was sure about that. She'd move mountains and redirect rivers to make sure this child was born safe and healthy, and grew up right.
But, Tanner wouldn't have its mother. Not in a million years, even. Of that, she was just as certain.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Tanner
He'd been furious at first when Star refused to talk to him. Absolutely, brain-jammingly furious that the mother of his own child wouldn't say a single word to him. It had taken everything he had to respect her wishes. Now, he'd just resigned himself that things would happen when they happened.
Now, as he sat in the driveway at his house with Brendon, sipping on some beers and working on an old bike the Blood Warriors had dug up for his younger brother, he still didn't know how to act. It had only been a couple weeks, but she was already gone from that crappy apartment. She and Patricia had moved most of her stuff into storage and packed up what little was left in the dumpster by the side of the road.
“Talked to Star yet?” Brendon asked as he handed a fresh beer to his brother. They'd hit a good stopping point on the bike, and were just taking a break to relax and hang out with each other. Just like siblings did.
“What do you think?” Tanner replied.
“That'd be a 'no,'” as he copped a squat next to him.
Tanner shook his head. “I got a routine now, I guess, which is kinda nice. Saddest fucking excuse for a routine I've ever heard of, though.”
“Oh yeah? What's that?”
“Wake up, get coffee, eat breakfast, work out,” he cracked his beer and took a foamy drink, “ride down to Patricia's and see if she'll talk to me.”
“Every morning?” Brendon said, laughing.
“Every morning. Set your watch by it.”
“Why dude?” his brother asked. “Why would you put yourself through that shit?”
Tanner rolled his eyes. “This coming from the dude who ran off with Willow? You're kidding me, right?”
Brendon laughed. “Nah, I guess you're right. God, that was stupid of me. Stupid of you, too.”
“What's so stupid about me?”
“Man, you need to just cut your losses. Do you think she'll really come back to your sorry ass?”
Tanner set his beer down between his legs. “Know what really gets me?”
“What?”
“I don't know that she will, but I know that she will. Like, if I just keep the faith or some stupid shit like that, she'll let me come back. She'll forgive me, you know?”
“Forgive you? You didn't do anything wrong, man.”
Tanner shrugged. “I didn't protect her. I shouldn't have left that night to go have a meeting with the guys. I should have been there. If I had, Aaron wouldn't have come up on her place like that, busted in and taken her.”
“You couldn't be with her twenty-four-seven, Tanner,” Brendon replied, sighing. “He would've just come back the next night.”
“You don't know that,” Tanner said. “You don't know, because we only know about that one night.”
“Well, that's beside the point. Shit happens.”
Tanner took a drink of beer. “How about you?” he asked, changing the subject. “You doing any better?”
“Almost a month clean now, I think.”
“You craving it still?”
Brendon shrugged. “I think about it sometimes, you know. But, no, not craving it. Every time I think about it, I just remember how awful everything surrounding it was. The homelessness, the stealing, the sleeping in alleys. Shuts out a lot of the memories, then. Reminds me how awful the rest of life became because of it.”
Tanner nodded beside his brother. “Talked to Willow?”
Brendon laughed. “No! Thank fucking God, too. I pray that bitch never shows up at Mom's house.”
“Why not?”
“Cause Mom'll claw her eyes out, and we'll have to figure out how to get blood out of the front entry way.”
Tanner had a good laugh at that one.
“How about joining up?” Tanner asked as he grabbed his younger brother's shoulder. “You still looking at it?”
“Becoming a recruit again?” Brendon asked. “I dunno. I mean, I let you and mom, and all you guys, down once already. With you, it was twice as bad. I just don't know if I can handle something like that again.”
“Then don't let us down,” Tanner said, grinning. “Easy as that.”
“Easy enough for you to say. But the doing part? That's where it gets hard.”
“Look,” Tanner said, pausing so he could think about how exactly he wanted to word things, “it's like this. You've got all the distractions out of your life now. Willow's gone, the drugs are gone. You got me, you got mom, you got yourself. What else is there? You wanna get a shitty job working retail somewhere?”
“No,” Brendon said, and took another drink of beer. “I don't know what I want.”
“Well, come on, man.Bbike's almost done. We'll have you up and going in no time flat. Once you get on it, you'll remember what the good old days were like. The feel of the wind in your hair, the sun on your face.”
Brendon grinned. “The way the women look at you.”
Tanner laughed, but then his smile began to fade as he thought of the way Star used to look at him. The way she'd held onto him. The way she'd clung to him at night in bed. The way she felt in his arms, so warm and perfect.
He might not have that again from her. He just took another sip of beer.
His brother noticed the look on his face. “Sorry, man. I didn't mean to -”
Tanner waved him off. “No, you're fine, man. Let's just talk about something else, okay?”
“You wanna run down to the Crow? Kick back a couple beers?”
Tanner shook his head. “Nah, man. I got some stuff I need to work on back here for the night.”
“Cool, dude,” Brendon said. “Guess I'm gonna head out, then.”
They both got up and hugged, clapping each other on the back.
“Be strong, man,” Brendon said. “She'll come back.”
“That's what I keep telling myself.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Star
She lay in her new bedroom at Patricia's place, reading and rereading the same passage in her book. The words didn't seem to want to sink in, though, and she finally just dropped the novel on her chest. It wasn't the book’s fault. It was Tanner Rainier'. He was what kept messing up her train of thought, her focus.
She'd only been living at Patricia's for a while. And, honestly, it was nicer than when she'd been living alone. Sure, Patricia was gone most days for work, like she was today, but at least she had Patricia's cat to keep her company.
Sort of.
Mr. Wiggles was a cat, after all. He kind of ignored anything and everything unless he wanted to be played with, or fed. Most of the time, he just slept on the couch or perched at the top of his cat tree and watched the world go by.
Oh, to have the life of a cat. That would be a sweet setup. No biker boys, no psychos stalking you and kidnapping you just so they could terrorize your man by
leaving you out in the forest.
Memories of that night loomed back up in her mind. Memories of his crappy old car, the stale stench of cigarettes, the feel of the blindfold over her eyes.
She shivered despite the warmth of the room.
They came and went, the memories. They stayed locked away most of the time. But, occasionally, they'd resurface for no reason, like now. Little bits and pieces that would just take over her whole world.
Star got up from the bed and put her slippers on, then shuffled out into the kitchen. She grabbed some coffee and checked the time. Geez, it was almost noon, already. She'd barely done anything with herself all day long, just laid in bed trying unsuccessfully to read her new book. Even that, she couldn't get done right.
