by Naomi West
One day, towards the end of school, he'd snuck her out of class with a hall pass from the office. He didn't get Wyland, though, just her. She hadn't known it at the time, but he was taking her there to tell her something in private. He'd made a mistake, however. Wyland had seen them through the window as they passed one of his classes. He'd asked to go to the nurse's office a little while later, then slipped after them. Back then he’d had taken her hand. Held it tight, so tight. She remembered how his palms were sweating. She'd thought it was weird at the time, but now she knew he was just nervous. They were sitting close together, and he'd looked into her eyes. He whispered those words to her: “I love you.”
Then, they'd kissed. Their first kiss. Then Wyland had appeared. He'd seen it all and started screaming. The boys got into a fight, with Desmond trying to calm him down and protect himself. Wyland had knocked him back, over a metal support bar. Unfortunately, his leg was still up over the beam, caught like a branch against a tree.
Wyland's eyes were filled with blood-shot rage, the kind of rage only a madman could put off. He stomped down, snapping Desmond's thigh like kindling. Even now, almost ten years later, the sound of that crack haunted Liona as she thought back on it. She shivered at the memory, of how she'd had to pull Wyland off him. What followed, the lies from Wyland, the threats to the school from his father if they tried to punish him, everything had been swept beneath the rug. Including Desmond. Looking back, she knew what was happening was wrong, but she’d been helpless. How could she, one lone girl, make a difference in the grand scheme of things?
So, she'd backed Wyland West's side, and his father's. She kept her mouth shut, and watched as one of her best friends in the whole world was suspended and kept from walking across the stage for graduation.
Cutter came in from the bathroom and crawled into bed beside her, jarring her from her depressing trip down memory lane. “How's the book?” he asked as he pulled her into his arms.
“Not really paying much attention to it,” she said, honestly. “Thinking about the last time we saw each other. Back in school, I mean.”
“Yeah,” he said as she leaned her head against his chest. “Probably not a good thing to think about it. Happened in the past. Should stay that way.”
Guilt gnawed away at her, guilt about the way Cutter had been treated afterward. “I never told anyone about what happened down there,” she replied, suddenly beginning to grow sleepy as she settled into his arms and the security they offered. “Really happened. About how Wyland broke your leg like that when you refused to fight him.”
“Told you I'd rather not talk about this,” he said with a sigh. “It's not something I really want to relive.”
“I should have just said something, should have backed up your story,” she continued, fighting back a yawn. “I'm just, I'm really sorry. I never would have been with him if ... Just, maybe I would have chosen a different path, is all.” She closed her eyes and let the sound of his thumping heartbeat begin to lull her to sleep.
“Honestly,” he said with a deep sigh, “I'm almost happy it happened. Sure, I got fucked over by the school, but it really helped me put some things in perspective and led me here. It sucked when I was going through it, but I'd hate to know what I might have become. Besides, you and I wouldn't have lasted. Not like I was.”
Her lips twisted up in a little smile as he tried to push the past back into its rightful place. “But, were you serious?” she asked, her words slurred with exhaustion. “About what you told me before he showed up?”
“That ... that I cared about you?”
“I don't remember you using that word exactly,” she said as she began to feel herself slipping away into sleep.
“Fine,” he said, his words sounding like they were miles away, in a different world even. “That I loved you?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. But, before she could hear her words, she'd drifted away. The exhaustion had become too much for her.
Chapter 30
Cutter
He woke early that morning, closer to his normal time, and left the still soundly sleeping Liona in bed. He padded on bare feet into the kitchen and began sorting through everything he'd need for the picnic lunch he'd planned as his coffee brewed, his surprisingly well-rested mind going through the hundred ways this day could end.
He'd slipped away after his conversation with Wyland and called the lawyers to check on a few things. What Wyland had said about Big Jack's and Jersey's cases being swapped around and shuffled higher was true. It looked like Jersey's charges might even be dropped. Also, Hunting had been given the impression that the DA wouldn't be challenging him at bail hearings. From the impressions he'd been receiving, it sounded like the DA suddenly wanted to play ball.
Then Cutter had told him about the deal Wyland wanted to talk about. Hunting advised him in the predictable way: he needed to take the deal, particularly if it was going to guarantee his men would stay out. Any guarantee that they could avoid any kind of prosecution was clearly the best option available, no matter what the consequences were personally.
“But,” he'd said, “that's just me speaking as a lawyer regarding the law. I've known you guys, and other MCs, long enough to know that it's not a very good idea, Cutter. I’m not saying this as a lawyer, mind you. Just as another guy on the street.”
Cutter had floated the other idea he had. What about recording the conversation? No, their state didn't have laws against non-consent recording between two parties, as long as one party clearly consented. He could record Wyland but, ideally, any conversation he had with the assistant DA should be had with Hunting there.
“But, come on Hunting, you know he ain't gonna say anything around you. Not about all this shit.”
“Well, no, of course he won't. But, that's my legal advice, strictly speaking. And, remember, that's what you pay me for. Even if you are calling me at home, and I'm billing you double.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cutter had said. “I know, man. I know.”
They ended the call after that. Cutter didn't relish the idea of racking up any more time with the legal geek than he could afford. Then there'd been the conversation with Liona moments after he crawled into bed. He'd almost said it, then. Said those deadly three words that had gotten him into so much trouble all those years ago. Sitting there at the prep table now, perched on his bar stool, he regretted that he hadn't said them. It never felt like the right time.
But when was a right time, if not then? He ran a hand down his face. If he agreed to Wyland's deal, and testified against the Bolt Riders, he'd be betraying her and his MC. The MC would be saved, but Liona would be hurt. She'd have had yet another promise broken to her by a man in her life.
If his plan worked, and he could get Wyland to admit what he'd done on recording by tricking him somehow into letting slip the abuses he'd piled on Liona and the unfair harassment he'd unleashed on the Vanguard, then this would all be over. She'd be free. Free to pursue the life that had been interrupted by a series of poor choices, free to go back to school, to do charity work. Would she stay with him, then? A skeezy biker that only fucked club girls and talked more with his fists than his words, who lived on the edge of legitimacy?
Or was he only offering her security, a sense of protection from Wyland? Was he just the port in the midst of this vengeful storm? Cutter shook his head. He didn't know. He wasn't a mind reader.
The only thing he did know was that in about nine hours, he was going to have a meeting with fate. Another meeting with Wyland, completely unscripted and unsupervised, where Cutter had to trick him into spilling his deepest, darkest secrets in an effort to create incriminating evidence. Either that or he’d end up agreeing to testify against a rival gang. He gripped his coffee mug so tight he almost shattered the ceramic in his hands. This was a fool's quest. Something for a bad Steven Segal film. What happened out at that park would determine how the rest of their lives would turn out, for good or ill.
With that thought in mind, he
rose from his bar stool and went back to doing what he'd intended to do when he came into the kitchen. He began preparing his picnic lunch that he wanted to have with Liona, putting everything in order so he could surprise her. He wanted to make sure that what little time he might have left with her was memorable.
Maybe, when she looked back on this afternoon after everything had come to its final end, she'd be able to smile as she thought about him. Not as an afterthought, but as one of the bright spots in the dark days she'd had to endure during her life with Wyland West.
# # #
Once she'd gotten up and moving, Liona was more than happy to hop on the back of his bike and go for a ride through the nearby woods. Normally, he'd go for these late morning rides on his own, and use them as a time to clear his head. This time, though, he'd packed up everything he'd prepared earlier, in the hopes of surprising her. The morning was beautiful. The sun was warm, but if you caught a little bit of shade you could feel the cool air as it brushed over your skin. It was a perfect day for a ride, and they took their time finding their way down the various winding back roads of the countryside.
Liona clung to his back, her slender arms around his bulkier frame. He found himself sighing, relaxing from the all the stress of the week, despite the fact that he was meant to meet Wyland West later that day. He knew that, one way or another, everything would come down to that meeting. Strangely, though, he felt a sort of calm, a sense of peace about himself. This appointment was inevitable, unavoidable. Struggling against it, and being anxious about the whole thing wouldn't do him any good.
After about an hour or so on the bike, with both of them just taking in the scenery, Cutter pulled over on the side of the road near a break in the trees. A cacophony of vivid greens erupted around them, and the sense of fresh, new life filled the air. Cutter could feel it deep down in his lungs, and deeper still into the core of his being.
“Why are we stopping?” Liona asked.
He killed the engine and put up the kickstand. “Wanna show you something, that's all.” They climbed down off the bike together and set to grabbing all the stuff for their picnic from his saddlebags.
“What's this?” she asked in a surprised tone as he piled up fruit, sandwiches, and cheeses in her arms.
He pulled the blanket from his bad and draped it over the seat while he closed his saddlebag back up. “It's a picnic,” he said. “What does it look like?”
“A picnic?” she asked, her eyes flashing with excitement. “I can't even remember the last time I had a picnic!”
He grinned as he grabbed most of the food from her. “Well, I've never had much reason for 'em. But, well, you weren't around.”
She smiled up at him. “Is this why you woke up so early?”
He laughed and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. “No, I normally get up that early. But, yeah, it's when I put everything together. Now, come on.” His arms full, he headed out to a small path through the nearby trees. A small wire fence lay trampled into the edge of the forest floor here, marking it as someone's property. In all the time Cutter had been coming out this way, he'd never encountered another human being.
He'd found this spot a few years before when he was out tramping through the forest by himself, he explained as they followed a faint deer trail through the trees and underbrush. He'd never brought anyone else out this way. Not any of the guys, and definitely not any of the club girls.
“So, this is sort of your Fortress of Solitude, then?” she asked.
He laughed. “I wouldn't exactly compare me to Superman, or anything. But, yeah, I guess I use it as a way to get away from the clubhouse, from the restaurant. Take a long ride, chill out here with a book. I like it.”
“Well,” Liona said as she squeezed his hand, “I don't think you're much of a Clark Kent, that's for sure.”
They followed the path as it rose up through the trees on a shallow incline, twisting back and forth as it led them up a small hill. The trees here were old, and the whole place smelled of musty damp. Around them, the trees were nearly silent except for the occasional bird call.
“Ever see any animals out here?”
“Rabbits mostly,” he said. “I don't normally come out here at the right time for deer, but I can see their signs.”
She laughed, her voice musical and lilting. “You can track wild animals now?”
He laughed and shook his head as he offered her a hand to climb over a fallen log. “My dad taught me how to read them, a little at least. Needed to be able to see where they fed if you wanted to come back and shoot them.” She frowned a little. “Ain't like we shot Bambi or anything,” he said, grinning, as he reached up and grabbed her arm.
“That's not funny.” She stuck her tongue out at him “I loved that movie when I was kid.”
“Oh, I'm just messing with you,” he said, squeezing her upper arm.
They turned back and kept following the path, heading up to the top of the hill. The trees thinned as they went higher, with less and less trees being able to root themselves in the increasingly steep soil. Their twisted roots threaded throughout the top soil, and the two of them had to watch their step as they made their way up.
Eventually, they crested the top and broke through the trees. Liona gasped a little as she took in the sight. The hill spread out around them, with its one lone oak rooted in the near center, and soft, knee high grass that spread out over the top like a lush carpet. The scenery, though, was what Cutter loved about this place.
It was easy to forget that their hometown sat in a valley, practically surrounded on all sides by hills. The small town spread out before them. Everything from the church downtown, with its towering steeple, to the old high school they'd spent so much time together in, which was now closed and set to be soon torn down. If you knew where to look, like Cutter did, you could even see Farm to Fable, just off Main Street.
“It's so beautiful from up here,” Liona said, her hand covering her mouth.
Up here, everything seemed so distant, like all your problems were miles and miles away. It was a picture perfect, scenic spot. He could spend hours up here, just sitting below the big oak, breathing in nature.
“You like it, then?” he asked as he headed over to the oak tree and set everything down against the trunk.
“God, it's just so wonderful,” she said, following after him.
He grabbed the blanket and began to unfold it, then unfurled it and laid it flat on the tall grass. Immediately, it began to settle and lay flat.
“Oh, Cutter,” she said, coming over and putting her arms around him. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?” he asked. “For the picnic?”
“For everything. This all started off as the worst day of my life, and now I think it's turned into one of the best weeks.”
He tilted her chin up, bringing her eyes up to his. “Despite everything,” he said, “it's been a pretty damn good week for me, too.”
They pressed their lips together and kissed, and anyone who saw them would have identified them as young lovers immediately. The way that two lost people can kiss as they cling together, desperately trying to find something bigger than themselves. Their lips parted from one another, and they smiled at each other.
Liona's stomach grumbled. “So, you packed lunch for us?” she asked, and they both laughed.
“Yeah, have a seat,” he said, releasing her and bending down to the array of sealed plastic bags and containers. “It's been a while since I had to pack a picnic, so I wasn't exactly sure what to bring,” he explained as began to hand her food.
“It looks wonderful,” she said as she began to unwrap sandwiches and open containers of potato salad. “I'm sure it'll be perfect.”
With the food distributed, Cutter sat down next to her and they began to eat. In between bites, they talked about their childhood and reminisced about high school. The teachers they'd liked, the ones they couldn't stand. Their conversation absent was any discussion of Wyland West
, or the events of that afternoon beneath the bleachers.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this content. Before Liona had come back into his life, he'd just gone from work to the clubhouse. Sure, they'd throw the weekly party, and he'd have someone to warm his bed, but even that felt hollow. Like he was just living a part, one of the big biker dudes that would fuck the girl then toss her out the next morning. Here, up on this hilltop with the world spread out below him, he felt alive. And, even though he had a date with destiny in just a few short hours, he felt wonderful. Besides, what more could he ask for of a spring day? He'd had his coffee, gotten a bike ride in, and now he was sharing a meal with a beautiful woman as they surveyed the town below. What more could a rough and tumble biker ask for?
Finished eating, Liona relaxed back into Cutter's arms, leaning her whole body against his. He circled himself around her as they both basked in the sun.
