by Zoey Parker
Shit. Had I really convinced myself earlier that Growler was such a badass Superman that there was nothing to worry about? I'm a fucking asshole. And a selfish one, too, because if he hadn't been guarding me last night...if I hadn't rolled over immediately when Lauren asked to go back to my place, if I had just insisted that we go to hers instead...
Bard released my wrist, and I felt relieved for a half-second—until both of his hands locked on the sides of my face, his normally-placid gray eyes now blazing into mine. The power I felt behind those hands terrified me. He'd never put his hands on me like this before, had never spoken to me like this, certainly not in front of the other guys. He'd taught, he'd lectured, he'd occasionally scolded—but he'd never been menacing toward me. I had another irrational moment of fear, knowing that he could end my life right there in front of everyone with a quick snap.
But he would never do that. Not to me, not in front of the others, and certainly not without calling a meeting of the officers first to discuss whether such punishment would actually be fitting. I know him too well to actually think he'd do that.
Don't I?
I tried to keep my voice level, afraid that if he heard a tremble in it, it would make him even angrier. “Did you try his burner?”
“It was disconnected even though he just paid it up a couple of days ago. We sent Reapers to his apartment, to his other favorite hang-outs, to the places where his girlfriends live. We even sent Ditch to his mother's house even though Growler hadn't been in touch with her in over two years. Nothing. He's gone.”
My heart rolled over in my chest queasily. I'd just lost Kong and had to deal with the guilt of knowing he'd have spent his last three years on the outside if he hadn't been protecting me. Would I have to live with the knowledge that Growler had gone the same way—because he was watching my back? I knew from bloody experience that I could endure bullet wounds, cuts from knives and broken glass, bike accidents, but I honestly didn't think I could fucking handle this.
Please, God, let this be some kind of prank. I know I was selfish and stupid last night. I know I let myself get blinded by my own bullshit and paid more attention to getting laid than being a good Reaper. I deserve for the other guys to fuck with me about it, to put this whole scene together as a lesson to me to put my brothers' needs ahead of my own from now on. So please, just let it end now, yeah? I've learned my lesson. It won't happen again, so please let's just get to the part where Growler pops out from behind the bar and puts me in a good-natured head lock and everyone has a good laugh at my expense.
But Growler was gone, no one was laughing, and the oppressive silence in the bar was pressing against my head even harder than Bard was.
Bard spoke through clenched teeth. “Nic. Listen to me. I need you to tell me everything you can remember about what went on outside of your apartment last night. What you saw, what you heard, everything.”
“I...didn't see anything...”
Something like a brick smacked me in the side of the face, the pain crystalizing my thoughts in jagged edges. It took me a moment to realize that it had been Bard's open palm. I heard several of the Reapers suck air in through their teeth—they had never seen Bard act like this before. Neither had I.
Holy fuck, if that was his palm, I hope I never get hit with his fist.
“You must have seen something!” Bard snapped.
“I didn't! I swear! I didn't even look out the window last night!”
“You must have heard something, then, on the street outside. Voices, cars, something. Tell me!”
I couldn't take it anymore, and started to yell, not caring anymore whether Bard would hurt me or worse. Fuck it, I probably deserved it, but I couldn't stand this anymore, couldn't deal with being made to feel this way. “Of course I heard voices and cars outside, Bard, it's Rogers Fucking Park! There's always shit jumping off outside, so I mostly tune it out, like the rest of us! And then I woke up and went outside, and Growler was goddamn gone! And anyway, how the fuck is this my fault, huh?” I could feel my voice cracking, but kept going. “You said I could take her home! I went to you for permission like I was supposed to, and you made the call, and you sent Growler, so what the fuck do you fucking want from me?”
Bard stared at me for another long moment. I was breathing hard. Finally, he released my head from his hands, and I saw something in his eyes that made all of this snap into focus.
Bard may have been annoyed at me, may even have blamed me a little for insisting that I had to return to my place last night knowing that it wasn't safe. But most of his anger—his disappointment—was with himself. He could see that he had made the wrong call, but he couldn't see the results of it yet or gauge how bad they were, and that was killing him.
Realizing this should have brought me relief, but instead, it made the shame I felt stab into my chest even more deeply. This wasn't fair to him. I'd let him down, I'd let Growler down, and I couldn't think of a single way to fix it. I hadn't felt this helplessly panicked since I was a little kid and my real dad had run out on us.
“Okay,” Bard said, turning away from me and nodding to himself. He picked up his pack of cigarettes, tapped one out, lit it, and exhaled shakily. “Okay, clearly we want it to be Giovanni's guys, because our most recent altercation was with them, so it would make sense. It would be the easiest thing in the world for us to just embrace that theory, hop on our bikes, and ride at him full-on.
But if we're wrong, then taking that kind of action could be disastrous. Growler has been a biker a long time, and God knows he’s probably made plenty of enemies along the way, like the rest of us. Also, even if it was Giovanni and we unleash some kind of blind shit storm without thinking it through first, they'll probably see us coming and shoot him through the head before we get within a mile of them. So it's not like we can just go to war on a hunch. We need to be sure.”
Something about this speech seemed strange to me. At first, I'd thought that Bard was addressing the whole crew, trying to calm their raging emotions before any of them did something stupid to make matters worse. But after a moment, I realized the truth—he was talking to himself more than us, trying to dissuade himself from acting on his own fear and anger.
Also, “shit storm.” He swore. Bard never swears, just like he doesn't smoke anymore. He prides himself on his small displays of control, and right now, he's doing everything he can to make sure he doesn't go fucking nuclear.
Somehow, that little loss of control made me more frightened than any of the rest of it.
Suddenly, we heard a squeal of tires on gravel outside the Nest, accompanied by the frenzied blatting of a car horn. Bard and I exchanged a brief look, the blood draining from his face.
“Guns,” Bard said. “Now.”
The entire Nest became a whirlwind of patched denim and firearms as every Reaper drew their weapons. Shotguns were racked, and clips clicked into the handles of pistols. I felt my fingers clench over the butt of my .38 before I could even think about it. I flipped open the magazine to make sure all six chambers were filled with hollow points and headed for the door with the rest.
I stole a glance behind me at Bard, and my jaw dropped. He ducked behind the bar, and for an insane moment, I thought he meant to take cover while the rest of us braved whatever awaited us outside.
Instead, he came up again holding an impossibly-long, lethal-looking machine gun, and clicked a heavy drum of ammo into place under the muzzle. I recognized it from the handful of documentaries I'd seen about the Vietnam War—an M60, nicknamed “The Pig.” It was intended to be stationary and belt-fed, but this one had been customized for one-handed use (though the upper body strength it would take to do so effectively would be impressive). It could spit out 7.62mm rounds that would reduce human bodies to tomato soup with a few short pulls of the trigger. I couldn't imagine where Bard had gotten it, and at that moment, I didn't care as long as he could aim it in the right direction.
I felt light-headed, uncertain of what waited for u
s and whether I'd be ready for it. I'd been in gunfights before and usually savored the coppery taste of adrenaline that would flood my mouth each time. But ramping up for this felt different somehow, more doomed.
I wish I'd had a chance to see Lauren before she left this morning.
I tried to purge this unwelcome thought from my head as I surged through the door with the others, raising my revolver with one hand on the grip and the other under it for accuracy. With all the bullets flying, it was important to make sure they went where they were supposed to. Life’s too short, and it can get a fuck of a lot shorter when you throw “friendly fire” into the equation.
The car—a black sedan with tinted windows and no plates—was already disappearing up the street at top speed, away from the Nest. I could clearly make out Vole's face as he leaned out the back window, calling out to us. “Vaffancul, you fuckin' mangy greasers! Enjoy the belated Christmas present!”
I fired, aiming for Vole but hitting the back window instead. The other Reapers followed suit as Vole whooped excitedly, pulling himself back into the safety of the car. The glass pocked and cracked under the hail of bullets, but didn't break. Clearly, it was bulletproof.
Bard stepped forward, leveled the M60 at the retreating car, waited…and then slowly lowered it again. I could see how badly he'd wanted to pull the trigger, but at that range, firing something as powerful as the Pig could easily lead to collateral damage. The bullets could miss the sedan and chew through the cheap walls of a dozen different apartments before they even started to slow down, maiming or killing any number of innocent people in the process.
Ditch lowered his Glock, and scratched his head with a dazed expression. “Did...did they just do a drive-by and forget to shoot, or...?”
“They didn't forget anything,” Bard replied, looking down at the sidewalk in front of the Nest. “Look.”
We all followed his gaze. A medium-sized unmarked cardboard box had been dropped on the ground.
An uneasy murmur rippled through the crowd of Reapers, and the word “bomb” was whispered more than once. Bard stood and looked at it for a long moment, furrowing his brow. Finally, he called over Boomer, a Reaper who'd served with an IED disposal unit in Iraq.
Boomer had been honorably discharged after one such explosive accidentally went off, shredding part of his face in the process and damaging his brain enough to cause occasional seizures. The tissue from his perpetually-bloodshot left eye down to his jaw was still a mess of lumpy grafts.
Boomer sucked his teeth thoughtfully, squinting at the package and muttering under his breath. At last, he looked up at Bard, forced a grin, and shrugged. “Well, it doesn't look like a bomb, chief” he said. “No wires or cords, no ticking or buzzing, none of that shit. Then again, I once saw a cell phone jammed with plastique that looked harmless as fuck until some asshole held it up to his ear and it got remote-detonated, so if they went that route...”
“How can we be sure?” Bard asked, cutting him off.
Boomer sighed heavily. “Wish I could say I was glad you asked that. The best way to be sure would be to bring in a remote-controlled detector, to scan it for chemicals, electronics, all that shit—then use a pressurized water charge to cut through the works cleanly so it doesn't blow. But since we don't have a remote detector or any of that other stuff, the second best way is for me to pick the fucker up with my hands and hope it doesn't blow, then take it someplace safe to open it carefully and hope it doesn't blow that time, either.”
Bard raised his eyebrows. “Well. When you put it that way, I guess you'd better get to it, then. Soonest begun, soonest done.”
Boomer let out a wry chuckle. “Uh-huh. Okay, I'm gonna need you all to just, uh, take about twelve big steps back from this thing, okay? Even a couple more than that, if you can. And if you've got cell phones on you, you'd better turn them the fuck off right now. You get a call and this thing even gets a whiff of the wrong signal, we could all end up as instant gazpacho.”
This colorful image was more than enough to make all of us immediately comply. Boomer waited gamely. “Everyone's phone off? Good. Okay, time to test how steady these mitts are after a decade and a half of hard drinking.”
As we all looked on, wide-eyed and tense, Boomer gingerly gripped the box by the sides with both hands and lifted it off the ground. He slowly straightened his body with a steady, almost graceful motion, and rotated his body on his heel until he was facing the Nest. He paused, and then leaned his head over, turning it until his ear was almost touching the top of the box. After a long moment, he lowered his nose to the box, inhaling deeply several times to detect chemical odors. He nodded to himself, satisfied, and then began to slowly walk the box toward the Nest with the fateful, funereal stride of a pallbearer.
“Nic, get the door for him, please,” Bard said mildly. I glanced over at him. Even though his voice sounded level and his expression was neutral, his face was the color of Swiss cheese.
I gently stepped over to the door, opening it. Boomer stepped through, then turned to me and winked. “My nose itches,” he cracked. “Pray for us all.”
Ha ha, Boomer. But I understood. He was probably practically shitting himself with terror, and gallows humor had always been his favorite coping mechanism. Besides, as he'd often commented, “Shit, a face like mine? I'd better be fucking funny.”
Boomer disappeared into the Nest for what felt like a year, even though a digital clock in the window of a nearby pawn shop told us it was only four minutes. When he came out, we breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“No bomb?” Bard asked tersely.
Boomer shook his head. It was often hard to precisely read his expression due to the mask of thick and mottled scar tissue, and it took a few seconds for me to realize that he didn't seem relieved at all. If anything, he looked far more concerned than he had before.
“No bomb, chief,” Boomer replied, “but, uh, still nothing you're gonna like. You'd better take a look at this.”
We filed back in. The box was sitting on the bar, its cardboard flaps open to reveal the contents.
A severed human ear sat on a wad of bloody cotton. Several flies had already started to hop and buzz all over it, and I waved them away to get a closer look. An all-too-familiar barbed wire earring hung from the lobe. No one had to say it out loud—we all knew who it had belonged to.
It was Growler's.
Next to it was a folded scrap of paper. Bard reached into the box for it, and I could see a gentle tremble in his hand. He unfolded it, read it, then sighed heavily and tossed it onto the bar for the rest of us to see.
The handwriting was a messy scrawl that seemed almost mocking: “Ho ho ho! Guess which pieces you'll get next???”
The room filled with rumbles of anger and disgust from the Reapers. We liked thinking of ourselves as badasses, invincible, untouchable. Sure, we'd embraced the eternal motto of “Shit happens,” and there was a certain acceptance that death could come suddenly for any of us, in a fight or a crash. But the idea that one of us could be snatched off the street like this, tortured and mutilated, while the rest of us were helpless to stop it—I wasn't used to that idea. None of us were.
I turned to Bard, feeling my chest tighten with rage. “Now do we go to war?”
Bard nodded slowly.
Chapter Ten
Growler
Losing the ear wasn't much fun, but I'd certainly been through a lot worse before in terms of pain. A quick slash, a spill of warmth, the brief but inevitable shock of seeing a piece of yourself detached and held up between someone else's thumb and forefinger, and then the stitches were a little rough. To be honest, the stitches were probably the worst part of the ear bit—even a big, dumb dude like me could tell that meant they wanted to make sure I didn't lose too much blood.
Which probably meant they had worse planned for me, and wanted to make sure I stayed alive for it.
Which, y'know. Kinda sucked, when I really let myself think it over.
L
osing the fingers—three of them, so far—was no picnic either. Each of those took a long, heavy, meaty series of twists and snaps for the bolt-cutter to work its way through the bone. Worse, they didn't bother stitching those wounds. No, for those, they preferred to heat up a fireplace poker and straight-up cauterize the fuckers, until they sizzled and smelled like frying steak. I didn't know whether I'd end up surviving this, but I knew that if I did, I probably wouldn't be ordering up a T-bone at a diner anytime soon.
Of course, there was the very high probability that with all of this digit-cutting going on, my pecker was almost certainly on the endangered species list. And with it, its lifelong companions, Righty and Lefty. That was a king-hell bummer to consider. I mean, okay, with all these scars of mine I'm no oil painting, and I'd only get pussy occasionally compared to some of the other Reapers—but occasional pussy was still a far better fate than just feeling a weird itch in my pants whenever a hot chick walked by.
The man with the scalpel and the bolt-cutter had used layer upon layer of duct tape to secure me to a stiff wooden chair, stark naked, in a cramped room that was dark and cold. It only took about fifteen minutes on the hard surface for my ass to feel like it had been whacked twenty or thirty times with a fucking canoe paddle. After that, he had inserted a couple of IVs in my arms and taped them into place carefully, positioning the tubes so I couldn't bite through them. As he did, he explained that one needle was to keep me nourished and hydrated, while the other was to keep me constipated. Once that tape went on, they had no intention of taking it off, even for a bathroom break. At least until they were ready to take off the limb it was holding down.
