by Paula Cox
I close my eyes for a second, letting that anxiety roll off of me. I loosen my grip on the steering wheel and call back to Anna, but there’s no response. My eyes pop open to see the glare of lights flashing in my rearview mirror. That one small headlight from the previous biker has turned into five, single flickering lights headed directly towards the van.
“Jesus! Fuck!” I shout uncontrollably. “Anna! Whatever you’re doing back there, get down on the ground and don’t move no matter what.” I pound on the metal divider, listening to her as she falls back down on the ground with another muffled thud.
The motorcycles inch towards me, cautiously. I wonder what they are thinking about me in this van. Are they sure it’s even me or just someone leaving the convention? Could they tell that Anna is back there or maybe they’re worried it was someone else? The wait is killing me. I don’t play road chicken, even with renegades like the Knights. I have to be on the offense here, no matter the cost.
I take a deep breath before making my final decision. My hands grip the steering wheel before slowing down to a snail’s pace. The bikes don’t have time to slow down. They can only react. I hear the first shot ring out from the leader of the pack. It hits just above my passenger side window with a loud ping. Anna lets out a blood curdling scream, and I swerve from the action. The back of my van hits something, veering into the noise and bump with a crunch and then a dull smack. I pick my head out of the driver’s window in time to see the wheels of one of the bikes soaring through the air. The helmetless driver lands just feet from it in the ditch.
Four down. One to go. I pull myself back in, just missing the next shot fired from my side. It strikes the side of the van, and once again Anna sobs. I can’t do this any longer. I stretch my free arm out the side with my glock tight in my grip. I fire randomly into the air, not caring where those bullets land. If it’s a distraction, it gives me just enough time to think this through.
And then it hits—whether it be mine or theirs, a bullet strikes my back drivers’ tire with the most horrible noise I have ever heard. Air comes seeping out faster than I can react and the tire turns to discarded shards on the highway. Without the tire, the van veers zig-zagged into the three lanes. I have zero control on anything but the speed. That’s when the idea strikes.
“Anna! Hold on! We’re getting out of here!” I press my foot to the gas, the exact opposite of what you’re told to do when you lose a tire. The van shoots around to the opposite side at nearly ninety miles per hour. Men scream as their bikes can’t avoid the speed and the size of the cargo van twisting and turning itself all over the highway. All I can do is duck and wait for it to slow to a stop. It crashes and clonks against battered metal and cement. Sparks fly as it finally skids along the barrier between the north and south highway. Before it can turn again, it hits the mark right on, smashing into a road block sign.
Everything is extraordinarily quiet. A small buzz rings in my ear, but it fades away as I pick myself up to the seat again, unfastening myself from the driver's side. I lay there for a moment, counting seconds. If we were still in danger, someone would have come within these quiet seconds. But when no one does, when all I can hear is the hums of the van still running and all I can smell and see is black, billowing smoke, I know I have my answer.
“Anna?” I call back as I turn slowly back to the cargo area. I find the latch for the door and pull myself towards it. She’s still laying on the floor, her hands covering her head. My bike has tipped over at her feet, but other than that, she looks like she’s scratch-free. Still, I ask, “Are you okay?”
“I—I think so. What happened?” She picks her head up slowly from the ground. Her face is stained with streaks for tears and her eyeliner runs trails of black around the corners.
I lie and say, “I don’t know. Let me go check.”
“No!” she cries back, standing quickly to her feet. “I’m going with you. No matter what happens, from now on, I go with you.” Anna reaches out for my hand, using it to pull herself into the front part of the van. As she passes to the front, she falls into my lap, her arms dangling exhausted over my neck.
For a moment, we hold one another close, neither saying a word. She’s already said enough for the both of us.
CHAPTER 14
Don’t look back. Whatever you do, Anna, just don’t look back.
“Are they?... Did you ki—?” I can’t even get the words out of my mouth. All I can seem to do is shake and swallow back the a mucus-flavored thickness in my throat.
Mack doesn’t answer right away, either. Instead, he just sort of tightens his grip around my slender waist ever so slightly tighter. “I—I’m honestly—I’m not sure,” he finally says as shuffles anxiously in his seat.
I move over to the passenger side while he takes out his phone, a quiet determination coming over his eyes. “But,” he adds almost as an afterthought, “I need to go find out. Now.” He grabs the gun from its perch on the dash before slowly opening the van door. He looks over at me solemnly to say, “Whatever happens, you stay in here. I don’t care what you see, I don’t care what you hear, you get me? I do not want you running out there, running into trouble. You take the keys and the phone, and you get the hell out of here as fast as you can. Get me?”
The stack of metal keys fall into my lap along with his old-school flip phone. The face is lighting up with a message, but he’s already gone investigating whatever scene of chaos is outside the van. I close my eyes and sigh heavily to myself—my only way of letting my breath catch up with me. My thumb rubs on the edges of the flip phone until I convince myself that I should see whatever message is waiting for him.
It’s from Zeke: Five headed your way. Get off the highway NOW. More coming. Police scanner is getting word of the flock coming down. You’re on your own until they’ve passed.
I want to type back, “Yeah, we fucking know that now, you stupid son of a bitch!”—but I stop myself. I know he’s honestly only trying to help.
And that’s all that Mack is doing as well. Sure, my way would have been going into witness protection and getting the hell out of this city weeks ago, but the boys were on my side, and I have to just understand that this chaos is part of the ride.
The phone vibrates again. Another message from Zeke comes in. This time, it’s just the address to the cabin with some instructions on how to get inside past the security system. I force myself to stick my head outside the passenger side window to call for Mack. “Mack! It’s Zeke. He’s got info for us on the—”
Mack appears around the corner. His eyes trace his steps with his shoulders heavy and worn. He takes the phone from my hand and scans the message. But seconds later, he hands it back to me before turning away to clutch his stomach and spit on the ground. Whatever he saw was enough to make even him sick. My mind travels in a million different directions, keeping it distant from where it almost certainly should be.
He finally breaks through the silent noise clattering in my brain. “We’ve got to go,” he snaps hurriedly. “Now. One of these fucking bastards isn’t dead.”
“We should help him then!” I cry. “Mack, we have to—I don’t know, to call the police or something! How bad is it?”
“Bad enough that we need to leave him be. I handed him his phone so he could call his people. No use in letting him die out here alone with the rain coming. But we need to make a run for it before he manages to do it. They can’t be far behind.”
Oh God—now I feel as if I could hurl. He did enough describing with the limited words he used. I point back to the phone with a shaking hand as I explain, “Zeke says there’s cops coming. You think we could outrun them?”
“I don’t know. I never know. But we have to try. We’ll try the van first, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll ditch it and take the Harley. You’re game to go?”
“Do I have a choice?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
Mack runs back towards the drivers’ side. He keeps his eyes away from the carnage just ou
tside the van, but I wonder if it’s unavoidable at this point. What he has seen would damn near destroy any man, no matter what their occupation may be. Still, he manages to keep it cool, starting the engine and revving the gas as we struggle to back out of the ditch we have fallen into.
After we sit there spinning motionlessly, he pounds his hands on the dash. “We don’t have fucking time to waste. You’re going to have to drive and I’ll push. I’ll go out front, and when I tell you, you’ll back us out of this.” He doesn’t give me a chance to argue this one. His head reappears at the front of the van, his hands placed on the white metal frame. He lets out a shout as he pulls them back. I can only imagine how overheated this van has gotten in the time between him hitting the road block signs until now. But he has no choice but to strip down, peel the shirt into several layers, and wrap the scraps around his palms and fingers.
“Okay!” he shouts as he positions himself again. “On the count of three, punch the gas and reverse back. One… two… three!” The van struggles at first, digging up dirt and mud. Rain trickles down on the windshield, but I can see Mack pushing back against the front of the van with all of his might. Finally, the van leaps backwards onto the road while Mack staggers into the pile of grass and gravel where the van used to be.
He looks up at me through the windshield, his head shaking, his arms up to his elbows in muck. For a moment, everything seems to evaporate with his shaking, booming laugh. I get swept up in the noise, letting myself go. Tears trickle down my face, following the same patterns as before, when I laid in the back of this van praying to God that I would survive. Now, even with sirens bursting through the rolling thunder, nothing seems so heavy anymore.
We linger there for a few moments, unsure of what comes next. How do you go on from what just happened? But we need to. Time isn’t on our side. Mack opens the back of the van and pulls out the spare tire hidden in the compartment near the backdoor. I listen to him go to work like an expert, quickly replacing the wheel the bikers had shot out.
When he’s finished, Mack hops into the truck, pushing me back to the passenger side. He glances down at the address one more time before guiding the van back on the highway and around back where we came. I close my eyes as we pass where the bikers are left on the side of the road. The scene fades away quickly with the fields becoming forest thick with ancient sequoias. The campground is miles into the new landscape, hidden off a trail already closed for the season. Mack has to break the chain with a tool in one of the cases in the back of the van just to pass through.
When we finally find Cabin 8, the rain has turned from a sprinkle to a downpour. With the van turned off and the lights shining on the cedar cabin, we both sit back in the leather seats, listening to the pounding rain splatter on the metal van. “Stay inside. I’ll figure out how to get inside first, and then I’ll come get you.”
He lets go of my hand. I hadn’t even noticed we were holding one another while he was driving, but as he pulls away, the warmth of him disappears. The spark that seemed to be keeping me alive and focused disappears into the blackened early night and out and around the side of the cabin. I don’t know why, but I run out. I forget about the rain and the sweatshirt I left behind. I forget about my sneakers sinking into the soft ground with each step. I call out, screaming his name above the whistling storm, “Mack! Where are you?” I can barely see a foot in front of me with the rain and howling wind whipping into my eyes and lashes.
There’s a burst of sound, a screeching wail. It pierces my ears as I run back to the front of the house. Everything has suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree. A flood light flashes above a garage or tool shed area. I cover my ears for protection as I continue to scream, “Mack! Mack?” Everything fades into darkness with the noise. I spin over and over again until I’m dizzy, looking for an escape. The van… it was… right there. I can’t seem to find my balance…
Red streaks against white. That popping sound of a tire being blown out. Screeching tires. Sirens… so many sirens...
It stops. Everything just stops. There are large, warm hands around my hips, picking me up off of the ground and cradling me into his arms. He goes over the steps to the front porch and through an open door. The rain stops. The wind stops screeching in my ears. That sound is gone. Weakly, I find the back of Mack’s neck and cling as tightly as I can despite my wet, slick hands. All I can seem to say is “I’m sorry… I…”
“Shh. You’re okay now. It’s fine. I’m here. We’re safe.” I ignore the flashes of blood I spotted seconds ago on the van that can’t seem to go away. Instead, I look at this man’s face with the v-shaped jaw and a scar that runs from his ear to his chin. His eyes glow like emeralds in a cave, lighting my way back to reality. I breathe in again, relaxing myself to his body.
Together, with him still holding me tightly and close, we sit in an old, wooden rocking chair near the entrance of the home. Silently, he begins to undress me, pulling the sopping wet t-shirt up and over my head and tugging off the thin jean capri leggings. I feel like a child in his arms as he goes, but there’s something else to it. The expression on his face has become less comforting, more urgent. It’s impossible to ignore.
I prop myself up so that I can reach for his shirt too, remembering that he took his off to touch the hood of the smoking van. I instead reach for my shirt, toweling him off with the few dry parts. Through the thin fabric, I can feel the ripple of his muscles, the line of his chest trailing down to his abs and hips, the tiny bits of hair along his tattooed arms. Like a spark, something fires within me. The dam within my loins bursts as I drop the shirt to his side and reach towards the small patch of stubble along his cheeks. Together, we pull in towards the other until our lips find another.
He kisses me hard, with a power that can overcome every other sensation I may have. His lips turn and dash as if they are fighting me to stay, but I can’t even begin to resist this. I am melting in his arms. The cold and wet that shook me dry against the embers of his chest and arms. As we dizzily embrace, he peels the thin, lacy bra off of my breasts, finding their soft mounds in the palm of his gritty, calloused hands. This is not like yesterday or the late hours last night. The way he touches me is with such tenderness that I feel as if I’ll break if he continues or collapse if he lets me go.
I lean myself back in his arms, letting him study me. A long finger circles the oval around my neck and then makes its way between my breast bone. It circles the diminishing loops of my breast, centimeter by centimeter, until it finds the tip of my nipple. He leans down and gently kisses at the darkened skin, warming it with the moisture of his own mouth. Shivers cascade down my spine and I hold on even tighter to him to prevent myself from pushing him away.
He comes up soon after, too soon. Those emerald eyes force me to stare him down. A thumb lightly strokes against my flushed cheeks as he whispers, “You are so beautiful.” I let the smile explode across my face. I can’t remember the last time anyone called me beautiful, but his words are sincere. They dance on the surface of my skin as he again leans down to plant gentle, sweet kisses along my own arms and shoulders till he rests at my belly button.
Mack slowly scoots both of us off the top of the chair, rolling it forward so that we softly fall onto a cream colored carpet. He leans over me slightly, kissing my forehead, before moving down again to my hips. He follows the line of my panties, leaving a wet trail around the elastic band. The touch is agonizing; the wait is worse. Every bit of me cries out for him to go for it, to make something, anything happens. By the time he finally uses his teeth to latch onto my underwear, I’m ready to scream. He manages to unfurl them down my thick thighs and past my knees where he lifts my legs up to his shoulders to take them off the rest of the way.
Totally exposed to him on this carpet, I should feel like covering myself up or at least turning to the side, but it’s different with Mack. My legs fall to the floor, opening slightly for him to see. My arms raise above my head, bringing my breasts to attention. The sm
all of my back curls up and my hips push into the ground. Those hands, those large, strong hands wash over my hips and thighs, kneading gently at my flesh.
Mack hooks his hand around my folds, covering the entire area with his warm palm. My breath hitches in my throat, only to stick there as he begins to rub the top of my clit with the inside of his hand. His head scoops down towards my stomach, kissing the line between my ribcage and moving down, down, down towards his hand. My hips lift off of the ground, offering myself to him. He pushes my legs fully apart so they drape themselves back down to the carpet. I feel the moist, heated air tickle my inner thigh before his thick, pink lips close themselves upon my pussy.
“Mack!” I cry out, my hands twisting in the waves of his hair. “Oh my God…” There are no words to describe the leathery softness of his tongue or the scratch of his unshaven cheek. My entire body becomes completely one with the feeling of openness between my legs. It’s as if his mouth is forcing back the legs, opening me up completely, splitting me at my core. My hips sway into his head, pushing him further into me, begging him to not stop.
