by Nicole Fox
Danny sat astride his bike, listening intently to every passing car. Their tires hummed and sang as they cruised down the asphalt, the drivers' destinations known only to them. This wasn't the busiest stretch of road, but traffic was bustling enough that Danny quickly lost track of the number of vehicles that passed by.
A few minutes passed before the three men were able to hear the distant rumbling of a pack of motorcycles coming up the cutoff, to the highway. They idled there for about thirty seconds, maybe picking a direction to go, maybe checking for tails, before taking off with a great roar of their engines.
That was their cue. Thorn, Tyke, and Danny pulled out from behind the semi and headed up to the highway. Danny frantically looked both ways, his eyes squinting against the sun's glare. There, off in the distance, he saw them. Four bikes, disappearing into the distance. He pointed to their fading forms and shouted to his buddies.
The three of them took off onto the highway and opened up as they began their chase. They didn't want to get too close, but they needed to make sure their prey didn't get too far. They didn’t want to lose them, either. With Danny in the lead, the three men trailed their rivals.
Danny gritted his teeth, grinding them together, to the point where his jaw was almost sore, as they followed behind the Free Jackals. All the time they tailed the Jackals, they stayed a small spec on the horizon. Soon, though, the bikers pulled off at Baby Dolls, the shittiest strip club in the county.
Danny signaled for them to pull over at an abandoned lot a couple hundred yards away from the strip club parking lot. Tyke and Thorn pulled over behind him, bringing their bike and truck to a stop in the old used car dealership.
“What's the plan?” Danny yelled over his bike's idling engine.
“Call Jed and Karl,” Thorn said from the cab of his pickup, “and have 'em meet up with us here. They shouldn't take much longer than a couple lap dances.”
“Man,” Tyke said, “you ain't been to Baby Dolls in a while. They play those songs damn near double-time now.”
Thorn laughed. “Alright, three lap dances. You happy?”
“More like four,” Tyke said, laughing. “Dunno how you'd be able to stand that with these day-dancers, though. Not unless they were pouring that whiskey with a pretty free hand.”
Danny's hands tightened on the grips of his bike. “Hey!” he barked. “Come on, focus here, guys! Quit messing around!”
Thorn's face went sober at the admonishment. “Nah, you're right. We gotta keep our head in the game, here. Danny, call the boys and let's get this show on the road.”
Danny pulled out his phone and called his brother back. He told them where they were, and said they'd be waiting for them before they moved in on Adam.
“Alright,” Thorn said. “Now, we begin the sitzkrieg.”
“What the hell's that?” Tyke asked.
“Ain't you ever read a goddamned book?” Thorn asked him. “It's what the French called the war before the Germans invaded, when they were just sitting on their asses.”
“Calm before the storm,” Danny said, nodding.
“Hurry up and wait,” Tyke said, his face somber again. “The Army credo.”
They didn't have to wait long, though. Not ten minutes later, Karl and Jed came roaring up on their bikes.
“Y'all ready to do this?” Jed asked as he pulled up beside them.
“Born ready,” Tyke said, clasping hands with Danny's brother.
“Well, let's go, then,” Thorn barked as he started up his old pickup “Get this show on the road.”
The five men pulled back out onto the highway, with Thorn's old truck leading the way as they motorcaded the short distance down to the shitty little strip club. When they pulled in, the parking lot was nearly empty. Just a handful of cars were scattered across the gravel lot, with four motorcycles parked near the entrance.
“One of those his bike?” Danny asked his brother as the Fallen Knights drew up and killed their engines.
“That's it,” Jed replied, pointing to a chopper with flames and skulls airbrushed down the side of its fuel tank. “Recognize those skulls anywhere.”
They swung their legs over the bikes and Thorn hopped down from the pickup. All five men steeled themselves for the coming fight. It was going to be bad, it was going to be vicious. It was going to be bloody.
Danny turned to his brother and slapped a hand down on his shoulder. “You got this?”
Jed returned the gesture, slapping both hands down on Danny's shoulders as he leveled his gaze on his brother and looked back with the same intensity. “You know I fucking got this. I want that motherfucker just as bad as you for what he did to me.”
Danny nodded, satisfied that his head was in the game, too.
“This is for our family,” Danny said. “This is for the Reynolds, not just the Fallen Knights. Fuck this guy.”
“Right. Fuck 'em.”
Tyke stepped up beside them. “If you ladies are done with your pep rally, we'd like to go inside.”
Danny turned to him. “You just wanna see all those strippers,” he said, laughing despite the seriousness of the situation.
Tyke faked personal injury, touching his chest over his heart like Danny had just brutally stabbed him with his words. “I can't believe you'd make that sound like a bad thing, Danny. You know I've always been supportive of single mothers everywhere.”
“Haha,” Thorn said as he came up. “Let's get this thing over and done with. Remember, we spot Adam, we grab him, we drag him out. We persuade the bouncers and security not to intervene. Got it?”
They all agreed. “I got the bouncer,” Tyke said. “It's Thursday. I know a guy.”
“Good,” Danny said, then turned to lead the way.
They pushed through the double doors, and the sound washed over them like a tsunami. Fast new rock, Linken Park Danny thought, was playing at a crazed speed. They really did crank up the tempo on these, he realized, as they pushed through the second set of double doors and stepped into the dark, red-lit strip club.
A girl danced on stage under blue and red lights, her body swaying, thrusting, and grinding to the beat, but Danny ignored her and swept his eyes across the sparsely crowded club. There, off to the left of the stage. He saw them, four vest-wearing Free Jackals with two girls at their table. Or, rather, the girls were on their laps moving to the music, as they sat at the table.
Behind him, Tyke was slipping money to the bouncer and telling him to ignore the show that was about to start. He slipped the security guy a c-note and patted him on the back. As soon as he was done, the five of them began to make their way through the tables to the back of the bar, their feet sticking to the club floor with each step. Jed picked up his pace and came up beside Danny, wanting to be the first into the fray alongside his brother when the time came to drag Adam out of the seedy strip club.
Danny peered ahead through the dim, smoky club, trying to get a better look at the Jackals seated at that back table. He couldn't exactly tell if Adam was with them or not. But, at this distance, and in this lighting, none of the guys seated there matched his build.
Blue and red strobe lights flashed around them, and the DJ came over the speaker as the song ended. “Everybody give it up for Candy,” he said, really driving home that iconic DJ strip-club voice. “Give her a chance and she'll dance right into your hearts, guys. Up next we've got Moxy on the center stage, with her premiere dance. Everyone, let's welcome Moxy on her first day at Baby Doll's.”
Danny didn't glance towards Moxy, or the center stage as an old AC/DC song started up. He had a mild pang of regret that he and his MC brothers were about to put on more of a show than she ever would in this shithole dive.
He stepped closer, finally close enough to get a good look at all the guys seated around the side table.
Jed stepped up beside him, too. Danny could feel him going over the guys with his eyes, also.
As the two girls who'd just been dancing and grinding on their laps got
up and left, the four Free Jackals swiveled their heads to meet the eyes of the Fallen Knights. All of them looked perplexed to see their rivals advancing like they were.
Danny looked over the faces of the quartet, his eyes flickering to each, realization slowly dawning on him. He shook his head. No, it couldn't be.
From beside him, Jed touched his arm and got in close. “He's not here, man!” he yelled over the sound of the sped-up, “You Shook Me All Night Long.”
Danny glanced from the four Jackals to his brother, then back again. He was right. Adam wasn't here. He balled up his hands into fists of rage, clenching and unclenching till his knuckles popped under the strain. Motherfucker had tricked them like it was nothing! Again!
He whirled back to the others and shook his head, eyes lit like a bonfire. “He's not fucking here!” he screamed.
“What?” Thorn yelled back over the music, his hand cupped to his ear.
He didn't need to start a fight here, not over nothing. And, if they stuck around, that's exactly what was going to happen. Danny shook his head and pushed through the confused men, making a beeline back to the front door and out into the afternoon sun.
The light blinded him for a moment, stunning him. He shook off his confusion, walking over to their bikes, half-dazed with the change in light and his own rage building up inside him.
Jed was so close on his heels that he caught the double doors before they could slam behind Danny.
“He fucking tricked us!” Danny yelled as he climbed onto his bike.
“Who?” Thorn yelled as he came out.
Danny started up his bike. “That motherfucker Adam!”
“He must have given his bike to one of the guys to ride for the day,” Jed sputtered through his anger and confusion. “I know that's his bike!”
“Doesn't matter if it is or not,” Danny boomed over the grumbling of his bike's engine. “Cause he ain't fucking here!” He took off, throwing rocks and gravel everywhere, and high-tailed it out of the parking lot.
Adam might not have been at Baby Dolls, like they'd thought. But now he had a pretty good idea of where he was.
Chapter Forty-Three
Sara
Cathey and Sara had been there for a little more than an hour, and Cathey was already dragging Sara's life story out of her.
“So, what happened next?” Cathey asked as Sara came to the end of her story about her disastrous prom experience with her high school sweetheart, Nick.
“Well, he was so drunk from the Mad Dog 20/20 that he and his buddy had snuck in that he couldn't figure out how the window worked,” she said, stifling a bit of laughter. “And, well, he puked Strawberry Kiwi all over the inside of the car, because he couldn't get the window down in time.”
Cathey burst out laughing, clapping her hands as she rocked back and forth on the old aluminum folding chair they'd managed to dig up for her.
“That car stunk for weeks,” Sara added, between fits of laughter. “I used everything I could think of, and I still never got it to smell right.”
At the time, having her boyfriend puke all over the inside of her car hadn't been a funny experience. But, putting more than a few years between you and something so depressing always seemed to lighten the tone, no matter what the situation was.
“What'd you do?”
“I drove around for a couple hours with him drunk in my passenger seat, until I finally got hold of my friend Penny. Then, she helped me take him home.”
“So, did you take him inside?”
Sara laughed and shook her head. “I was so pissed, we just pulled up in his front yard and left him there, face down so he didn't choke if he threw up again.”
Still chuckling, Cathey wiped a tear from her eye. “I bet that relationship didn't last long.”
Sara's laughter slowed. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “He was headed off to college, anyways. This was after my dad had started doing time, so I didn't exactly have a college fund anymore. Heard he got herpes while he was there, though. Kind of makes me feel better.”
Cathey reached out and touched her hand again, patting it in a motherly fashion. “Well, hon, everything happens for a reason.”
Sara covered Cathey's hand with her own. “I know, Cathey. I know.”
“Just look on the bright side. All those things happened, and they led up to you meeting my son.”
Sara smiled as she looked at the older woman. “Yeah,” she said, “I know.”
Cathey was patting her hand still when they heard the car pull up outside the warehouse. Gravel, rock, and dirt crunched under its tires.
“Thorn, maybe?” Cathey asked as she and Sara both looked reflexively to the entrance. The older woman's eyes were wide with fear, with uncertainty.
Sara shook her head, but said the opposite. “Sure, I guess.” She got up from the chair, a sense of overwhelming dread filling her.
If the car was Thorn's, they would have heard the other guys with him. Bikes would have been pulling up outside to join him. But, there weren't any bikes, no rumbling or revving engines. Only silence and the sound of car door slamming shut behind the driver as he got out.
Cathey reached out and touched her hand. “I don't like this,” she whispered, even though they were alone in the warehouse. For now.
“I don't either,” Sara whispered back.
They both got up from their chairs, as if by a silent cue, and headed farther back into the warehouse, away from the door.
“I didn't tell you earlier,” Cathey whispered, “but I came armed. Just in case.”
“Armed?” Sara hissed. “Like a gun?” Sara hated guns. Always had, always would. Honestly, they scared the living shit out of her, and she wouldn't have known the first thing to do with it. Point the barrel at the bad guy, she guessed, and pull the trigger..
Beside her, Cathey nodded in the stark light of the overhead neon tubes. “Pops' revolver.”
The front entrance creaked open. Footsteps crunched on gravel outside, then the sound of boot heels thudding on the concrete floor as the door closed behind their unknown visitor.
Together, their hands gripping each other tightly, the two women ducked down behind a big set of shelves and headed back to the office Sara had found earlier.
Boot heels sounded again as their visitor walked slowly through the building. Metal clanged on metal, scraped.
“Hello ladies,” a man's voice, a voice Sara recognized immediately, boomed out to the nearly deserted warehouse. The growling, heavy voice was one she remembered from her more recent nightmares: Adam's voice.
It was him. It was the man who'd kidnapped her and tied her to a tree in the middle of the woods. She tightened her grip on Cathey's hand as fear shot through her body and her teeth began to chatter.
Cathey gripped her hand back. “Listen,” she whispered harshly, “we'll get through this. Danny and the boys'll be here soon. You hear me?”
Sara tried nodding, but realized she couldn't move her head or neck enough to do make the gesture. She'd frozen in place, the fear creeping up out of her belly like an ice cold hand that wrapped itself around her heart and spine. It was fight, flight, or freeze. And freeze had won.
“Hope you two ain't betting on your men showing up anytime soon,” Adam crowed, his voice haunting as his words echoed around inside the nearly empty building. “Cause I sent those boys of yours on one merry little chase.”
Oh no. They were here alone, with no hope of the men riding to the rescue. This wasn't some goddamn movie, this was real life. This was real fucking life, and it was about end in a miserable, shitty way.
“I can't do this,” Sara chattered, her teeth clicking together uncontrollably as memories from that night flooded her mind. The way his hands had been like vices, how he'd dragged her roughly through the woods, how he'd forced her onto her knees and tied her hands to that tree. This was going to be just like that, but worse. So much worse. Adam was done just taunting Danny. He was done flicking his nose and teasing hi
m. He was going to hurt her and Cathey this time. Really hurt them both. And maybe more than that.
“You mean you've been through all that shit in your life,” Cathey whispered back, a bit of come-to-Jesus in her voice, “and you can't get through this last little bit?”
More metal scraping, more footsteps. They were slowly coming closer.
Sara flinched at the noise, her eyes still dead ahead, her teeth clacking together like noise-makers. Yeah, she'd come through some shit, seen some things. But none of that had prepared her for a crazy biker stalking them in an abandoned warehouse!
