Unravel

by Tara Lynn

  Clash spotted me and elbowed Jethro’s shoulder. The two clomped past tables of gaping kids and adults extremely intent on their meals. They stopped at either end of my booth.

  “Move in,” Jethro said.

  “Take the other end,” I said. Last thing I needed was to be boxed.

  “I said move. You invited us here. Make room.”

  I didn’t budge an inch. I looked into his face directly. “On the other side,” I said.

  It didn’t matter. If they wanted me dead, I would never get far enough to escape a bullet. I was just tired of being decent to indecent pricks.

  Jethro exhaled deeply then slid in after Clash across from me. He reclined easily at the booth, but Clash sat bent in like a praying mantis, his gun arm under the table.

  “I take it we ain’t here to break bread cordially,” Jethro said.

  “We could,” I said. “It’s up to you where this day takes us.”

  I sipped the coffee, hoping it made me look more calm than I felt.

  “Alright,” Jethro said. “Say your piece. What is it that you want now?”

  “The same thing I asked for the last time. Politely, I might add.”

  “Politely?” Clash snorted. “You threw your colors in the dirt and said you wanted to cut loose.”

  “I handed back my cut,” I said. “If dust was the problem, then blame whoever wipes the tables down.”

  “They did their duty just fine,” Clash said. “What about you?”

  “I don’t want my duties anymore,” I said. “That was the main point I was trying to make.”

  Jethro shrugged lazily. “Well, that’s the thing about honor and responsibility. Once you enlist, you can’t just walk away.”

  “I didn’t enlist to shit. This is no army. We’re an outlaw biker gang out to make money. That’s the extent of what I signed up to.”

  Clash gave me a head shake that looked genuinely sad. “That’s a means, not an end. You really haven’t understood the charter of this MC.”

  “Oh I understand, alright.” I leaned in on my elbows. “I’ve only seen it clearly these last few weeks. Is blackmail part of the club’s charter, too?”

  Bertha came over nervously, right then. I glowered silently as the two bikers tried ordering booze before settling for iced coffee.

  Jethro watched Bertha leave earshot, then pressed forward. “Leaving us is already a betrayal,” he said, through gritted teeth. “After all we did for you? After all we gave you? Not just the bike and jacket and the money, but our trust. Our love and respect. To throw that all away? That’s on you, boy.”

  “It’s not. You want to think you’re more than just criminals, fine. But no honest group doesn’t let people walk away when they’re done with it.”

  “You can one day,” Clash said. “You’re here to help us. We put a lot in you. Once we get out what we want, then you can leave if you still want.”

  The simmering heat in me sputtered. “I can leave?”

  “See?” Jethro said. “We ain’t unreasonable. Look how productive we can talk if you don’t walk in waving your fucking ego.”

  I ignored him. “When?” I asked Clash. “When can I go?”

  “When you’re done doing what we need you to do,” he said.

  “That’s not a good answer. I want to know how long my tour lasts.”

  “Well, fuck if I know. You haven’t even started, boy. I’m not a goddamn psychic.”

  Jethro was still staring me down, but Clash was peering out a crack in the blinds. I had no idea what plans he and the MC president had in mind for me. I knew they wanted a regional presence, and I knew I’d be a help for the same reason I could walk here in a cut and still be seen as just another civilian.

  But I’d be here for years. They’d spend what was decent in me, until Bertha trembled to see me walk in, until good men and women averted their eyes to avoid my attention.

  There was just the one thing left. But once it came out there was really no going back.

  I took a calm sip of my coffee.

  “That’s not good enough,” I said.

  “It’s better than you deserve,” Jethro growled.

  “It’s all that’s on the table, boy,” Clash said. “Don’t worry. It’ll feel fine with time.”

  “You know.” I set the coffee away from me. “I think you’re right.”

  Clash nodded. “Good.”

  “But that’s why I’m not willing to give it any time.”

  Clash’s eyes narrowed on me. “Fuck does that mean?”

  “I’m leaving today,” I said. “And you’re going to let me.”

  Jethro snorted.

  “Why the fuck would that happen?” he asked.

  “Cause you might have dirt on me,” I said. “But I have dirt on you, too.”

  I reached into my pocket and slapped the excavated Loving Sheriff badge on the table. It clanged far louder than I expected. Faces turned our way before quickly looking back down.

  The two bikers glared down at it.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Clash said.

  A thin menace had crept into his voice, a coldness that no coffee could thaw. I kept my voice hard.

  “Balancing the scales.”

  “If you dare-”

  “I don’t want to do a damn thing,” I said. “All I want is to get out.”

  Clash looked back down at the badge. Jethro was nearly frothing, but I didn’t care.

  “This is your play?” Clash said. “You’re dumber than I thought. You’ve got nothing on us that I can’t fix with a pull of my finger.”

  I should have been afraid, but the intent wasn’t there. He was just stating a fact.

  “You can,” I said. “But I have a friend waiting for me. And I told him that if I didn’t call him in the next few hours to send the state police looking for a body a mile south of a certain mile marker on a highway.”

  Clash took a deep breath and straightened.

  “What do you think?” I said. “Can you really clean all the evidence there? Cause even if you did, I have a couple pieces of the collection for the state police.”

  There was silence for a while. I didn’t know what victory sounded like, but the goal was to get the MC’s voices out of my life, for good. Maybe I just needed to walk away now.

  As I stirred, Jethro spoke up.

  “Who’s your friend?”

  “What does it matter? I’m not going to tell you anyway.”

  “Where is he? Loving?”

  “No.”

  “Is it your sister?” Clash asked.

  I tried to look indignant, but my whole body had tensed and he was probably shrewd enough to catch it. How the fuck had he figured this out so fast?

  “I have connections outside of Loving,” I said. “I wouldn’t use anyone you could easily reach.”

  “No, not unless you had no other choice.”

  I stared back steadily. It was always going to come down to this. Will vs will. Liza gave me all the inspiration to put fire in my eyes.

  Clash settled back. “Fine,” he said. “So you have someone. So what?”

  “It means we’re even,” I said.

  “As long as I accept the stalemate. But what if I don’t?”

  “The hell you talking about?”

  “Let’s say we both reveal our secrets. We all get caught up in it. Fine. Who has the most to lose?”

  A sinewy smile threaded up his mouth. A chill ran up my spine that I could not stop.

  “The MC will be destroyed,” I said. “Most of you will do time. You might do life.”

  “Ah, I doubt it. We’ll do time, yes, but only after lawyers and a legal case. Most of the crew will get off and the ones who don’t will be welcomed back like heroes in a decade at the most.”

  “That’s something you’re willing to accept?”

  Jethro was smiling now too. “Clash is right. We’re fucking brothers. We can handle that. But you can’t handle the shit that�
��d come your way.”

  “I can do time,” I said, and it sounded even strong out of my mouth.

  “That ain’t what I’m talking about.”

  And I knew. The breath left my lungs instantly.

  “Your girl,” Jethro said. “The one you came to save, remember?”

  “The one who’s probably standing by next to her phone right now.” Clash sneered.

  “Who's going to protect her if you get into trouble?”

  “What the hell are you saying?” I tried to roar, but my voice was stuck in my heart.

  Jethro shrugged. “We stepped in to save her. But her stepfather's not the only one who's noticed what a beautiful young woman she is. There's things that some men out there might still want out of her.”

  I had not seen the MC descend to the depths of this depravity. But looking at those faces, I couldn't put it beyond them. Had there even been a code? Had I ever had a choice?

  “And now she’s more than some girl isn’t she?” Clash’s mouth curled up. “Hell, she’s your god damn sister now, not that you know it, seeing how keen you are to get home to her these days.”

  “We’d be saving you the shame,” Jethro said.

  “She’s my step sister. She’s not my blood.”

  “And neither are we, but that doesn’t stop us from being brothers does it now.” Clash swirled his ice water and took a sip. “So that’s what I’ll chalk this down to, a nice brotherly quarrel as siblings get to once in a while. But if you stop being our brother, then, well, she’s not our sister anymore either. And then we’re entirely free to do to her as we please.”

  I sat, feeling my blood pool as my heart stopped pumping. We were supposed to get out of this together. Now, I had done the opposite of what I set out to do all those years ago. I’d brought her directly into the hairs of a force far greater and more sinister than her father alone. She’d been right to call me an idiot all those years back.”

  Clash and Jethro traded looks. I barely saw. I knew the pleasure I’d find anyway. There was no use feigning strength when I had handed them my weakness in Liza.

  “So,” Clash said. “I suspect you had your chopper keys on the table to slide em over as you left. I trust you know how to use em to get back home instead. Tell your girl what’s up. And if you get a sympathy fuck, make sure you keep it goddamn quiet will you? You’re no use to us if the entire town figures out what a pervert you are.”

  The two of them clambered out. Jethro clapped me heavily on the shoulder. “Enjoy the coffee. We’ll be in touch.”

  Sometime later, I was rumbling home on my bike, the engine like thunderclouds around me. It was dark. I had no true idea of where the rest of the day had passed. It hardly mattered. The rest of my life would pass on this saddle easily. All I could do was stay numb through it.

  That was, until I neared the house where I now lived, and saw among the sparse streetlights a slim, shadowed shape sitting at the steps of the house. As I rumbled near, it stood, her face alight in my headlight, so worried, so in love.

  And my world came rushing back to me, in all the glorious ways I had failed to live up to this day. There was just the hollowness of failure and the despair flooding it.

  I parked and I faced her.

  She waited silently, her light hair a shroud against the darkness.

  But I had no words to give her.

  I had nothing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Eliza

  I lay on my bed trying to sketch, but it wasn’t easy drawing with my mind halfway elsewhere. Every creak of the wooden steps, my eyes shot to the door waiting to see Rett step out past the railings.

  But two times it was just my mother passing through. Three others it was nothing.

  I adjusted my legs under the sheets and tried again to sketch out the Austin skyline. Drawing from memory was supposed to be easier than going freestyle, but I’d picked the completely wrong topic. I couldn’t think about the city without feeling Rett’s strong body in my grip, without remembering the smell of his hair in the wind.

  It had been days since I’d gotten a taste of that. Not since that night, he had come home and simply said, “Let me go.”

  Somehow the MC still had its claws in him. It’d been a tense night for me, too, so just seeing him had me gasping with relief. But when I tried to wrap around him and tell him it was ok, he’d just shrugged me off and slid into his room, with the same words.

  Let me go.

  As if it were that easy. As if I even could. But when I tried to dig deeper, to figure out what I could do, he gave me no chance. It wasn’t like the first time at all. He didn’t even come back home every night, and when he did, he slipped past and hid himself away in his room. He didn’t answer my texts. He wouldn’t even answer my knocks on his door.

  Today, I had my pad aimed at the door and a mug of coffee on my desk. I’d have a few steps to catch him and I intended to.

  Assuming he even came back.

  I perked up at the sound of footsteps, but it was just my mom leaving her room to head back downstairs. She stopped at the railing though and came to my doorway.

  “Working late, honey?” she said.

  Her hair was up in a frayed bun and she looked cozy in a loose grey nightgown with a shawl on.

  “Just sketching,” I said, turning down to the pad.

  “You have school tomorrow.”

  “It’s just class. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Hmm. That’s the first time I’ve heard that from you.”

  I just shrugged and waited for her to finish hovering. I had one conversation on my mind for the night, and this wasn’t it. But she took another step in.

  “Is everything alright, honey?” she said.

  “Everything’s great. I just feel like staying up and sketching.”

  “That’s fine. It’s just that you’ve been home a lot more. I was wondering if there’s something wrong at school.”

  I snorted before I could help it. Nothing at school could ever amount to what had transpired in this household. Even this thing between me and Rett made grades meaningless.

  “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just done doing what I have to do there. So I’d rather be home and sketch.”

  “Oh, well, that makes sense I suppose. I thought you might be preparing for college instead.”

  “I am.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I tucked the pad down. “I’m going to major in art.”

  My mom’s tired brow grew more wrinkles. “Oh honey, is that a good idea?”

  “It is for me.”

  Her mouth opened and closed without saying anything. I was glad she did the work for me. What could she say that I didn’t know? It was a long hard slog from sketching to any job that paid me for it, and even if I made it, it might not be a steady life. I’d read the job stats and watched videos of people even at places like Disney where the best of the best worked.

  But what was the worst that could happen if I tried this and failed? I’d fought through the worst and come out alive. I could fight a bit more to become happy. I’d fight for Rett too if he let me, if I just knew how.

  My mom looked so forlorn there away from even the support of the door. My resolve broke, just a little.

  “It’ll be fine,” I said. “I know what I’m doing. I’ll be smart about it.”

  She nodded. “You know yourself best. It wasn’t me who got you where you are today.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. “It’s fine,” I said, and then since she wasn’t looking like she was about to leave. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping for work tomorrow?”

  “I will.” She gazed past me at the dark window. “I’m just waiting a little to see if I can say goodnight to Ron.”

  My chest tightened. It sucked, having a mom make the same mistakes again and again. It shouldn’t be me having to watch over her. Ron was back to hanging out late, drinking again. He’d just tumble into bed piss drunk next to my mom. How could she stand
for that, knowing it was the second time she’d chosen wrong?

  “Why are you-” I started, but she was still gazing out the window.

  She looked concerned, not annoyed. The town might look down on her for who she was with, but she felt no shame in it. She cared just as deeply for a broken man as she would a whole one. Maybe that was her flaw.