Burnt Road: Dante

by Neal, Toby

  Dante was checking with her. He was learning. She nodded and turned back down the path. He returned minutes later, smiling. “No one was there, but there are supplies. And bikes.”

  “Mountain bikes?”

  Dante nodded as he approached her, getting very close, looking down at her. “I think it’s about time we had some good luck.”

  “I like that you think biking to Vegas is good luck.” She grimaced. “Bound to be a little hot.”

  “Everything with you is good.”

  This guy.

  Chapter Eleven

  Dante

  The sun was directly overhead and beat down on Dante’s head and back, hot as a branding iron. He pedaled behind Melody, mostly so he could watch her shapely butt move up and down in those short shorts as she pedaled. The back of her tank top was wet with sweat in a V-shape.

  He was sweating hard, too. He had strapped both of their packs onto the carrying rack on the back of his bike to give Melody less of a burden, but she had the puppies in a rigged up cloth sack, and a couple of gallons of water to haul. He tried to ignore his sensory discomfort by thinking of all the pleasure he’d had with her.

  “Stop for water break.” Dante didn’t want to see Melody faint. Ever again.

  “Let’s find some shade first.”

  “Good thing this is flat.” Indeed it was. The highway into Vegas was straight and shimmered with heat. Cluttered with dead cars, pulled over and abandoned when they ran out of gas. Some still held bloated or rotting bodies. Melody had not asked him to burn the cars that held corpses, and he was grateful. They were going so slowly already. Even with the bikes, the loss of the Bronco had made their journey much more difficult.

  But it could have been worse. They could have been sleeping in the SUV when those raiders came. And that’s what they were. Dante had spotted them from cover: a group of four young men, tattered, filthy, and heavily armed. Dante was barefoot and obscured behind a bush, with no good angle for a shot. He was in a bad strategic position.

  It was too much risk with Melody and the puppies nearby. He’d watched them steal the vehicle that held his computer and satellite phone, both of which he’d left inside the SUV on the charger. He still had his backup data card, because he kept it in a secret pocket in his pants.

  At least he and Melody hadn’t been sleeping inside, or they’d probably be dead.

  Yeah. Melody was right. They weren’t safe. They needed to get to the Haven. Push hard, and stay focused until then.

  But once he had her there, he hoped she would stay with him in whatever bedroom JT gave them. For a week at least. Maybe more.

  Melody pulled her bike up into the scant shade provided by a large cluster of saguaro cactus. “Whew. I can see a glimmer in the distance that looks like it might be the city.”

  “We are going around. No urban centers. Remember?”

  “Aye aye, Commander Spock.” Melody untied one of the water jugs and splashed some into a camping mug for the puppies, who lapped thirstily. She offered the jug to Dante.

  He shook his head. “You first.”

  She quirked a brow but drank, a good long time. He guessed she’d got down at least eight ounces. “You should drink more,” he pressed.

  “No, Dante.” Melody screwed the lid onto the jug and put down her kickstand, walking around her bike to hand the jug to him. “I know my own body—what it needs. And knowing you were watching my butt and thinking dirty thoughts for all these miles…” She reached out and fisted a hand in his sweat-damp curls. She pulled his mouth to hers for a long kiss that felt like drinking from a spring, it was so life-giving.

  “I wasn’t thinking dirty thoughts. I was thinking happy thoughts. About how I’m hoping you’ll stay in my bedroom for at least a week once we get to the Haven,” Dante whispered into her mouth.

  “I think I’d be a little embarrassed with your brothers right there.” Melody batted his chest, laughing.

  “Oh, they’d understand once they got a look at you. And I wouldn’t want any of them to get a look at you.”

  “If you’re telling me that your brothers are half as good-looking as you are, you might be in trouble, there.” Melody grinned and kissed Dante again, then sashayed back to her bike as he drank from the jug, keeping his eyes on her butt and yes, thinking dirty thoughts about all he’d like to do to her.

  A niggle of alarm penetrated as he absorbed her teasing about his brothers. Especially Luca. Ten years older than Dante, Luca brought a different girl on every one of his brief visits home on leave. And his huge, thickly muscled older brother seemed to be able to get any woman he wanted.

  Dante was pretty sure Luca would want Melody.

  And of course Melody would want Luca more than Dante.

  Any woman would want any of his brothers more than Dante.

  A darkness fell over him as he mentally compared himself to each of his brothers: Luca, his idol. JT, his closest friend, but also way too handsome and capable to be allowed around Melody. Nando was safely married, but Dolf was the most like Dante in temperament. Dolf was ruthless and focused and got whatever he set his sights on. And then there was Cash. Funny, kind, good-looking Cash, who could do anything and everything well, and made women smile and laugh.

  Melody got back on her bike after corralling the puppies into their carrier, oblivious to the dark cloud of jealousy she’d unleashed in Dante. Because that’s what this unfamiliar, tight feeling in Dante’s chest was. Yeah, she made him feel a lot of feelings, and not all of them were the bliss he’d experienced yesterday. Since he’d known her he’d discovered new levels of fear and anger, guilt and sorrow, embarrassment and shame. Now jealousy.

  She’d made no promises to him beyond that she would “try to understand him if he tried to understand her.”

  So what would Melody do in close proximity to his brothers, each of whom had more to offer a woman than he did, with his weirdness?

  They pedaled on, hitting a long slow elevation that had both of them panting and pulling over every half hour or so for water and pee breaks. Melody shook one of the empty jugs, and the other was only half full. “We’ll have to get more water soon.”

  Dante nodded.

  “What’s the matter?” Apparently she could read his expression. He didn’t like that.

  “Nothing.” Dante jumped on his bike and got underway ahead of her, pedaling hard and not stopping or looking back until he crested the rise that looked down into the massive urban sprawl of Las Vegas. He could see the Strip, marked by its tall, shiny buildings in the center of cul-de-sacs that spread out into the desert, like tendrils of ivy climbing up a wall.

  A pall of smoke rested over the city and plumes of black punctuated by orange flames dotted the metropolis.

  The city was burning.

  It was too far away for him to smell it, but he could imagine the reek of burning buildings, of terror, of disease and hopelessness, and with his sensitive hearing he thought he could hear the far-off wail of sirens.

  They needed to find a way around the city, and they had lost the atlas with the Bronco. Dante cursed, kicking a rock and watching it roll down the dusty road.

  “What the hell, Dante?” Melody finally pulled up beside him, red-faced and angry, if her tone was any indication. “Why did you just go off without me? I asked you not to do that.”

  Dante couldn’t tell her about his brothers. She would mock him, and then reject him. It would be better not to care, to go back to where he’d been. Only, he didn’t know how to get there, and the torment of wanting more from her than she wanted to give felt like it was splitting him down the middle.

  His gaze traveled over the ominous sprawl before them, sure to be filled with chaos, death, and desperate people. With them on bikes, and just one .22 and the Walther between them, not to mention the tactical liability of the puppies, their situation was not good.

  “I need to think. We can’t go into the city, and we can’t entirely get around it because we need water.”
Dante lowered the heavy bike to rest against a nearby boulder. “I’m going for a short walk to think of a solution. If this were a problem in a game, I would stop and strategize before I went in. Assess. Plan. I need to do that now.”

  “What about what I said? Why did you take off like that?” Melody was frowning—not angry so much, he realized now, as puzzled. “Did I say or do something?”

  “You can’t joke about my brothers.” It just burst out of Dante, pressured and harsh. “They are all better-looking and more normal than me. You could have any of them and I don’t want to be there to see that and have to pretend it’s okay. Because it would not be okay.”

  Melody’s face changed, softened, and she lifted a hand toward him.

  But he couldn’t bear to have her pity him, reassure him, like one of the puppies, with little patronizing pats on the head. No. He was a man and he had his pride.

  Dante spun, and walked away into the desert.

  He didn’t know he still had so much energy, but the pain squeezing his heart drove him and he began to run, his breath tearing through his laboring lungs with a feeling like sunburn.

  Dante had biked longer in the hot sun today than he ever would have in his past, and he could do that and more, because Melody made him strong. Able to handle his extreme discomfort, able to press on, able to do things he’d never imagined. Take lives. Dig graves. Burn down a whole damn town.

  Give her pleasure.

  Because of her Dante could do what he was doing, and it was all too possible she was never going to be his.

  Dante found a small sandstone ledge and climbed to the top. The country was flat, but with this slight elevation he could see down into the city. The two-lane highway he’d left was hidden by the bulge of the shrub-covered land he’d crossed.

  He sat down and calmed himself by counting breaths as a therapist had taught him long ago. Nothing terrible was happening this minute. Melody was still with him, for now. He would somehow find the strength to deal with it when she left him, because it was inevitable that she would. Dante was just a novelty to her, a different kind of man who was attractive and inexperienced at sex. She enjoyed teaching him, and it was a good distraction for both of them in their terrible situation.

  Dante knew what was going on between them, even though he could tell she didn’t think he understood it.

  “I will try to understand you, if you will try to understand me.”

  That was all Melody had to say after Dante told her he had feelings. Clearly, she did not.

  And he didn’t even want to know what his feelings were. He was afraid to find out.

  His eyes finally focused on what lay before him.

  They had bigger problems now. On the other side of Vegas, a massive storm was building. He hadn’t noticed it before because it was so far off, a gray that blended with the smoke hovering over the city. But now he could see its towering thunderheads clearly, and the center of it was black and shot with lightning bolts.

  The time to pull back and assess how to deal with the massive problem of Vegas, and of his impending broken heart, was fast disappearing.

  They had to find shelter. A huge rainstorm in the desert could get deadly, fast. But at least it would solve their water shortage.

  Once they were safely sheltered to wait out the storm, Dante would work on the problem of traversing the city. He clambered down from the rock and loped back through the desert, frowning.

  He had gone much further than he meant to. Emotions were not helpful. They really wrecked performance and concentration. He reached the road and looked up and down. It was empty.

  “Melody?”

  At the sound of his voice, the puppies, hiding behind the boulder his bike was propped against, tumbled out and ran to him, whining and crying in distress.

  Dante automatically bent and petted them, scanning the area for Melody.

  Perhaps she was just using the bushes?

  Dante spotted scuff marks and gouges in the sand near the road.

  He walked over to them and squatted down, his fingers touching the tire marks. Two motorcycles went off road. He followed them until he found Melody’s bike, tipped over, abandoned.

  He lowered to his haunches again, and let the marks in the sand tell him the story: two motorcycles. Two men with big, heavy boots. And Melody was gone.

  She had been taken, while he left her unprotected.

  Dante stood up and howled in rage and anguish.

  Chapter Twelve

  Melody

  Melody woke up to cold rain stinging her face. She blinked, the droplets striking her eyes and catching in her lashes.

  She was moving fast, the road zipping under her, spotted with rain. Storm clouds swirled in front of her. They were driving right into it.

  What the hell?

  Memories began to piece together; Melody had seen them in the distance, two figures coming over the rise, shiny motorcycles on the deserted road, and she got on her bike, leaving the puppies, pedaling hard in the direction that Dante had run.

  Heart pounding, legs burning, wheels bumping over the rough ground, scrappy plants grabbing at her ankles, but she wasn’t fast enough. The roar of the motorcycle behind her, a blow that knocked her to the ground, dust in her mouth, making her cough. A hand in her hair, a knife at her throat: hot like the sun, sharp like her fear. A cloth covering her mouth, the strong chemical smell with a hint of sweetness, darkness edging her vision, leaving only a pinpoint of light until that, too, disappeared.

  Now this: being held in place by a large arm across her waist, the motorcycle seat between her thighs, the handlebars of the bike in front of her. A meaty hand with “HATE” tattooed on the fingers, wrapped around the control grip in front of her.

  His breath was on her neck, hot and moist like the air, crackling with electricity, and this man had expectations. Melody could feel his excitement against her back.

  A shiver ran through Melody. She stayed limp, pliable, weak in his grip, letting him think she was still out.

  Her shirt was soaked with rain, hair tangled into wet strands, whipping back against the man behind her. He let go of her for a moment to brush it away. She slumped and he grabbed for her again.

  Melody’s head lolled forward, her chin resting on her chest. Her gaze fell on his arm: black hair over sunburned skin, a snake tattoo wound around his forearm with a human skull clamped in its jaws.

  She should reach up and grab the handlebars, twist them, and take the bike down. But they were going so fast. She had to leave Dante a sign. One of her boots, resting on a foot peg, was untied. She worked her foot out of it, and as they turned onto a long asphalt drive through a neighborhood dimly seen through slanting rain, she let it drop to the ground. Dante was going to be so upset. Her heart hurt for both of them, a harsh stab to the chest as she pictured his anguish at her disappearance.

  Her Superman would do all he could to find her. But on a bike, with the puppies? She was on her own to get out of this mess.

  Several moments later, the motorcycle pulled up in front of a house dimly glimpsed through the slanting rain, and stopped.

  “Home sweet home.” The driver threw the kickstand down.

  The other motorcycle pulled up next to them. Her captor’s scent reached Melody then: cigarettes, stale beer, ripe body odor. Bile choked Melody as fear, thick and suffocating as a blanket, enveloped her.

  The man threw her over his shoulder, her head hanging down his back, her hair swaying as he carried her into the house. “That shit works like a charm, Snake.” Melody heard the friend say as he followed them into the house.

  “Sure does. Hitting that lab was genius. There’s enough pills to last us a year and chloroform, so now we got this fine piece of ass.” Snake slapped her butt so hard that tears stung Melody’s eyes as his handprint burned a memory into her skin.

  “How long will she be out? I’m partial to ‘em being awake, but I don’t want to wait long.”

  “I’ll go first.”
<
br />   “Nah, it’s my turn.”

  They entered a tiled foyer, the floor dirty with boot prints. Water dripped off Melody’s hair, turning the dust to mud. “I’m not gonna wait, Bent.” Snake was clearly the boss. “You go put the bikes in the garage. This rain is serious.”

  “It’s my turn to go first,” Bent complained.

  Snake continued into the house, walking over carpeting also marked by dirty footprints. They passed a coffee table littered with empty beer cans, an overflowing ashtray and a pistol. Melody’s heart began to race. It looked like the gun Dante had given her when he left her in the town. The safety was off. Was it loaded?

  Melody was dropped onto a couch, her body bouncing with the force of the impact. She shut her eyes and kept her expression blank, relaxing every muscle in her face. It was the acting performance of her life.

  The rain was loud, crashing into the windows and pounding on the roof. It was almost as loud as the blood rushing in Melody’s ears. She felt the rough surface of tweed under her bare legs. Her feet were on the floor, one unshod. She moved slowly, bracing her feet, readying for action, as the men argued. “You put the bikes away!”

  One pushed the other, and she heard the impact and the stumble, the coffee table shuddering, the metallic clunk of a can falling over, the scent of beer thickened in the air.

  Flesh connected with flesh, the crack of fist meeting face. Then a curse and a crash as the two men fell into the table, followed by thuds and grunts.

  Maybe they would kill each other.

  This was her chance, while they were distracted. Melody risked fluttering her eyelids open just a tiny bit. The men were rolling around on the floor, both in worn out jeans, leather vests, and dirty T-shirts. The one who’d been carrying her, Snake, was bigger. He got on top, pummeling the other one in the face.

  Snake stopped, and his victim turned his head, spitting out a tooth.

  The gun had been knocked on the floor and it was right by the couch.

  “Guess that answers that.” Snake stood up. “Go put the fucking bikes away.”