by Zahra Girard
He nods. Or does what I think is a nod. It’s hard to tell, considering he can’t really move his face.
“First question: can you put your dick away? It’s getting weird at this point.”
He nods again and zips himself up. “Sorry, man,” he mouths.
“Thank you,” I say. I ease my foot off his throat a little and he takes a deep breath. Some of the purple fades from his face. I breathe a little easier, too, not having his dick out. The damn thing looked like a walrus wrapped in shag carpeting. “Now, tell me what you know about the shooting at Joker’s Wild.”
I withdraw my foot a little more and give him enough space that he can speak. “I don’t know shit.”
“Wrong answer,” I say. I lower my foot and punch him again. He spits out a bloody tooth and glares at me. “I’m going to give you a second to think of a better answer, and then I’m going to let you speak. Think about what you’re going to say, and about how many of your fucking teeth you want to end up swallowing.”
I hit him again because he’s got an irritating ‘fuck you’ expression on his face. The more that I look at him, the more I realize that I don’t like Tomahawks face at all.
And I wanted to like him. He really does have a nice bike. In another life, one where he isn’t a piece of shit, I’d buy him a beer and ask if I could take a closer look at his ride.
But we’re in this life.
And he is a piece of shit.
And I am going to kick his ass.
A sound tickles my ear. Gravel crunching almost silently under a shoe. A gasp as a drunk brain tries to process something a drunk brain definitely isn’t able to easily process.
I look up from Tomahawk.
Some young kid — someone who looks like they started prospecting right out of high school and the club’s probably keeping in holding until they actually manage to grow some fucking facial hair — is standing at the entrance to the alley, his eyes wide and his mouth even wider.
“Jesus Christ, kid, you picked the wrong fucking time to take a piss.”
I leap up from Tomahawk and race toward the prospect.
There’s no room for error, no time to fuck around, if he makes a noise — and from the look of him, the kid’s a screamer — I’ll have a whole bar of fucking Jackals on my ass.
I seize the kid around the fucking throat and hurl him into the brick wall of the bar. He hits with a heavy thud and I keep hold of his throat and ram the back of his head again and again into the wall. The brick wall darkens with blood and he claws at my grip with one hand and, with the other, rakes at my face with his fingernails, drawing a line of blood across my cheek.
I let go of his throat and ram my fist into his gut, doubling him over. My chest is burning — I’m still not at one hundred percent and didn’t count on having to kick two asses tonight.
I need to finish this, and fast.
Lucky for me, this kid can’t box for shit.
I hit him square with a jab-cross-hook combination that snaps his head back and sends him dropping to his knees on the pavement. He raises his hands to shield his face, but I just hammer around them. This isn’t anything close to a fair fight, but I don’t give a shit. All I see is some faceless scum who tried to kill me and my family, not this fresh-faced, just-out-of-high school prospect.
He goes down.
I follow.
I pin him. With my knee on his chest, I ram my elbow into his face — two heavy blows that make his arms shoot out stiff — just to make sure he stays out for a while.
Then, I stand up and walk back to Tomahawk, who is still writhing on the ground.
“Where were we?” I say.
“Fuck you,” he spits. “He was just a kid.”
“I doubt he’s fucking innocent. Now, tell me what I want to know.”
I look back at the prospect prone on the ground, blood trickling from his face. Guilt twinges inside me, and I can hear Jessica’s voice telling me I’m a better man than this, that I could have done things differently.
Maybe she’s right.
But she’s not here right now.
I’ve got a family to find.
I shake my head clear of guilt. That’s a weakness I can’t afford right now.
I spit and grin down at Tomahawk.
“Maybe when he wakes up, he’ll straighten his fucking life out and leave you scumbags behind,” I say, putting my foot back on his throat. “You know, us Kings came here to kill you pieces of shit. So don’t think I won’t make this incredibly painful for you. Tell me about the shooting. Tell me how your club knew we were here in town so quick and tell me how many of my club you killed.”
His busted face shifts into something approximating a smile.
“You really don’t know, do you? We didn’t kill nobody that night, you bitches know how to hide, I’ll give you that. But come tomorrow night, that won’t matter anymore. We found where your cocksucking family is hiding. There’s nothing you can do.”
Hearing that my brothers are still alive makes my heart jump in my chest.
There’s still a chance. There’s still hope.
“Where are they?”
He spits a thick, mucus-y glob of blood and it hits me right on the cheek. “Go fuck yourself.”
I spit right back in his face. “You will tell me.”
“Not a chance. You think I’ll turn on Mason? Fuck no.”
I hammer him in the face until he goes limp. I need answers, but I can’t keep this son of a bitch here — interrogating him like I need to is too risky, because he’ll be screaming once I really start questioning him — so I grab him by the leg and start to drag him further down the alley. There are plenty of abandoned buildings in this part of town, and any one of them will give me the space I need to work.
It’s going to be a long night. But I will get the answers I need. Whatever it takes. And Jessica doesn’t need to know. She can’t know. This would break her.
Chapter Twenty
Jessica
I wake up to an empty bed.
The pillow next to me is ice-cold, the smell of him on my sheets faded, it’s been hours since he’s been here.
What are you up to, Preacher?
Something felt wrong the second I told him what I’d done by telling my friends to keep on the lookout for patients who might be biker-related. I know it’s a risk, but at this point, it feels justified. I trust my friends, I trust them to use discretion. But finding out what I’d done seemed to hit Preacher like a bullet. It turned him cagey, and he already seemed on edge from being cooped up all day.
I have an idea of what he’s up to, but I don’t want to admit it to myself.
My phone buzzes. There’s a text from Mark. Found something.
I put my phone away and get back to getting ready for work.
I know Preacher’s desperate, I know he has the very real fear that his closest friends are in danger. I worry about what he could do and who he could hurt in the state he’s in.
I get ready in a haze and I’m just stepping out of the shower when he finally comes home. His knuckles are bruised, swollen, and bloody. His face looks like an angry mask, marked by a jagged, ugly scratch.
I open my mouth to say something comforting, but he speaks first.
“I need to borrow your car.”
“What did you do?”
He gives me a sharp look. “What did I do? I asked some questions to people who didn’t want to talk.”
“You look like you really hurt someone, Preacher,” I say, coming closer and taking his hand in mine. He’s battered someone, repeatedly, and I can see the evidence of brutality written in the bite-marks and blood on his hands. “There are other ways to do this. I could call my dad’s old partner, he could help.”
“I’m not going to sit around and wait for some old fucking cop who couldn’t even solve his partner’s murder to have a chit-chat with the fucking Jackals. I needed answers, so I did what I had to do.”
“Did you really?
All of what you did last night was necessary?”
He pulls his hand back. “They’re alive. The Jackals I talked to — so stop worrying — and, more importantly, my club is still out there. Hiding in the mountains near Peavine Peak. The Jackals don’t know where, exactly, but tonight, they’re going to fucking tear down the mountains looking for them.”
The Jackals might not know where they are, but I have a pretty good idea. The mountains around Peavine Peak are etched into my memory — every Father’s Day, my dad and I hiked them — and there are only a couple Forest ranger cabins in those mountains.
I know each and every one of them.
I start to open my mouth to tell Preacher, but then I hesitate.
Do I really want to do this?
I think about my father. When I was a kid, I remember seeing some of the commendations he’d been awarded over his career, medals and plaques and a letter that he kept in his bedroom on a shelf next to his bed. He kept those things there so they were the first thing he saw when he woke up in the morning. It helped keep him focused, he would say. He was my hero; he is my hero. Not one of his commendations was for shooting criminals or inciting a gang war.
I need to be true to myself, to who I am and how I was raised. There has to be a better answer.
“What is it, Jessica?” He says, eying me with concern and anticipation.
I steel myself.
“What happens when you find them?” I say, choosing my words carefully. I know Preacher is anxious, I know that more than anything he wants to get to his family right now, but I can’t let myself get caught up in that. The violence that’s simmering inside him is painted all over his knuckles in blood and it’s ready to come out again.
One wrong step, and there’ll be more bodies in the emergency room, more bodies in the morgue.
I can’t have that.
And I can’t let him have it.
Not unless I can be sure of what he’s going to do. I need to hear it from him.
“I’m not thinking about that right now. All I’m thinking about is getting back to my family before they get killed.”
“I need you to think about it, Preacher. I need you to think about it and tell me honestly, what is going to happen? What are you going to do when you find them?”
He doesn’t answer.
“I have a responsibility to my community as a nurse. As my father’s daughter. And part of that responsibility includes not furthering a gang war. I want to help you, I care about you, but I need you to tell me that this isn’t going to just lead to more people getting shot like what happened at Joker’s Wild.”
“I can’t promise that.”
“Please, Preacher.”
“No.”
“Then I can’t help you.”
He glares at me for a second.
“I’ll find them myself. I’ll fucking walk if I have to.”
“You could spend all day up there looking for them and not find a thing. I know those mountains, Preacher, and I want to help you, but we need to do it my way. Without getting anyone killed.”
“Jessica, I can’t wait, and I sure as hell can’t bring you into this any deeper — it’s too dangerous.”
I pause, my mind searching for some sort of answer, some way to keep him from running off and starting down a path that I can’t — that I won’t — follow him down.
“I’m going in to work. Not for long, just until I can get one of the backup nurses to cover for me — I can’t leave my patients and coworkers like that — but then I’m coming back here. And if you’re still here when I get back, and you want to do this the right way, I’ll take you into the mountains. We can do this right.”
Time is pressing. I know I’m late for work and there is no way I can let him go it alone. If he does it on his own, it’s just going to lead more violence, more people winding up the emergency room, more people winding up dead. For as much as I care for him, I have to put my foot down. And if I help someone murder others or enable this man that I care about to go off to his death, I will never forgive myself.
Before he can talk, I look him square in the eye. My voice is cold and as serious and as threatening I’ve ever heard it. I can’t compromise. “You have a choice, Preacher. Stay, or go. But if you go and people get hurt, I will not keep quiet. The police will know what you’ve done. I’ll march into the police station and put everything I know on record if I have to. But if you wait, if you listen to the good part of you that I know is deep inside you, we will find your club and I will stand by your side. Always.”
He looks stunned, and conflicted. I know I’m asking the world of him, but I’m hoping for the best. I’m hoping that he’ll truly hear me. In that moment of indecision, where so much hangs in the balance and where time seems to stretch on forever in anticipation, I pray he’ll trust me enough to take the leap.
Please, Preacher.
Then he shakes his head. “I can’t do it.”
He kisses me one last time.
I watch, heartbroken, as the door slams behind him.
He’s gone.
I’ve lost him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jessica
I’m not at work that long before another nurse comes in to relieve me. Kate. She’s been at Reno General for almost ten years and owes me a favor or two for covering for her. I tell Tracy I have a personal emergency to take care of and, though she buys my excuse, she looks at me like she knows what I’m really up to.
I hurry to put my things away and get out of there.
Cassie catches me in the break room. She places her hand over my tiny cubbyhole of a locker and shuts it. “What’s really going on?”
“I have some stuff to take care of. It’s personal.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit. Tell me what’s really going on.”
“It’s better for you if I don’t.”
“I’m just trying to find out why my friend looks like some kind of emaciated ghost the last few days. You’ve been exhausted all the time, you’ve been jumpy. Something’s wrong, and I care about you. So just tell me. Please.”
I sigh. “It’s about what happened in the bar. Look, you know one of the major reasons I came back to Reno. Well, it turns out the people who shot up the bar were also involved in my dad’s murder. I’ve been talking to my dad’s old partner and to Bryce at the newspaper to find out more. And, uh, the guy who saved my life has also been helping me check into it.”
Cassie gawks at me. “Are you Nancy Drew, now? What the hell are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that someone tried to kill me and I want to know why. What, am I supposed to just move on? Pretend it never happened?”
“No,” she sighs. “At least just tell me where you’re going? In case something happens.”
I put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her, and then I pull her into a hug. A pat on the back isn’t enough. “I’m going to be fine. I’m going over to Reno Samaritan hospital to see Mark. He brought someone in there who might have some answers.”
“Be careful, Jess.”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”
We hug once more and then I leave. The whole drive across town, I’m anxious, nervous. I feel like now I might finally get some answers.
Reno Samaritan Hospital is a small private hospital on the outskirts of town. It’s a quiet place and it feels like a different world with how calm it is. It’s the perfect spot to fly under the radar. Mark’s waiting for me, sitting on the back bumper of his ambulance, drinking a coffee and eating one of those cellophane-wrapped breakfast sandwiches you get from gas stations. There’s a tired expression on his face.
I wave at him as I get out of my car and start walking towards him.
“You look like shit, Jessica,” he says with a smile.
“So do you.”
I’m not surprised he’d say that. I feel like shit. After having Preacher walk out on me, and after more than a couple sleepless nights, I feel like I ne
ed to crawl in bed, wrap myself in a cocoon of blankets, and stay there for a week or so.
“How’ve you been?” He says.
“It’s been a rough couple days,” I say. “So, where’s the guy you called me about?”
“Inside,” Mark says, with a mouthful of sandwich. “But it’s not a good time to go in there. I meant to call you, tell you to wait, but I got caught up in a few callouts.”
“What do you mean it’s not a good time?”
“They’re not in any fit state to talk.”
“They? How many are there?”
“Two.”
“I still want to see them,” I say.
“Why? Neither of them are in a talkative condition. Hell, just breathing’s a bit of a stretch for them to do on their own right now.”
“I just want to see, Mark. That’s all. This is personal for me.” Even if it is that bad, I think it’s one of those things I need to see for myself. Maybe it’s not — maybe I’ll see that they’re the same thugs that tried to kill me the other night and won’t feel so bad about it — or maybe I’ll find out that it wasn’t Preacher that did it.
Or I might just see the proof of what Preacher is really capable of.
“Suit yourself. Come on,” he says with another bite of sandwich in his mouth. I follow him into the hospital and he talks to me as I walk along jut a half-step behind him. “Couple hours ago we got a callout to some biker bar about ten minutes from here, which was pretty unusual, since these guys usually keep to themselves unless it’s serious. But this was pretty serious.”
I keep walking behind him and he leads me through the hospital hallways to the ICU. We stop in front of one window and inside, there’s a patient attached to a series of monitors and a breathing machine. He looks like he’s just barely out of high school.
“They found him in an alley,” Mark says. “It’s going to be a while before he’s up and moving around. But don’t feel too bad for him.”
