Stormy's Thunder: Satan's Devils MC Utah

by Manda Mellett

  I’ve cried out for Caspar, hoping he’ll be able to throw himself at the door and open it. I need him for his body warmth and comfort if nothing else.

  What will happen to him? He’ll be locked in the house without food or water. At least Star won’t starve, he’s still got enough in his pasture, and water in his trough. That has to last, but for how long for? I’d booked that cabin for a week. Who’s going to feed the hens?

  Once I’ve worried about my animals, I worry about myself. The meagre rations he left me are not going to feed me for days. One maybe, not seven.

  Gradually the room lightens a little as daylight comes, providing just a sliver of brightness under the door.

  Fear of the dark won’t kill me, I repeat to myself. But my heart beats so fast I think maybe it can. Why, oh why did I have to be a fan of horror films? My mind seems to be running through every one, conjuring up horrors which could be hidden in the corners. I berate myself. The horror was Weston, and he’s been and gone.

  Now my survival depends on him coming back.

  No. I can’t give up. I have to get free by myself. I tug on the chain, it doesn’t budge, but the tugging makes the cuffs dig in. In no time, my wrists become bloody. The padlock. Being unable to see anything in the dim light, I move my hand around the floor, hoping to find something which I could use to pick the lock, dismissing the thought I’ve no relevant skills even if I could find a loose nail.

  Frustrated, I scream once again.

  I end up screaming until I’m exhausted and hoarse in the vain hope that someone will hear. I’m not expecting anything, but maybe there’ll be a delivery I’ve forgotten.

  “Help!” I bellow as loudly as I can. “I’m stuck, down here!”

  Was this how my father had felt? Trapped under his upturned tractor, the weight pushing his face into the mud, his life blood slowly leaking out of his body. I’d tried to avoid thinking about that before, how he must have screamed for assistance which never came. The thought so horrific, I’d tried to block it out of my mind, preferring to imagine him lying unconscious rather than hurting and fully aware that unless help arrived soon, he was dying.

  Maybe he’d been lucky, it had been minutes or an hour for him, not days like me.

  I try to stay calm, but it’s impossible. Redoubling my efforts has the same result, I can’t get out.

  Weston will come back. He promised me.

  Can I last?

  I fall into a fitful doze. When I awake, I try again to escape with no more effect than it had before. My meagre supplies won’t last long. I know I have to ration my food. I nibble on a piece of bread and a small portion of cheese, but it does nothing to ease the hunger gnawing at my gut. A few chips? Sure, but no more. I’ve got to eek this out.

  The day goes slowly, but all too fast the slither of light disappears. It’s night, a time to sleep, but I’m too cold. I’m also stiff and sore. I can sit up, lie down, and crouch, but I can’t fully stand.

  The second day brings horrors afresh, the first being forced to use the bucket for what Weston had obviously put it there for. When I reach out my hand for a packet of chips, it moves away from me, rustling across the floor.

  Rats.

  I scream so long I make myself sick, vomiting up little more than bile as my stomach’s so empty. Rats. I might be an animal lover, but I hate those rodents. My mind goes to something worse. What if there are snakes?

  “Caspar!” I scream, over and over. He might not be able to help get me free, but he can keep away the critters.

  Spiders. Oh, shit. I’m a total wimp. I don’t like nature at all.

  I curl up into a ball and sob, wondering if I’ll get out of here with my mental state intact.

  I try to make what he left me last, but after the rats invaded while I was asleep, all I’ve got is water. I feel so cold, perversely I’m hot. I grow more and more scared, nightmares of being eaten alive jolt me awake, and when I do drop off, I’m more unconscious than sleeping.

  Frantically I struggle hoping somehow I’ll loosen the chains. I hurt, I ignore it, and go back to struggling again. In the end, the pain shoots through me making me think I may have broken my wrist or at the very least badly sprained it.

  And still, no one comes.

  I lose all notion of whether it’s day or night, or how many sunrises there have been since Weston imprisoned me.

  How long does it take to go insane? I think I’m about to find out. Unless, I die first.

  12

  Stormy…

  My shoulders feel light and empty without the heavy weight of the cut I’ve worn for the past seven years. But there’s no going back, only forward. I’ve burned my bridges.

  I need to move fast.

  Working at lightning speed, my brain issues instructions to my body almost without conscious thought. I might not have my colours, but I had the foresight to bring my wallet with me. I risk stopping in town, thinking they wouldn’t have sent out a lynching party yet, suspecting I’ve ridden off in a pique and will return once I’ve cooled down.

  I ditch my phone, buy a burner, and a top-of-the-line laptop. I visit the bank I use, open my safe deposit box and collect my fake passport and papers I’d left there for safekeeping when I went nomad. Next, I go to a second bank and transfer all my money into the account under the Jeremiah Briggs identity that I last used four years ago. My pre-emptive strike entirely necessary, I wouldn’t put it past the club trying to freeze my accounts when I don’t turn up.

  When I don’t turn up, I’ll be out bad for certain.

  I could go back. After that fucking meeting? No way.

  All I can do is get the hell out of Dodge.

  For no particular reason, I ride north. Miles fly past. After a couple of hours, I cease keeping an eye on the road behind me. Continuing along the same route, I stop only for gas and fuel for myself, before getting on the move again. For almost twenty hours, I ride, or until I know I can’t go on anymore. When I halt, I’m unaware of what state I’m in, mentally or in actuality.

  Entering the motel room, I collapse fully clothed on the bed, falling asleep immediately.

  I wake as sunlight comes in through the curtains. For a moment, I wonder where I am and how I got here, and why I’m not back in my room at the clubhouse. As the events of yesterday come flooding back. I lie, hands behind my head, thinking.

  The brothers won’t understand. I’ll have left them believing I’m a coward and that I ran to avoid my punishment.

  I did not.

  I might have been riding blindly yesterday, not caring where the road was taking me, but in my head, thoughts were whirring. Things that should have become clear years ago, only coming into clarity now.

  Nazia trying to blow herself up, Marjan’s disappearance… No, it starts before that with Pooh’s death. A senseless act caused by Smythe’s panic, which didn’t absolve me. I was guilty as fuck, but how could I have left those kids to die?

  Then came Nazia’s unexplained death and my inability to find her sister, followed immediately by the news that my whole team had died. Loss and failure, failure and loss, cycles of my life on repeat.

  A therapist would probably tell me I’d been struggling since, and maybe they’d be right. My actions hadn’t been rational, though my reasoning appeared sound. I thought I was being sensible, not wanting to put myself in the position of losing brothers again or being responsible for them, but instead it all got twisted in my head.

  With sudden clarity, I understand. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them, I didn’t trust myself.

  And fuck, I was right not to. Look what a fuckup I made of things. Drummer could have decided to take our charter because of what I’d done. But perhaps it wasn’t just me to blame. It had been Pip’s desire for secrecy which upset Drummer most, but that had only given me enough rope to hang myself. I took distrust to the fucking limits and stretched it further. Pip’s desire to fly under the radar might have provided the envelope, but I’d written the letter, out
wardly showing my disdain for men wearing the same patch as myself, simply because they belonged to another chapter.

  As the sun starts to rise in the sky, I admit everything at last. I hadn’t run because I was a coward. I’d run because I was ashamed.

  The punishment doled out would have done nothing to assuage that. A beatdown would have been painful, but I’d have survived. Six months prospecting would have been hard no doubt, but it wouldn’t have wiped the slate clean. I let my chapter and all of the Satan’s Devils down. There weren’t sufficient amends I could make.

  The devil on my shoulder reminds me I wasn’t the only one to bring Drummer’s wrath down onto the club. That honour’s all Pip’s. He patched in Swift which stretched the Satan’s Devils’ rules almost, but as it turned out, not quite to a breaking point. Pip was the prez who couldn’t ride, that little fact which blew every regulation out of the water. He was the one who’d stepped in and taken over the club, for good reasons, but ones which primarily served his own purpose. He was my enabler, I couldn’t forget that.

  But Utah had become something admirable, it gave purpose to all our lives. It had saved me from disappearing down a hole of my own despair. And I rewarded them how?

  There’s no denying I personally insulted two of the chapters of the club, and by association, Drummer and the mother chapter. That was the straw with potential to break the camel’s back. As it is, Snatcher is hanging on to his charter by his fingernails now. Drummer will be watching very carefully.

  I haven’t left forever, in my heart I know that. I will return. But I’m not going back empty-handed. I need something to make them trust I have their interests at heart and that I deserve a chance to prospect for them again. It won’t wipe the slate clean, but maybe it’ll make their acceptance of me, and mine of them, easier.

  For now, the Satan’s Devils Utah will have to ride on without me.

  They’re hanging on by a thread, Drummer will be all over them like a rash. And one thing they don’t need is something coming along and catching them on their blind side.

  I might be arrogant, but I’ve remembered something they’ve overlooked during the last couple of days with the mayhem of Drummer’s arrival, and that’s that while Swift’s captors have all been dealt with and the reason behind her kidnap had all been to do with Pip and his past, there remains one thing which makes it a matter that’s not yet a closed book.

  There’s a risk that though the kidnappers are dead, there could be someone else involved who’s still very much alive. If there’s one, there may be others, and Pip might do well not to stop looking over his shoulder.

  It’s a small lead, but one worth investigating.

  Swift was kidnapped and held in a vacation rental, and an unknown woman had made the booking. Maybe under duress, maybe she was part of the team. Maybe it wasn’t a she. It could have been Saul Kincaid or one of his cohorts registering under a fake name. But Airbnb do run rudimentary checks. To my mind, something would have needed to be set up to prove the woman who rented the place had at least at some point had an existence that would pass scrutiny. Who is she, and what risk remains to the club?

  It may be something, it may be nothing, but I could check it out. If I found anything, I could eliminate any remaining risk. Only then will I return to my club and take my punishment, at least I’d have something to prove my allegiance.

  It shouldn’t take long. I sit up, realising I hadn’t undressed, and feeling the loss of the one garment I should be wearing. I roll my shoulders promising myself it won’t be long until I wear my cut again. Albeit, I muse wistfully, with a prospect patch. The sentence has been passed, I have to accept it.

  Now I’m fully awake and plans consolidated in my head, my stomach growls loudly. It’s an inconvenience, but I have to eat. I shower, dress again in yesterday’s clothes. Despite knowing it’s not there, I automatically reach for my cut, when my hand hits air I let the pain pass through me. I pick up my saddlebags and stride to the restaurant located next door.

  Even without my cut, my appearance screams biker and stay away from me. I’m not bothered, it means no one will bother me. I walk to a corner table, sit with my back to the wall, and take out my laptop. I give a cursory glance at the menu, then start to work.

  When the waitress appears, I order coffee—black, no sugar—and the food that will set me up for the day, when she’s left me in peace I settle to concentrate.

  Always hoping I’d be sent out on the road as a nomad once again, I’d used my time wisely while I was in Utah, leaving myself a back door into their systems. My brothers might be good, but I’m their equal if not better, and they’ll never know I’ve been in and used the resources they have. I log in with the full confidence I’ve disappeared off the grid and that they’ll never find me.

  The online booking site gives me no problems, and soon I have a name—Catherine Beeswick—and an address. It’s in Kentucky. With a huff at myself, I remember I don’t actually know where I laid my head last night, and have to glance at the address on the menu to find out. It seems I’m in Minnesota, well, fancy that. Googling it’s another nine hundred miles to bring me close to her. It’ll be another long ride, twelve or thirteen hours give or take and depending how hard I push it. Right now my ass wishes Preacher would turn up with his fucking plane, but there’s no point wishing for resources I no longer have. Kentucky’s a fucking long way from Utah. If my brothers are looking for me, I’ll have time to find answers. Only a lunatic would have ridden so far.

  As my drink appears, I take a long swig of the hot coffee, thinking as I swallow. Why Kentucky? Where did Kincaid come from? Has he links to the state? I can’t recall. Though Pip had told us the story of Dengra’s daughter being groomed and kidnapped by Kincaid’s twin brother, I don’t think he’d said where it happened. Oh well, no point dwelling on that now. I can hardly call Pip and ask him. Doing so risks giving my location away, and the club will move heaven and earth to find me. I’ll be on their most wanted list now.

  Did Kincaid come halfway across the country to kidnap Swift for revenge? Or, is he more local, and Catherine Beeswick either doesn’t exist, or is just someone he could call on to do him a favour? I suppose it doesn’t stretch the imagination too far to think that she might be just a casual acquaintance. What’s her connection with him?

  Hey, could you book a rental for me? I haven’t access to the internet right now.

  Plausible, perhaps. This could be a wild goose chase, but if so, which Saul Kincaid does Catherine know? The one who ended up in jail, or the one with the doctored CV that got him admitted to Dengra’s residence and access to his daughter and her baby son, allowing him to play the role of loving uncle until the child had sadly passed away.

  Whether I’m already pursuing a lost cause, having a destination satisfies the need inside for direction, even though it’s me determining my fate now. I’ll finish up here, find somewhere to buy some new clothes—t-shirts and underwear at least—and a tube of toothpaste then head to Kentucky. I’ll arrive under the cover of darkness, just right for scoping a place out.

  I’m no stranger to long journeys, but even so, another full day’s riding when my ass is still sore isn’t the most attractive option. Maybe that’s why I begin to have second thoughts. Saul Kincaid had managed to come up with a background that hid his time in the pen and made him out to be an upstanding citizen. It’s possible that he either had data skills himself, or had access to someone who could provide them. If so, it would be child’s play to hack into a random person’s account and make a booking. That makes sense, Saul wouldn’t have wanted to make it in his name. All he needed to have done was to cloak the email address and get all correspondence sent to himself.

  Going to Kentucky could be a complete waste of time. Catherine Beeswick might never have known her account had been hacked. Or, said woman never existed in the first place. The more I think, the more either option seems likely.

  Damn. What do I do now? Go back to the club with
my tail between my legs? Fuck that. I promised myself I’d only return if I had something to give. I’d still have to take my punishment like a man, but I’d have proof I have the best interests of the club at heart. Without anything to offer, I’m just a sore loser.

  Ruefully, I throw sufficient dollars on the table, stand and stretch, pick up my saddlebags and head out to my bike. Maybe I’m just searching for an excuse, but to do what? An excuse to return to my club, or an excuse to go miles out of my way and speak with a woman who probably has nothing to offer?

  My hands itch to straighten the non-existent cut on my back. As I bring my arms back to my sides, I realise I’ve never run from anything in my life. But yesterday, I did. Today, I’ve calmed down. I admit I was riled most at the thought of being a prospect again, not the promised beatdown. What would I have suggested if another member had put the club in such a dangerous position? Losing them the charter, I’d have opted to kill them.

  My crimes are serious, I know that. Now compounded by running, even now I could have been declared out bad.

  Fuck.

  I’m a man who doesn’t like prevaricating or staying still. If this fails, maybe I’d be safer to go into hiding or leave the country. For now though, I’ll stick to my initial plan. Swinging my leg over the saddle, I get on my bike, shift into first, and point the front wheel in the direction of Kentucky.

  I’m a biker. I enjoy the long ride, despite the small detail that my ass is aching, and a long soak in the tub sounds increasingly attractive. I lock the throttle to give my hand a rest, stretch my fingers, placing them on my knee for a while, rolling my neck to get the kinks out as the miles pass. When the sun dips in the sky, I’ve still got a long way to travel.

  Why am I doing this?

  Christ, I don’t know. It’s just something I feel I’ve got to try, even if it proves only a process of elimination. I grow more convinced that what I’m going to find is a decent middle-aged woman in her bed sleeping, dreaming innocent dreams with no idea her identity has been used.