Burnout

by Stacia Leigh

  The truck bounced over a speed bump as Dad swerved into a parking space near the broad awning that marked the hospital’s main entrance. He stomped on the e-brake and slid out.

  “Hey, Dad.” Owen planted his feet on the asphalt and turned back. “What are the deets on the ride Bill’s pulling together?”

  “Later.” Dad leaned into the truck. “Mik, hand me my cut, would ya?” Miki hefted his worn leather vest over the seat and watched him slip into biker mode. He patted the front pocket of his jeans for his keys, like he always did and then grabbed the door, ready to shut it in her face.

  “Hey! A little help here!” Miki yelled and rattled the headrest. Those two were going to leave her behind like an old hamburger wrapper. Thanks a lot, Dad.

  “What?” His face warmed with a laugh as he levered the seat forward. “You thought we forgot about the birthday girl?”

  Uh, yeah. She did. Miki scowled as she squeezed out from behind the front seat, and for a little extra satisfaction, she slammed the truck door a little extra hard.

  She quickened her pace across the parking lot to keep up and glared at the back of her dad’s vest, at the fraying club patch, as the sliding-glass doors whirred open and closed. The patch was a spiked-out motorcycle rim embroidered with thick, gold threads against a black background. The flaming wheel represented the Hides of Hell Motorcycle Club, and it mocked her as she trudged after him and Owen like a second-class citizen.

  Not even Owen said anything about her new look. Didn’t blue hair warrant a second glance, a nod, or at least some kind of comment? Long black to short blue was a big change, and those two seemed oblivious.

  Well, apparently just oblivious to her, because they clomped right past the reception desk and jumped on the elevator like they knew where they were going, and of course, she followed along like she had a bull ring in her nose, which she did not. Not yet.

  Her dad jabbed the button for the fifth floor, and while the elevator creaked up and up, Miki studied her brother’s pin-striped back. He wasn’t decked out in his black leathers today but instead wore his signature charcoal vest. The rest of the suit was long gone. He’d torched it in the parking lot after he’d gotten fired from his sales job over a year ago. Story was he’d grabbed a “pencil neck” by the throat and threatened to kill the guy for stealing leftovers from the fridge. When security escorted Owen outside the building, he’d stripped off his clothes and lit them on fire while everyone stared in horror out of their office windows.

  The elevator groaned past the fourth floor, and Miki shifted her eyes to her dad’s patch. He beamed at every opportunity to recount his version of the story, like how he’d raced his bike ahead of the cops to pick up Owen, who’d stood in his tighty-whities and in that same tailored vest. Miki could totally picture him with a cigarette between his lips and the lighter in his hand. Dad couldn’t have been more proud of his son than on that day.

  Owen flipped off corporate America and slid into the Hides of Hell like he was riding on an oil slick. Dad, a.k.a. Leo the Lion, was the H.O.H. president and welcomed his son with open arms. Their love was a beautiful thing.

  Gag!

  The elevator chimed, and the doors creaked open on the fifth floor. The soles of their heavy boots clunked against the light-gray linoleum and resounded off the equally gray walls in the hospital’s sterile corridor, and she followed along in her own boots like a minion.

  “Who are we here to see again?” Miki asked, scanning the rooms for a McDreamy doctor or a nurse serving Jell-O shots. Last time she’d been at the hospital was six months ago when she’d driven Flossy, the club’s mechanic, here. He’d crushed his thumb between a V-twin engine and a hard place, and it’d burst like a cherry tomato. He’d wailed so loudly she almost ran his car into the ER. Good times.

  Dad stopped abruptly, and Miki face planted with his flaming wheel patch inside a dimly lit room. It was eerily quiet except for hushed voices in the hall, swishing fabric, and soft pinging noises. She peered around her dad’s shoulder to see a pasty-white body lying against an even whiter pillow. Her heart somersaulted.

  Will Sullivan!

  Miki pushed past her dad and Owen and clutched the bedside bars next to Will. His dark lashes cast long, spiky shadows down his pale cheeks, and his lips hung lax and open, even as she bumped the hard splint on his arm like a klutz. His discolored fingers, reddish-purple and green, poked out the end. No more green survival bracelet; it had been replaced by white cotton and gauze.

  She still wore her black one and slowly twisted it around her wrist. It had been nearly a year since she’d seen Will. It was last summer when his mom died. Since then, he’d managed to drift out of sight for good.

  “Hi, Will,” she murmured and watched his lids, waiting for them to blink open to show her those melty-licious brown eyes. But he didn’t move.

  “The jerk-off is lucky,” Owen said, stroking his skull cap of black hair. “His face is pretty banged up. Reminds me of the time I roughed him up for ya. Remember, Mik? You were crying.” He chuckled like this was the time or the place.

  “I cried because you beat him up,” Miki said and studied the scabbed gashes from Will’s temple down to his cheek. Standard biker fare; it looked like he’d used his face to wipe up some asphalt. She leaned over and touched his jaw lightly where some bruising had turned a sick yellow. What happened to him?

  “Oh, it wasn’t so bad,” Dad said.

  “He was thirteen!” Miki glared at her dad as he stepped closer to the bed. How could he stand there and defend Owen? “I don’t think a high schooler should hit a little kid—”

  “Owen popped him one and gave him a bloody nose is all.” Dad loomed like a tower, rubbing his black whiskers while his dark eyes roamed over Will’s feeble body. He pursed his lips and circled the bed. “Will’s gonna be all right. It’s a rough patch, and the brotherhood’s gonna see him through it.”

  “He deserved the lick he got, believe me.” Owen grunted and kicked out a plastic chair, dropping his weight onto it. He tucked his hands into his armpits, and his unbuttoned vest fell open over a white dress shirt. The cuffs were rolled up to his elbows, showing off lean forearms and his ornate eagle tattoo. “He never bothered you again, did he? Huh?” Owen’s eyebrow twitched in one of those cocky smirks. “No, I didn’t think so.”

  “You’re right. He never bothered me again.” Miki rolled her bulbous skull rings against her palm like they were a set of brass knuckles instead of silver-plated jewelry. If she could slug her brother in the face and get away with it, she would.

  Why did she have to be related to Owen, again? Oh, right. Because if Mom would have divorced her dad when she’d wanted to, Miki would never have been born. Thankfully, her mom stuck it out for makeup sex. Unfortunately, Miki’d been brought into a crazy, dysfunctional family with a chauvinistic biker dad, a brother with anger issues, and a bitter mother who complained about the first two all the time.

  Miki yearned for normal, and Will with his scratched-up face and broken arm was…okay, not normal, but his roots ran deep. Not to mention, he had the tall, dark, and broody thing going on. He carried an internal strength, even though currently he had the external look of a puffed marshmallow. Will knew what he wanted…or didn’t want in her case. If he opened his eyes right now, he would definitely say something about her hair. Good, bad, or indifferent. But he would notice.

  She hadn’t seen her crush for nearly a year, and with his scabbed body and his matted hospital hair, he still gave her goosebumps.

  “I’m here, Will,” she whispered into his face, waiting for a sign like an eye spasm or a finger twitch. “Can you hear me?”

  “Leave the poor guy alone,” Dad said, then pointed to a cluttered side table with a pink barf basin. “Bill and Liam must’ve brought his stuff. Gameboy, chargers, some music gizmo…a laptop.”

  “Gadget freak,” Owen muttered.

  Dad picked through a basket of comic books and candy. Then he opened his jacket and pulle
d out a thin paper bag the size of a magazine. He tucked it under the rest of the stuff, making sure it was covered, and with a sly smile said, “That’ll keep him entertained.”

  “What is it?” Miki frowned. Was there a card? Because no one asked her to sign it.

  “Nothing you’d be interested in.” Owen shifted his dark eyes to Dad, and they snickered into their palms like mischievous children. Those two really were the same, but instead of two peas in a pod, they were two ball bearings in a crankcase.

  Miki lost interest in their innuendos and inside jokes and let her eyes roam Will’s marred skin. The only unscathed places with no scratches, no scabs, no bruises, and no gauze were the very tips of his fingers. She touched them gently.

  After the memorial service, Miki had reached out to Will with a text or two—okay, more like twenty—to draw him out from under his rock to show him people cared. To show him she cared.

  Nada. He never wrote back. He never called. All she heard was the cracking of her own desperate heart. It was like he’d fallen into a black hole.

  Or maybe she had.

  CHAPTER 3: Limbo

  William Robert Sullivan! If I catch you even taking a sip of beer, I’ll ground you for the rest of your life! Goodbye laptop, goodbye Internet and all your video games. I’ll take your phone away, too, and I’ll never make apple pie for you again!

  His mom’s voice broke on a sob, and Will squinted through a blur, half expecting and mostly wanting to see his mom there. He could almost visualize her standing at the foot of the metal bed with her hip cocked out and her finger wagging, a familiar vision of pissed-offed-ness. How many times had he been grounded for life? Too many to count. So what’d he do this time?

  It wasn’t the beer because it was like a staple in his family. The bikers drank it along with their wives—for the most part—and the kids took turns sneaking a can or two. Nobody batted an eye. So what was this really about? Helmet? He’d been a very ripe sixteen-year-old with kidney failure. It wasn’t Will’s fault her old cat died. If anyone should be fuming mad, it should be him. She’s the one who croaked and left him, Liam, and Dad to splinter like a broken bottle. Then her damned cat had to go—

  Mom…wait!

  I’m sorry.

  He blinked, and the room came into focus, gray walls, metal trays, white sheets. A woman with a short cap of blonde hair like his mom’s hovered over him.

  “Mom.” Will tried to reach out to her, but his right arm was trapped under a boulder. When he did manage to lift it, a shard of pain ripped through his forearm like a bolt of lightning. His entire body caught on fire, and he fell back against the pillows.

  “Will, are you in pain? Can you describe it for me? Zero being no pain and—”

  “Ten.” Will groaned again. It hurt inside and out. While everything below his neck fried, everything above froze as if he’d plunged his head into a cooler of ice water. Suddenly, it went dark.

  Then it was light again.

  Will couldn’t keep track of the time or the faces. People wearing bright cotton filtered in to nudge and prod at him, followed by a wave of dark leathers, who scratched their beards, dropped f-bombs, and evaporated back into the light. Somewhere in between it all, Will hovered between deep sleep and trying to wake up.

  This time, he broke through the film and opened his eyes. He smacked his lips with a grimace and slowly inhaled a mixture of chicken broth, orange Jell-O, antiseptic, and Band-Aids. Oh, God. His guts roiled.

  “There he is,” a gravelly voice said. Then Dad stepped up to the end of the bed, but instead of wagging his finger like Mom would have done, his hands were tucked into his front pockets. He stood with his elbows jutting out like wings on a gigantic furry moth. His salt-and-pepper hair was loosely scraped back while his matching beard hung banded down his front like a long, segmented rope.

  “Dad?” Will’s voice cracked, and he tilted his head for a better view.

  “I’m here, too,” Liam said from a corner of the room.

  “Dad, I don’t feel so good. I…I might hurl.”

  “Here.” His brother materialized and pushed past Dad to set a kidney-shaped bowl next to Will’s neck. He wore his familiar camo baseball hat over short brown hair and an unfamiliar—Will squinted. What the…? It looked like a caterpillar had crawled under his nose. Was Liam trying to grow a ‘stache? If so, major weak.

  “Welcome back,” Liam said. “We were all starting to get worried, like maybe you’d slipped into some kind of coma. After you get outta here, be prepared to have your ass kicked for the stunt you pulled. You could’ve killed yourself drunk driving, you prick, not to mention you totaled your bike.” He threw his hands up. “Now what? The rally starts this weekend.”

  Rally? Who cared? Will never went to those things anyway.

  “I got somethin’ to say, Liam.” Dad announced, pulling his hands free. “I want to get it out there quick, before Will conks out again.”

  “Okay, Dad.” Liam scrutinized a nearly empty water bottle on the side table. He picked it up. “Go ahead. I’ll get Will some water.”

  His brother headed for the bathroom, and a triangle of light spilled through the doorway, illuminating the gloom. The blinds had been pulled down, and it seemed like whatever sky was on the other side had turned to twilight. It could be time for an early breakfast or maybe a late dinner for all he knew.

  Will rolled his head slowly back to his dad. He had something to say?

  When their brown eyes connected, his dad nodded.

  “Alright.” Dad cleared his throat and lowered his gaze. His ram-like shoulders grew even bigger as he sucked in a huge breath. When he looked up, he’d turned into a mountain, and his eyes focused somewhere above Will’s head. This was the look of impenetrable force. He’d made up his mind about something, and there would be no negotiations and no changing it. This was the precursor to the standard “Sit up and pay attention because I’m not sayin’ it twice” talk.

  Will shifted and tried to get more vertical, but his head spun. He reached up and stroked the edge of the barf basin for comfort before sinking back into the pillow with a grunt.

  “Will, my son, things have to change. It’s time to move on. I met this woman, and…” He cursed under his breath and rubbed his forehead as his brown eyes scrolled down to meet Will’s head on. “Not like what you’re probably thinking. Nothing serious. We talked, and something she said made me realize—It’s just…” He turned away to holler toward the bathroom. “What was it your Aunt K said?”

  “Just tell him about the ashes, Dad,” Liam said with the water bottle in his hand. He came around the bed and set it down.

  “We’re taking Mom’s ashes when we head to the rally. This will be her last ride, son. We’re all going, and we’re setting her free, understand? And the damned slice of apple pie is coming with us. You hear me, Will?”

  The hell it is. If only he could sit up, shake his fist, and yell, but he couldn’t even move his pinkie. “No,” he croaked. Plain and simple.

  Dad lifted a stocky finger and pointed it at him. It shook slightly, and the words “Don’t tell me no” were written all over his face. “Yes,” he said, his voice dark and full of emotion.

  “My apple pie.” Will closed his eyes.

  “Shit, Dad. He’s stoned. Is he even going to remember this conversation?”

  “Will! I’m serious now. Your mom’s ashes and apple pie. There’s no going back. Wait…Will! Liam and I are leaving early in the morning. We have to make a drop off, and your Aunt K’s planning…can you hear me?”

  “I think he passed out,” Liam muttered. “Now what do we do?”

  His dad sighed wearily. “Call your Uncle Shorty, I guess.”

  The last word Will heard before drifting off was another f-bomb.

  “Hey kid. Who are you?” A man’s voice said quietly from the mist.

  Will pried his eyes open, expecting to see a male nurse or maybe even a winged angel hovering above his bed. But instead of
teal scrubs, the unfamiliar dude was dressed all in black and was ugly as hell with a tuft of bleached hair on top of his bald melon. Hey, it’s Mr. Clean wearing a kitchen sponge. Funny, but Will couldn’t laugh. His heart was too busy accelerating with a punch of adrenaline. Somehow, it seemed like fight or flight time, only he couldn’t move to do either.

  “What’s your name?” Ugly Dude grinned, and his teeth were bright like stars as if he’d double-downed on the chemicals to whiten them. Or maybe he’d bumped into someone’s fist one too many times, and they were all fake. “I bet you’re somebody important, aren’t you?” he whispered, sounding kind of creepy.

  “No,” Will rasped, trying to keep his mind focused and to stay out of the misty cloud.

  “I dunno. You’ve had a lot of interesting visitors. You’re popular,” he murmured, his crystal blue eyes leaving Will’s face to rove around the room. He pinched a get-well card from the side table and read it. “Will,” he said. Rubber-soled shoes squeaked down the hallway, and the guy cocked his shaved head toward the door as he carefully set the card back, either listening or waiting.

  Was this guy lost? Will tried to swallow past the growing lump in his throat. Or was he about to get suffocated by his own pillow like in a mobster flick? His eyes slid down to the guy’s battered hands where bluish skeletal tattoos marred the backs of his fingers along with the letters PS.

  Pulver Skulls.

  Oh, God, this was it. He was gonna get his ass pummeled. Will closed his eyes and let the morphine take him away.

  Will unhinged his jaw and tried to pry his thick tongue off the roof of his mouth. Water. Just a drop. Sounds filtered into his consciousness, a creaking chair, swishing fabric, rubber soles on the floor. Then there was the comforting smell of vanilla, like perfume. He wasn’t alone.

  Was it the nurse?