Ace: Devil’s Nightmare MC

by Bourne, Lena

  “Give it to me,” I bark. “I’ve set a bunch of these over the years. I know what I’m doing. I doubt you do.”

  The silence that follows Piston’s indrawn breath at my words is sharper than a knife.

  “You don’t talk to me like that,” Horse barks, no longer whispering. “Who the fuck do you think you are? What the fuck do you know about me?”

  “Keep your voice down,” Piston warns him. “You’ll wake the neighbors.”

  And that’s another piece of the puzzle coming together. I gotta cause a distraction, something that will wake the neighbors and cause lights to come on all around us. Something that’ll make it impossible to set the bomb tonight. Tomorrow, Ink’s family will have a guard on his mother after I warn them of this new threat. I’m glad for the darkness, because coming up with this idea made me smile involuntarily.

  But what do I use for a distraction?

  “Get to it, Piston,” Horse tells him as he hands him the bomb. “Do it just like we planned.”

  He’s ignoring my offer to set the bomb. Do I let him?

  “Hurry,” I mutter as Piston takes the package, and it sounds like I’m encouraging him, but I’m actually trying to encourage my own damn self. Hurry up and figure this out!

  How?

  In the corner of my eye, something is gleaming. I turn, see a shiny, white Beemer, which seems to glow in the moonlight. It’s parked at the curb, less than two yards from where the hedge meets the sidewalk. It’s gonna have a loud as hell alarm, foreign cars like that always do. But I’m only gonna have one chance at this. I better not fuck it up.

  Piston is moving along the hedge away from the sidewalk in a crouch, and he’s already almost at the end of it. The ground under the hedge we’re hiding behind is covered with rocks, the polished kind you buy at a hardware store. None are bigger than my fist.

  I select the biggest one I can see with my gaze.

  It won’t do. It’s too small.

  I’ll have to do it myself. Make sure it’s done.

  “Go keep a lookout for your brother at that side of the hedge,” I tell Horse, then point toward the end of the hedge where the Beemer is parked. “And I’ll do the same on this side. We don’t want any surprises.”

  Horse nods and starts creeping along after Piston. I do the same in the opposite direction. The silence of the street is so absolute, the little noises of our movement sound to me like elephants moving.

  This was such poor planning on the guys’ part. I’m actually doing them a favor stopping it. The driveway and the target car are in plain view of at least three houses, maybe four, and there’s no telling who might be looking out from any of the dark windows in those houses.

  They should thank me for preventing this. Their father should’ve taught them better.

  I’m hurrying along, not caring about how much noise I make. When I reach the sidewalk, I glance back. Neither of them has made it to the other side of the hedge yet.

  The width of the hedge hides me from their view as I rush towards the Beemer and pull on the passenger door handle. Nothing happens. No blaring alarm. How is this possible?

  I pull again, harder. Nothing. Did the owner of this piece of shit ride really cheap out on the alarm?

  I shake the car, more in frustration than any kind of hope.

  The wailing of the car alarm rents the silence, disorienting me for a split second the way loud noises do.

  I don’t think, just yell, “Let’s get the fuck out of here!” and bolt in the direction of the trees where we parked our bikes. I have to glance back to see if they’re following, since the alarm is so loud it’s drowning out all other sounds. They are. And Piston is still clutching the bomb.

  Lights are coming on in the houses all around us, but I’m certain no one actually got a good look at us before we reach the spot where we left our bikes. It’s how it is with loud noises. They draw all focus.

  “What the fuck happened?” Horse asks me breathlessly. Behind him, Piston is stuffing the car bomb into the pocket of his cut like it was an oversized piece of trash and not something that could kill all three of us in a split second.

  “Be careful with that shit,” I bark at him.

  “Did you set off that alarm?” Horse asks me pointedly.

  “Fuck, no! What the fuck? It just started blaring,” I say angrily. “Must’ve been a cat or something. Those pretentious, crap German carmakers…they can’t even get the alarm right! I was still at the hedge when it just went off.”

  “Come on, we gotta go! The cops are gonna be here soon,” Piston says loudly.

  “Yeah, let’s go!” I get on my bike and rev it up. Horse says something but the sound drowns it out. It sounded a hell of a lot like, “What the fuck are they gonna do to us?”

  I might have imagined him saying that though. And even if he did, it doesn’t mean he’s a snitch. I doubt even the feds would let him blow up an old lady in exchange for information on outlaw MCs.

  * * *

  I’m the one leading the way back to the clubhouse, taking a couple of wrong turns on purpose with a vague notion that a longer ride will calm Horse down. The night is even darker now, since dawn is near, and the rumble of our bikes in the dark, empty stillness of the world stretching out on either side of the country road we’re riding down sounds like an army approaching, ready to attack. The cool, predawn wind is doing nothing to cool my face, the darkness is doing nothing to still my nerves. Is Stormi cold? Is she still scared stiff? Like I need to be worrying about that on top of everything else. I can handle myself. The sooner she understands that, the better for both of us. But worrying about her isn’t a bad thing. I haven’t worried like this for anyone in so long. It’s the kind of worry reserved only for family members. And that’s a thing I definitely do not want to think about on top of everything else.

  Horse overtakes me at speed, the sound of his bike as it passes me loud enough to drown out my thoughts too. He keeps going at the same elevated speed, probably fed up with my meandering pace down wrong roads. Piston and I have no choice but to follow at the same speed.

  As soon as we’re behind the clubhouse gates, he rips off his helmet and slams it against the seat of his bike so hard it bounces off and falls to the ground with a thud. So much for the ride calming him down. I remember being hot-headed like this. But I was well and truly grown out of it by the time I was his age. I feel old, but also kinda wise, so it’s not so bad. He strides toward me and I step off my own bike, since a confrontation is clearly coming.

  “What the fuck was that?” he asks. “Did you set off that alarm on purpose?”

  I could admit it, then list and describe to him all the ways his plan of setting the car bomb was ill-conceived, dangerous and all around idiotic. But that’s not gonna help my cause. I’m here to find out which one of them is snitching to the feds, so I gotta calm him down not agitate him more.

  “No, I didn’t, like I already told you,” I say in a clipped voice as though I’m barely containing my anger. In a lot of ways I am. Horse gets on my nerves in a way that few other people do. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  I make the challenge plain. We both know who’d win a fight between the two of us. He swallows hard, but his fists, which he’s clutching to his sides, are shaking, and his face is very dark. When guys are as agitated as he seems to be, it doesn’t much matter what they know about their chances of winning a fight.

  “It was convenient to what you wanted, is all I’m saying,” he says in a strangled voice. Piston moves to stand at his shoulder, silently letting me know I’ll have to fight both of them if I fight Horse. I suddenly miss my cousin, who was like a brother to me, with a freshness that’s been gone for many years. The pain comes back like a high-voltage electric shock.

  “I had nothing to do with the alarm going off,” I say in a falsely calm voice. I’d love nothing more than to knock their heads together. “But we were lucky it went off when it did. You didn’t plan this well. Do you know how many
windows looked out onto that car and that driveway? At least four houses had a clear view, and maybe five more with a not so clear view. There’s also no telling how many people you’ll injure in a setting like that. Gotta keep that to a minimum where civilians are concerned, is my thinking. Operations like this take better planning.”

  “Who the fuck are you to tell me how to do shit?” Horse barks. “Just go back to your whore. I’ll handle this my way from now on.”

  As much as I want to do exactly that, I can’t let this stand. Horse is hotheaded and dumb enough to go back to set that car bomb tonight, if I don’t stop him. I’m also sensing that this is my last chance to keep his trust. If I fuck up now, if I don’t get him back on my side right now, I never will. And if he’s the snitch, like I very much suspect he might be, I gotta stay close to him.

  “Let’s go get a drink. I know I need one after what just happened. Stormi’s fine, but she’s just a woman,” I say, surprised at how hard that lie lands in my stomach. “And we can discuss how best to set that bomb tomorrow night. I got some experience with shit like that and I got some ideas.”

  Piston nods to my words then turns to look at his brother. “I think we should listen to him, Horse. He makes a good point. We should’ve planned this better.”

  Horse looks at him sharply, but Piston just shrugs. “What? You know it makes sense. The guy knows what he’s doing. He chased off three Devils by himself, didn’t he?”

  “I guess,” Horse says, sounding like he’d pretty much rather be saying just about anything else. He looks at me and that’s not agreement or concession in his eyes. It’s something else. Doubt that I actually did what Piston thinks I did? Does he suspect I’m not who I claim to be?

  I hope that fear wasn’t visible on my face, as I turn and lead the way into the bar.

  “What I’m thinking is, we need to set that bomb on her car elsewhere, not right in front of her house where so many neighbors have a clear view of us doing it.” I talk as I walk, making all this shit up on the spot. “Or better yet, why don’t we attach it to the gas tank at the back of her house. Did you notice it? I saw the neighbor had one, so I’m assuming she does too.”

  I hold open the side door that leads into the bar. By the confused look on both their faces as they file past me, I can tell they didn’t notice anything other than the car and the hedge tonight. Fucking amateurs. If Horse wasn’t so suspicious of me over the alarm going off, I’d be steering this conversation in the direction of how dishonorable it is to target old ladies, no matter what they’re old man did to you. But I doubt Ace the Spawn would care about something like that, and I’m also pretty sure Horse doesn’t value honor very highly.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Horse admits grudgingly.

  He goes behind the bar and sets a bottle of Jack on the counter, along with three glasses. He pours messily, creating little pools of the amber liquid around each of our glasses. Piston and me take our seats at adjacent barstools, which are just as rickety as everything else in this bar. Including the way Griff runs this place and governs his men. The jack drips down off my glass as I lift it to my mouth and lands in fat drops on my thigh where my jeans soak it up immediately. I don’t want to be here. I want to be on the beach comforting Stormi, keeping her warm, but if I don’t stop thinking about that, I’ll just say the wrong thing.

  “So, what do you think we should do?” Horse asks after he finishes his shot and pours himself another.

  Good, I got them listening. And now I’ll regale them with an intricate plan on how to best kill Ink’s mother. I need to do that to regain their trust, which needs to be absolute now, if Horse is indeed the snitch. Because the sooner I find the snitch, the sooner I can take Stormi and go home.

  14

  Stormi

  I didn’t waste any time doing exactly what Ace told me to do. I pulled on a pair of skinny jeans I once borrowed from another girl here and never returned, put on a black hoodie I found forgotten on the beach one dawn, and my chucks, stuffed a blanket into a bag and left. The walk to the beach warmed me because I practically ran here, afraid my thoughts and my fears will catch up to me. They did, but not until I sat in the secluded spot on the beach where he told me to wait.

  My spot. The place I come to call my sister. Our spot now. If he comes, we’re leaving right away. I’ll get a job somewhere far from here, send my sister money that way. It’s a plan I’ve been vaguely hatching, but never acted on, because they might find me and kill me and what use am I then? I also don’t want to leave Brenda here alone to face them all on her own. But she’s cozying up to Piston now. He’ll protect her. And Ace will protect me. If he comes back…

  I try and try not to let it, but my mind always snags on the terrible thought that I’ll never see him again.

  So I think of nothing. I listen to the waves sliding up onto the sand, the rustling of grass as the breeze glides over it, the buzz of the highway in the distance.

  Hours pass. I have no idea where they went.

  Now the horizon in front of me, the squiggly line that separated the shiny, glimmering blue of the ocean from the deeper, smoother blue of the night sky is turning white. Dawn is here. Another dawn where I live, but my hope and my dreams, my life is actually over. Ace is gone. He’s not coming here. He’s not coming anywhere.

  My hands are shaking, yet my whole body is stiff with the paralysis of knowing that, as I dig out the phone to call my sister. I need to hear her friendly voice. I need to know I’m not completely alone in the world. Alone. Forsaken. Not even my father leaving me ever feels this empty.

  “Stormi, is that you?” she asks sleepily when she finally picks up.

  “Yes, it’s me. It’s so good to hear her voice.” Good doesn’t even come close. Hearing her voice is the only thing tethering me to this world right now.

  “What’s wrong, Stormi?” she asks and I hear rustling as she sits up in bed, most likely. “Did something happen to you?”

  I try to speak, try to tell her I’m fine, but the best I can do is shake my head mutely, my throat so constricted and tight I’m not sure any air is getting to my lungs at all.

  “I have good news. You can come home now. You can come home right now,” she says, then has to pause to get her breathing back under control.

  “You know the online fundraising page I told you about?” she asks. “Mom told everyone at church about it. And…and they really came through, Stormi.”

  She pauses, once again out of breath.

  “They did?” I ask. “For real?”

  The church-goers in our community always looked down on us. Because our father left, because our mother did too, because I was wild, and because my grandmother never minced words with anyone. After our mom came back, she started going to church too, so in the end they all just looked down on me.

  “Yes, yes,” she says, still out of breath. “They raised the money for me, they held a live fundraiser and everything. Last Sunday afternoon. And what’s more, Pastor Randall made some phone calls and got me an appointment with Dr. Sawyer. You know, the specialist? The good one?”

  This is more good news than I can believe. This is more good news than I ever imagined hearing, even in my wildest, most hopeful dreams. My brain is whirling with so many thoughts I can’t settle on just one to voice. If Ace were here right now, my life would be everything I ever wanted it to be.

  “This is exactly what we’ve been dreaming about. You’ll be alright now,” I more breathe than say. It’s the most important thought to acknowledge.

  “Yes, I think I might,” she says and I can just hear the wide smile on her face. “When will you be here? Later today?”

  Her hopeful question douses some of my good mood.

  “When’s your appointment?” I ask instead of answering her.

  “The day after tomorrow, at nine AM,” she says. “Can you be here by then? I’d love to have you with me.”

  “I’d love to be there too,” I say, starting the conversation th
at always ends with, ‘But I can’t, not yet, soon.’

  Not soon.

  Even if Ace and me leave here today, I can’t go home yet. I can’t go home until I can be certain the Sinners aren’t following me and aren’t looking for me. Keeping all that a secret from my sister is hard. It’s harder still to tell her I can’t be there with her on the day when she finally gets the chance to fully live.

  But do I have to tell her no?

  Can’t I risk it, just for one day? See her on just that day?

  Ace will be with me. He’ll keep us safe. I know he will. I know he can, the way I’ve never known that about anyone. If he comes back… No, I won’t think that. He’s gotta come back. He’s just gotta.

  “I’ll be there for your appointment,” I say and giggle at her excited gasp. She expected me to say no just as much as I expected to tell her no.

  Then we talk about happy things until the rising sun is blinding me. And while we spoke, while we made plans about all the things we’re gonna do when I finally come back home, I even forgot to fear that Ace is never coming back.

  But after I hang up, the sun is a bright yellow ball hanging well over the horizon, and all my fears are back. Darker and bleaker and more terrifying than the darkest night. If Ace was coming, he’d be here by now.

  * * *

  Ace

  Birds were waking up by the time Horse and Piston finally grew weary of making the new plan for the hit on Ink’s mom. I tried but couldn’t talk them out of it, so we’re doing it again tonight. At least I now have plenty of time to prevent it.

  When they finally announced they’re going home to sleep I got up with them and stretched, yawned and said I’m getting myself some breakfast first, then held my breath over my stupidity, and silently prayed neither of them wanted to join me. They didn’t.

  They recommended the diner at the truck stop where I phoned Cross, as the only place open nearby, which jolted me into complete wakefulness. Do they know? But that was just my paranoia and lack of sleep talking, because no way would they spend all night discussing a hit on an old lady with me, if they knew I’m not Ace the Spawn. No way are they smart and resourceful enough to hide that knowledge so well.