by Bourne, Lena
I’d much rather get Stormi first, tell her everything is good, that she has nothing to worry about, and then take her out for breakfast. After that, we’d go back to bed, and stay there for as long as it takes to be rested. But I can’t do that yet. First I gotta warn Ink.
So I go to the diner, order the breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausages, toast and hash browns, and drink a cup and a half of coffee before heading to the bathroom.
I have to call Ink three times before he finally picks up.
“They’re targeting your mother to get back at you,” I tell him, then proceed to give him all the details of the plan I just spent the last four hours making with Horse and Piston.
I expected to have to repeat myself, but all he said was, “Those motherfucking assholes. I can’t wait to get rid of them all.”
“Get your mother somewhere safe, but do it in secret,” I tell him. “I already botched one attempt on her last night. If I have to do it again, it’ll start to look suspicious even to those two dumbasses.”
“You did what?” he asks and despite the fact that I’ve already spent too much time on the phone with him, I tell him the whole story anyway.
“Thank you, man,” he says, gratitude literally oozing from his voice. “I owe you one.”
“No, you don’t,” I assure him. “I still owe you. And it’s no less than I’d do for any brother.”
I let him go after than, and call Cross who picks up right away.
“I think the snitch might be one or both of the sons,” I tell him.
“The sons? You’re sure?” he asks.
“Not completely,” I tell him, wishing I was completely certain. That way, we’d make our move and I could get the fuck out of here, with Stormi. I want to get to know her a whole lot better, and I don’t want to do that while I’m pretending to be someone I’m not. Someone I’d never want to be.
I proceed to give him a report of what happened last night, telling him Ink already knows. The silence on his end of the line grew a little darker at that, but it’s the guy’s mother, he has the right to be the first to find out. I also tell him how the execs tested me and that I passed, and mention there’s some tension between Griff and the VP.
“Griff’s sons go around strutting their shit with no fear that the cops will get them,” I conclude, knowing how little that is by way of proof, but childishly hoping it’ll be enough anyway. “As in, they don’t give a shit who gets hurt when a car bomb goes off in a residential neighborhood, or who sees them planting it. I’m thinking that’s more than just general stupidity on their part.”
“You could be right, but get me more,” Cross replies predictably. “With all this heat on us, we have to make this as clean and quiet as possible.”
The emphasis he put on the word “heat” tells me something new’s come up, but I know better than to ask about it.
“Be ready to move as soon as I give the word,” he adds.
I assure him I will be, then finally leave the bathroom. My breakfast is cold, but the waitress offers to heat it up for me and I let her. I wolf it down as soon as she brings it back, hardly tasting a thing, then pay and leave. Stormi’s waited for me long enough.
* * *
Stormi
I should’ve left the beach by now. I’ve known that for at least an hour. But where do I go? Back to the clubhouse? To find out Ace is really dead right before I disappear to? Or do I go home? I’d have to hitchhike and even though I suck at geography, I figure it’d take me longer than two days to get there. If I didn’t get raped and murdered on the way.
I’m starving, and I have a grand total of three dollars and forty-four cents to my name in the form of long forgotten coins I dug out of the bottom of the bag I brought. I sent all the money I had to my sister a couple of days ago. I could steal the money I need for a bus ticket. But I never want to do that again.
So I’ve just been sitting here, staring at the ocean, watching it change color from deep blue to the turquoise it’s now, as the sun climbed higher and higher in the sky. I’ve been pretending that time will solve this problem for me. A bunch of people walking their dogs already passed me, and the smell of dog piss is now mixed in with the clean sea scent that the breeze is blowing my way. So I think nothing of it as I hear yet more footsteps approaching.
“Damn, it was easier to find this place in the dark,” Ace says from behind the grasses to my left.
I laugh out loud and leap to my feet then lumber to him through the shrubbery and grass, more tripping than falling into his arms. I’d probably be bleeding from the thorny shrubs, if I wasn’t wearing jeans. Not that I’d care. For awhile, all I can do is hold onto him, tighter than I’ve ever held onto anything or anyone in my entire life. I’m trying to believe he is really here, that he is really alive, and even though I’m embracing his hard, strong body and can hear his heart beat, I don’t really believe he’s actually here.
“I told you not to worry,” he says, stroking my hair and my back.
I look up at him, and he leans down to kiss me. The moment our lips touch all the safety, desire, happiness, and love he makes me feel flow into me like a rushing river of flame. It’s then I finally know that this is real, one hundred percent real. I don’t have to worry anymore. I don’t have to fear. I don’t have to rely just on myself. My bad luck, the bad luck that’s followed me my entire life has finally turned.
“Did they try to kill you?” I ask breathlessly, guiding him out of the grass back to our spot. “How did you escape?”
I sit in the sand, pulling him down with me.
“It was nothing like that,” he tells me. “Horse wanted me on a job.”
There’s a hardness behind the light way in which he says it, and I know he was worried too. But I won’t press him to admit it. The fear is gone, no use dredging it back up. By tonight it’ll be just a bad memory from the past.
“What’s that?” he asks, looking past me at the open lunch box with the phone inside it. No lightness is masking the hardness in his voice now.
“It’s…it’s my phone,” I tell him.
“And who were you calling?” he asks, and as much as I want to pretend otherwise, there’s a very suspicious and dark tone in his voice. Like he’s jealous. Like he thinks I lied to him. Like he thinks I have a dark secret that I should’ve shared with him. I’ve been with jealous men and I’ve been with dark, mean men. I believed he was neither, but this tone in his voice tells me I might’ve been wrong about that. It tells me he might be all those things. That he might be a very dangerous man.
I have been keeping a secret. And now I’m not sure whether it’s safe to share it with him.
“My sister,” I tell him anyway. “I come here to call my sister.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Your sister?”
His tone suggests that this is the worst lie he’s ever heard, right up there with, ‘the dog ate my homework’.
“Yes, my sister,” I reply edgily. “She’s very sick, and I check in with her almost every day. But I don’t want the Sinners to know about her, so I come here to call her in secret.”
“Why can’t you just call her openly, why hide?” he asks. “Or better yet, why don’t you go to her if she’s so sick?”
“Because if I go, the Sinners will follow me and kill me, or they might kill her first, just to punish me some more,” I say angrily, although fear is actually choking me. His eyes widen as he listens, but they lose none of that dangerous, predatory edge.
“They wouldn’t—” he says, but I talk right over him.
“Yes, they would,” I say, grabbing his hand. “In a second, they would. You don’t know them like I do. They’re ruthless and cruel and don’t give a fuck about anyone. That’s why I was so afraid they’d kill you last night, and that’s why I’ve endured all this, because I know I’m dead the moment they catch me, if I run. I know my sister and my mother are probably dead too if I go home and that’s where they catch me. All for less than ten thousand
dollars. Not worth it.” He cringes, opens his mouth to interrupt, probably to tell me I’m exaggerating, but he doesn’t know. He can’t. But I do. “And that’s why I haven’t left yet,” I plough on. “But I want to leave now. Let’s leave right now. Together. I want to see my sister so badly.”
There are tears in my eyes as I finish speaking, and they spill when I finally notice the hard, serious expression on his face. They’re not from just sadness, not from just fear. They’re tears of joy too, brought by the thought that I’ll finally see my sister again.
“We can’t,” he says, and it sounds like the words are very hard for him to say.
“Not yet,” he adds. “But soon. Very soon.”
“What do you mean? Why not yet? What are the Sinners to you? You just met them a couple of days ago,” I ask, the words tumbling from my mouth.
“They promised to help me get the revenge I’ve been living for,” he says, his eyes suddenly very distant.
“Revenge you’ve been living for?” I ask in an outraged voice. “What kind of person lives for revenge? What are you talking about?”
My heart is hammering in fear again. He’s not who I thought he was. He’s not the man who can offer me safety, or love, or peace. He’s a guy who lives for revenge. How could I have been so blind? And now he knows about my sister too. What did I do? With all the mistakes I’ve made in my life, how did I not see this one—possibly the worst one yet—coming?
“We’ll go soon, I promise.” Of all the things he’s said to me this morning, this one finally makes his face light up in passion and desire that I hoped to see when I asked him to come with me. “I’ll tell you everything then.”
Bullshit. Typical guy bullshit. How did I not see him for what he is? Am I that far gone in the head?
“I’d love to get to know you so much better,” he adds when I don’t say anything. I believe him. Despite all I just heard, despite how it all looks, I believe him. I want the same thing!
“And I’d love to meet your sister and your whole family too,” he adds, slashing the hope and love that just welled up in me back down to size. “But it’ll have to wait a little longer. OK? Can you wait a little longer?”
He almost sounds like he’s begging me. The blue of his eyes is the exact shade of the clear sky above us, mirroring this wonderful day perfectly. No jealous, no mean, no cruel guy could ever look at me with eyes this warm, this pleasant, this honest. My heart and my soul know this, but my mind is still calling bullshit on it.
“OK,” I mutter, and a part of me means it, despite my fears, despite my doubts, despite my misgivings.
“Good,” he says. “I’ll make it worth the wait for you. I promise.”
Just what I need. A promise. Great.
Then he leans down and kisses me, and the second our lips touch, all fear, all doubt, all sadness, all sarcasm and even all pain disappear in the way a popped soap bubble just ceases to be. It’s easy to believe all his promises when we kiss. Easy to know they’ll come true.
We shouldn’t talk, we should just kiss. Words just lead to confusion and doubt. But this love our kisses create is real. More real than anything in my life has ever been. If I had him to hold on to and kiss, I know I’d even survive my sister’s death. And that’s something I always believed would be impossible.
15
Stormi
We both fell asleep as soon as our heads touched the pillows on my bed at the clubhouse, but less than three hours later I dreamed Horse banging on the door, and jolted awake, to find it was just a nightmare. Ace was still sleeping soundly, his even, slightly raspy breathing filling the room and his arm tossed over my stomach. I tried to take comfort in that, along with safety and rest, but I couldn’t find the peace to fall back asleep.
Early this morning, I finally made my decision to leave, to run away from here and be with my sister again, for the procedure, for the rest of our lives. Somehow, I’ll manage it. And now that I’ve finally decided to take that risk, Ace shows up, refusing to leave with me, tethering me here in a whole different way than I was tied before, but just as strongly. Sure, he’s promising we’ll go soon, but no man in my life has ever kept his promise, starting with my father.
What do I do? Do I leave on my own?
I couldn’t even tell him where to find me if I did, because he might betray me to the Sinners.
A part of my mind is sure he’d find me anyway because we’re destined for each other, because we’re meant to be together. It’s really easy to believe that when we’re kissing, when he’s inside me, when we’re as joined as two people can be. But now another, logical part is telling me that’s all nonsense, a delusion, because I’ve never before met a guy who treated me as well as he does, and that I’m just fooling myself, that he’s like all the rest with his tall promises and hard, dark eyes he hides with smiles and kindness. I’ve met guys whose smiles and nice words concealed meanness and cruelty. I don’t need to learn that lesson again.
Round and round those thoughts go in my mind, until they’re a huge black ball burning red from the inside with anger and fear and the need to do something, do anything, to sort the lies and dreams from reality. So I get up, careful not to wake him, although a part of me really wants to.
I dress quietly, pulling on a pair of shorts, and a clean t-shirt from the bottom of the pile of my clothes on the chair by the window. It’s white with a picture of a unicorn’s head in emo-style makeup with piercings everywhere, even the horn. I stole it at the mall by the beach the first time I went there, when I could still muster some of my spunk, could still find defiance and anger. I never wore it, the tag’s still on it, and I rip it off like this is the beginning of a new life, of something better for me, while feeling like a complete crazy idiot for thinking it. There’s raised, red welts across my thighs from when I rushed through the shrubs to fall into Ace’s arms. The jeans didn’t protect me from the scratches. Will he protect me?
I put on the shirt fast, refusing to answer that question, refusing to think about any of it anymore, and head to the bar.
Brenda just gives me a curt nod as I enter, saying nothing as I get a rag from the sink and start wiping down the sticky tables. She keeps giving me angry, pointed looks while she stacks fresh beer bottles into the fridge under the bar.
The tables are disgusting. They were light brown when new, but the dirt of years has seeped into the wood and made them almost black long before I got here. The spills, bits of food, and cigarette ash from last night darkened them some more, but not in a way that’s very noticeable at all. The rag I’m using is smelly and so engrained with dirt no amount of bleach would make it white again. Why bother? The tables are too dirty to ever be clean again. Four old Sinners already started drinking for the day, each sitting alone at his own table. I leave those tables alone.
“What’s up?” I ask Brenda once I’m done with the tables and join her behind the counter. Her dark looks were pissing me off, but my tone isn’t showing that at all. My voice is just sad, because I’m so tired of worrying, so tired of being afraid, so tired of pushing dirt around, so tired of thinking Ace might just be some more of the same old crap I’ll have to somehow survive. I’m so tired of just surviving.
She shoots me another sharp, angry look but doesn’t reply.
“Do we have a problem?” I ask her, pointedly.
She shrugs. “Guess not.”
I take the last three bottles of beer from the open crate by her feet and almost toss them into the fridge. They clink ominously, but I don’t care if any of them broke as I slam the lid of the fridge shut.
Then we stare at each other like a couple of cats during one of their silent fights. She looks away first, grabbing the empty beer bottle crate and holding it between us.
“My bad. I guess you’re too good for finishing your work, now that you’ve found a man,” she says and stalks out to toss the crate into the dumpster.
Her words hit me like a bolt of lightning, more shocking than painful.
When did we become these hissing, spitting, always-fighting cats to each other?
I pick up the other two empty crates, which she neglected in her huffiness and follow her outside.
She’s smoking a cigarette by the dumpster, her whole body very stiff.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I tell her. I wouldn’t be coming at her this hard if she wanted to take a couple of days off to do something fun for a change. “I had every intention of helping you this morning, but something came up.”
I was going to talk to her about leaving this morning, invite her to come along, but I won’t do it while she has this kind of attitude.
“What came up? His cock?” she asks sarcastically.
I wish it were that simple. “No, not exactly.”
“Listen, I told you before, and I’ll tell you again,” she says. “Horse wants you for himself. The sooner you give him that, the sooner your life here will become better. Good even.”
“I tried, Brenda. But he hates me. He hates me too much. Besides, I don’t want to pretend like that,” I say, pointing at the pack of cigarettes she’s clutching in a slightly trembling hand. She offers me one.
“What, because of your gentle sensibilities?” she asks bitingly as she lights the cigarette for me.
“He killed Josh and he imprisoned us here, Brenda,” I say. “He killed him for stealing less than ten thousand dollars, and he’d kill us too. And how has getting friendly with Piston worked for you? You still spend all day in that smelly bar.”
“Don’t think this new guy is some Prince Charming come to whisk you away. He’s not,” she says, blowing smoke into my face. “He’s only here because he thinks the Sinners will help him hunt down and kill the guys who destroyed his old MC. He’s not here to fall in love, and he’s not here to give you a better life. He’s here for revenge. And the way Piston tells it, he’s in for a long wait. He’s sure his father won’t go against Devil’s Nightmare MC, the club Ace wants to attack.”
