by Addison Jane
The smile I saw on her face now as she looked down at us, though it was playful, it was excited and it was mischievous. And while it warmed through my entire body to see her so full of life and leaving the anger and hatred behind her, I could tell by the way her eyes lit up that tonight might be about to get strange.
Her eyes searched the crowd of bikers, all of them waiting in anticipation, all of them having fallen in love with my baby sister’s sparkle, the one that I couldn’t believe I’d let be dulled for so fucking long. When her eyes landed on Repo and me, and a devious smirk lit up her face, I knew I’d been played.
I turned and looked up at Repo who was grinning back at Brooklyn.
This wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. They already had plans. And I guess I was about to find out exactly what these two had cooked up.
“I wish…”
How my little sister managed to convince the entire club to go with her to the damn fair for her eighteenth birthday, I’ll never fucking know.
When Repo planned all this, to begin with, I honestly thought it would just be us, a couple of the boys maybe to watch out, but that mostly it was going to be a time for the girls to act like we were kids again. But apparently, when my sister made a wish, these guys were determined to make it come true.
So here we were, walking into the fairgrounds, two clubs’ worth of men in all their fucking leather glory and a handful of girls who looked like we belonged at a college frat party.
Everyone was looking at us.
The boys didn’t notice. Either that, or they were just so used to it by now. It was something you had to become accustom to when you spent time with a motorcycle club. People were going to stare, and they were going to point. And for the most part, they were gonna assume you were a horrible fucking person. That was just how it worked. And in complete honesty, I used to hate it.
Whenever we would go out with Red Riot, I tried to keep my head down. I tried to escape those judgmental stares, not because they had made me feel bad or anything like that, but because I hated people thinking I was there out of any sort of choice.
Walking through the fair with these boys, though, listening to them joke and tease each other and argue with the girls about who could last longer on a rollercoaster, I realized this was different. This wasn’t a club, it was a large, dysfunctional but amazing family, and I couldn’t be more proud to be walking beside these guys. The Brothers by Blood, they were something else.
Their beliefs, their values, the morality, and the expectations in which they held their members to, was so much more than an outlaw motorcycle club. Some might call that naive. But I wasn’t saying these guys hadn’t done things in their life that were illegal, that they hadn’t hurt people, that they hadn’t broken the law. I knew they all had their flaws, their demons and things that haunted them. But everything they did, they did for the people they cared about. And when it came down to it, I knew exactly what it meant to do whatever you had to do in order to protect the people that you loved.
“Hey, Myth!” Dakota called as she skipped up beside us. “I bet I can ride that spinning ride more times than you without throwing up.”
“That sounds like a challenge I’ll happily skip,” Meyah noted in disgust, screwing up her nose at her best friend before looking over at Brooklyn. “It’s your birthday, baby girl, you get to choose where we go first.”
“Haunted house?” she questioned, getting Dakota’s ears to perk up.
“Actually,” Dakota changed her mind. “I’m with you, kid. Let’s scare the shit out of some haunted house workers.”
Brooklyn nodded, bouncing forward with Dakota while Meyah and I looked at each other. “Do you think they know the haunted house is meant to scare you? Not the other way around?”
“I don’t think they do,” I laughed. “But I’m all for watching Dakota prove she’s scarier.”
KENNEDY
It was closing in on midnight and everything was beginning to shut down.
I was tired.
I was full—fuck, I’d eaten more than my body weight in corndogs and donut holes.
Brooklyn and I were sitting at a table while we watched six of the boys try and shoot those little ducks with the plastic rifles. This was their third time because no surprises, Auron was two for two, and they were determined to beat him.
The club members were slowly coming back in after separating during the night, one by one our group began to grow again.
“Kenzi,” Brooklyn murmured, pulling my attention to her. Our hands were clasped between us, they’d been that way most of the night. I grinned at the way her face was still lit up, her smile not leaving for even a second during the entire night. “This was amazing,” she whispered, her voice cracking.
“Yeah,” I agreed, my eyes moving over to where Repo was laughing with his brothers before returning to my little sister.
I owed him all of this.
“He’s kind of amazing.” She chuckled, poking her tongue out at me. She paused for a moment before reaching up and taking the tiara headband from her head and turning it around before slipping it onto mine. “You’re kind of amazing, too, and you deserve this more. For giving up your life for me. For fighting for me. For doing everything.”
“Brook, I love you. Of course, I’d do all that.”
She slumped, and her smile drooped a little. “You say that, but we both know that sometimes love isn’t enough.”
I knew she was talking about Dad.
She was right in some ways, but with Dad, I think the case was more that love was too much. Losing Mom broke him irreparably. He loved her so much that he just couldn’t see past it, he couldn’t fight through the heartache to get to us. What scared me the most, though, was that I was starting to feel the same way about a certain biker. The more time went on, the more I wondered whether I would be okay if something happened to him.
“He cares about you just as much as you care about him,” Brooklyn interrupted. I blinked a few times, realizing I was staring at Repo who was leaning against the stall, smirking at my daze.
“You need me to stay here a little longer or can I continue my game now?” he teased, making my sister laugh.
“Hey! Come on…” Dakota came rushing in, Meyah and Angel following close behind her, both with wide smiles on their faces and out of breath. Dakota grabbed both of our hands excitedly, and started pulling us to our feet. “We’re gonna go through the haunted house one more time before they shut.”
I looked at Brooklyn who just shrugged. “The place is pretty empty now.”
Four club members trudged after us, obviously under strict instructions to keep an eye out. As a general rule, I hated being scared, it wasn’t a fun time for me, but all the girls found it hilarious.
We’d already been through the house twice that night, and it hadn’t been so bad. I did almost pee my pants when a hand suddenly shot through what I thought was a solid wall the first time around, but the second time, I was ready for him and ducked under it.
Dakota went for a different approach, and when he pulled his hand back, she reached through to him on the other side, and the high-pitched scream that followed almost made me deaf.
The guy standing outside the haunted house groaned as the group of us approached. “I’m closing in ten minutes, girls, can’t you give me a break?”
Dakota rolled her eyes. “It won’t even take us that long to go through.”
“It will if you keep tormenting the actors,” he threw back, glaring at her. Obviously, I missed something and maybe the hand coming through the wall wasn’t the only monster that Dakota got revenge on.
“Cross my heart and all that bullshit, I won't make anyone cry.”
The promise itself made me burst out laughing. “You made someone cry?”
“I had a cobweb in my eye,” the guy protested, and I choked on my laugh, trying to hold it in as I pushed Dakota forward.
“Hurry up before he decides to lock us inside,” Meyah urged
, the five of us running up the ramp into the totally unrealistic fake house.
“Sorry!” Dakota called over her shoulder.
The boys stood outside, a couple at the entrance stopping anyone going in behind us and a couple at the exit waiting for us to come out.
The place really needed some upgrades, on the décor at least.
I had to admit that the handful of people they had inside, they were actually kind of frightening. The good part was, though, they couldn’t touch you. They could, however, follow you, jump out at you, get right up in your face and say creepy shit. Which, even though you know it’s fake, seems pretty fucking real when you’re in there. My heart was already beating a million miles a minute after we passed the stretchy wall, and the weird slender man type guy, seemed to be in a different place in the room every single time the lights flicked on and off.
“I’m pretty sure there are like four of them, and they switch,” Angel explained gripping my hand tightly like she actually thought she might die, even though she seemed to be speaking so calmly. “There’s no way in hell they could move that fast.”
“Unless they’re real?” Dakota sung loudly.
“Shut up!” Angel sung back. “That’s not funny.”
Dakota started laughing, the sound echoing in the room around us, and Angel let go of my hand, running after her as she laughed her way into the next room, taunting us with her ‘I’m not scared of anything’ attitude. I was pretty sure it was real, and Dakota was immune to being scared. That girl was such a thrill seeker that it actually scared the crap out of me just watching her get on some of the rides they had there.
Brooklyn and Meyah jumped out of the way as the two girls ran through into the next room. It was the maze. The first time we’d come through it had taken us almost ten minutes to just figure out the damn thing, there were so many hidden nooks and places you really didn’t want to turn into because there was often some kind of scary fucking something there waiting for you. Not only that, but it was pitch black and every minute or so a loud warning siren would ring and red lights would flash, simulating some kind of crazy event like a zombie apocalypse or some other shit.
Something brushed against my back, and I jumped knowing I was the last of the five of us and that the other girls had already walked into the maze.
“Kennedy, come on!” Brook called.
“I’m coming,” I called back before muttering, “Go away, slender man.”
It was dark, and I couldn’t see my hand running along the edge of the maze, and the fact I could hear the girls laughing and giggling not too far from me were the only things keeping my heart from leaping out of my chest at that moment.
I felt something brush the back of my shirt again, and I froze. I knew there was someone in there with me, probably the fucking creepy clown that I’d met the last two times in here, and that I’d almost punched in the face. Because he just gave off that vibe, the one that made you shudder, the one where something just made you feel gross.
The sirens screeched, and the red hazard lights flicked on. I spun around ready to hurt someone.
“Boo!” Tyler whispered with a wide grin and even though it was anything but scary, my body still jumped, and my hand went to my heart.
“I almost punched you in the face,” I snapped at him, reaching out and shoving him in the chest. He barely moved but just chuckled at my obvious discomfort.
“Kennedy! Are you okay?” Brooklyn called from somewhere ahead.
“Yeah! Tyler scared the shit out of me, but he’s with me now,” I called back.
The kid was pleased with himself, the mischievous grin letting me know. “Come o—”
Out of nowhere, a metal bat connected with his head, and his body flew forward, his eyes rolling back in his head as he hit the floor with a heavy thud. I screamed, stumbling backward as I caught sight of someone wearing a Freddy Krueger mask staring directly at me, the bat hanging from his hand.
My back hit a wall with a thump as the guy dropped the bat to the floor and pulled a gun out from under his jacket. “You move or scream, and I’ll walk into that next room and kill them all.” His words were muffled but I understood them loud and clear.
I held my breath trying to keep a level head, trying to remind myself that there was a shit load of bikers outside this playhouse right now just waiting for them to walk out and be safe. The second she didn’t appear, they were going to come.
Nothing was going to stop them.
“We’re going for a little walk.”
REPO
I was still shaking my head at how Kennedy walked back into that fucking stupid house for a third time even though I knew she hated the first two. I knew Dakota was the ringleader in it all, but the thing was, nothing fucking scared her. The rest of the girls, they were fucking petrified.
I’d even seen a couple of the boys walk in there today and heard them scream like little girls while they were inside too.
“Do you guys have time to talk about the Lord?” I smirked, looking up to see my little brother walking toward me with a mischievous smirk. “Heard someone let the riff-raff out.”
“Oh, yeah? Where are they at? They sound like fun guys.” Myth grinned as he stepped away from the shooting game that we seemed to have commandeered. The fair was closing, but it didn’t look like the old man behind the booth minded much, given that we’d given him three hundred dollars and planned on playing through the entire amount.
I pulled Josiah over to where a bunch of the boys from Phoenix were relaxing and introduced him to my new brothers. They didn’t come down this way often, and my brother, while everyone knew who he was, didn’t associate himself with the club.
They were usually kept as two separate pieces of my life, and I kind of liked it that way.
“Boys, boys, boys.”
I looked over the shoulder, hearing the familiar whine. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, right?”
Fucking Officer Davis.
The shithead with a goddamn vendetta, but it was obvious that the vendetta was only against me. And this time, he brought friends.
“I got a call to say you guys were hanging around on private property after hours,” Davis announced, looking pretty fucking smug with himself, while the five other officers behind him looked either bored out of their mind with his fucking games or absolutely terrified.
Digger stepped forward, his tall and stocky build a serious testament to his name. “There are still staff here closing up, the fair shut down fucking five minutes ago.”
“The difference being that they have permission to be here.” Davis grinned, forcing his shoulders back to make himself feel better or look taller. Either way, he looked like a fucking idiot. “You do not. So what’s going to happen is all you boys are gonna come sit down here where I can see you, and we’re going to go through each of your details, one by one.”
Josiah stood up with a frown. “Surely, that’s unnecessary.”
Davis raised his eyebrow at my brother. “You know, it doesn’t look all that well for school counselors to be hanging around with known criminals.”
My little brother took a step forward. If there was one thing you didn’t want to fuck with when it came to Josiah, it was my criminal record because he felt responsible for it.
While I loved to see Josiah lose his shit on a douche bag like Davis, my attention was drawn away. I shook my head as two of the officers walked toward the Haunted House and began gathering the boys over there and pulling them away. “Hell no, fucker,” I protested taking a couple of steps toward the house before another policeman jumped in front of me with his hand up.
“Don’t touch him,” Shotgun called in warning. “He doesn’t like to be touched.”
I pointed toward the haunted house. “There’s five of our girls inside that place, including my old lady and her sister, who I need to have men protecting.”
My anxiety levels were about to shoot through the fucking roof if this asshole didn’t let m
e go over there myself and take Brooklyn and Kennedy out of that building and sit them somewhere where I could see them.
“Tyler went in with them,” Shake noted, nodding toward the building as the boys from both clubs began to fill the small seating area, and the cops pulled out their notepads. “Just give them a few minutes, they should be out soon.”
I shuffled from foot to foot.
I had this feeling in my gut that this wasn’t fucking right.
I had this all fucking worked out, so we would be here for the weekend with more than just one club to watch over the girls. Twice as many men meant that Crow wasn’t getting fucking anywhere near them and come Monday, this shit would be all said and done.
But now this asshole was standing in front of me, ready to fucking arrest me or shoot me if I tried to get to her because he hated the fuck that I’d made him look like a fool.
Josiah came to stand beside me. He could feel the tension radiating off me, he always could. “Don’t do anything fucking stupid. I’ll go in and check on them.”
I just nodded. I didn’t know what else to do, but watch my little brother jog over to the Haunted House and tell the teenager outside to fuck off when he tried to stop him from going in.
This wasn’t good.
I was going to kill someone if something had happened to the girls. And I was probably going to start with the little fucker in front of me.
Davis flipped his fucking pad open. “Full name, please.”
KENNEDY
Freddy herded me backward, slamming his palm against one of the walls. It popped open.
“Move,” he ordered, and I stumbled back again. It was a small back room where there were several costumes hanging on hooks—it looked like a horror room all on its own.
“What do you want?” I demanded, spinning around just as he fired a jumpsuit in my face.
“Put it on,” he snapped. “It’s just business, nothing fucking personal.”
