BULLET: Lords of Carnage MC Page 7
But after he was gone? It was like she started drinking in overdrive, to make up for lost time.
I have no idea where she is now. I guess I should be grateful when she calls to ask for money, so I at least know she’s still alive.
Feeling suddenly cold and even more alone than I usually do, I set down the phone on the couch next to me, and hug my arms to my chest. I find my thoughts wandering again to Bullet, as they have so often the past few days. I wish he was here. I don’t usually like to talk about my past, but he knows about my mom now — at least the bare bones of the story. If he was here with me now, I’d probably tell him about the phone call. And about how even though I don’t want to admit it to myself, I feel guilty for telling my mom no.
Bullet told me his mom was a drinker, too. And a junkie. I realize he never said whether she’s still alive. I wonder whether he has a relationship with her at all. I feel bad that I didn’t even think to ask.
I stare off into space for God knows how long, lost in sad and bitter thoughts. By the time I snap out of it, it’s too late for me to grab a shower before I need to leave for work. I haul myself up off the couch, feeling sluggish and depressed. For once, I’m not at all in the mood to go to Rebel Ink. Making friendly small talk with customers is pretty damn low on the list of things I want to do today. At least Hannah is on during part of my shift, which makes me feel a little better. Maybe I’ll tell her about my mom’s phone call, if we get a minute to chat. She’s always been an amazing listener. For once, it feels like opening up to someone might do me some good.
Outside my apartment, I walk toward my car in the lot, pressing the remote unlock button on my fob as I go. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I register vaguely that I don’t hear the normal click my car makes as the doors unlock. At the car, I slide into the driver’s side, tossing my bag on the passenger seat beside me, and pull the door closed. I’m reaching for the ignition, key in hand, when I see something that makes me do a double-take.
The glove box. It’s open.
A sensation like static rushes all over the skin on my body, as though all the little hairs are standing on end. My chest grows tight with a sudden rush of adrenaline, my breathing suddenly labored, like I can’t pull in enough air.
Shit!
My eyes dart around the parking lot as I shift wildly in my seat. I slam my hand down on the door lock button, then let out a panicked squeal and swivel to look in the back seat, banging my knee against the center console in the process.
No one’s there. It’s okay! I’m in the car alone! Shit. Calm down, Stace! Calm! Calm! Breathe!
I can’t bring myself to close my eyes, but I turn back to the front and focus on a point on the dashboard. I force myself to sit still and suck a deep, shuddering breath in. I hold it for a second, then let it out slowly. I do this a few more times, as I repeat in my head that I’m in no immediate danger.
A few more breaths, and the panic starts to subside. With a shaking hand, I reach over and rummage through the open compartment.
Insurance card, tire gauge, car cleaning wipes, a box of feminine products… It doesn’t look like anything’s been taken. Just rifled through.
Your insurance card has your real name on it.
Panic starts to well up in me again, but I push it back down and try to replace my terrified thoughts with more reasonable ones.
Maybe I left my car unlocked last night? I don’t exactly live in the best neighborhood. It was probably just some kid wandering around, trying doors for an easy steal. A crime of opportunity, they call it. Yeah. That’s probably all it is. I force a shaky laugh at the thought of some young delinquent boy pulling out my box of tampons.
But it might not be. It might be…
My heart starts to pound again. Even as my mind tells me I’m being ridiculous.
I’ve learned over time not to ignore my instincts. Usually, my gut and my head are in complete agreement on stuff like this. Whenever one says it’s time to go, the other one starts making exit plans.
This glove box should be enough to convince me it’s time to disappear once again. It’s what I promised myself I’d do.
But this time, I feel a war starting to wage inside me.
Dammit, I’ve let this town get under my skin.
And if I’m honest, it’s not just Tanner Springs.
It’s a one-night stand with a bullet in his side, who has probably forgotten all about me by now.
10
Bullet
The day after I spend the night at Six’s place, Angel calls to tell me Oz and his men are back from their run to Indy.
“Oz wants you to ride down to see him at the Death Devils clubhouse,” he says. “ASAP.”
“This about what I think it is, prez?” I ask.
“I’m sure it is. Oz said he’s got intel for you. Wants to give it to you in person.”
“You good with me leaving for a day or two?”
“Yeah,” Angel grunts through the phone. “I think we can manage without your pretty face for a bit.”
I chuckle. “All righty, then. I’ll talk to ya when I get back.”
The ride to the Death Devils clubhouse should take me a little more than two hours. Less if I push it. I don’t bother packing much. I just throw an extra shirt in my saddlebag in case I stay overnight, and hit the road.
On my way out of Tanner Springs, a fucked-up thought hits me like a brick to the skull. My route is gonna take me past the town I grew up in. A sick ball forms in my stomach at the realization. I haven’t been back to that hole since the days right after my mom died. There’s no reason to go anywhere near there anymore. There’s nothing there for me now. Nothing but bad memories and regrets that threaten to well up and choke me until I can no longer breathe.
I’m not sure what the fuck possesses me to do it. Maybe because of what I’m on my way to the Death Devils to find out. But whatever it is, half an hour later I find myself pulling off the main highway, to follow a familiar pitted blacktop road toward a destination I hate but can’t make myself avoid.
The town I grew up in, Soldier, is a fucking shit hole. There’s no nicer way to put it, and no reason to try. These days, it’s got a population of probably two-hundred — if even that — down from more than three times that size at its peak. There’s no reason the town should ever recover its old glory days; the auto factory that used to supply it and the neighboring towns with most of their jobs closed up shop years ago. After that, most anyone who could leave the area, did. Those who are still around live a shadow of a life, in a place that’s somehow even sadder than a ghost town for the walking dead who still live there.
As I drive into Soldier, the familiar crumbling façade of the abandoned school on the edge of town greets me. It was probably a cool old building, back in the day. I’d guess it was built around the 1940s or something, but I don’t know shit about architecture. The school’s been closed for as long as I can remember. The few children who still live here are bused over to the consolidated K-12 school down the road. That’s where I went, too. My mom moved us here when her own dad died, leaving her the house she grew up in. It was a piece of shit, like the rest of the town. But the upside was that you could live here on practically nothing — which was exactly what we had.
The main street leading into Soldier is lined with mostly shuttered businesses these days. There’s still a bar, a craft shop that says it’s open but never is, and a post office the size of a closet. There’s not much hope here in Soldier. It’s been all but forgotten by the rest of the world. The people here don’t have much to live for, far as I can tell. They spend their time looking for ways to escape mentally what they haven’t been able to escape physically. That’s how the bar still manages to stay open, when most everything else has closed.
Soldier was the perfect place for a predator like Ellis Strickland to settle in and take advantage of the desperation.
When Ellis first moved in with my mom, he seemed like an okay guy. He worked at the auto plant, like pretty much everyone else around there. He didn’t hassle me too much, and he’d give me money sometimes to go buy gas for our rusted-out Dodge so I could get out of Soldier and go raise hell in one of the neighboring towns for a few hours. Ellis was pretty good about looking the other way when a beer or two disappeared from the fridge, too, even though I was way underage.
When Ellis started bringing around some of the lowlifes he was hanging out with, my mom looked the other way. He kept the lights on, after all. And he kept her in booze, which gave her an incentive not to make too many waves. Eventually, though, Ellis started dealing drugs out of the house. It made a shit ton of sense, in a way. Soldier was so small it didn’t have a local police force. And the sheriff’s office didn’t much bother with it, either. No better place to keep illicit activities out of sight than a town no one cared about.
Around the time I turned seventeen, shit at home had started going downhill fast. Ellis had changed from the laid-back dude he was back in the early days. Even though he was living rent-free in my mom’s house, he started bitching that all she was good for was spending his money. And I was a worthless piece of shit who didn’t do anything but take up space and eat up all his food.
I had started hanging around the Lords of Carnage MC by this time, with my buddy Lug Nut. I liked being away from home, and I liked the brotherhood and loyalty of the Lords. The life they chose wasn’t always an easy path, but it had a code of honor t
hat appealed to me. I tried to talk my mom into kicking Ellis out of the house, but by this time she was using as well as drinking. Her drug of choice: methamphetamine. Ellis being her supplier, she knew she wouldn’t be able to get it for free anywhere else. She didn’t have a job anymore, since the grain supply store where she had been working part-time had closed earlier in the year. She took Ellis’s side, of course, and told me to get my nose out of her fucking business. So I did. One day, I finally had enough of trying to save her from herself, and moved out.
From just dealing, Ellis eventually turned to cooking. He set up a meth lab in the basement. My mom didn’t stop him. On the contrary, he taught her how to cook, too. By that time she probably thought it was a great idea. It was a way to have her own steady supply, and not have to worry about running out. I hadn’t been back to the house in over a year at that point. It had stopped being home for me a long time ago. So I didn’t know about any of this shit until after it was all over.
The lab blew up one day when Mom was home alone. The initial explosion was so big it blew out all the windows on the first floor. Sparks from the fire caught the vacant house next door, as well.
There’s no fire department in Soldier. By the time trucks arrived from a neighboring town, it was way too late to do anything but just let the house burn, try to stop the blaze next door, and make sure no other houses were affected.
They found my mother’s charred remains in the basement afterwards. They speculated she was down there trying to cook herself a dose when the lab blew. The cops didn’t do much to try to figure out what happened. Why would they? She was just a random small-town junkie to them. They’re a dime a dozen in these parts. They probably figured society was better off without her.
But I understood what had happened. And I knew who was responsible. I swore, from the moment I showed up to identify her remains, that I would make Ellis pay for her life with his own.
My mind is swirling with these bitter memories as I turn my Harley onto my old street. At the corner, an ancient-looking man I don’t recognize stops to look toward the rumble of my engine, then slow-motion hurries toward his house and ducks inside. Half a block in, I roll to a stop in front of the burned-out remains of the house I grew up in. It hasn’t been bulldozed. No one ever bought the land. It just sits there — a mass of decaying, rotting wood and debris. Next door to it, the partially-burnt house still stands vacant, its front door hanging wide open on its hinges.
I don’t get off the bike. I don’t even bother to cut the engine.
I just sit there for a moment or two. Looking. Remembering.
Bile rises to my throat as I imagine my mother, screaming for help, trapped in the flames. The pain and horror of the last moments of her life.
“I will fucking burn you,” I whisper.
Then, with a squeal of my tires, I gun the throttle and leave Soldier behind, for the last time. I won’t be back.
* * *
“Thank you for alerting me to your stepfather’s presence in our territory,” Oz intones. “Somehow he had escaped our radar until now.”
Oz throws a glare at one of his crew, whose jaw tenses. I’m pretty sure the guy is the Death Devils’ version of Tweak. And that Oz isn’t happy with him about this lapse.
“So, what’s the story?” I ask.
“It’s not just drugs,” Oz half-snarls. I’m surprised by the sudden sharpness in his normally emotionless voice. “Though he traffics in those as well. This Edge is involved in running a prostitution ring in the western suburbs of Pittsburgh. We understand his business model is to cater to a clientele with certain tastes that are not generally shared by the mainstream. Certain unpleasant kinks. And also a taste for youth. Girls…” He pauses, venom dripping in his tone. “And boys.”
My stomach twists as I remember the bullet in my side, and the reason it’s there. “I’m not surprised,” I growl. “He’s always been a piece of shit.”
Oz lifts his chin toward the man he shot the angry look at earlier. At the signal, the man clears his throat and begins to speak.
“There is a wrinkle, though. Edge is working for the Grim Vipers.”
My brow furrows. “The Philly MC?”
“Yeah. They’re moving west. So far, we’ve avoided a turf war with them.”
“Shit,” I hiss. The Grim Vipers are big, and powerful as hell. Their brutality, their vengefulness and the heartlessness of their murders are the stuff of fuckin’ legend. Not only that, but they’ve got the cops in their area on the take, too. So the Vipers pretty much do whatever the fuck they want to do, whenever they want to do it.
I know without even asking Oz that the Death Devils don’t have the men or the power to go up against them. There’s just no way. It would mean the end of their club if the Vipers traced any attack on them or their associates back to the Devils.
“So you need to hang back on this,” I say.
Oz doesn’t answer directly, but his meaning is clear. “Rodrigo will communicate with your intel man.” He cuts a glance at the other guy, who bows his head in assent. “We will give you all the information we’re able to find. Beyond that, I can’t help you. The Death Devils can’t go in with you to take Edge out. That will have to fall to the Lords. Recognize that we will help you as much as we can… from here.” He pauses, his expression turning stony with anger. “But I will be happy to have this human garbage out of our territory.”
“Understood.”
I wonder if Oz is thinking about his daughter Isabel as he speaks. A couple of years ago, Oz hired my club brother Thorn to protect her from one of Oz’s enemies — a man who had a thing for taking revenge on rivals by stealing and violating their wives and daughters. So Oz knows what it’s like to have a loved one in danger, and to need help from our club to keep her safe. I figure maybe that’s why he’s been so willing to help me with my shit in the first place — even if he’s not able to send his men into battle with me.
Sensing the meeting is over, I stand and hold out my hand to the Death Devils president. “I’ll fill Angel in when I get back, and have him put Tweak in touch with Rodrigo here.”
Oz invites me to stay at the clubhouse for the night and party with his men, but I’m not in the mood for that shit. I thank him again and take off for Tanner Springs, adrenaline buzzing through my veins and plans coming together in my head.
I’m close. Finally, I’m fucking close to ending Ellis Strickland.
11
Six
I’m worried when I show my face at Rebel Ink after the glove box incident that Hannah will notice right away something’s wrong with me.
Fortunately, I’m in luck. The shop is super busy today. When I walk in for the start of my shift, there are already three groups in the front waiting area, and two other people there by themselves. So at least for the moment, there’s not going to be a lot of time for chit-chat among the employees.
“Chance just got here, so his appointments are backed up,” Hannah grumbles as I hang my jacket up on the coat rack and switch off with her behind the appointment desk. “God forbid one of us should be one minute late, but I guess it’s fine for Mister Boss Man.”
I have to bite my lip at her snark. I know she doesn’t really mean it. Hannah has adopted this attitude toward our boss mostly out of self-preservation. She has a major crush on Chance, which she finally confided to me one night after far too many margaritas and an earnest pinky swear that I would never tell a soul. Truth be told, I think Chance might feel the same about her. But he’s got a strict no dating co-workers rule at the shop, and he’s not the kind of boss to make an exception for himself. So instead of flirting, the two of them go back and forth with a practiced banter that seems to be their way of relieving the sexual tension between them.
“I heard that,” Chance calls out, emerging from the hallway. “And for your information, I left a message on the shop’s voicemail that I might be late. Delilah’s mom came down with the flu, so I’m taking her this week until she’s better. I had to drive her to pre-K, and the drop-off is always a freaking traffic jam.”