Two drug dealers had thought they could deal in our town. They’d both be waking up in the hospital and they’d get the hell out of California as soon as they could walk again. That’s what I do: I protect the club’s interests, whether that means intimidation, a beating or ending someone. It’s what I’m good at. Maybe all I’m good at. Except…
Except...you scare people long enough, you forget how to do anything else. You come home too many nights and wash the blood off you in the shower, after a while it feels like it’s still there.
Mac didn’t say anything but I knew he could see it. The job was starting to get to me: I barely slept, I hardly talked. He knew I’d die for the club, knew I gave it everything I had...but he wanted me to take from it a little, too. He wanted me to lean on him and the other guys.#p#分页标题#e#
I stiffened, the anger blooming inside me. That’s what none of them understood, not even Mac. This weight was mine to bear and mine alone. This job was my penance. I didn’t deserve to lean on the rest of them. Not after what I’d done.
I shook off Mac’s hand and walked on. I’d get blind drunk. That was all the fucking therapy I needed.
I was heading for the bar when I heard the clubhouse phone ring. The rule is, whoever’s nearest answers and technically that was me. But the only people who ever called were jealous girlfriends, enemies with threats or cops with questions. Fuck it, I was thirsty.
I marched straight past and told the prospect tending bar to give me a beer.
“Phone, Irish!” yelled Ox from across the room.
They call me Irish on account of—oh, you get it. Ox...there’s not much of a story there. Guy’s big as an ox, introduced himself as Ox when he first joined and, since he won’t tell anyone his real first name, we don’t have much of a choice. He’s a gentle giant...unless he gets riled.
You don’t want to see Ox get riled.“They can leave a message,” I muttered. Then I wrapped my hand around the slick glass and knocked back the beer in three long gulps. Oh, Christ that tasted good: cold amber heaven, meltwater hitting a river bed that’s been dried up for months. I slammed the glass down and told the prospect to give me another.
I was sipping my second beer, making this one last, when I saw Ox finally get up out of his seat and walk over to the answerphone. I knew he’d check it: he’s not the sort of guy who can leave something undone, even if it’s someone else’s job. That’s why he makes such a good treasurer.
I found a seat on one of the couches and had just settled in when Ox’s huge boot kicked the cushions right between my legs. “It was for you,” he told me accusingly. “Some woman.”
I groaned. One of the girls from a previous party? “I’ll listen to it in the morning.”
“Listen to it now, brother.” He jerked his thumb towards the phone. “She sounded like she was in trouble.”
I sighed and stalked over there, taking my beer with me, then replayed the message.
“C—Carrick?”
My beer glass hit the floor. My spine snapped straight, every muscle coming to attention. The reaction was soul-deep and instant: I knew that voice and it wasn’t one I ever wanted to hear scared. It cut through all the layers of gruff hostility I’d built up to protect myself, right through to my core.
“I don’t know if you’ll get this. It’s Annabelle.”
I fell. Straight down a thousand feet, plummeting into the past. I was lying on my back looking up at a star-filled sky and that same voice asked me, “Are you bad?” I automatically put my hand on the scars on my side, feeling the long-healed knife wounds burn and throb as they had that night.
Twelve years. I’d been seventeen, young even for a prospect. I was a different person, back then: innocent and...good. She must think I was still that guy. She’d barely recognize me, now. I barely recognized myself.
But she was a sweet kid. A kid who’d never done anyone harm her entire life. And she was—
“...in trouble. I’m at a place outside Teston, a bar. There are bikers: Blood Spiders.”
My heart clenched tight as a fist. I’d heard rumors about that place.
“They’re going to...S—Sell me—”
My hand crushed the phone so hard I felt the plastic creak. No they’re fucking not.
I dropped the phone and ran for my bike.
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4
Annabelle
When I saw the room, my legs gave way. The blond biker raised his hand threateningly and I tried to stand because I didn’t want to get hit again, but my legs were like Jell-O.