Ice

Hawk rode on ahead to check the situation at the Rusty Bucket, and he’s standing next to a huge woman under the awning in front of the door as we approach.

“They already left,” Hawk tells us completely unnecessarily since that’s obvious from the lack of other bikes in the lot.

The woman next to him has her arms crossed over her large breasts and the look on her face clearly says, no one better mess with me.

“How long ago?” I ask her.

“Half an hour, maybe less. Don’t know exactly, since I’ve been cleaning up the mess they left and lost track of the time,” she tells me. “Good riddance, I say, they were making too much noise, and I didn’t like the way they were treating that woman they had with them. I didn’t want anything to happen to her on my doorstep.”

If my blood was running cold before, it’s frozen now. She didn’t want anything to happen to Barbie here, but she couldn’t care less if it happens somewhere else is what she’s actually saying. I don’t call her out on it though, since it’s all my fault in the first place, and there’s no time for chitchat, so I stay quiet and head for my bike.

“Which way did they go?” Cross asks and she points at the road leading past this place to the east.

“You’re a good woman, Lucy,” Hawk tells her. “We’ll get the bastards who messed up your fine establishment.”

“That’s enough talking, Hawk,” I yell out, already sitting on my bike. I have no business talking to him like this, and his harsh, dirty look tells me as much, but there’s no time for that either.

“We going or what?” I ask Cross.

He exchanges a look with Tank, Rook and Scar, who also joined us for this ride.

“A road takedown,” Tank muses. “It’s been awhile since we’ve done one of those.”

He doesn’t exactly sound like he’s against it, but that’s what I’m hearing anyway.

“What, you scared you’ve gotten too old?” Scar snaps at him. I’d never speak to my VP that way, since hierarchy must always be observed on jobs. My father taught me that, but Scar has no problem with it, and it works in my favor now.

“Man, we’re the same age,” Tank says indignantly, but he’s grinning, probably because Scar’s well known for saving damsels in distress no matter the cost.

“Alright, enough of that,” Cross says. “We’re gonna do this, and we ain’t got much time.”

I was grateful to him before, but hearing him say that takes it to a whole new level.

“We overtake them and make them stop,” he continues. “Then we get the woman back peaceful-like. That’s the plan, so no one fucking be brave, is that clear?”

He’s looking at me as he says it, and I nod, but the truth is, I’m gonna do whatever it takes to get Barbie away from them.

“I’m gonna need you to take my lead on this one, Ice,” Cross says, probably picking up on me thinking that. “That means you hide your face and let me do the talking. It’s dark and they probably won’t see you coming, but I’m not gonna take the risk. I want them to think we’re just a random group of bikers taking them over on the road until it’s too late for them.”

I reach into my pocket for the bandana they gave me a long time ago, and which I’ve refused to wear on any of the Spawn’s killings, since I wanted them to see me coming. The half heart pendant almost falls out with it, but I catch it and hang it around my neck where it belongs, before tying the bandana over my face like the rest of them have already done.

“Alright, Prez,” I say.

I want Barbie to see my face when I come for her, I want her to see me from far away, but this is bigger than just me, and Cross’ plan is better.

“Let’s ride!” Cross calls out and drives off, taking the lead.

I’m right beside him at the front of the column, and we’re riding so fast the cold wind is ripping up my face despite the bandana I’m wearing. The feeling coursing through my veins is just as intense as it was that night when I chased the taillights of the men who killed my father and burned down his house. But on that night I was chasing death, whereas tonight I’m chasing life. The only life I want, and, damn it, I want to live it.

As the red lights of the bikes we’re chasing finally come into view, my blood’s not frozen anymore, it’s flowing hot, burning like fire. I’m still focused on one thing, and one thing only—winning. This is not a fight I can lose, and I know that with everything that I am.

* * *

We’re almost on them. I can already see Barbie’s blonde hair flapping in the wind behind her. She’s trying to turn and look back, but can’t manage it very well, because she’s sitting weirdly on the back of the bike of what I think is the guy she was being given to when I stopped it. Her hands are bound behind her back so tight her shoulders are pulled all the way back, and he’s gonna fucking pay for causing her that pain too, separately from paying for everything else.

Cross is waving to me to fall back, then sends a group of guys behind us forward. The Devils have a thousand and one hand gestures, something for signaling anything that might come up in a job. I’ve only learned the most basic ones, and usually ignored those too during the jobs they took me on, but I guess I’ll have to learn the rest now that I’m one of them. They’re like a well-oiled engine when it comes to carrying out jobs, each member doing their part perfectly and efficiently. That’s the reason they can’t lose, which is something I learned early on.

Ahead, the assholes who took Barbie aren’t stopping, they’re just getting out of the way so our guys can pass them. I can’t see Barbie anymore, and the combined sound of all our bikes—more than eighty hogs going full speed down a two-lane country road—sounds like a jet plane taking off. Or crashing. I’m out of patience. I need to reach her, I need to get her off that guy’s bike and on the back of mine where she belongs.

Cross gives an angry, cutting gesture when I gun it to pass him, and I don’t need to know exactly what it means to know what he’s saying. My way. Back off. So I slow down again.

A few moments later the group in front of us finally starts slowing down. They’re completely stopped by the time me and Cross reach them.

“What’s the meaning of this?” that old boyfriend of Barbie’s yells in the sudden silence, which is still carrying the echoes of rumbling bikes.

“We’ve come to take the woman back!” I yell and rip off my bandana in the split second before Barbie turns her head to me. The gratitude in her face—which is all banged up again, God damn it—renders me speechless and breathless. There’s love in her eyes, along with happiness and relief, and maybe some anger too, which is the one thing out of all the rest that I really deserve.

“You came back for me,” she says, and it’s little more than a whisper, but I hear it loud and clear.

“I was an idiot for leaving you, Barbie. I’m sorry,” I tell her loud enough for everyone to hear. But I don’t care about that. It’s like we’re the only ones here anyway.

“Yeah, you were,” she says. “But you’re starting to make up for it.”

She’s not wrong. I’m only just starting to do that and we should get a move on finishing it, so me and her can be alone together for real. There’s eighty bikers around us, most of them already setting up for a fight.

“You heard him!” Cross yells. “Let’s do this nice and friendly-like, so no one gets hurt. You’re surrounded, and Devil’s Nightmare MC has no problem leaving you all dead on this lonely stretch of road far from home. But you already knew that.”

The mention of what club they’re dealing with has the desired effect, and most of the guys reaching for their guns freeze.

“You rode for a woman?” Brick asks mockingly. “I’ve heard talk that you were going soft, Cross, but this is kinda a new low, don’t you think?”

“Don’t taunt me, Brick,” Cross replies, nothing in his voice saying Brick’s words had any effect on him at all, but it sure suggests he’s gonna stop the taunts if he has too. Swiftly and completely. “And don’t try to test me, either. You’re outnumbered, and at least twenty years too late to win this fight.”

That makes lots of guys laugh, but the longer this takes, the longer Barbie’s not in my arms. She’s not laughing, and the look she’s giving me is saying more than just how happy she is to see me. It also tells me to be wary of that guy, and she knows him better than anyone. I’m not worried about Cross and the guys handling this, because I know they will. I’m just worried about all the stray bullets that could start flying before it gets handled. She’s tied down and she’s not next to me where I could take those bullets instead of her.

“Alright, just give her to them,” Brick says, probably surprising everyone, and certainly surprising Barbie. She shoots him such a puzzled gaze, there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s full of shit.

“She ain’t worth dying over,” he adds. Oh, yeah, she is.

“She ain’t yours to give,” the guy whose bike she’s on yells. “And I ain’t giving her up without a fight.”

He revs his bike and speeds up directly into the line of my brothers blocking their path. All hell breaks loose, as he does it, bikes roaring to life, men yelling, shots ringing out.

But all I see is Barbie’s eyes as she looks at me from the back of the guy’s bike. Her eyes don’t need any light to be as bright blue as the calmest ocean. And I don’t need anything other than to look into her eyes.

I gun it, reach them before they reach the line of my brothers. I’m almost close enough to touch her hand, but the guy just keeps speeding on.

“Move the fuck out of the way, I got this!” I yell at the brothers blocking his path while signaling it at the same time.

They part, the guy aims for the hole, and I’m right beside him as he makes it through the barrier.

I reach out to grab her arm, but Barbie shouts something I can’t hear and wriggles her bound hands to show me she’s completely tied down to the bike.

I have my knife out in a flash, the knife I couldn’t stop touching, let alone throw away even after I no longer had any use for it. And this is why I couldn’t bury it in my father’s grave. The knife I used to avenge my family had this one last job to do. Free Barbie so she could be mine forever. It’s the most important job it ever had.

However, actually getting up close enough to cut the belt she’s tied down with is another matter. The old guy keeps flashing me looks over his shoulder, as he rides faster than he’s ridden in the last thirty years by the looks of him. We’ve left the fight behind and he knows it. He probably already knows he’s beaten too. But he ain’t backing down. Yet this is not a fight I’ll lose.

I level my bike with the end of his for another try to free Barbie, and she pulls the belt as taut as she can, needing no prompting to help me out, just like she never once did from the moment we met.

This time I manage to cut the belt. I toss the knife away the second her hands are free, because I need my right hand to hoist her off his bike and into my lap. She grabs my arm tight and slides to me through the air like she’s done this a thousand times before, just as seamlessly and perfectly as she followed me out the bar on that first night we met. I don’t think it’s because she’s practiced at this. I just think it’s because we’re so perfectly in synch. We’re a team, always were, she was right about that too.

Her lips are less than an inch from mine and all I want to do is kiss her, because, frankly, I’ve never been happier than when I’m holding her in my arms and kissing her, and just that will always be enough for me. But there’s no time for that yet. If I wanna keep holding her I gotta get us out of this first.

The old guy hit the brakes once he realized she wasn’t on his bike anymore, but he tried to turn with too much speed. He screamed as his bike slipped, and he’s still groaning now that he’s buried beneath it. He’s writhing as he tries to get out from under it, but a split second later it becomes clear that’s not what he was doing. I’m staring down the barrel of a colt shining a cold silver in the moonlight.

I faced a gun like this in the middle of an empty road on a dark night once before. And for seven years after that, I fucking wished with all that was left of my heart and my mind that I’d taken a bullet from that gun on that night. But now, as the gun fires and the bullet flies towards us, that is my worst fear.

I push Barbie down and shelter her with my body, and veer so hard to the left we almost go down too. My back’s turned to the bullet now and I’m expecting it to hit any second. But at least she’ll live, the muscles I’ve built while I was Lizard’s prisoner will stop it before it reaches her. The bullet reaches us. And misses. It flies out into the night and disappears.

Not so the one that comes back from the darkness. But this one misses us by a good couple of feet and hits the guy squarely between the eyes.

“We’re even now, man,” Rook tells me as he pulls up beside us, holstering his gun.

Tank and Scar are right behind him, with Doc riding towards us too.

“Where’s the rest of them?” I ask as I straighten up, releasing Barbie from the tight hold I had on her.

She’s shivering in my arms, and I’m still holding her so tight my arm hurts. But I gotta know we’re safe, before I give her all my attention.

“They’re subdued,” Tank says. “Cross is talking to them.”

“Anyone down?” I ask, my voice hollow.

“No, we’re all good,” Rook assures me, laughing right after.

And that’s all I needed to know.

Barbie’s electric blue eyes are like two lasers pointing right at my heart as I loosen my grip on her and look into her face.

“I’m so sorry, babe,” I tell her. “I wasn’t thinking straight when I left you.”

“Yeah, I told you so,” she says. “But you wouldn’t listen.”

“I should’ve listened,” I say. “I love you with all my heart too, Barbie.”

I don’t care that we’re surrounded by guys probably thinking what I just said to her is best done in private. But I want the whole world to know this, and I want her to know it most of all.

“I know you do,” she whispers, but her eyes are flooded now, the sea they look like wavy and shimmering.

I kiss her despite the bloody cut on her lip that’s all my fault, and she kisses me back, and all is as right with the world as it ever was, as it ever can be. The road, the night, the brothers, it all fades away while we kiss. The world is ours again. We’re alone on that beach I promised to take her to, but didn’t, we’re alone by the fire at the lake washed in moonlight, we’re alone in the motel room, her naked body bathed in orange from the streetlight outside our window. And the best part is, now we can do all that all over again. Nothing and no one matters more than her.

“Ice?” Doc says with a chuckle. “Let me get a look at her cuts and such.”

His words make me realize I’m tasting blood and it’s not my own. It’s also enough to make me realize I’m probably hurting her by holding her this tight, and kissing her this hard. But maybe not, since she’s very reluctant to let me go once I start to pull away.

“Let him look you over,” I tell her, then get off my bike with her in my arms and sit her down on it.

She nods and lets him get to work, only winces and sighs a little as he cleans her cuts, and wraps her wrists where the belt dug into them. I feel all that pain as though it’s my own. Because all those cuts and bruises are my fault. But I’ll never let her suffer another one for as long as I live.

“You should take her home for some rest now,” Doc tells me once he’s done tending to her, but she looks at me and smiles.

“I’ll be just fine, and he promised to take me to the ocean,” she says and I can’t help smiling too.

“And a promise is a promise,” I tell her. “Let’s do it.”

She nods, gets off my bike so I can get on, then climbs on behind me, all as smooth and seamless as anything else we do together.

I drive off, and I wouldn’t stop until we reach the ocean, but Cross has all the guys who tried to take her kneeling in the middle of the road, and I’m thinking maybe Barbie wants to say goodbye to Brick once and for all.

“What’s gonna happen to them?” she asks as she gets off the bike. There’s no emotion in her voice, and her eyes are alike two blue marbles, hard and reflective.

She’s talking to me, but Cross answers. “We’re gonna let them go, since we got what we came for. So if you have any last words to say to them, now’s your chance.”

She pulls me along by my hand as she walks up to Brick who’s also kneeling on the pavement with his hands clasped behind his back. Her steps are measured and firm, but a storm is brewing in her marble-hard eyes.

“You messed up real bad trying to trade me in, Brick, and I hope you know it now,” she tells him. “I never want to see you again, but I do want to give you a parting gift.”

She doesn’t miss a beat as she kicks him right in the nose. He yells out and keeps yelling as his hands fly to his face and dark blood starts oozing from between his fingers. She has gorgeous, smooth legs, but they’re hella strong too. I know that, and I can’t wait to have them wrapped around me again.

“We’ll take that as you two officially being broken up,” Cross tells him, trying to suppress a laugh. “No more talk of this being your woman, is that clear?”

Brick nods, his eyes spewing black venom in Barbie’s direction.

“No, no more talk of that. She’s my woman,” I say and get a very tight hug, along with a very lovely look and bright smile as my thanks.

“Yes, and that means she’s ours too,” Cross adds. “So think about that first, if you ever get the itch to ride out West again.”

It’s my turn to give a grateful look and Cross just nods at me.

“Now let’s wrap this up,” he says.

Me and Barbie are the first to reach our bike. I can’t wait to get on the road again, so it can once again be just me and her, alone together, with the rumbling of my bike filling my ears, the warm wind in my face and her soft body pressed against my back. For the first time in seven years, I’m truly looking forward to traveling the road ahead of me.