Tracy

I woke up with absolutely zero idea where I was. Zero. Except I knew I wasn’t at The Castle.

It took a moment to remember what had happened. I had a pounding headache. I tried to reach up and rub the lump that was forming and remembered how it had got there.

Fitzie had hit me. I looked down and realized my legs and wrists were bound with zip ties.

I swallowed a scream. I realized then that my mouth was taped shut. I felt a panic rise. I couldn’t breathe.

I concentrated on slowly inhaling and exhaling through my nose. I could breathe. I was alive. I could figure this out.

I looked around. I was in a basement. Okay, someone’s basement. Fitzie’s basement? There was a small window. It was night.

A could see wooden stairs. If this were like most basements, the stairs would be my only way out.

Images came back to me, the moments before things went black.

Fitzie – he’d been obsessed with Olivia. She was going to tell Maddox. The letters were coming together in my memory.

Why hadn’t I given Maddox that crazy letter right away? Maybe he would have put this together faster than I did.

I felt stupid. There was a deadly regret choking me. I’d missed any sign of danger. If only…

A door at the top of the stairs opened. I recognized Fitzie’s skinny legs and the boots he always wore as he descended the stairs.

“Hi, Tracy,” he said.

I tried to talk but only mumbling came out. The tape did its job. I couldn’t talk to him. Ask for mercy. Or reason with him. I tried to come up with some sort of plan.

“Here.”

Fitzie ripped the tape off fast.

“Ah.”

“I know. Sorry. It’s the only way. Here.”

Fitzie poured water into my mouth. I coughed up most of it but tried to swallow the rest. I had no idea how long I’d been down here. Had it been a few hours? Had a day passed?

He was giving me water. Maybe he hadn’t decided what to do with me.

“Fitzie, why did you do this? If you just untie me, we can go home. Or go to the club.”

“You were going to tell,” Fitzie said and he sat down, cross-legged like a kid, on the cement floor of the basement.

“I wasn’t. I promise I wasn’t.”

“Olivia was going to tell. That’s why I had to do it. I had to shoot her.”

“I’m not her though.”

“I know you’re not her. She was mine. She was going to be my girlfriend. She was meant for me.”

“Okay.”

I didn’t know what to say. It seemed smart to keep him talking to me.

“I wrote her notes, and brought her flowers, and the carving I made, and the picture I drew of her. I gave them to her. She liked them.”

“I’m sure they were pretty.”

“Then she told me to stop. That was what made me mad. And she didn’t like my letters and she was going to tell.”

“Tell who?”

“She was going to tell Maddox, just like you were going to tell Maddox.”

The walk down memory lane turned into panic and rage.

“I wasn’t going to tell! I won’t tell! You can trust me, Fitzie.”

“LIAR!”

Fitzie hit me across the face with the back of his hand and I fell to my side on the concrete. The zip ties made it impossible to break my fall. I curled up in a ball, hoping he wouldn’t hit me again. I tried to protect myself in any way I could. Fitzie was totally unbalanced and I didn’t know what to do next.

“Fitzie. We’re friends,” I said, hoping to find the person that had driven me around town, that had delivered packages for the MC. That Fitzie had to be in there somewhere.

“If you tell, if she tells, I’ll never get into the MC. I had to shoot her. I had to. Now you. I have to.”

“You will get in the MC. I know it. Maddox says so. They know how much work you do. You do everything they ask.”

“I do everything they ask. And I know where the bodies are. You understand?”

I didn’t really understand, except I wondered if this was connected to what Maddox had said earlier about the Devil’s Hawk.

Was Fitzie there when Sarge and Maddox settled the score with Jonesy C?

“I understand. See, you’ll be a Saint soon I bet.”

“No. They keep waiting and waiting and giving me more to do. I already knew the vote today went to Toby, not me.”

Fitzie’s mood swings were scary as hell. He’d been able to hide his obsession with Olivia and his obsession with becoming a Dark Saint.

What else had he hidden?

Fitzie stood up and paced for a few minutes. I kept my mouth shut. Maybe he would forget that he’d taped my mouth shut before and I could keep at least that freedom.

Fitzie’s phone buzzed. He looked at it.

“Shit shit shit,” he said. And he ran up the stairs and shut the door.

If I didn’t think fast, I was dead. Fitzie was crazy and he’d tried to kill once before … at least once.

My mind raced. How was I going to find a way out of this?