LILY

There are a lot of video logs on here. Each one is tucked into a folder by date. I sort them by most recent and come to the day my brother died.

I click on it.

The folder opens and it’s separated by camera, though not labeled as such.

I click on each one until I find the kitchen feed.

I start it.

Then fast forward through it.

I see my argument with Kellen in the kitchen before he stormed out of the house and disappeared into the backyard.

I fast forward, a little slower now.

Kellen comes back into the kitchen and grabs a beer from the fridge, then he turns around and he’s talking to someone. I turn up the volume and back it up a little.

“It’s all set.” I hear a voice I recognize immediately as Loki’s. “Where is she?”

“Sleeping,” my brother says. “You got it?” he asks and Loki comes into view on the kitchen feed. He hands something to my brother. I can’t tell what it is because it’s in a bag.

“It’s rigged, ready for anything. If you’re hit in the chest, it will work. Anything else will be legit pain, but no blood.”

I cock my head at the screen.

“You’re using pellets?” Kellen asks.

“The first will be real. I’m gonna clip him in his gun shoulder, take him out of the equation, then I’ll hit you three times. It won’t really hurt to the point of making you scream, but the impact will be real,” Loki says.

“Thank you,” my brother tells him.

Loki looks at him, and there’s a sadness in his eyes that I don’t understand just yet.

“Take care of her. Promise me?” Kellen says and my eyes well with tears. He knew. He knew exactly what was coming for him.

“Promise,” Loki tells him. “I’ll make sure she gets where she’s going. Then I’ll leave her to find her own way.”

My brother gives him a small smile. “Thank you,” he says softly and they give each other one of those big, man hugs that lasts for long moments.

My eyes well with tears as I watch the video.

After a few minutes, Loki leaves with the promise of being back in an hour.

The kitchen feed now shows nothing but empty kitchen and Kellen has disappeared. I leave that video up and playing as I go in search of other videos, fast forwarding them to the same time stamp.

I finally find him. He’s in his room. I can’t see him completely because the camera is in the hall pointing toward his room.

I watch him remove his cut, then his t-shirt. I almost look away thinking he’s changing but then he reaches into the bag Loki gave him and he pulls something out, some type of vest and he places it over his head. It almost looks like a bulletproof vest and my heart flutters in my chest.

I wipe the tears from my eyes then press fast forward on the kitchen feed until Loki and Gunnar show up. I put it in slow motion.

Loki shoots Gunnar first, then quickly shoots Kellen. The slow motion gives me more detail than it did when I watched it in real time originally. Once the shots are fired, I back it up and slow it down further. I watch as each impact hits Kellen and how each impact sends blood flying out, as if something has popped on his chest and the vest suddenly makes sense now. Loki rigged it with pockets of fake blood.

I speed up the video until around the time Loki showed up. While we were dancing in the garage, I watch Kellen get off the kitchen floor. Slowly at first, and he grabs his head. He’d hit it pretty hard when he went down. But he gets up nonetheless.

After a few minutes, Loki comes into the kitchen.

“Who was that?” Kellen asks.

“Your sister,” Loki replies.

“She gone?” Kellen asks.

“Yes, on her way to Tucson with the briefcase you left her.” I see Kellen nod, sadness in his eyes. “She’ll be alright, Kell, trust me. She knows what to do and she’ll do it. I’ll follow her to Tucson, make sure she gives Big Daddy what he needs to know and then I’ll go up to Boulder and make sure she made it. Once I know that, I’ll leave her to her life.”

“Thank you,” Kellen says softly.

“It’s what we do, Tryke. You know that.” There’s a brief pause and an exchange of looks then Loki says, “We got work to do.”

Kellen nods and they disappear from the kitchen feed. I don’t know what they do exactly, but eventually I hear the roar of a bike on the feed. My guess is it’s Loki’s. I don’t bother looking for the driveway feed. I’m sure Kellen climbed on the back of his bike and off they went.

I continue staring at the feed until fire consumes the kitchen and kills the feed.

PYRO

After breaking into her house, I’m ready to bust down her door to stop her, but I get distracted when I’m walking toward Lily’s bedroom. My eyes land on a wall with several pictures, most of them have her daughter in them. I move to the far end of the hall and see a few pictures of Lily right around the time everything went down. She’s smiling, happy. She’s blowing out a one and eight on a cake. Several of Sticks’ members around her.

The pictures change then, she’s still the same girl, had to be just a few months later but she’s pregnant. Eighteenth birthday…Right after Tryke’s death.

Then there is another picture, Lily’s nineteenth birthday. She’s still smiling, wider than normal, trying to blow out candles while she holds a baby to her breast. I grit my teeth.

I follow the line of pictures, more of Lily and her little girl. One of the pictures says ‘Happy First Birthday, Piper’, I narrow my eyes, scrutinizing the little girl. She looks like Piper, but also like someone else I know.

“Son of a bitch,” I growl softly before I leave the house.

I flip my leg over my bike and go roaring down the street. I don’t go home. The sun is barely up, but I don’t give a shit. I’m gonna fucking kill him.

LOKI

I bolt upright in bed as the banging continues on my front door. My eyes land on the picture of Lily asleep at her Uncle’s house, then on the clock. It’s just after seven in the morning.

“Open the door, you son of a bitch.”

“Pyro?”

I stumble out of bed, not bothering with my jeans. I’m wearing boxer briefs as I stumble down the hall. His banging gets more insistent.

“Open up, asshole.”

“What’s your…” I don’t even get the door open and the question out of my mouth before he’s pushing in the door and connecting with my face. “Fuck,” I growl. “What the fuck was that for?”

“You fucked her! You fucked her, knocked her up, and left her to deal with a child all by herself?”

He attempts another right hook but I see it and dodge it.

“How…” I narrow my eyes at him.

He moves in again. This time I block it and sock him in the stomach. He doubles over briefly but when his eyes land on mine, they’re on fire. Rage boils behind the contacts he wears. “You were supposed to make sure she was safe, not fuck her and leave her. Hurt her.” He grunts as he slams into me, sending me into the wall behind the door. The same wall I had her up against the other night. Fuck, head in the game. “Of all the bitches around here, you had to fuck my sister,” he growls before landing one in my gut.

“How long have you known Skit was really Kiwi?” I ask, trying to defuse the situation a little before things get way out of hand.

“A few days.”

“Before Boulder? Is that why you were chewing Sticks’ ass?”

“The bike,” he growls before shoving me into the wall and backing away. “What she said about the bike, that’s the shit she was fucking told years ago.” He sighs. “I’d had suspicions that it was her, but there were too many differences, it was hard to determine. After we left Sticks’ office, I went back, got the answers I needed.”

“That’s why you’re so pissed off at her.”

“I’m pissed at my fucking self,” he growls at me.

“What the fuck for?”

“We didn’t protect her,” Pyro says.

“It wasn’t your choice.” Both our heads snap in the direction of the front door. “I made the choice to be involved in this club. I made the choice to have my daughter, and I made the choice to live my life in a way I wanted.”

She’s pissed, that’s obvious, and she’s glaring at Pyro, as if trying to place him somewhere and my heart freezes in my chest. “You left me. You left me alone, to fend for myself.”

“He was protecting you, Lily,” Pyro snaps at her.

“I went back and found the tapes from the house that day,” she says and my heart sinks into my stomach. “Now it all makes fucking sense. You,” she turns on me, “at Sticks’, when I got pissed at you for showing no emotion at that fact that you’d killed my brother, you knew he was alive and you didn’t think to tell me? To stop my pain? No, instead you sneak into my room, steal my virtue like the animal you are and walk the fuck away, causing me even more pain.”

Pyro’s fist connects with my face again. “You son of a bitch.”

“Stop it,” Lily screams at the top of her lungs. “Both of you. Grow the fuck up.” She steps into Pyro, her finger in his chest. “Who the fuck are you? Who I fuck, and what I do is none of your concern. I don’t know you.” I cringe. She knows Tryke is alive, but she still has no clue. It’s either that or she is unwilling to let herself see what’s right in front of her.

Pain washes over Pyro’s features. He nods.

“And you,” she turns to me again. Her open palm connects with my face and my head snaps to the right. “Fuck you, you son of a bitch, you knew, all this fucking time that he was alive and you kept it from me. What the fuck?” She steps back. “Go to hell, both of you,” she snaps and walks out the front door of my house.

“Kiwi!” I shout after her. She doesn’t stop. Pyro goes after her, but she doesn’t acknowledge him and he comes back inside. “I just got her back,” I mutter to him.

“Me too,” he breathes.

“Want a beer?” I ask.

He nods.