Twenty-Two
Then
There weren’t too many companies willing to hire a known outlaw who couldn’t guarantee nine-to-five availability. On paper, Ghost was unemployed. Practically, he sold for Duane, and pulled shifts here and there with Full Circle Towing, picking up wrecks and stalls for under-the-table cash.
He liked the work. It was mindless, safe, and low-stress. Gave him plenty of thinking time, which usually amounted to stewing over his shitty existence. Monday, though, he was thinking about what Maggie had said at the party. As he hooked up an abandoned Honda on the side of the Interstate, he asked himself if he could do it – come up with a “viable” plan for a garage.
It was one thing to dream, another to conceptualize. He wasn’t sure he was smart enough to do the latter.
I’m just trying to help, Maggie had said.
He got back to the apartment a little after three and Rita handed him a message she’d taken while he was away.
Duane: Figured out how you can pay me back. Be here at 7.
He sighed.
~*~
Maggie had known her reprieve wouldn’t last, but she kept hoping reality would stay away a little longer.
It came back Monday. A freshman with a note popped into her third-period calc class and handed the folded paper to Mr. Dupree.
“Miss Lowe,” he said, clearing his throat, “Mrs. Davis would like to see you.”
Whispers moved through the room. Heads turned toward her. No one was averting his or her gaze now; it was all stares. No one got called to the counselor’s office because everything was hunky-dory.
She gave her teacher a tight smile and gathered her things. “Okay.”
The eyes followed her out of the room; she swore she could feel them even once she was in the hall.
The walk to the front office took longer than it should, her blood pounding in her ears. Ahead of her, the freshman – a slight, pale redheaded girl – seemed to pull even tighter in on herself the closer they got to their destination. Like she was trying to shrink away from Maggie as she led her.
Maggie rolled her eyes and hastened her steps, rewarded with a little jump from the girl. She was an outlaw now, she guessed, whether she wanted to be or not, and that came with a set of perks she didn’t want: like terrifying freshmen.
The girl led her to the labeled door of Mrs. Davis’s office and then ducked away. Maggie knocked once and let herself in.
If the counselor’s role was to comfort and guide you, make you feel safe and understood, her office did a poor job of conveying that. Windowless, eight-by-eight. The desk was crammed against the back wall and the two chairs for visitors looked like they’d been salvaged from the cafeteria, the seats hashed with Sharpie marks and white paint flecks. The silk plant in the corner needed dusting. The desk was cluttered with stacks of paper, the top of the computer monitor littered with resin cat figurines. More cats on the motivational posters on the walls. The blinds were down and cracked open; stripes of light and shadow across the walls, across Mrs. Davis’s face, lending her an uneven appearance.
“Maggie, welcome,” she greeted, voice saccharine, cooing like she was talking to a much-younger girl.
Maggie thumped down into a chair and didn’t respond.
Mrs. Davis attempted to scrape the paperwork on her desk into orderly piles. “Let me just…oh, there that is…sorry, just a moment…there.” She laced her fingers together and leaned forward. A line of shadow fell across her eyes and made her look like she was wearing a sleep mask. “Now. Let’s you and me talk for a bit. No pressure. Okay?”
Since she’d been summoned from her classroom, Maggie figured she had no choice in the matter. She wanted to grind her teeth, but she said, “Sure.”
“Great!” Mrs. Davis said, too bright, and then began a complicated process of morphing her expression into one of rehearsed concern, lips pursed, brows drawn together. “Maggie, I called you in today because I’m worried about you.” A stretch, considering they’d never had a conversation up to this point. “I’ve talked with your teachers, and your altercation with Stephanie Cleveland was very out of character.”
Maggie held herself stiffly on the edge of her chair. “Stephanie stirred up a bad situation for me at home. And then she vandalized my car. The ‘altercation’ wasn’t unwarranted.”
Mrs. Davis looked disapproving. “Violence is never the answer.” A milder version of what the cops had told her.
“No, ma’am,” Maggie agreed. “It isn’t.” Except when it was, sometimes.
“In the future, I hope you’ll come see me when you have a conflict with a fellow student so that I can facilitate conflict resolution.”
“Sure.” This wasn’t over, not by a long shot.
“Generally, when a student acts out,” the counselor continued, voice dripping sweetness, “it’s because there’s tension at home. How are things at home, Maggie? Are you getting along okay with your parents?”
Where in the hell was this kind of concern the past sixteen years? It took a fight – a visit from the police – before someone noticed that she wasn’t okay.
Tone icy, Maggie said, “My mother thought Stephanie was a nice girl, and that turned out not to be true. Obviously. I don’t have a home problem. I have a problem with people being terrible.”
Mrs. Davis blinked. It took her a moment to regain her composure. “Well. I.” She took a breath and sat back, light glinting in her eyes. Eyes that were sharp, suddenly. The counselor veil had slipped, revealing the irritated adult beneath.
“Maggie, there are rumors – and granted they’re just rumors – that you’ve run away from home and are living with a friend.” Her lip curled in disgust. “A male friend.”
Shit.
“If this young man is threatening you–”
“No.”
Mrs. Davis jerked in surprise.
It took every ounce of self-control not to scream at the woman, but she managed. “Mrs. Davis, I have never, in my whole life, done anything wrong. Not by any standards. And yet my mother thinks I can’t do anything right. My classmates try to torment me. I have nothing to look forward to. My whole life is geared toward manners, and activities, and being presentable. It’s all superficial. And finally, finally, someone wants to spend time with me. The real me, and not the candy shell my mother has tried to foster. Someone treats me like I matter, and you ask me if he’s threatening me.”
“You’re a minor.”
“But old enough not to be taken in by lies. Forgive me, Mrs. Davis, but this is the first time we’ve ever spoken, and anything you know about me you’ve learned from other people. People who have no idea what’s really happening. I guess I don’t understand why this conversation is about what’s been said about me, rather than what I’ve said myself.”
The counselor sat staring, mouth open, flabbergasted.
“If there’s anything you’d like to ask me, I’ll be happy to answer your questions,” Maggie said, recognizing her mother’s imperial tone in her own voice. “Otherwise, I’m missing an important calculus lecture.”
Later, she would look back on this moment and realize that it was the end of Margarete Lowe: Very Nice Girl, and the beginning of Maggie Lowe: Not To Be Fucked With.
~*~
“I don’t know how long I’ll be. I’ll try to call when I’m on the way back – but, wait, that’ll wake you up.” He was babbling and couldn’t seem to stop. “Do you–”
“It’s fine,” Maggie assured, smiling. “Go do what you need to.”
Maggie had come home from school today…different. It wasn’t that she’d changed – she was the same gorgeous girl he’d kissed goodbye that morning – but she seemed…settled. More firmly present in her own skin. He hadn’t noticed that she was uneasy before, but now she wasn’t, all relaxed and loose-limbed, her smiles easy, and he noticed that.
When he’d told her Duane needed him tonight, she hadn’t wrinkled her nose or made any unhappy remarks about dealing. She’d smiled and asked if he wanted dinner before he left. (She was making lasagna; his stomach was too nervous to handle something that heavy.)
“Keep the door locked,” he said, shrugging into his backpack. “And call Jackie if you need anything – number’s on the fridge.”
“Yes, I know.”
He frowned to himself. He needed to teach her how to shoot. Soon. He didn’t like the idea of her here alone with no way to defend herself.
“It’s fine,” she said, as if reading his mind, and moved into him, hands on his chest, eyes wide and full of affection. He didn’t deserve her.
“I don’t like leaving you alone after dark.”
“I know. But it’s just for tonight, not for forever.”
Wasn’t it, though? He couldn’t imagine a forever that didn’t involve nefarious night errands at Duane’s behest.
He flashed her a tight smile. “Don’t wait up.”
One kiss turned into two, to three, and not surprisingly, he was the last to arrive at the clubhouse. It was a moonless, overcast night, the property flat and featureless under a monochromatic sky. Light blazed in the clubhouse windows, casting Duane in a hellish light; he sat on a picnic table, face a shadow, cherry of his cigarette kicking sparks up into his eyes. For a brief moment, before he parked, Ghost was convinced he was looking at a real hellhound, that the Lean Dog on the back of their cuts wasn’t just a legend.
Then he told himself to quit being stupid and walked to meet the others.
“Nice of you to show up,” Roman said. He was already sitting astride his bike, backpack and helmet on, being the outlaw version of a suckup as usual.
Justin stood beside his own bike, looking less than sober.
“He okay to ride?” Ghost asked.
“He’s fine,” Duane said. “Go load up.”
As he passed through the common room on the way to the office, he spotted Duane’s new favorite groupie, Jasmine, sitting alone on one of the sofas, statue-still with her hands wrapped around a plastic cup, gaze fixed in the middle distance. Her lip was split, the corner of her mouth the grapefruit-pink of a fresh bruise.
Ghost paused. “Hey.” Again, when she didn’t respond, “Hey.”
She came to life with a startled jerk, head whipping toward him. “W-w-what?”
He hadn’t spent much time with her, but he didn’t remember her having a stutter. “You okay?”
Her eyes dropped to the floor. “Yeah. I’m okay.” Her voice thin and wavering.
“What happened to your face?”
She touched her lip, brows going up like she was surprised to find it damaged. “Nothing.”
Ghost took a reluctant step toward her, lowering his voice. “Was it Duane?”
She didn’t answer.
“Damn it.” He didn’t have time for this. Looking after one underage blonde was all he could manage at a time. He continued on to the office, opened the safe, pulled out the pre-packed bundles he’d be delivering tonight.
The scrape of a shoe on the hardwood signaled Duane’s presence before he said, “The blue bags.”
“I got ‘em.” Ghost stowed them in his bag.
“Roman has the address and the password for the buyer. Follow his lead.”
“Just like always,” Ghost muttered.
“Hey,” Duane said, and his tone demanded a response.
Ghost glanced over his shoulder and met his uncle’s gaze.
“Roman’s here. He’s committed.”
“I’m about to walk out of here with a bunch of coke strapped to my back. You don’t call that committed?”
“You were late, he wasn’t. He wants to do this, you don’t. Your head’s not in the game, nephew. And Roman’s is. He’s all in. I gotta reward that.”
Ghost turned back to the safe. He gripped the next bundle so tight he thought he might have punctured the plastic. “Yeah, well…” He had no argument. He knew it, Duane knew it.
“This is an important deal tonight,” Duane said, thumping his fist against the doorjamb in farewell. “Don’t fuck it up.”
~*~
Knoxville wasn’t a seedy city – it was downright idyllic in most spots – but it did have its seedy areas, like all cities. Roman’s address sent them into the heart of one, a fringe neighborhood full of aging Victorian cottages and Craftsman single-stories, the paint peeling, the sidewalks crumbling, the yards all ringed by rusted chain link. Lots of half-dead cars on the curbs, echoes of barking dogs, shady guys in hoods standing beneath streetlights – the whole nine. Their destination proved to be an old factory on a corner lot, flanked by dreary, boarded-up houses. Grass and tree roots had shattered the pavement of the parking lot. The building was red brick, its windows glinting like eyes in the glow of a security light. Some of the original lettering remained on the façade: JOH S N & S NS. Two cars were parked by the door: a Jeep and a fairly new Cadillac.
Roman took a long moment staring up at the shattered second floor windows – the victims of bored teenagers with bricks and rocks – tugging off his gloves, breath pluming in the cold. Ghost was struck by the sight of him: Roman was afraid, he realized. And maybe because a potential customer had shot at them recently, but maybe it went deeper than that. Maybe Ghost should be a little bit afraid too.
“What?” Ghost asked.
“Nothing. Try to keep up, Teague.”
There were no lights on in the place, and that was just one of many things tripping the alarms in Ghost’s head. Another was the prestige tag on the Caddy: RYDRDIE. Knoxville wasn’t a seedy city, no, but it had its seedy characters. The Ryder family fashioned itself a hillbilly mafia. Ghost had seen them around, had even had a few classes with Neil Ryder, a grandson of the family’s patriarch. They usually wanted nothing to do with the Dogs, not after Leo Ryder was denied prospect status and booted on his ass. They didn’t have many teeth between them, but they had their pride, and the Dogs were on their enemies list.
Roman knocked three times on the factory door, and a moment later it creaked open to reveal a pale face. Awkward features, colorless hair. The ten years since Ghost had seen him last hadn’t done Neil Ryder any favors.
“What’s the word?” Roman asked.
Neil said, “Jaded,” and Roman nodded. He stepped back and opened the door wide.
Ghost put a hand on Justin’s elbow as they walked in. He had no idea how the guy had stayed on his bike on the way over.
“I’m okay,” he said, voice thick, and let out a soft burp.
“Yeah. Real asset you are,” Ghost complained. “Try and stay on your feet, okay?”
Justin mumbled something unintelligible.
Inside, two large flashlights had been set up on tables facing one another, creating a pocket of cool light. Four men stood at its edges, half in shadow, faces indistinct. Ambient light filtered in through the windows, illuminating the shapes of dusty furniture, bits of trash. But otherwise the first floor was largely in shadow, so thick it seemed solid. Like you could grab it by the handful.
It hit Ghost as wrong straight off. A buzzing up the back of his neck, a tightness at the base of his throat. Like the exercises he’d been put through in basic: you knew something was wrong, and your job was to react quickly when it blew up – sometimes literally.
He let go of Justin and put his hand on the butt of the Colt in his waistband, hanging back from the light.
Roman, though, stepped right between the beams, blue-white all over, and swung his pack down. “Gentleman,” he said with a showman’s bow, “I come bearing narcotics.”
“You got the coke?” one of the four asked. Deep drawl, definitely a Ryder.
Ghost became aware of Neil standing behind him. He swore he could hear Roman roll his eyes.
“Uh, yeah, that would be the narcotics.”
The drag of the backpack’s zipper was too loud, echoing off the brick and concrete.
Ghost slowed his breathing and listened, straining.
Shuffle of Roman’s hands in the bag.
Justin’s labored breathing as he fought his drunkenness.
Skitter of a rat on the floor above.
Rustle of fabric – behind him, Neil.
Click of a safety – in front of him. One of the men in front of Roman.
There was a chance these rednecks were quick on the draw. But they weren’t Army, and they weren’t Ghost Teague.
He had a fraction of a second to make a decision, and hesitation would kill a man in these scenarios. Ghost drew his Colt and threw himself on top of Roman. He grabbed him around the shoulders and rolled. They had to get out of the light, out of the light, out of the light. And just as they did, one of the men fired.
Crack of a gun, ping of the round hitting concrete. Justin yelled.
“Get down!” Ghost shouted toward James, and then he had to worry about himself – and Roman, grudgingly – because they were still too close for comfort.
Roman sputtering a protest, he shoved him between two stacks of plastic chairs and urged him on, foot sliding in grease on the floor, dust from the furniture filling his mouth as he sucked in a breath. Another shot cracked off behind them, and Ghost shoved Roman hard in the back. He hissed in response, but finally got his feet under him and moved on his own, ducked down low, a hump-backed shape in the gloom.
Ghost followed, gun in one hand, the other ahead of him, feeling for the edges of desks and tables so he didn’t crash into them. Johnson & Sons had produced handbags once upon a time; this must have been where all the office furniture from their various buildings had come to die. There were rolling chairs, more stacked chairs, file cabinets, massive desks with footwells beneath, and countless wooden tables. They skittered like rats, listening to irate shouts and shuffling footfalls somewhere behind them, gaining ground by the second. The Ryders weren’t smart, and now Ghost knew they weren’t fast either.
Finally, Roman stopped and Ghost ran into him. They were jumbled up behind a massive file cabinet. Ghost could smell the fear-sweat on his club brother.
“What the fuck is this?” Roman whispered.
In the dark, Ghost could just make out the wild shine of his eyes.
“Your goddamn buyers are trying to kill us,” Ghost whispered back. “That’s what.”
“They’re not mine! This was Duane.”
“Nice, Uncle, real nice. You always gotta get someone else to do your dirty work,” Ghost said to himself.
“What?”
“The part I don’t get is why he set this up with you here. He likes you.”
“What are you talking about?”
Ghost ignored him, instead eased to his feet so he could peek around the edge of the cabinet. Five silhouettes stood in front of the flashlight setup. The Ryders weren’t chasing them because they had Justin, a sixth shadow slumped at their feet.
“Goddamn it.”
A laugh floated through the factory. “We got your friend!” one of them called. “And your drugs.”
“Shit,” Roman said. “Duane’s gonna kill us.” He sounded more concerned about that than the prospect of being killed by hillbillies in the immediate future.
Ghost had two things on his side: the dark of the building, and the faint trace of light coming in through the window at his back. It helped that Justin was on the ground, and out of the line of fire. He set up a shot, let out a steadying breath, and fired.
One of the Ryders, the tallest one, went down like a sack of hammers, instant and boneless.
There was a scuffle, shouting. One of the shadows grabbed Justin by the arm and attempted to haul him up. A few shots pinged harmlessly off surrounding cabinets, way off the mark.
“I wouldn’t touch him,” Ghost called. “I got a better bead on you than you’ve got on me. I’ll drop all your asses.”
“Ghost, someone’s gonna hear the shots. The cops are gonna come,” Roman said down by his knee. Cowardly fucker.
“Not in this neighborhood they’re not,” Ghost said, for once glad to be in a shitty part of town. To the goons: “Walk out of here right now and we can pretend this never happened.”
“Nuh-uh!” one of them called back. “He promised me blood! An eye-for-an-eye, he said, like in the Bible.”
The buzzing sensation again, all down his neck and between his shoulder blades, itching, tickling like insects. “Who promised?”
“Duane Teague!” Echo of a deep, shuddering breath. “But now you…you shot…” His voice cracked. “I’ll kill all of you now!”
“Justin,” Ghost whispered. “Shit.” Louder: “Hey, hey, whoa, let’s not do that. I dunno what kinda deal you made with Duane, but you shoot us, and you’re gonna have a problem with the whole club.”
“I already do.”
Ghost could see the speaker now, he was facing him, into the shadows, shoulders squared, hands fists at his sides. Furious and featureless.
Ghost shot him.
He ducked back around behind the cabinet as a return volley erupted.
“They’re gonna kill Justin. Jesus Christ.” Ghost pressed his head back against the cool metal. Shit, shit, shit.
A thought struck. He kicked Roman hard, earning a yelp. “Did you know about this?”
“They were trying to shoot me! You think I was in on it?”
“Duane promised them blood, he said, and they’re not creative types, the Ryders.”
Around them, bullets thunked into the wood of desks, ricocheted off cabinets and concrete.
“I swear, Ghost, I didn’t know!” Roman sounded desperate.
Ghost didn’t believe him – not all the way – but he didn’t have time to hash it out now. “When they reload,” he started, and suddenly it was silent. “Go!”
They rushed them. Ghost got a running start and jumped onto a desk, across to a table, took a flying leap, aware of Roman beside him. They were quick in the dark, quicker than seemed humanly possible. Dogs coursing down the hill after a kill.
It was a stupid, impossible, reckless gambit, the kind his CO would have chewed his ass for.
But it worked.
Ghost reached the first one, and saw that it was Neil, his familiar, awkward features horror-struck. He caught him in the temple with his gun and they tumbled to the floor. He heard an oof as Roman impacted another.
He’d miscalculated, and Neil fell, but he stayed conscious.
“Fuck you!” Neil shouted, and Ghost felt a sudden heat along his side, a bright strike of pain. The bastard had a knife.
He wrenched away and brought his elbow down onto Neil’s face. Hardness of teeth, jaw, crunch of his nose.
Neil tried to buck him off and the knife pricked him again, shallow, but too near his belly.
Ghost head-butted him. Which gave him just enough time to take a firmer hold of his gun and smash it down across Neil’s face once, twice, three times. Then he went limp beneath him.
He sat up on his knees, side blazing with pain, and felt the warm touch of a gun muzzle against the back of his neck. “You started this,” he said, proving to himself that he wasn’t willing to beg, even in the face of death.
A gunshot exploded, echoing off the walls. But Ghost was still alive, still on his knees, his breath caught in his lungs. Roman stood in front of him, his gun still aimed over Ghost’s head.
There was a muffled thump as the man behind him hit the ground.
“One got away,” Roman said, and Ghost heard an engine turn over outside. The Jeep, by the sound of it.
Justin sat up and said, “Uh…what just happened?”
~*~
All the windows were lit up at James and Bonita’s place, a cozy glow that striped the lawn. It didn’t look like the sort of house where a Lean Dog would live – at least not a Lean Dogs of today. It was Ghost’s dream to see the club as something vital and important in this city. But they’d have to become something besides unsuccessful drug dealers first.
The slice on his side had managed to clot on the ride from the factory, but he felt it open back up when he swung off the bike. A sharp pain, a well of hot blood that began a slow trickle down his stomach. Damn – he was lightheaded, too. He clapped a hand to the wound and headed up the sidewalk, staggering like a drunk.
James answered the door in a robe and slippers. A robe and slippers. Ghost stood there with his blood seeping through his fingers and goggled.
James’s gaze swept him head to toe. If the numbness in his face was anything to go by, his bruises were already impressive.
“Jesus, son, what happened?”
Ghost opened his mouth to answer and a grunt came out instead. Oh. His side hurt bad. And…yeah, he was passing out.
“Shit,” James said, and Ghost felt a strong pair of arms around him before his vision went black.
He didn’t lose consciousness completely, was aware of being shuffled down the hall, managed to take a few steps of his own, albeit leaning on James. When his vision cleared, he was stretched out on a bed, Bonita standing over him, brows knit with concern.
“Pobrecita,” she lamented, clucking. “What happened?”
She was in high-waisted slacks and a pristine white shirt with the sleeves folded back, hardly a nursemaid candidate. Even on a relaxed evening at home, her makeup was flawless, her dark hair a shimmery curtain down her back. He couldn’t tell if she was more concerned for him, or her furniture.
“Shit,” Ghost said, with every intention of sitting up, not wanting to bleed all over her fancy bedspread – she was definitely more worried about the furniture, he decided – but pain lanced through his midsection, and he wasn’t going anywhere.
“No, no.” Bonita waved him back down with a scowl. “Stay.” Over her shoulder: “James!”
“Here I am.” He entered the room carrying a first aid kit with a red cross on the side. “You dying?” he asked Ghost. Coming from Duane, the same question would have been sneering, condescending, maybe even hopeful. But from James it was only kind, concerned, meant to make light of the scenario as a means to take Ghost’s mind off the pain.
It worked. Ghost forced a grin. “Not yet I don’t think.”
James set the kit down on a desk that looked decorative, with its dainty chair and crystal drawer-pulls. The kit’s lid clattered against the wood, the sound out of place amidst the silk lilies and vanilla candles.
“Shirt off,” Bonita instructed.
Which proved more difficult than he thought, what with not being able to sit upright and all. At one point, the collar got stuck on his ear and Bonita nearly ripped it off.
James crammed a wadded-up towel against his injured side to staunch the blood flow. “Honey,” he addressed Bonita, “why don’t you go get Ghost one of those pills and something to wash it down with?”
She harrumphed, but complied, high-heels clipping across the floor as she retreated.
When she was gone, James sat down at his hip, alcohol and cotton balls in-hand. “What happened?”
Ghost winced at the feel of the first dab. “Deal gone wrong.”
“I figured.”
“It was the Ryders.”
“That redneck family?” James’s brows went up. He dabbed some more; it burned like a mother.
“Yeah – shit. Damn. Yeah, they were waiting at the drop-off point. It was shady as hell. Roman moved in with the stuff, and they started firing on us.”
“You handle it?”
“Yeah. Three dead, one running, one on the way back to the clubhouse.” Roman had packed an unconscious and duct-taped Neil into the back of the Caddy and was taking him back for questioning. Ghost was grateful he wasn’t involved for the moment.
“Hmm. That guy you shot out in the woods – was he a part of their crew?”
“Dunno. But it wouldn’t surprise me.”
James frowned in concentration as he worked. The alcohol felt like acid. “What did Duane say?”
“No idea. I haven’t talked to him yet.”
James flicked a glance to his face. “You didn’t just come to get patched up.”
“I didn’t realize I was bleeding this bad,” Ghost admitted. “Thank you, by the way.”
“Sure.” James kept dabbing and frowning. “What do you think’s happening?”
Ghost was surprised. No one asked for his opinion, least of all his president. Most of the time, James kept out of club politics, but every once in a while the VP proved he wasn’t blind and deaf. Like now.
“I think it’s one of Duane’s sick games. No president could be this calm about someone shooting at his guys. Either he’s setting this up just to fuck with me…” Blood for blood, Ryder had said. Duane had promised them a body. Ghost? Roman? Justin? All disturbing possibilities to contemplate.
“Duane’s got a sick streak, I’ll give you that,” James said. “But people are dying. He ain’t that sick.”
“Then why did our buyers seem to think he was okay with three of us walking into that factory, and two walking out?”
“The guy was lying.”
“Let’s say he was. Why didn’t Duane react to that first guy, the one I shot out in the woods?”
James shrugged. “I figure he’ll tell us when he’s ready.”
“James, that’s not good enough. Shit, that hurts.”
“Sorry.”
Bonita returned, humming under her breath, glass of bourbon in one hand, pill in the other. “Here you go, bebé.”
He reached obediently for the pill. “What is this?”
“Oxy,” James said.
It went down with a warm swallow of Jim Beam.
“I called your apartment,” Bonita said, and Ghost jackknifed upright.
Big mistake.
“Shit!”
James pushed him back down.
Bonita said, “You’re hurt and someone needs to come pick you up.”
“I could have driven him,” James said, but it wasn’t really a chastisement.
“I talked to Maggie. Is she your new old lady?” She smiled. “New old lady. Ha!”
“No,” Ghost said. “Maybe. She’s…” He sighed. This night sucked.
“She said she’s on the way,” Bonita said.
“Jesus Christ.” The last thing he wanted was for Maggie to see him like this.
“Is she the one who…” James trailed off with a meaningful eyebrow lift.
“Yeah. She’s the one.”
James grinned. “Can’t wait to meet her.”
~*~
Maggie was not panicking. She was not. She was just white-knuckling the steering wheel, breathing unevenly through her mouth, and shaking so hard it affected her vision. She was attempting to keep it together for Aidan.
He yawned in the passenger seat, all bundled up in his Spider-Man PJs, wrapped in a spare blanket she’d found in the linen/gun safe closet.
“Can we get pancakes after?” he asked sleepily.
“We’ll see, baby. Maybe.” If Ghost was okay, she’d make them all pancakes when they got home.
She pitched forward in her seat, wildly scanning the street signs ahead. She was looking for Midway…Midway…there! She took the turn too fast, the truck’s brakes squealing, Aidan saying, “Whoa!”
“Sorry, sorry.”
“Can we do that again?”
“Not on purpose.”
She searched the mailbox numbers – who was she kidding, she was panicking – and said, “Yes! There!” when she spotted the right one.
The house wasn’t anything she would have associated with an outlaw biker: a cozy blue ranch with thoughtful landscaping, warm buttery light spilling from the windows. Maggie parked behind a powder blue Crown Victoria and took a moment to gather her composure. Her hands ached from gripping the wheel so hard. All her hyperventilating had fogged the windows.
A small hand touched her arm. “Maggie?” Aidan asked, tentative now.
She took one last deep breath and forced a smile before she turned to face him.
His dark eyes were huge, brimming with fear. “If Daddy dies, will I have to go live with my mom?”
She tried and failed to hold back a distressed sound.
“Can’t I stay with you?”
“Oh, Aidan,” she said, heartbroken. She wanted to say yes, you can stay with me, I want that, because she did. She hadn’t just fallen in love with Ghost, but with this precious boy too. And the thought of letting him go back to a mother who’d abandoned him made her sick. But she wasn’t his parent, his legal guardian, not even his stepmother. And she was sixteen. There wasn’t a judge in the world who’d let her look after him.
So she said, “Your daddy’s fine, okay? Let’s go see him.”
When they were out of the truck, she took his hand, and they went up the sidewalk like that. Maggie caught a flicker of movement at the window, and the door opened before they reached it, light flooding the porch.
A curvy brunette stood in the threshold. “Are you Maggie?” she called in the same musical, Spanish-accented voice Maggie had heard on the phone a few minutes ago. The call that had launched her heart up into her throat.
“I am. How is he?”
Aidan squeezed her hand tight.
“Oh, he’s fine.” The woman waved as if it was nothing. “Complaining. You know men – all babies.” Her gaze narrowed. “I’m Bonita, James’s wife.” She’d said the same thing over the phone, but Maggie hadn’t responded.
She offered a handshake now, gritting her teeth in impatience. She needed to see Ghost now, with her own eyes, and make sure he was okay. She didn’t have time for pleasantries.
“Nice to meet you,” she forced out. “I’m afraid I haven’t met James yet. He wasn’t at the party Friday.”
“He never goes to the parties. Too loud. Too stupid.”
Maggie nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Hola, Aidan,” Bonita greeted.
“Hola, Miss Bonita.”
“Ghost?” Maggie prompted, patience in tatters at this point.
“Si, si, follow me.” Bonita ushered them into a bright foyer and relocked the door. Despite the immediate cheerfulness of the house, Maggie noted there were three deadbolts on the door.
She strained her ears, but didn’t hear any moaning or manly sobbing, no sounds of distress. In their absence, the silence was loud, broken only by the sharp strike of Bonita’s high-heels moving across the hardwood. Too quiet, and Maggie’s stupid manners took over.
“You have a beautiful home.”
“Gracias. My James takes good care of me,” Bonita purred.
The Lean Dogs, Maggie decided, and those attached to them, never stopped testing newcomers. A brag here, a dig there. Every word out of this woman’s mouth had sounded like a challenge.
Somewhere across town, Denise was laughing her ass off. Maggie had gone from one gladiator arena to another – only these fighters had guns and knives and drugs, instead of fake nails and loose lips.
Bonita led them down a hall to what was obviously a guest bedroom, dressed in impersonal blues and whites, unremarkable art prints on the wall.
Ghost’s cut was a dark stain against the cream of the rug.
His blood bright on the duvet.
He lay stretched out on the bed, shirtless, midsection wrapped with bandages, his face red-going-plum with bruises, deep circles beneath his closed eyes.
Smudges of black grease marred his boot soles, and in her first crippling moment of terror, she noticed that first. Her mind wanting to delay the horror of really taking him in, injured and vulnerable.
A sound caught in her throat and she seemed to fall into the room, tripping to the bed, the floor rushing up toward her. She sank down onto the mattress beside him, hand braced on the pillow beside his head.
He was going to have two black eyes, she thought, and it gave his face the look of a skull. His mouth was open, breath whispering through his lips.
“Ghost? Can you hear me?”
“Daddy?” Aidan asked from the doorway. He hadn’t stepped into the room yet.
“Shit.” Maggie twisted to look back at him, and her vision swam. “Bonita, can you–” Aidan’s pale, terrified face blurred in front of her and she blinked furiously.
“Let’s go to the kitchen,” Bonita said, hands landing on his shoulders.
On the other side of the bed, a man’s voice said, “He’s fine, darlin’. Just the booze and pain meds. Needs his sleep is all.”
Maggie turned to find a bland-faced man sitting at a desk, dressed in a plaid flannel robe and slippers. There was an air of her father about him.
“James?” she guessed.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
“What happened to him?” She rested a hand on Ghost’s chest, the steady rise and fall of his ribcage a comfort. She blinked again and her tears were gone. Her lungs pulled in her first deep breath since the phone call.
Bonita’s heels retreated down the hall, accompanied by the scuff of Aidan’s sneakers.
James looked her up and down without emotion, without any of Duane or Roman’s leering. Then his face softened. Yes, a lot like her dad, minus the frazzled, henpecked quality.
“How much do you know about what he does?” he asked.
“Enough to hate it…but I know he won’t stop until he has a better alternative.”
He nodded. “Deal went south. He’s got a good size cut on his side.” Her hand lifted and hovered over it; already, dots of blood seeped through the bandage. “It’ll heal without stitches, but it’ll leave a scar.”
“He won’t care about that.”
He nodded again. “Keep it real clean, and he’ll be fine.”
She teased the bandage’s edge with her fingertips. “Thank you.”
“He was pissed Bonita called you. He didn’t want you getting upset.”
“Chivalrous ass,” she said with a sigh.
“You don’t look upset.”
“Don’t I?” She held up a hand so he could see the tremor in it. “I thought I was going to have a panic attack on the way over.”
He studied her a moment. Assessing. “How old are you?”
Everyone wanted to know, but he was the first to ask with genuine curiosity – and nothing else.
“Sixteen.”
His expression didn’t change, still soft, still fatherly. No judgment.
“Usually, this is the part where I get an insult or a bad pickup line,” she said.
He shrugged. “I’m a happily married man, and I want my guys to be happy too.”
“You’re the vice president,” she guessed.
“Yep.”
“You don’t seem very much like Duane.”
“Most people agree with you on that.”
She looked at Ghost’s face; she could envision the way the bruises would darken, purple, black, yellow. “I’m worried about him.”
“He’s not always happy about the things the club is doing. That makes it hard for him.”
“I want to help him,” she admitted, lifting her head.
James’s smile was sympathetic. “All you can do is love him. That’s the only way you can help.”
~*~
Ghost dreamed of dark, crowded warehouses, the dust up past his ankles, thick in the air, choking him. Dreamed of Duane sitting on the picnic table, cigarette cherry reflected in his eyes. Then he shifted – eyes glowing red, teeth growing into fangs. He broke apart and reworked himself into a real dog, its black ruff standing on end, growling deep and low as he leapt off the table and toward Ghost. He dreamed of fangs sinking into his side, bright pain, and Roman’s laughter.
Then he woke up. It was a slow, foggy process, his vision gummy, the pain in his side real and insistent.
He became aware that it was morning, pale light filtering through the blinds, and that there was a warm body pressed up against his good side. He tried to move his feet and found they were weighted down.
He blinked away the last haze of sleep and lifted his head. Aidan lay lengthwise across the foot of the bed, snoring like a little chainsaw. Maggie was folded into Ghost’s side, hands curled beneath her chin, still dressed in yesterday’s clothes.
He noted the dark circles under her eyes, the way her lids twitched. The days were wearing her down – he was, this stupid biker life of his.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered, and her eyes snapped open. “Shit, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“I wasn’t asleep.” She pushed up on an elbow, concerned gaze flicking across his face, darting to the bandages that peeked from beneath his t-shirt. “How are you feeling?”
“What time is it?” he countered. The inside of his mouth felt and tasted like cotton. “Is there any water?”
“Yeah.” She rolled over and plucked a half-full glass off the nightstand. “How are you feeling?” she repeated when she rolled back, and attempted to press the glass to his lips.
He reached to take it from her, hissing as his side grabbed. “Worse off for the oxy, I think. I’ll be alright.”
She raked her nails through his hair as he drank, a gentle smile in her voice. “Not what I asked, but okay.” Answering his question: “It’s a little after nine.”
“Did…did James carry me out to the truck?”
“No, you woke up for that. Sort of. You walked and we steered you.”
He snorted. “Jesus.” He didn’t want to know how they’d gotten him up the stairs and into his own bed.
“Bonita gave me another pill if you need it.”
“Nah, I hate the way that shit makes me feel. I’ll just drink.”
“Yeah, that’s doctor recommended,” she said with an eye roll. Then she sobered. “Do you need to go to the ER? We could tell them it was a shop accident or something.”
“No. I’m fine.”
“Ghost.”
“You’re gonna wake up the kid.” He was being an asshole, but didn’t seem able to stop. He ground his jaw and realized that hurt too. “Why’s he in here anyway?” He could count on one hand the number of times Aidan had climbed into bed with him. Before Olivia left, the bedroom was a place of angry shouts and resentment. And after, of quiet misery. Aidan hadn’t sought comfort with his father through any of it.
“He was worried about you.” Maggie pinned him to the bed with a stern look. “We both were.”
He looked away from her, and the unrelenting care in her gaze. The kind of care that gave his stubborn man-pride the finger. “Sorry about that,” he mumbled.
“Ghost,” she said, low. When he looked at her, his breath hitched. “What happened last night?”
He stared at her – her eyes looked green in the morning light – and he couldn’t give her a bullshit story. Some lie that he could take care of himself and that she shouldn’t worry.
It hurt to swallow. “I think Duane tried to have one of us killed.”
“Shit,” she breathed.
“And I think it was me.”
~*~
Aidan woke up after that, asking about breakfast, and they had to drop it for the time being. Maggie sent him out to watch TV – damn, the kid watched so much TV, as a means of distracting him from Serious Adult Topics, it was a miracle his brain wasn’t leaking out his ears – and she cleaned his wound and changed his bandages with brisk, but gentle, efficiency. She left him to get dressed and went to start breakfast.
It was a Tuesday, and he didn’t ask her why she was staying home – he knew he was the reason. Just like he didn’t insist on Aidan going.
His girlfriend and his son were both in school. Jesus. His poor mother was rolling in her grave.
After toast and bacon, Maggie gave him a careful scrutiny and said, “You doing alright?”
“Fine.”
They walked down to the parking lot and Aidan took off on his skateboard, back and forth tirelessly across the pavement, tongue caught between his teeth in concentration as he attempted, and failed over and over, to jump a stick he’d found earlier in the week.
Ghost eased down onto the curb in front of the truck and Maggie sat down beside him, their shoulders pressed together.
“I’m pretty sure my mom hates me,” she said. “But I can’t imagine she’d want me dead.”
“Your mom’s a bitch, but she doesn’t sell coke to schoolkids either. We ain’t exactly dealing with normal here.”
“Yeah, but you’re his family. That means something, no matter what somebody does to earn a living.”
“Family don’t mean shit to him.”
“Why do you think he tried to have you killed?” she asked, changing tactics.
He sighed. “Just trust me, okay?” When he risked a glance, she was frowning at him. “Fine. Look, the guy said it. That Duane promised ‘blood for blood’ or some shit. That they had his blessing to kill one of us.”
Her frown deepened. “Us? Who was with you?”
He shouldn’t tell her. He really shouldn’t. “Roman.”
“Shit.”
“And Justin, but he was drunk. So.”
She chewed her lip a moment. “Promise not to freak out when I tell you this.”
“I’m never gonna make that promise.”
“Ghost.”
“Just tell me.”
“I ran into Roman on Friday. I was coming out of the bathroom, and he was there–”
“Where the fuck was Jackie?” he snapped, feeling betrayed.
“I don’t know. But listen. He said something to me. He said he wanted me to keep you at home. Distracted. He said ‘they’ wanted that.”
He shut his eyes a moment, which intensified the throbbing pain in his side. He reached blindly for the tumbler of Jack he’d brought outside – it slid into his hand and he knew Maggie had helped – and drained it, willing the burn to dull this intense new spike of hatred for Roman.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” he asked when he could.
“Ugh, you’re missing the point.”
“You were alone with him.”
“For less than a minute. In which he suggested I keep you away from the club because they, quote, didn’t need you around. Ghost, they’re trying to push you out! How do you know Duane set the deal up?”
“He sent us there.”
“Yeah, but how do you know he was the one who wanted you dead? Maybe it was Roman.”
His increasingly-rabid thoughts screeched to a halt. Shuffled and laid themselves out like cards.
“Crap,” Aidan muttered as he failed to make the jump again.
It made sense. In a twisted way. Roman had long worked to best Ghost in everything from bike maintenance to coffee-fetching. The brown-noser lived to please Duane, and his efforts had worked: he far outshone Ghost as a Lean Dog. But murder? He hadn’t considered it before now. But they were outlaws. And not very loyal ones at that. What was one more crime?
“Shit,” he breathed, and regretted that his glass was empty.
“I know it’s not my place,” Maggie said. “But I think it’s time for you to take some control over this club. That or…”
“There’s no way out,” he said, answering the unasked question. “You’re in for life, until you’re dead or excommunicated, and those are two things you don’t want to be.”
“Okay. Well.” She tucked her hair back and fixed him with a determined look. “Then you can’t let the club keep hurting you.”
He wasn’t sure which scared him more: the prospect of demanding a larger role, or the look in her eyes, the loyalty he hadn’t earned and didn’t deserve.
“You think you could help me with one of those business plan things?”
Her smile was approving. “Absolutely.”