Twenty-Seven
Then
Later in life, as a grown woman, comfortably settled in her her marriage, her roles as parent and MC queen, Maggie would wonder if everything would have turned out the same if not for Cody Brewer’s Halloween party. She and Ghost were fated. Soulmates. Some catalyst would have brought them together again at some point. They would have been drawn together on their own like two magnets eventually, party or no. But the party happened before fate could intervene, and for that reason she owed Cody Brewer a debt of thanks; she should probably track him down and buy him a beer sometime.
Because the two weeks between exchanging her autonomy for a bank loan and the party were absolutely miserable. Her teachers and club leaders hit her with a barrage of “you’ll have to make that up,” and “you’re really behind,” and “you need to be totally committed.” None of which bothered her; she steered through each day on autopilot, going through the motions, expressionless, uncaring. If she did anything well it was an accident.
She talked to Ghost twice on the phone, though “talk” was debatable, since Ghost responded to her questions in monosyllables, flat and disinterested. She knew he was angry and hurting, but she didn’t know how to fix it.
The party did that for her. In a way.
Friday morning she happened upon Cody slipping something into one of the narrow ventilation slits in her locker. “What are you doing?” she asked, and he smiled when he turned to face her.
He had a stack of yellow flyers and handed one to her. “Giving you one of these. Here.”
“A party?” she asked, scanning the crude invitation. “At Hamilton House?”
“A Halloween party,” he corrected. “It’s a haunted house at a real haunted house. Pretty sweet, huh?”
“Pretty good chance of the cops showing up.”
“Ugh. Come on, that’s not gonna happen.”
“Cody–”
“I thought you were a badass now, biker old lady and all that. You’re gonna puss out over a party?”
She folded her arms, anger starting to bleed through her routine numbness. “You didn’t hear? I’m back home. With my mother who would blow a gasket if she thought I was headed to a Hamilton House party.” It was Hamilton House, after all, that had kicked off her defection.
“Shit.” His eyes widened. “You went back home? Why?”
“Long story,” she said with a sigh. “But there’s no way I can come.”
He made a considering face. “You could ask.”
“Uh-huh. Sure.”
But she did ask. By the time she got home, the thought of a night away, a distraction, had become all-consuming. She would call Ghost and invite him to come with her, she decided. Lost in the crush of teenage bodies and bad Halloween decorations, she could steal away with him, a blissful moment to themselves.
But first she had to contend with her mother.
She found Denise in the dining room, rearranging the Waterford in the china cabinet.
She didn’t think there was any reason to phrase things carefully. They’d dispensed with pleasantries by this point; what was the use in pretending?
Without preamble, she said, “There’s a party tonight. The whole junior class is invited.”
Denise hmmed and stepped back to survey her work. The way the afternoon light fractured off the cut-crystal details of the stemware and tumblers. “Will there be alcohol?”
Maggie blinked in surprise. That wasn’t the question she’d expected. “Probably. But I’ll be driving, so I won’t drink.”
“Will there be chaperones?”
“I doubt it.”
“I honestly wonder how the parents of these children stay so clueless. Teenagers aren’t that clever.”
“No, we’re not,” Maggie said, dryly.
Denise stepped forward and moved a champagne flute over an eighth of an inch with the tip of her pinky finger. “Alright.”
“Alright?”
“You may go. Be sure to use protection if you feel the need to engage in sexual activity.”
“I – I…” Maggie stuttered. “What?”
Denise gave the interior of the cabinet another careful look, head tilted, eyes narrowed. Then she turned to look at Maggie, and the concentration melted from her face, replaced by a bored, distracted gaze that seemed to look not at Maggie, but somewhere over the top of her head. Searching for smudges on the door molding, maybe.
She said, “You’ve made it perfectly clear that you plan to rebel and make a complete mockery of everything your father and I have tried to teach you. I’d just be wasting my breath to tell you to keep your legs closed. If you’re going to act like a vapid slut, you might as well take precautions.”
It had finally happened, she realized: she’d stopped expecting even the most basic kindness from her mom. She couldn’t be bothered to care that she’d been called a “vapid slut,” because the insult failed to surprise her.
“You’re actually letting me to go a party?”
“You should spend more time with children your own age. Maybe then you’ll stop moping around here pining after that biker piece of shit.”
Maggie took a step backward, prepared to leave; Denise returned to her crystal: the ice tea glasses, the sherbet goblets, the tiny sherry glasses. But Maggie paused, a lump in her throat, an incomprehensible hurt trying to break through her composure.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
Do you hate me? She wanted to ask. Do you wish you’d never had me? We can never be family, can we? But those questions wouldn’t yield true answers. Denise would only suggest that she was being dramatic. She said, “Nothing,” and slipped away.
Upstairs, she took the phone off the hall table and unwound the cord, taking it into her room to call Ghost. She called him at home; without her there to relieve Rita, he should be at the apartment.
And he was, picking up with a disinterested “Yeah?” on the third ring.
“Hey, it’s me,” she said, flooded with relief to hear his voice…A relief that stretched and grew brittle when he didn’t answer. “Ghost?”
“Yeah.” Voice flat and bored.
“How are you?”
“Fine. Look, I’m about to leave–”
“There’s a party,” she said, stomach twisting. Dread moved through her, left her cold and clammy. “At Hamilton House. Mom said I could go.” She was rushing, trying to get the words out, afraid he’d hang up on her. She’d spent the past two weeks trying to convince herself that he didn’t resent her for leaving, but she’d been wrong, very wrong. She could feel his resentment coming down the phone line, dark and jagged. Right now, he sounded as warm as her mother – which was not at all.
“It would give us a chance to see each other,” she continued, child-like hope in her voice. “For a few hours at least. We wouldn’t even have to stay there – we could go somewhere else.”
A beat of silence. Two.
“I can’t.”
“Ghost–”
“I gotta be at the clubhouse. Bye.”
The line went dead.
~*~
He wasn’t proud. He was ashamed, actually. But he couldn’t seem to help it. It would be easier to cut Maggie out of his life cleanly, pretend she hadn’t left a divot in his spare pillow, that she hadn’t packed labeled dinners away in his freezer, that he didn’t love her to distraction. “I’m not leaving,” she’d said, but she’d left. He hadn’t seen her face in two weeks, hadn’t smelled her hair, hadn’t rolled over at two a.m. and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulled her warm, willing shape against his chest. Now she was nothing but a hesitant voice on the phone, and a faint whiff of body lotion on his sheets. Aidan wouldn’t talk to him. He couldn’t seem to stay sober. Jackie had told him it was for the best.
And it was for the best. For Maggie.
She could go to school, and all her club meetings, and her fancy etiquette lessons. She could mend fences with her parents, field scholarship offers from all the good colleges, and eventually, when the novelty of a broke biker wore off, marry the kind of guy who deserved her.
But the idea of that made him physically ill. When he thought about anyone touching her – the way her skin warmed, the scatter of goosebumps across her chest, the quiet breathless sounds she made – he wanted to put his fist through a wall. He almost put his fist through Collier’s teeth when he said, “I know it’s tough.” Collier didn’t know shit. No one did.
Except maybe Aidan, who shuffled thoughtlessly around the apartment, dark circles under his eyes, cheeks hollow because he refused to eat. Yesterday morning, when Ghost went to wake him for school, he pulled the covers up over his head and proclaimed he wasn’t going. When Ghost tried to pick him up, he kicked, and thrashed, screaming, “No! I hate you! I hate you!” He thought Ghost had done something to drive Maggie away, just as he’d driven Olivia away.
One night, half-a-bottle deep, he’d contemplated leaving the kid with Jackie and Collier and riding his bike into a tree. He was a Teague through and through, though, and he could never make life simpler and take the easy way out.
Just like he couldn’t say, “Sure, baby, let’s go to a kid party and make out.” He couldn’t bring himself to be civil to her. She’d left to help him, and he understood that – he couldn’t comprehend that kind of generosity, but he understood that’s what she’d been showing him. But he couldn’t be half-in with her. Stolen kisses and whispered phone calls. He couldn’t live off scraps like a teenage boy. He had to cut her off, no matter how much it hurt to hear the quaver in her voice.
Collier was waiting for him at the clubhouse. He leaned in to clap Ghost on the shoulder and made a face. “Bro, did you take a bath in booze?”
“Something like that. Duane here?”
“Roman too. He wants him to come with us.”
“Great.”
Roman was at one of the tables inside, hiding baggies of weed in candy packaging. “Boys,” he greeted, smiling, in high spirits. “It’s Hamilton House tonight.”
Ghost stopped short. “That high school party?”
“Yeah. How did you–” Roman barked a laugh, delighted. “Wait. Your jailbait’s not gonna be there, is she? Shit.”
Ghost clenched his jaw so hard he thought it might crack.
“Roman,” Collier sighed, “just don’t.”
“This isn’t gonna be all awkward for you, is it?” Roman asked, badly masking his glee behind feigned concern.
“Punch him in the face,” Ghost old Collier. “If I do it, I can’t promise I won’t kill him.”
“Nobody’s killing anybody,” Duane said, stepping out of the back hallway. “Ken, come have a word.”
As he passed, Roman whispered, “You wanna stop and get her flowers on the way?”
Ghost paused long enough to kick him in the back of the knee.
“Ow! Jesus.”
“Kenny!” Duane called.
“Coming.”
In the office, Duane settled behind the desk. Idly flipping through his ledger, he said, tone mild, “The Ryders are gonna show up. Let ‘em have Roman and there won’t be a fuss.”
Ghost didn’t respond at first, struck dumb with shock. When he found his voice, he said, “Uh…what?”
“They know what he looks like,” Duane explained, unconcerned, paging through spreadsheets. “They won’t mess with you.”
He knew he shouldn’t be surprised; he’d witnessed Duane’s callousness firsthand for most of his life. But there was grinding a prospect’s face in the mud, and then there was blandly signing off on a hit on one of his members.
“You want me to go over there and let one of my brothers get shot. Just let it happen,” Ghost said.
“Are you deaf? Yeah, that’s what I said, isn’t it?”
“Duane.”
His uncle heaved a deep sigh and finally looked up from his desk. “Quit acting surprised. I told you Roman had to go.”
“Yeah, and that’s a stupid plan.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re letting a buncha rednecks take credit for it!” he snapped.
“Keep your voice down,” Duane hissed, real anger flashing in his eyes now.
“I got no love for the guy,” Ghost said, though his stomach twisted to think of him dead. Disliking someone and wanting him dead were two very different things. “And if he’s stealing from us, and going behind your back, then yeah, you need to strip his patches. But this doesn’t make a point. It looks like an accident. And it makes us look weak! If the Ryders take out one of our guys, we look vulnerable, and then every gang and club within a hundred miles is gonna be trying to knock us off the top of the pile.”
Duane gave him a tight smile. “Then we’ll have to prove them wrong.”
“I don’t get this!” Ghost ranted, frustrated, breathing hard. A little bit scared. “Why won’t you just man the fuck up and kick him out? Why does every goddamn thing have to be a scheme around here?”
“Tell you what,” Duane said. “When you’re the president, you can make the decisions. Until then, shut up.”
“When I’m president,” Ghost echoed.
“Who else do you think I’m doing all this for?” Duane said, almost gently. “I ain’t gonna live forever, and this club’ll be yours one day. I’m trying to make sure it’s strong for you. The least you could do is get on board and show a little appreciation.”
Ghost had always known Duane was an asshole. But apparently, he’d never realized that the man was absolutely bat-shit insane.
It was the sort of epiphany that hit him right in the gut, a sharp pain up under his ribs. When looked at through the lens of crazy, everything Duane had done and said in the past few months took on a whole new, frightening sort of clarity. Crazy was an easy out for complicated situations, a catch-all description that dismissed patterns and coincidences. And it was terrifying. Ghost had always thought his uncle crazy like a fox…but what if there was no fox. What if he was just…nuts.
He felt sick. All the things the club stood for – resistance to a stifling conformity, personal freedom, the bravery to live the way you wanted to, and above all, brotherhood – had become, admittedly, background noise in Ghost’s life. He was too caught up in personal shit to see the big picture any more – but it was there. He leaned on it, the grounding sense that it existed and was waiting on him, ready to give him wings when he finally got back on his feet.
But maybe it wasn’t there. Maybe it was just drugs, and a psycho uncle who didn’t care about anyone or anything. Maybe the Lean Dogs were a sad mockery of an MC.
“Ghost,” Duane said. “Go make the drop. Do as I said.”
Ghost took a deep breath, held it until he felt light-headed, and then let it out slowly. There was a shift inside him, an important tipping of the scales.
Bikers talked about independence, about how they were free of all restraints, no strings, no worries. But when they formed clubs, they formed tiny kingdoms. In the case of the Dogs, a decent-sized kingdom, with satellites scattered across the world. Like any kingdom, a club could become infected, could crumble, could fall to the swords of other clans. But that never just happened – kingdoms fell victim to bad kings.
The MC wasn’t ruined – its king was.
In a moment of aching clarity, Ghost realized that no amount of new garages, or better business deals, or shows of leniency could save his club. It would take a coup. A seizure of the crown by a better leader, a stronger, smarter, more ambitious king.
A pressure valve released, deep inside his chest, a sharp stab of pain, and then an easing. He felt the hiss of stream through his ribs, warm around his heart, his belly, easing the tightness in his throat. It was high time to unmake a king.
“Okay,” he said, all mildness and agreeability. Duane’s brows lifted, surprised. “I’ll make the drop. Whatever you say, boss.”
“Good,” Duane said, and he didn’t know his days were numbered.
~*~
Maggie wasn’t stupid enough to park in the driveway of Hamilton House. She left the Monte Carlo a few yards down the road, in the drive of a house that had long since burned to the ground, hidden behind a cluster of overgrown hydrangeas. The pale, dead blossoms rustled against the car’s windows and fenders, the sound like footsteps in the underbrush. She pulled her jacket tighter around her, listening, holding her breath. Soft hoot of an owl nearby. Bark of a fox farther off. She could feel the rumble of music from Hamilton House through the soles of her boots, a faint but insistent thump.
Leave, a small voice whispered in the back of her head. But she didn’t, picking her way down the cracked pavement toward the antebellum mansion, its blazing windows and gaping doors.
Her steps faltered when she saw the decorations; lost in her own miserable thoughts, she’d forgotten it was almost Halloween.
Someone had taken painstaking care stretching cotton spider webs between the porch columns and rails, securing it up in the high corners and arranging it so that it almost looked real; Maggie thought it was aided aesthetically by the webs already in existence. Orange crepe streams were wound round the banisters, and a generator must have been working doubly hard to power all the twinkle lights. Black rubber spiders dangled from the porch ceiling, swaying in the breeze, obvious and childlike, but unnerving too.
Inside, every available surface was strung with lights, and webs, and spiders. Dozens of rubber bats had been tacked to the hallway ceiling, low enough some of the taller boys kept knocking them around with their heads as they walked. It reeked of pot smoke, spilled beer, sweat, and dozens of competing perfumes. Maggie wanted to leave immediately.
A tiny part of her wanted to believe that Ghost would show up. A larger part knew he wouldn’t. This place was choking her – but the idea of going home was even worse.
She was stuck. Miserable and feeling sorry for herself.
Stay or go – her mind was made for her when Cody spotted her from the base of the ballroom stairs and shouted, “Lowe!” at the top of his lungs, somehow louder than the music. Rachel was hanging off his arm, and she smiled and waved.
Oh, might as well, Maggie thought, and made her way toward them.
“You came!” Rachel cheered when Maggie reached her, and grabbed Maggie up in a hug. “Yes!” When she pulled back, Maggie saw that her pupils were blown; figured she was high, they weren’t the sort of friends who hugged.
“What did you take?” Maggie asked.
Rachel shrugged. “Dunno. The Lean Dogs are bringing the weed.” She giggled. “Well, more of it. Oh, hey, is your boyfriend gonna be here?”
So that was what Ghost was up to tonight. She felt a stirring of anger…and of hope, the latter against her will. She was angry with him for being short with her before, and angry at herself for feeling more hurt than anything else.
“I don’t know,” she said, honestly. “Probably.”
“Dude,” Cody said, leaning in. “Stephanie’s here, and she’s pissed at you.”
“Yeah, so? What else is new?”
“No.” He had beer-breath; sweat glistened on his forehead and upper lip. “Like, your mom talked to her mom, or something, and now she’s grounded forever and her folks took her car away.”
“How’d she get here?” Rachel asked.
“Snuck out.”
Maggie frowned. “Wait. What? My mom talked to…about what?”
“Maybe about how she’s a huge fucking bitch. Who knows.”
~*~
Ghost didn’t know if he was furious or thrilled when they parked their bikes in a driveway three addresses down and found the Monte Carlo hiding behind a clump of hydrangeas.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
“You gotta get better control of your woman,” Roman said. “If I had an old lady–”
“Shut up,” Ghost barked, with such force that Roman actually shut up. He and Collier were just shadows in the dark, but they were staring at him, that he could tell. “Look, the plan’s changed. Our wise and powerful leader’s got some kinda deal going with the Ryder clan. They’re set to show up here, at the party, in a half hour.”
“What are you–” Roman started.
“Shut it. Roman, Duane knows about the deals you’ve been making behind his back.”
Soft chuff of a gasp.
“And he’s decided the best way to handle it is to let the Ryders have you. That’s why they’ve shot at us twice now – they were after you.”
In a careful voice, Collier said, “You can’t know that.”
“He told me that. You think I’m lying?”
No response. Dead hydrangea blossoms rubbed the Monte Carlo’s windows, quiet rustling.
“I don’t care if you believe me,” he snarled. “But Duane’s out of his goddamn mind. Wait here if you want, go home, hell, flag down the rednecks when they get here. Whatever. But I’m gonna go break up this party and get Mags the hell out.”
He’d gone three steps when Collier sighed and said, “Fuck, like I’m not gonna come with you?”
They were almost to the street when Roman called, voice unsteady, “He knows?”
Ghost paused and turned, looked back. Roman stood in a patch of moonlight, hands clenched at the back of his neck, expression wrecked.
The guy was an asshole, always trying to make Ghost look bad, or one-up him, sucking up to Duane like some prep school jackass. He might have been scheming and doing shit he shouldn’t. But he wasn’t evil. He didn’t deserve to get killed by hillbillies. Ghost couldn’t help but feel sorry for him in that moment.
Ghost said, “According to him, he knows everything.”
Roman let out a low, animal sound of pain, teeth flashing as he grimaced. “Oh shit. Oh fuck. Oh shit.”
“He doesn’t know what I’m about to do, though,” Ghost said, and felt the touch of Roman’s gaze across the distance between them. “You with me?” And he wasn’t just asking about now, this party and this plan. He was asking both of them to come over to his side, to realize the horror of their situation and join the movement toward a better future.
“I am,” Collier said.
After a long moment, Roman nodded. “Yeah, I’m with you.”
~*~
Maggie had never been upstairs in Hamilton House. If possible, it was more derelict than the first floor. With the windows boarded, and with far less foot traffic than the first floor, spiders had multiplied, and mold had proliferated in all the dark corners – and there were many of them. The smell of damp was pervasive up here, corrosion and rust mixed with a faint whiff of death.
Stephanie stood along the balcony, where the air was fresher – relatively: the stench of smoke and sweat and drink filtered up from the first floor, along with a warm splash of light and the pounding of the music. She had her back to Maggie, facing her friend Maureen, and she was crying, her sniffles audible even from a distance.
“I…I just…” she hiccupped.
Maureen patted her arm, face an overdramatic pout of sympathy. “I know, sweetie, I know.”
“Like, how could anyone do that to me?” Stephanie whined, bursting into sobs.
Maureen put her arm loosely around her friend’s shoulders. “She’s just jealous,” she soothed. “Like, totally jealous.”
Maggie took a step forward and the floorboards creaked. The music was muffled up here, and both girls heard the sound, turning to look at her. Stephanie, she could immediately see, wasn’t actually crying, her eyes dry, the sounds just for show.
“Oh my God.” Stephanie made a face when she saw Maggie. “Who invited your lame ass up here?”
Over her shoulder, Maureen made a similar face. Maggie was convinced all the popular girls at her school practiced the same disgusted facial expressions in the mirror together.
Maggie said, “I heard my mom was trying to make trouble for you.”
“Bite me,” Stephanie hissed, and turned around.
She wasn’t sure what she’d hoped to accomplish by coming up here. Well – that wasn’t true. She’d hoped she could head any further retaliation off at the pass. She didn’t think Ghost would be willing to paint her car again. But she didn’t know why she’d thought she’d make any headway.
She guessed she had to try, though.
She took a step closer. “Steph, look, I know you hate me, and to be honest, I hate you. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry my mom’s stirring shit up. You stirred shit up first, so I guess it’s only fair–”
Stephanie turned back to face her, glowering.
“My point is, whatever your mom’s mad about, just deal with it. You don’t want to start anything else.”
“Are you…are you threatening me?” she asked, incredulous. “You stupid biker whore.”
“Yeah,” Maggie said, evenly. “I guess I am. But also, your reputation isn’t in tatters yet, not like mine. Whatever your mom’s mad about will blow over. So don’t blame it on me, okay? And don’t touch my car again.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll kick your ass for real this time.”
Whatever Stephanie was about to say was lost to a sudden shout from below as the music cut out.
~*~
Ghost wanted to get this whole houseful of kids away from danger. Sure he did. He wasn’t a monster. But there was only one he actually cared about, and he was on a mission to find her.
Collier killed the music and there was a collective roar of protest from the partygoers. There were at least a hundred of them, maybe more, friends and siblings and hangers-on. Most were drunk or on their way to being there, glassy-eyed in the dazzle of Christmas lights, calling for the music to come back on.
Ghost whistled. Once, sharp. Cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Hey! Listen up!”
Someone recognized him, because a cheer of “Dope’s here!” went up from the back of the crowd, followed by a ripple of excited murmurs.
Over by the stereo, Collier made a face like what you gonna do now?
“Shut up!” Ghost roared. “Shut up and listen a second! There’s no weed.”
“Booo!” several voices chorused.
“The cops are on their way,” he continued. “So all of you need to clear out.”
“You called the cops?!”
“Dude!”
“Lean Dogs suck!”
“You heard him!” Collier spoke up. “Get a move on. Out. All of you.”
They were in the ballroom. When silence fell, it seemed to echo, ringing in the corners of the high ceiling. From above, he heard, “Ghost?”
Mags.
He tipped his head back and allowed himself one indulgent look at her: hands on the rail, golden hair spilling around her shoulders, expression a painful blend of surprised and glad and hesitant.
“Stay there,” he told her, aiming a finger at her for good measure. “The rest of you,” he said, dropping his head, “need to get the fuck out, you hear me? You’ve got ten minutes. Get your shit and go. Now.”
Something in his voice finally got through to them. They grumbled and shot him dirty looks, but they started heading for the exits, snatching up six-packs and wine coolers as they went.
He looked at Roman, pale-faced and rattled. “Get ‘em out,” he instructed. And headed up the stairs.
There were two girls at the top. “Oh my God, Steph,” he heard one say, and his eyes shifted to the blonde. She was pretty, sure, but she looked thirty-five, harsh, cruel features; he’d bet she was an ugly crier.
“Wait,” he said, and slapped a hand against the wall, so both girls were forced to pull up. They gasped. “You Stephanie?”
When she looked him in the eye, he remembered her from the drop Roman had made a few weeks ago, the one Maggie had been dragged to.
She remembered him too, apparently, teeth chattering with nerves.
“Don’t lie to me. I know you are.”
“Y-yeah. I’m Stephanie.”
“The next time you think it’d be a good idea to take spray paint to Maggie’s car, remember I don’t mind hitting a woman.” He left her there, sputtering.
Maggie was waiting for him, leaning on the second-floor balcony railing. Jeans and a peach-colored top with pearl buttons, high heels, diamond studs, and his jacket, too-big and perfect on her. She watched his approach with her body held stiffly, her head low, looking up at him through her lashes. Almost like she was afraid of him.
“You called the cops? That’s not very outlaw of you.”
“There’s no cops.” He reached her and pulled up short, not sure of his welcome. She looked like she’d just as soon slap him as kiss him. “Somebody a helluva lot worse is on the way. We gotta get all these kids outta here.”
“Kids?”
“That’s what’s gonna insult you?”
“I’m way past insulted.”
“Yeah, well–” Over the scuffle of feet and din of unhappy conversation, he heard the low rumble of a truck with aftermarket pipes.
“Ghost,” Collier called up. “Company, man.”
His heart lurched. “Shit.”
True fear began to overtake her face. “Ghost, who is it?”
“A buncha inbred banjo players who” – and the thought occurred to him them, truly terrifying – “would probably like to take a turn on a Dog’s old lady. So get down and stay down. Don’t let them see you.”
“Ghost–”
He knelt down and pulled up the leg of his jeans, movements jerky and hasty. He carried a .22 in holster stashed down the shaft of his boot and he pulled it out. “Here.”
Her eyes were shadow-colored in this dim light, huge and wild. “I don’t know how to shoot.”
“It’s easy. Pull the hammer back with your thumb, hold with both hands, aim, pull the trigger.” He thrust the little revolver into her hands. “Don’t use it if you don’t have to, and let ‘em get right up on top of you. Six shots. Don’t miss.”
“Ghost,” she pleaded, eyes slick, hands trembling as she reluctantly took the gun.
“Stay low.” His heart was thundering in his ears, louder than the sound of the crowd below, than Collier shouting for him. “Roman, get out!” he called over the railing, then pointed to the dark doorway of a bedroom. “Mags, go, wait for me to come get you.”
She stared at him, chest heaving.
“Mags, please. Just do it. I can’t let something happen to you.”
The sound of his pleading seemed to snap her out of it. She managed a nod. “Yeah, yeah, okay. So don’t let it.” She slipped into the shadow.
It was a monstrous effort, leaving her up there, shifting gears, but he managed, pounding back down the stairs. He itched to pull his Colt, but waited. The last few kids were leaving, footfalls and voices fading down the back hallway.
“Roman?” he asked Collier.
“Gone.” Collier drew his piece. “Where do you want me?”
“There, that front room. Come in behind them when they get in and we’ll pull a pincher move on them.”
Collier tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Let’s try not to be Rommel in this scenario, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
His heartbeat was a kettle drum in his chest. Stay down, stay down, stay down he willed Maggie upstairs. And he threw in a prayer to boot.
Six men entered through the front door, walking slowly, taking their time to spill into the ballroom and take up position across from Ghost. He recognized Neil. Noted the bulges of guns in Carhartt jacket pockets.
One was older than the others, heavyset, his square jaw gone to jowls. Like the others, he had a bad hairline and sunburn, dirty jeans and narrow pig eyes.
He spat on the floor and said, “Where’s Duane?”
“He sent me,” Ghost said. “I’m his nephew.”
“Yeah. Ghost. I know who you are.”
He had to be careful here. What he wanted to do was open fire on these assholes – surge of adrenaline and anger in his veins, the soldier’s instinct to eliminate the enemy before they could eliminate you – but he was outmanned. And his girl was upstairs, waiting for him. Giving him a reason to end this peaceably.
“And who are you?” he asked, as respectfully as he could manage.
The man grunted, and didn’t look like he would answer. His boys shifted, gazes moving around the room, the decorations, the abandoned beer keg. But he said, “Joe Ryder.”
“Alright, Joe. I take it you’re the man in charge, yeah?”
“What’s it to you? I ain’t here to talk.”
“Well, now, don’t be hasty.” He shot the group a smile and deliberately relaxed his posture. “I think talking could do us both some good.”
The man’s expression hardened. “Your crew dropped three of my boys. I ain’t got shit to say to you.”
“My condolences. I’m deeply sorry about the loss of your men. But now,” he said, when Joe started to interrupt, “you gotta see it from our perspective. We go out on two separate deals, making regular drug drops, and we get shot at. Out of the blue, no warning, we didn’t do anything, just.” He made a gun with his fingers. “What’s a guy supposed to do when someone opens fire on him? Get shot? Throw down the drugs and run? C’mon, Joe, you know that’s not how the Dogs operate. That’s not how any crew worth its salt reacts, including yours. The underworld is the Wild West, my friend, and anyone who shot at us knew that full well going into it, before he pulled the trigger. We shot back. Yeah. Okay. I’m sorry it had to be that way, but that’s how it works.
“Like I said: I’m sorry about your boys. Truly I am. But I don’t see why we have to add to the body count. Not when we could work something else out.”
Joe snorted. “The only reason you ain’t full of holes right now is because I already worked something out – with Duane.”
“I see.” He was starting to, at least.
“I want Roman,” he said. “I told Duane if you gave him up, I’ll let the rest of you walk.”
“How generous of you,” Ghost said. “Why Roman?”
Some of the boys shifted forward, restless, darting questioning looks to their boss. None of them had anticipated any backtalk.
“What?” Joe asked, scowling.
“You want Roman,” Ghost said, shooting for reasonable. “And sure, he’s a good choice. He’s a shitheel, and nobody’ll miss him. But why do you want him specifically?” When Ghost had been the one to kill at least two of the slain Ryders.
“Roman knows what he did,” Joe said.
“He had dealings with you, then?”
“Cut the shit, kid. Where is he?”
Ghost’s thoughts spun. Duane had talked about Roman going behind his back, trying to make bad deals with gangs, other clubs, but he hadn’t relayed any of the specifics.
“Roman promised you something,” he said, realization dawning. “And he didn’t deliver; he double-crossed you. That first night, out at that house in the woods – your boy was trying to take him out, wasn’t he?”
“I ain’t telling you shit. Hand him over.”
“Exactly what kind of deal have you got worked out with Duane?” He had no doubt it reached beyond Roman. Duane wasn’t even a little bit generous.
“Where is he?”
“Not here. He bolted when he heard your trucks pull up.”
“Son of a bitch,” Joe hissed. “Quit fucking around.”
Neil took an aggressive step toward Ghost.
“I wouldn’t try it,” Collier said, stepping into the hall, cutting them off. “We’ve got more guys in here, watching you,” he lied, “waiting on you to make a move.”
“You’re really starting to piss me off,” Joe said.
“I don’t doubt it,” Ghost said. “But since we’re here at a stalemate, let me float something by you.”
“Fuck you.”
“I can get you Roman. Hand-delivered and gift-wrapped.” At this point, he was betting on the fact that the Ryders really did want Roman, considering they hadn’t shot him yet. It wasn’t an eye-for-an-eye after all, but a vendetta. And vendettas could be exploited.
“In exchange for what?”
“You tell me what you’ve got cooked up with Duane.”
Joe grinned: it was tobacco-stained and nasty. “You boys don’t know what goes on in your own club. That it? The boss shut you out?” He let out a hoarse, creaky laugh. “That’s why you Dogs can’t get anywhere. Disorganized pieces of shit.”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re shit. But I’m asking, okay? You want Roman, I want info. Let’s make a swap.”
Over Joe’s shoulder, Ghost met Collier’s gaze: be careful, his expression said.
“I oughtta shoot you.”
“But you haven’t yet,” Ghost pointed out. “And that means something.”
“Fuck you.”
“Give me two hours, and I’ll give you Roman.”
“Two hours.” Doubtful, but not a refusal.
“Whatever Duane’s promised you, I can do better. My uncle’s a short-sighted man with no ambition. Trust me: long term, you want to be on my good side, not his.”
A long, tense moment passed, punctuated by the quiet rubber flaps of the bat wings overhead, stirred by the incoming breeze.
Finally, Joe smiled again. “You got balls, I’ll give you that.” His eyes moved down and then back up, taking in Ghost like he was sizing up a horse he wanted to buy. “Alright, kid. I hate your uncle’s guts.”
“Most people do.”
“You’ve got two hours. Meet us waterside, the old Mercury place.”
Ghost saluted him. “Two hours. And you’ll tell me what I want to know?”
“Yeah. I’ll tell you.”
~*~
Maggie didn’t take a full breath until she heard several extremely modified trucks roar to life out in the driveway. When she tried to stand, her legs were shaking too badly to support her, so she waited another moment, concentrating on her feet, her ankles, her knees, all her uncooperative joints. Slowly, she managed to get upright, leaning against the wall, hand slick with sweat around the grip of Ghost’s gun.
It felt horribly real all of a sudden: the life-and-death part of Ghost’s outlaw existence. She hadn’t ever thought it all the way through, but it made a terrifying kind of sense: men living in open defiance of the law and society’s rules wouldn’t object to killing one another.
A sobering thought.
But it didn’t change anything, not for her at least.
“Mags?” Ghost called from down below, and her legs started working – albeit shakily.
She peeked over the rail and saw him standing in the middle of the ballroom, bathed in Christmas light, black and hard-edged, the true darkness that all the Halloween decorations had tried and failed to capture. He twisted to look up at her over his shoulder, and the impression of him – black eyes, black hair, black shadow of stubble along his jaw – almost knocked her back down. No wonder a whole troop of thugs had walked out the door rather than stay and fight him. Who wouldn’t?
“You can come down now,” he said, voice gentle, at odds with the energy he projected. When she didn’t move, his brows pinched together. “Mags?”
“Yeah, coming.”
Her legs felt stronger with each step, her chest a little freer the closer she got to him. When she reached his side, and he put his arm around her shoulders, she stopped shaking altogether.
Damn it, she was still pissed at him, but she felt so right standing next to him. Safe, and loved, and stupidly strong.
“Here.” She shoved his gun toward him. “Please take this away.”
“You should keep it.”
A stare-down ensued. Finally, with a sigh, he took it back and tucked it in his waistband. “I’m teaching you to shoot. Soon. Tomorrow.”
“Sure.”
“I mean it. And.” His scowl darkened, arm tightening around her shoulders. “What the hell are you doing here tonight?”
“I told you I was coming. I invited you.”
“You came without me, though.”
“You’ve been an ass. Don’t try to turn this back on me,” she said, scowling back. He might look scary, sure, but he didn’t scare her; she wasn’t going to let him think it.
“Guys,” Collier said, appearing in front of them. “We should get a move on. We’ve only got–”
There was a crash back toward the kitchen. A sound like a door being kicked in.
Ghost’s arm dropped to her waist and he grabbed her, spun her around behind him so fast and so forcefully her feet left the ground for a moment. He put her at his back – she grabbed onto the back of his cut with both hands to steady herself, breath caught in her throat – and drew a big, shiny handgun from his shoulder holster. Collier drew too, she noticed, both their weapons trained on the mouth of the rear hallway.
More crashing, a few grunts, curses, scuff of boots over floorboards. And then Three men emerged: two rough-cut boys in coveralls holding guns on Roman, who they held by the arms. His right eye was swollen shut, angry red and already starting to bruise.
“Shit,” Ghost breathed.
A fourth man, gray and grizzled, stepped around the tableau, grinning. “Ha!” he shouted. “Look what we found out back. Two hours, my ass.” He hawked and spat a tobacco-colored glob on the floor.
“Guess he didn’t run as far as I thought,” Ghost said.
The man laughed. “Guess not. Fuck you, Ghost. Be glad I don’t shoot you.”
And then they were gone, dragging Roman with them, shuffling and cursing their way back down the hall.
“Ghost!” Roman called – Maggie recognized his voice.
Ghost shuddered, the movement rippling through her hands, up her arms. But he didn’t go after them.
“Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“We can’t,” Collier said. “There’s just the two of us.”
“I know that. Shit. Fuck.”
In the silence that followed, Maggie could hear her heartbeat inside her ears, the rough scrape of both boys breathing.
“We have to go after him,” Ghost said.
“Yeah,” Collier said.
“That crew still have that big old house off Chancellor Street?”
“Yeah. Think so.”
“That’s where they’ll take him, then.”
“Yeah. Jesus.”
“Ghost,” Maggie said, finally finding her voice.
“Come on.” He took her hand in his – the one not holding the gun – and headed for the front door, towing her along. Collier fell in behind them and they hurried out, almost jogging, out the door, across the porch, down the steps.
Maggie glanced back over her shoulder once, toward the glowing, decorated, terrifying face of the house. Its generator hummed. Someone would come back and shut it all off. Probably. Maybe. Who cared.
They hustled up the dark street to the driveway where she’d left the Monte Carlo. Three bikes were lined up beside her car.
“Ghost,” Collier said, “we can’t take her.”
“I know.”
He turned, then, hand releasing hers so he could cup her face. The moon was almost full and it caught his eyes, a cool, animal shine in the dark. She could smell sweat and fear on him. He breathed hard, chest heaving.
“Hey,” he said, voice low and rough, “I need you to go home, okay? Go home and stay there. I’d take you myself, but–”
“No, I know.” She touched his face in turn, the hard, bristly plane of his cheek. “You have to go. I’ll be fine.”
“Please take the gun, Mags, please.” He stressed the word. Reached back to pull it out of his waistband.
It was warm when he put it in her hands, carrying the heat of his skin. “Yeah, okay.”
He kissed her once, fast, and then bundled her into her car. “It’ll be okay,” he told her. “I promise.”
~*~
It would have been so much easier, Ghost reflected on the ride, if he’d just let Roman get shot all those weeks ago out in the woods. Or if, you know, Duane had bothered to tell him anything.
But his life wasn’t that simple.
They had to stick to the speed limit going through town, but once they crossed the bridge, they opened up the throttle. He kept replaying Roman’s pitiful cry of “Ghost!” over and over in his head, his chest tight. He’d been truly frightened, his voice thin and high, his eyes white-rimmed. Ghost was riding to the rescue now for the club, yes, but also because that scream was going to haunt his nightmares for months if he didn’t.
The Ryders lived ten minutes outside the city proper, up a long snaking driveway, a jumble of cabins and farmhouses on a hill that all shared a single address and mailbox. Everyone around town joked about the Leatherface chainsaw antics and inbreeding that went on up there, and those stories ran through Ghost’s head now, as they left behind streetlights and well-paved roads and entered a twisty maze of backstreets that would eventually take them to Chancellor Street, and their destination.
When his headlamp caught the right mailbox – a big black cast-iron number – he pulled off onto the shoulder and killed the engine.
Collier pulled in behind him. “Sometimes,” he said, when the engines were pinging and hissing, “I wish we had quieter rides.”
“Wanna trade in for a Japanese bike?”
“Not on your life.”
Ghost fished a flashlight and a few spare magazines out of his saddlebag and stowed them in his cut. “Ready?”
“Yep.”
The driveway was crushed gravel, and it was steep. It was a long walk, punctuated by the chirp of nighttime insects and the crunch of gravel underfoot.
Collier asked, “You’re serious about Duane needing to go, aren’t you?”
He was. “You think he ought to stay?” he challenged. “After this shit tonight? After all the shit he’s put us through? The guy’s a shitty leader. Always has been.”
“He is, yeah. And tonight…yeah. I just…I guess I didn’t expect it.”
“Why not?”
Collier sounded hesitant. “You haven’t seemed to care what goes on lately. With the club,” he amended. “Understandable. Your plate’s been full.”
Ghost snorted. “I’ve been stuck up my own ass, you mean?”
“You said it, not me.”
“I have been. I admit it.”
“Liv–” Collier started.
“Nah. It wasn’t about her.”
He could feel Collier’s skeptical look.
“Okay, so it was a little bit about her.”
“You loved her.”
“Past tense,” Ghost stressed. “And I don’t even like to admit that.”
“Dude, I wouldn’t either.”
It felt good to laugh, a moment of tension relief before shit hit the fan again.
“No,” Ghost said, “I was messed up. Part of that was her, but part of it was…” He shrugged. “I dunno. Coming back from deployment. Being a single dad. The club situation.” It had been instability on top of instability.
“You know how people always talk about being in the Army? About how it shakes ‘em up. Makes ‘em start questioning everything? It traumatizes ‘em. I guess for some people, yeah, it does that. But for me? It was easy. Straightforward, you know.”
“You don’t ever talk about the Army,” Collier said, quietly.
“It wasn’t ‘cause it was bad. It actually made sense. You have your orders, and you have your brothers, and you shoot at who they tell you to shoot at – and it works. There’s none of this dysfunctional shit like we’ve got here, where no one knows what anyone else is doing. No communication, no vision. No leadership.” The last he said with a heavy heart. “I came back, and I expected Duane to be like my CO. He wasn’t. He was just like my worthless old man.”
Something – it had to be a bat – swooped low over their heads, stirring their hair. Ghost smoothed a hand along the crown of his head out of instinct.
“I think he does love you,” Collier ventured. “That’s why he’s so hard on you.”
“Duane loves Duane. He likes to pretend he cares about other people when he wants to manipulate them. I’m done being manipulated,” he said, sending his friend a meaningful look.
It was dark, but there was enough moon to tell that Collier could read his seriousness. “Fair enough,” he said. “I just want to make sure you’ve thought out all the options. And that this isn’t…”
“Isn’t what?”
Collier winced. “Someone else doing the thinking for you.”
“Shit, man.”
“Maggie’s a nice girl–”
“Watch what you say.”
“Hey.” He put both hands up. No offense. “I like her. I get why she’s important to you, okay? I’m just saying–”
“Saying what?”
“You’ve never been ambitious before. Not like this. Come on. You know you didn’t put together that business plan by yourself. And then her dad cosigned the loan? You’re in deep, Ghost. Deep and fast. And love can–”
Ghost hit him in the arm. Hard. “Shut up about Mags. You don’t know shit about her. Do you hear me shit-talking your old lady? Huh? Maggie’s got my back. I don’t have to wonder where her loyalties lie. You, though, I’m starting to wonder about.”
Collier halted. “That’s not fair.”
“Yeah?”
“We’ve been best friends all our lives, and suddenly some chick you’ve known a few months has got you thinking I don’t have your back? What the fuck, Ghost?” He sounded genuinely hurt.
“I think you’ve gotten comfortable,” Ghost fired back. “You’ve got a job outside the club, you’ve got an old lady, a nice house, a new bike. You’re not worried, and you don’t want me to shake things up because it’s risky.”
“What’s wrong with comfortable?”
“Nothing, if you’ve got it. Which I don’t.”
They stared at one another, breathing hard.
“Do you think Duane’s a good president?” Ghost asked.
Collier looked away, up the drive. Swallowed hard, throat jumping. “We should get moving.”
“Answer the question.”
“No.” Just a whisper. “He’s terrible. But what am I supposed to do about it?” What he didn’t say was: without ruining the good thing I’ve got.
Ghost took a step closer, forcing his gaze to return. “Collier, I promise, I’m not taking risks for fun. I’m doing this because I have to, to save this club…while there’s still a club to save. I’m not saying it’ll be pretty – but that’s club life for you.”
Collier nodded, eyes wet and afraid.
“I don’t want the club to be this scary, ugly thing hanging over our heads. I want it to be a sanctuary. I want it to be strong. And by God, I don’t want any more redneck nobodies thinking they can just take one of us. If I’m gonna inherit this thing, I want it to be worth it.”
Collier took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. Offered a thin smile. “Guess I can’t argue with that.”
~*~
Maggie didn’t realize she was still shaking until she parked in the driveway and shut off the engine. Then she saw that her hands were quivering on the wheel – her whole body vibrated.
“Shit,” she whispered.
It didn’t make any sense, what with Ghost being the armed, trained, ex-soldier outlaw who no doubt could handle himself in a rough situation, but she felt guilty for leaving him behind. He had Collier, and multiple guns, and unlike her, he actually knew how to use them. She would have been nothing but a bother and a security risk if she’d gone along, but she had this overwhelming sense that she’d abandoned him nonetheless.
She had no idea who those men had been, only that they had bad things planned for Roman – and Ghost too, if he got in the way.
Stupid club. Stupid outlaws. Stupid Ghost, making her care.
She popped the door and hefted her purse – it was heavier than normal with Ghost’s gun weighing it down. Jesus. What had her life become lately?
Inside, she was greeted by a rare scene: her parents watching TV together on the couch. They weren’t exactly snuggling – Denise would never stoop to such a thing – but they sat close together, shoulders almost touching. There were two wine glasses on the coffee table. On coasters, of course.
“Margaret?” Denise called as she passed through to the stairs.
Maggie paused, hand on the bannister. “Yes?”
“Is the party over?”
“Yes,” she said with a sigh. “The party’s over.”
Later, she would reflect that if she’d stayed in the living room a moment longer, she would have seen the headlights shining through the window.
~*~
At the top of the hill, they found a shantytown of cabins, outbuildings, and single-wides, some clearly unoccupied, some with lights burning in the windows. The main attraction was a white clapboard farmhouse that bore an eerie resemblance to the one Ghost had inherited from his father, down to the ivy crawling up the walls and the sagging porch. The windows blazed with light. A pack of pickup trucks was parked at odd angles along the porch.
“They’ll have him in there,” Ghost said.
“If he’s still alive,” Collier said.
“He is.” He wasn’t confident, but he had to say it. “Otherwise, why take him instead of spilling his brains right there?”
Collier took a shaky breath. “So what’s the plan, boss?” It was said mockingly, but Ghost didn’t comment on it.
“If this is like my old man’s place, then there’s a cellar. And a cellar door.”
“Lock-pick kit?”
“Always.”
They made one long, careful lap around the house. Silhouettes behind the gauzy curtains in the windows. Mildew in dark patches on the siding. Muffled voices, laughing, shouting. Stacks of gas cans. Stacks of firewood. Stacks of garbage, bottles and cans, and plastic food wrappers.
A low, mournful cry from the tree branches above: a peacock; a sound like a woman dying – or coming.
“Jesus,” Collier whispered.
They found the cellar doors at the rear of the house, under a lucky stretch of windowless wall, held fast with a padlock. A padlock Ghost knew he could pick, thank God.
“Hold this.” He passed his flashlight to his friend. “Steady, like that.”
The lock was old, and rusty, but it finally opened. Ghost chucked it away into the trees where it hit the leaf litter with a muffled rattle.
“Careful,” Collier admonished.
“I don’t want them finding it and putting it back on while we’re inside.”
“Shit, yeah.”
The doors opened with an awful creak that had Ghost cursing under his breath. Once they were flopped back on their hinges, a sour, musty smell rushing up to them from the darkness below, they waited, poised for attack. But none came. Someone inside the house fired up a radio, twangy country loud enough to rattle the floorboards.
Ghost took the flashlight back. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
No one had been down the steep wooden staircase in a while, if the layers of undisturbed dust were anything to go by. Ghost led with the flashlight, the beam tracking over mouse droppings and untriggered mouse traps with shriveled bits of what he hoped was cheese in them. The smell intensified the farther they went, mold and rot and a touch of decay, not death, but post-death. Death turned to dust. Spiderwebs trailed against his face and neck.
The stairs led them into a dank, dirt-floored cellar with brick walls, exposed floor joists overhead, and several shelves cluttered with dusty jars whose contents he didn’t want to examine. His mother had stocked their own cellar with strawberry jam back in the day; he suspected he might find human teeth and guts in these; it was some real Hills Have Eyes shit out here.
Boots thumped across the floor overhead. The music blared, loud enough to cover any noise they might make.
They stood for a long moment, listening.
“I count four,” Collier said.
“Five,” Ghost said. “I expected more, really.”
“Might be more on the way.”
“Hmm.”
“What are we gonna do?”
“Go up there. Get Roman. Get out.”
Collier’s swallow was audible. “If we do that, we’ll have to kill some people.” It went without saying: someone might kill them.
“Gotta be honest, man, that doesn’t bother me.” And it didn’t. There were things in life that ate at him: guilt over his bad parenting, the horrifying idea of anything happening to Maggie, the dark memories of seeing the bodies of Mama and Cal at the morgue. But shooting a few of these goons wasn’t one of them.
He glanced over at his friend – tried to, anyway; it was too dark.
But Collier could read the gesture. “Sure,” he sighed. “What the hell.”
They fumbled around a few more minutes, finally locating the staircase that would lead up to the first floor of the house. The door fit badly, strips of light visible around the seam.
Ghost swapped his flashlight for his Colt. In the military, he’d been trained to aim for the center of mass, always. Shoot to kill, not to wound; a wounded man could reach for a gun and shoot you back. So it went against every instinct when he whispered, “Maybe let’s not try to kill all of ‘em. Unless we have to.”
Collier snorted in response, and Ghost heard the sound of him drawing his own gun.
The door was unlocked, and when it eased open, they found themselves in a linoleum-and-laminate kitchen lit by a hissing tube above the sink. The room was the color of nicotine stains, the counters cluttered with pots, pans, plates, and opened cans with dark liquid trailing down the sides.
And the smell.
Ghost took a shallow breath through his mouth.
A radio somewhere was blaring Alabama. He heard voices: several men and at least one woman.
“Get me another beer!” someone shouted, and that was their cue to get the hell out of the kitchen.
Ghost pointed to the ceiling. Upstairs. Because if they were holding Roman, they’d put him up there, where he didn’t have an easy escape route.
Collier nodded and they glided soundlessly from the room, guns raised, away from the noise and into a narrow hall. Smoke-stained floral wallpaper. A stack of dirty boots. The front door – not too late to back out, a voice very much like Duane’s chimed helpfully in the back of Ghost’s head – and the stairs.
It seemed too easy.
And of course it was, because a woman came around the corner, arms full of empty beer bottles.
They saw her. She saw them.
Ghost held a finger to his lips. Shhh.
She screamed. Damn it.
Ghost charged her. She kept yelling, screaming for someone named Dusty at the top of her lungs, tapering into a thin, high shriek as Ghost reached her.
She dropped the bottles and they shattered on the floorboards, flecks of glass spattering his shins like buckshot.
Her hands curled into claws and she scrabbled for his face, keening and hissing, trying to stagger back from him. But he grabbed her arm and swatted her away, brought the butt of his gun down on the side of her head. Her eyes rolled back and he let her drop.
Then charged up the staircase.
A stampede of footfalls tore through the main floor, men running and shouting to get to the woman he’d dropped. They’d have to be quick.
He felt Collier at his back, breath hot on his neck, as they pounded up the stairs.
Another woman waited for them at the top, older, gray-headed, hand clutched to her throat.
Collier grabbed her by the wrist and pointed her down the stairs, waving his gun for emphasis. “Go. Go!”
A door stood cracked-open at the end of the hall and Ghost moved toward it. When he was two feet away, it opened wider and a man poked his greasy head through. “Hey, what’s–” His eyes bugged when he spotted Ghost.
Ghost kicked the door, hard, and it sent the guy tumbling back into the room, landing on his ass with a squawk. He had a gun at his hip, Ghost saw, and he trained his own piece on the man’s chest. “Don’t touch it.”
He touched it.
Ghost charged into the room and kicked him in the head.
He was still in the process of toppling back, unconscious, when Ghost stepped over him and deeper into the room. It was a bedroom, as expected, with a sagging iron-framed bed shoved into a corner, and two sofas made up with sheets and pillows. Clothes were piled in laundry baskets and the whole place smelled like sweaty socks and weed.
Roman was tied to a chair in the center of the room, mouth covered with duct tape. He was alone aside from the man Ghost had just knocked out.
Collier hustled into the room, shut and locked the door. “We gotta hurry,” he warned. “A shotgun’ll tear this door in half.”
“Yeah, I know.”
With his free hand, he pulled the knife from his hip and cut Roman’s zip-tied wrists free.
Roman pulled the duct tape off his mouth himself with a hissed, “Shit!”
Ghost moved to his ankles. “We gotta move.” He kept the knife sharp – he couldn’t do laundry for shit, but he took care of his weapons – and it cut through the plastic like butter. “Hurry.”
“Shit,” Roman said again, struggling to his feet, shaking the circulation back into his wrists.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs and down the hall. The door shook in its frame as someone launched a shoulder against it.
“Now,” Collier said, moving to open the window.
It was a two-story drop. Ghost felt the impact of the landing rattle up through his ankles, his knees, his spine; felt it as a sharp stab of pain in his teeth, of all places.
“Fuck,” Roman groaned, collapsing. No doubt his feet were still numb, and the jar had been worse for him.
Above, the blast of a shotgun. Yells, shouts, clamber of feet.
Ghost grabbed Roman’s arm and hauled him up. “Move, move!”
~*~
Maggie sat cross-legged in the center of her bed, Ghost’s gun winking up at her from the comforter. It was small. Silver, with a wooden…handle? Is that what you called that part? She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything about guns, only that this looked like a miniaturized version of the guns cowboys used in old westerns. A revolver? A revolver. She thought. Something told her it wouldn’t be as simple as point-and-shoot, but that’s what Ghost had told her to do.
Downstairs, the TV murmured quietly, something with a monotonous, soothing narrator. A documentary, no doubt; her parents didn’t watch movies, as a general rule. But the fact that they were watching something together at all was its own small miracle. Was it because they hadn’t expected her back for a while? Could they only enjoy one another’s company in her absence? How much they must have loved her weeks with Ghost, then.
It was moments like these that she seriously considered running away, like some melodramatic teenager in a novel.
She hoped Ghost was okay.
In a small way, she hoped Roman was, too.
The horror of what she’d seen – a grown man dragged away against his will – was something she couldn’t think about in concrete detail. The fear threatened to overtake her. So she sat on her bed, and she stared at the gun, and she wondered what her life might look like right now if she’d never asked a scruffy, good-looking stranger on the sidewalk to buy her beer that day.
Then she heard the engine.
In this neighborhood, everyone drove a Mercedes or BMW, a Buick or a Town Car. There was one Jag up the block. Mrs. Henderson had an Impala. The only loud engines belonged to the neighborhood’s teenage sons, and they were all top-of-the-line Camaros and Mustangs.
This engine, though, roared. An ugly sound, like the muffler had been disconnected.
The same engine she’d heard earlier tonight, outside Hamilton House.
She sprang off the bed and went to the window, gapped the blinds with her fingers and peered down at the street below. A jacked-up, mud-spattered truck had pulled up at the curb, and two men were walking across the lawn to the front door. She saw the silhouette of a long shape in one’s hand – a baseball bat? A shotgun?
“Shit,” she said, and then heard the doorbell.
~*~
Roman set the bottle down with a gasp, hand braced against the kitchen counter. “Fuck.”
“I can stay, if you need me to,” Rita offered at the door.
Ghost waved a no. “We’re good. Thanks, Rita.”
She cast a suspicious glance toward Roman – one of the Ryder boys had clocked him in the face and he was starting to bruise – and slowly slipped out.
When the door clicked shut, Collier said, “We’re fucked.”
“No shit,” Ghost sighed. He was really starting to regret that he’d brought them all back here to his apartment. Chances were good the Ryders were keeping tabs on the Dogs at this point, and he’d just led them straight to his home, his kid, innocently sleeping down the hall.
Roman drummed his fingers on the counter, eyes trained on the Jack bottle. If he got sloppy drunk, Ghost had already decided he wasn’t letting him stay over. He probably wasn’t going to let that happen anyway, if he was honest. “You’re gonna need stitches,” he said, nodding toward the split on the guy’s forehead. Congealing blood trickled from beneath his unruly forelock.
Roman probed the area with a wince, fingers coming away red. “Nah, it’s fine.”
“So what now?” Collier asked.
It was really the only question to ask.
“I’m gonna have to talk to Duane,” he said, and Roman went white. “Alone,” he clarified. To Roman: “He might just put one between your eyes the second he sees you. On principle.”
“Jesus,” Roman said, shuddering.
“Speaking of which: what the hell have you got cooked up with the Ryders anyway?”
Roman bit his lip.
“Start talking, or I’ll take you back to them.”
Roman looked to Collier for help.
He shrugged. “Hey, don’t look at me.”
“Fuck.” Roman took a deep, ragged breath. “Yeah, shit, okay. I’ve been dealing with them about a year.”
“A year?”
“You wanna hear this or not?”
Ghost motioned for him to get on with it.
“A year, yeah. Their crops got busted.”
“Weed?”
“What the hell other kinda crops would I be talking about?”
“They’re farmers. I dunno. They might have…corn or some shit.”
“Their weed got busted,” Roman corrected, rolling his eyes. “Cops tore it all outta the ground, bagged it up, and took it away. They planted again, obviously, but the soil was bad or something, I dunno. So one day one of ‘em reaches out. I got sent to make the drop, and we got to talking. They wanted to trade: I give them weed, they give me meth, and let me distribute that.”
“Damn,” Ghost said, rubbing the back of his neck. “That shit kills people, dumbass.”
“So does coke, and we sell that.”
“There’s a big damn difference, and you know it.”
“Whatever.” Roman threw his hands up. “I took the proposal to Duane, and he said no. Big surprise. The idiot doesn’t do shit.” It was the first time Ghost had heard him say anything negative about their president, and it was refreshing. “But I thought it was a good idea. So I set something up.”
“You’ve been selling meth wearing a Dogs cut, without his permission,” Ghost said.
Here, Roman winced. “It gets worse.”
“I bet it does.”
“A couple months back, I got stopped at a sobriety checkpoint, and, uh, let’s just say I wasn’t sober.”
“Oh my God,” Collier sighed.
“When they hauled me in, they found the meth. And so, um, I…”
“You squealed on the Ryders,” Ghost supplied.
“They’ve been after them for a year! They never could tie the weed bust to them officially, not enough to make an arrest. I told them who’d cooked the meth and that I could give them the Ryders on a silver platter.”
Ghost wanted to say he was surprised, really he did, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t sure there was anything Roman could tell him that would come as a shock. “You’re a CI,” he said, flatly. “You wearing a wire right now?”
“No. Shit, no. It wasn’t formal like that. They tailed me to a drop and caught the Ryders with their hands full.”
“And they just let your ass go?”
“What’s a DUI when they got a major drug arrest?”
“Why wasn’t it on the news?”
“They’re keeping it on lockdown until they can round up the whole crew.”
“Why not just knock on their front door?”
“They don’t make the shit there. Nobody knows where the cook houses are.”
“Not even you?”
“No. Why would they tell me that?”
“I dunno. Why would you turn rat? People do lots of crazy shit.”
“I’m not a rat,” Roman said, eyes widening in obvious fear. His nostrils flared, a prey animal scenting danger. “I’ve never said shit about this club.”
“No, you’ve just been dealing with all kinds of creeps behind its back.”
“They were business opportunities.” His voice gained volume, grew high and tight. “I’m not Duane’s nephew,” he said with a sneer. “I can’t just walk into church with a garage blueprint in my hands and expect anybody to listen to me. So I had to do some things I didn’t’ want to, sure. But anybody would’ve in my position.”
“And what position is that?”
“Future president.”
Ghost grinned. And then he laughed, hollow and humorless. “Jesus Christ, you actually think that, don’t you?”
“It could happen,” Roman said, bowing up his back. “You don’t care about this club. You’re off playing house with your piece of jailbait. I’m the one who wants the chair. I’m more like Duane than you.”
“That’s not a good thing!” Ghost snapped.
“You’ll wake Aidan,” Collier said, tone gentle, inching his way into the kitchen, no doubt readying to intervene if Ghost lunged across the island.
But the idea of hitting Roman held no appeal. He didn’t want to get his hands dirty.
He backed up a step, shaking his head, exhausted. “You’re ambitious, yeah? You want it. But you’re a dumbass. All the ambition in the world won’t get you anywhere if you’re this fucking stupid.”
Roman was denied the chance to respond by the phone ringing.
~*~
“Ghost?” Maggie whispered into the phone, hand trembling so badly she thought she might drop it. “Ghost, they’re here.”
“What? Who’s there?” She could hear the panic in his voice, though he covered it with gruffness.
“Those guys from Hamilton House. They’re here, at my house, they’re inside.”
Downstairs, she heard another crash. It sounded like the china cabinet, the breaking of thousands of dollars’ worth of fancy crystal. Her mother had screamed once, right after the door was kicked in with a terrible bang, but Maggie hadn’t heard anything from her parents since. She had no idea if they were conscious…or alive.
Ghost swore on the other end of the line. “Where are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m upstairs. I’m okay, but my parents–”
“Stay where you are,” he commanded. She heard voices in the background, the thump of boots, the rattle of his breath. “I’m coming. But stay there. Don’t go out to them, okay? You’ve still got the gun?”
“Y-yes.”
“If they come into your room, use it. Aim for the chest, center of mass.” When she didn’t respond: “Mags!”
“Yeah. Okay. Okay.” She heard footfalls down below, the men moving around. Then another crash. “Hurry. Ghost–”
“I am, baby. I’m coming.”
There was a rustle, then another voice came on the line. It was Collier. “Maggie, Ghost is headed that way. Hang up with me, and call 911, okay?”
“Okay.” A dial tone filled her ear and she gulped. She’d call 911, sure, except now there were footsteps coming up the stairs. Shit.
She hit the numbers and hunkered down low on the other side of her bed. She could hide here, but the cord stretching from the hallway table into her room was a dead giveaway.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?” the operator asked in her ear.
And her door opened.
Maggie held her breath. She set the phone down on the carpet and gripped the gun tight in her other hand, praying she wouldn’t have to use it.
She could hear the man in her threshold breathing through his mouth. Hear the thump of her pulse in her ears. Hear the operator asking, “Hello?”
“Where you at, girlie?” the man asked. “I know you’re in here.”
“Is anyone there?” the voice from the phone asked.
If Maggie responded, he’d hear her. Then again, he already knew she was here…but she might have him at a disadvantage. Might.
Oh God, oh God…
She stared down at the gun, her pale fingers clenched tight around it, her bubblegum pink nail polish.
The floor groaned quietly as he took a step into her room.
She wanted Ghost to be here – but he wasn’t.
She didn’t want to make this kind of decision – but she had to.
He took another step –
And she popped to her feet, so fast all the blood drained out of her head and black spots formed at the edges of her vision. But she had the gun raised, held mostly steady in both hands.
“Don’t move,” she said, her voice a squeak.
He was a tall guy, fat, beer belly straining his white t-shirt. Small, piggish features and an impressive sunburn on his face. He held a baseball bat in one hand, but she didn’t see a gun. Thank God. She had him at a disadvantage there.
He stared at her a moment, slack-jawed. Then grinned. “Where’d you get that little pea-shooter?”
“Don’t move,” she repeated, firmer this time. “The cops are on the way,” she bluffed. Maybe the operator could hear her. Maybe.
He breathed a phlegmy laugh. “You’re one of them biker bitches alright, ain’t ya?”
“Drop the bat.”
He opened his mouth to speak.
“Shut up, or I’ll shoot. Drop the bat. Hands behind your head.”
Still grinning, sighing like he was amused by her, like he was indulging a child, he let the bat fall to the carpet. It thumped down and rolled into the doorjamb. “Things don’t gotta get ugly, sweetheart.”
“Shut up.” Ghost called her sweetheart. It sounded like an insult coming out of this redneck’s mouth.
He laughed again, a crackling smoker’s laugh. She knew she looked afraid, and that he was underestimating her.
She thought maybe she could use that to her advantage.
“Where are my parents?”
“Thought you wanted me to shut up,” he drawled.
If nothing else, this was stalling for time.
“I’m the one with the gun,” she said. “Answer the damn question.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He looked bored. “They’re fine. ‘Course, the longer this takes me, the more impatient Craig’s gonna get.”
As if to prove his point, his friend hollered from downstairs: “What’s takin’ so long?”
Maggie waggled the gun at him. Don’t answer.
“He’s gonna come up here.” His smile returned. “That what you want, little girl?”
“I want you to shut the fuck up,” she growled.
“Aw, come on. You’re not gonna shoot me.”
She certainly didn’t want to. What would Ghost have done by now? Killed him? Knocked him out? She didn’t have the physical strength to tackle him. She had a feeling the bed between them was all that had saved her thus far.
Downstairs, footfalls crossed the hardwood floors, moving toward the base of the stairs. “Chuck!” the friend – Craig – called up. “What’s the hold up?”
Her arms were getting tired. She adjusted her grip on the gun.
“Gimme a minute!” Chuck shouted, and she saw him tense before he lunged across the bed toward her.
He was betting on the fact that she wouldn’t shoot, thinking he could get to her and disarm her.
She pulled the trigger.
Several things happened at once, then:
The gun kicked, a violent buck that almost sent it flying out of her hands.
She gasped, or screamed. Something. She was aware of violent sound clawing its way out of her throat.
Chuck collapsed face-down across her bed with an oof.
She’d shot someone.
She’d shot someone.
She stood staring, trembling, knees water-weak.
Chuck groaned – he wasn’t dead, then – and rolled onto his side, leaving behind a crimson smear on the bedspread.
She’d hit him in the belly, his shirt a bloody mess.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he chanted, palming the wound. He stared at his bloody hand in horror. “Oh my God, you shot me!” His indignant howl tapered off into a loud, pained moan. “Oh Jesus, oh Christ.”
I told you, she thought, but didn’t say. Her voice wouldn’t work.
“Chuck!” the friend yelled.
She heard her mother’s voice, faintly: “Oh God.”
And then she heard the sweetest sound of all: a motorcycle.
~*~
Ghost barely got his kickstand down before he was bolting across the Lowes’ front yard, flinging his helmet off into the grass, pulling his gun. The front door stood open; in the glow of the porch light, he could see the splintered jamb, the bashed-in knob where the Ryder goons had forced their way in.
Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. Her name was a mantra, the frenzied beat of his heart in his chest.
The floor of the entryway was littered with broken glass and ceramic shards. A clump of damp lilies, their petals stomped and scattered. Ghost glimpsed Maggie’s parents, wrists and ankles duct-taped, sitting in the middle of the living room floor, in the place where the overturned coffee table should have been sitting. They were pale and wide-eyed, but alive, and Ghost’s attention went to the man standing at the foot of the stairs, baseball bat in-hand.
He must have heard Ghost’s footsteps, because he turned – started to. He wasn’t fast enough. Ghost clipped him, hard, in the back of the head with his gun. He grunted and went to his knees, cursing, so Ghost hit him again. He crumpled this time, unconscious.
“Mags!” Ghost shouted.
“I’m up here!”
The sound of her voice – she was alive! – sent fresh adrenaline coursing through him, powering him up the stairs two at a time.
He had no idea what he’d find, though, and kept his Colt ready as he started side-stepping down the hallway.
There was a phone on a side table, its cord stretched along the floor into an open door. He pressed his back flat to the wall beside it and eased around the jamb, peering inside.
He was greeted by an unexpected tableau. Maggie held his .22 in one hand, speaking into the phone with the other: “He’s not dead, no, but he’s hurt. I shot him.” Tears coursed down her face, but her voice was steady. Crying seemed to be an afterthought, a bodily reaction she couldn’t control and wasn’t aware of. There was a man laid out on her bed, groaning and whimpering, bleeding all over the place.
“Shit,” Ghost breathed.
“Thank you,” Maggie said into the phone, and then set it on the nightstand. Her eyes came to Ghost. “There’s another one–”
“I knocked him out.”
She dashed at her eyes with her forearm. Her face was ashen, her lips trembling. But she was totally coherent. “I called 911. If that’s okay.”
“It’s okay. Good girl.” Ghost glanced at the guy, the obscene amount of blood he’d lost all over the bedspread. His eyelids fluttered and he went limp, passed out from blood loss. “He’s gonna bleed out.”
“Okay,” she said, numbly.
His thoughts raced. He had to get back downstairs and subdue Goon Number One. Shit, he needed to take him with him, get him away somewhere so they could interrogate him, maybe use him as a bargaining chip. Dead men told no tales, but neither did arrested ones. He had to call Collier to bring the truck – shit, the cops would be here any minute. He had to…
No. First, he had to lay hands on his girl. So he did.
He walked around the bed in three long strides and curved his arm around her, pulled her small, shaking shape against his chest. Dropped his face over her head.
“Baby,” he said into her hair. Soft and broken.
Her hands curled into his t-shirt, gripping so tight he felt the bite of her nails through the fabric.
“I have to go.”
“Okay.”
“You and your folks go down to the precinct, tell the cops what happened.” He didn’t ask her not to mention his involvement; after what had happened, he didn’t have the right to be left out of it.
But she said, “I won’t tell them about you.”
He squeezed her tight. “I’ll find you after. I promise.”
She pressed her face into his throat, briefly, her tears warm and damp against his skin. “I’ll be okay.”
She was made of steel, this girl. Not for the first time, Ghost reflected that he could never deserve her, not in any lifetime.
But he’d be damned if he would let go of her.