Spike
“It’s almost jogging time, Spike,” Justin says.
“You know, you’re the only one who doesn’t call me ‘boss’ all the time.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve—”
“No need to apologize. It’s good to forget you’re the boss once in a while. Part of me misses the days when I was just a grunt with only myself and my friends to think about instead of one hundred some men and their families.”
We wait at the end of the road, leaning against the car. Danny smokes a cigarette, standing near the rear wheel, looking through the binoculars at the Scorpions’ clubhouse. Knuckles and Red-Eyes are at the other end of the road, just in case she changes her route. I don’t think she will, though. We’ve watched her for three days and each day it’s been the same. Nine o’clock she goes for her run, looking sexy as hell in her tight-fitting jogging pants. And then she goes back to the clubhouse and does whatever she does. Once I saw her drawing on a notepad through the window, but she has her curtains drawn most of the time.
“Think this will work?” Justin asks.
“Every man wants to protect his family.”
Justin nods. I see a look in his eyes. He has an open face, the sort of face which doesn’t know how to obey a lie. His lips could be going a mile a minute to weave some lie, but his face wouldn’t play along.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says, shifting. “What do you mean?”
I think about pushing it, but drop it. It’s probably nothing, after all. Just a look.
I join Danny at the rear wheel. “Can I get one of those, kid?”
He gives me a cigarette and together we smoke, watching the clubhouse. Half past nine and then ten o’clock comes and still no daughter. Danny and I get through eight cigarettes between us. Justin joins us at ten past ten, climbing out of the car where he’s been tapping away at his laptop, handling some business for me. “Do you think she’s bailed?”
“No idea,” I mutter. “She’s normally on time.”
“Wait,” Danny says. “Look.”
He hands me the binoculars. Today she’s wearing black leggings and a pink sports top, looking like a model from a gym poster. It takes me a moment to realize what’s so strange about her, but then I notice the bag, see how full it is. Usually it’s a tiny bump on her back. Now it’s like a pregnant belly bulging from the wrong side. She turns toward us and starts running. I hand the binoculars back to Danny.
“Back the car up,” I say. “I’ll come in from here.” I point to the tree line, a half mile of woods before it opens up to road again. “And you guys will be ready with the trunk. We need to do this quickly and quietly.”
“Okay, boss.” Danny and Justin get into the car.
I run across the road and crouch down behind a tree trunk, waiting. Crouching here reminds me of crouching in ditches overseas, bullets whizzing by me, men dying and shitting all around me. I close my eyes against the memories. I have to focus. I sink one fist into the summer-hard dirt, small stones biting into my skin. I can smell the woods all around me, leaves and plants and wildlife. Birds tweet and the ground rustles with life. And then, coming quietly at first, I hear the daughter’s breathing. She’s breathing far quicker than she has any cause to. She’s breathing like people breathe when they’re panicking. I think of that big pregnant backpack and wonder if this is the last time she’ll run this route.
Of course it is. I’m going to make sure of that.
And yet I don’t feel good about the kidnapping as I slide from my place behind the tree, stalking toward the road. I tell myself I won’t hurt her, but I can’t promise that. What if I hurt her as I’m restraining her? My club, my men, their families. I repeat it in my head as a mantra. My club, my men, their families. I move to the edge of the road, standing behind her as she jogs away, and then break into a sprint. I move quietly, but at the last second she hears me, spinning around with wide, startled eyes.
“Calm down—”
I make to grab her. She lashes out with her fingernails, cutting a gash down my arm. I curse and spit, trying to wrap my arms around her. From the corner of my eye, I see Justin stepping from the car. She lashes at me again, cutting a gash across my neck. I swing at her, meaning to wrap my arm around her torso and move her to the ground. Squealing, she ducks, turns, and starts running. She’s running way faster than her jogging pace as she sprints into the woods, looking behind her with wide, frantic eyes. Her eyes are sea blue, part of me notices before following her.
I watch her carefully, making sure not to lose her in the trees. She ducks left and right, leaping over fallen trunks and weaving between the foliage. She’s fit and fast, not at all like those blonde boards in movies who trip over the first twig they encounter. I run after her for what must be ten minutes, a good mile and a half, breaking through the road and into another patch of woods. She disappears into a clearing. When I break through, smashing through dangling breaches with my fists, she’s nowhere to be seen. I turn in a circle, swearing, panting.
I stop, becoming still, and listen as I listened in the army, as I listened on countless jobs afterwards. That’s when I hear it, the rustling to my left. She’s crouched in a bush, eyes peeking between the leaves.
“Wait—”
She bolts, sliding beneath a crossbar branch. I have no choice but to sprint after her.
I run, cursing myself for the whiskey and cigarettes last night. This woman moves like the wind. Ducking under branches and diving around tree trunks, I pick up the speed, determined to get to her. I think of Sonny, the last MC who took me in after my whole world went to shit. I think of the time Sonny knelt before me when I was a kid, put his hand on my shoulder, and said, “You get a job; you do it. No questions. No second guesses. Most of all, kid, no excuses.”
I’ve picked this job for myself. Without the daughter, my club is going to be raided and killed and probably wiped out. I have to get her. Sucking in air through my teeth, I sprint harder. My stomach aches and my legs burn, but I keep on.
I sprint into another clearing, a circle of trees with sunlight in the center. Stopping, I listen. She’s around here somewhere, hiding. I cock my head like I did when we were chasing the enemy through dusty city streets, listening for rustling footsteps or frantic breathing. Somewhere toward the road, a car growls. I can only hope that it’s my car and not the Scorpions’. A tree to my left rustles. A leaf falls, fluttering to the forest floor.
She’s climbed the tree all the way to the top, holding onto the trunk which is thin and spindly up there. Her rucksack is twisted around her, the straps intertwined into the branches. She stares down at me with a flushed face, her lips twisted, her eyebrows raised. She looks beautiful and terrified, making me feel like some asshole from a horror flick, scaring the heroine. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be the sort of man who scares this woman. But I also don’t want my men killed or my club destroyed.
“Get down here,” I say. “Right now.”
“Why would I do that?” She takes a deep breath. “You’re just going to hurt me. Is that a jacket? Are you patched? Did Dad send you?”
“Snake? Why would Snake send me?” I pause, thinking. “So that bag really is full of clothes, then. I thought as much when I saw it. Most days it’s flat. Today it’s bigger than it has any reason to be.”
“You’ve been following me.” She inches further up the tree, hooking her feet together so that she’s clamped onto it.
“Watching you.” I nod. “Listen to me. We both know there’s no way you’re getting away now. Look.” I point to the trees bordering the one she’s locked onto. “They’re what? Ten, fifteen feet clear? I don’t know about you, but jumping ten feet at that height doesn’t seem smart to me.”
“It wouldn’t be smart going with a man like you, either. Who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I don’t show her my back. She’ll learn who we are soon enough. “All that matters is this. You’re coming down from that tree. It can be now, and I won’t be pissed. Or it can take hours, and I’ll be very fucking pissed off.”
“You’re trying to act like the sort of man who’ll throw me out of this tree and think nothing of it. But you’re not like that. I can tell.”
I choke out a laugh. “Lady, you have no damn clue what I’m like. Now get the fuck outta there.”
“You’re trying to act like this big, tough, scary man who’ll do anything it takes to get me out of this tree, but—”
“For fuck’s sake!” I snarl. “I’m going to use you to take down the Scorpions one way or the other, so you might as well get the fuck down here right now!” I punch the tree, letting my anger take me. It wobbles, but the woman holds on tightly.
“What do you mean?” she asks when the tree has stopped shaking. “You’re not a Scorpion?”
“Goddammit,” I mutter, turning full circle, showing her my patch.
“Oh, you’re a Viper.” She goes quiet for a moment, and then begins descending the tree. “You’re not going to quit, are you?”
I stand at the base of the tree, ready to grab her if she tries to run away again. I’m not making the mistake of letting her get a head start. She’s far too fast for that. When she reaches me, I grab her by the arm and pull her toward the road.
“You don’t have to be so rough,” she says.
“You ought to sound more scared,” I tell her. “You’re being taken prisoner by a goddamn biker club.”
“I just came from a biker club. You’re telling someone who’s just come from a lion’s den to be careful about walking into a lion’s den.”
“You’re clever,” I snap. “Maybe I don’t like clever.”
“Maybe I can see right through you, Viper man.”
“You’re talking to the president of the Smoking Vipers. You really ought to be scared.”
She giggles savagely. It’s the sort of giggle I haven’t heard since I was in school, circles of girls giggling at the strange orphan boy. “You’ve told me I should be scared. You’ve already said that. What else have you got?”
I spit, dragging her to the edge of the road.
“Charming,” she mutters.
“Shut your mouth.”
I dial Justin and stand at the side of the road, a firm grip on the daughter’s arm. She’s even sexier up close, if she’d shut that mouth of hers. She’s wearing some kind of natural perfume, or maybe it’s the scent of the tree clinging to her.
“You really know how to treat a lady, you know that?” she says, as Justin pops the trunk and I lower her into it.
She’s coming way too easily. Ever since she climbed down from the tree, she hasn’t looked like a woman being taken. She looks like a woman going exactly where she wants to go.
I climb up front with Justin.
“She give you much trouble?”
“More than I bargained for. Let’s get going.”
The engine growls. We drive down the twisting road.