Bri
I tell Heather that I may be away for a couple of days, give her money for daycare, and then wait on the outskirts of the club on my motorbike, helmet visor pulled down, wearing dark plain leathers which will, hopefully, hide my identity. The sun is setting as I sit here, waiting for Slick’s bike to race by, a pit in my stomach. I don’t want to leave Denver, leave my daughter—and Heather gave me hell about it—but I won’t let Slick go to Seattle all over again, not alone. If the Flaming Skulls take him captive, this time there needs to be a witness; this time we need to get him free immediately, not after two long years.
Soon, Slick’s bike zooms past, going at least eighty miles per hour. I kick mine into gear and growl after him. I stay a few cars behind him on the freeway, head low, watching as he weaves between the traffic. The night is bright with stars and moonlight, and pretty soon I get the feeling that Slick knows he’s being followed, though not by whom. If he knew it was me, I doubt he’d be ducking and weaving like he is, giving me a good chase, making me exercise my biking muscles. I ride between trucks, duck behind cars, bob in and out of lanes, keeping up with Slick every step of the way. He keeps this performance up well into midnight, and then slows down and cruises. Perhaps he no longer sees me—I’ve dropped far back, keeping him just within my view—or perhaps he just doesn’t see me as a threat. I smile to myself, despite the danger, wondering how he’d react if he knew that Brat was keeping up with the master courier.
I may keep up with him, but I get a whole new respect for him as we ride. Night deepens, and he doesn’t stop, doesn’t even look like he might stop. Then, as though minutes not hours have passed, the sun is rising and still he doesn’t stop. I suppress dozens of yawns, telling myself I can ride just as well as him . . . and then for the rest of the following day, he keeps on, non-stop. I begin to get tired, but I tell myself that if I stop, and if he gets taken, it’ll be my fault. Nobody will know; I won’t be able to bring the cavalry in. So I keep on, gritting my teeth, feeling myself become the tomboy I was for so long, when Slick and I used to ride dirtbikes and quadbikes around the mountains, danger and tiredness the furthest things from our mind.
Time seems to bend as we ride, midday coming and then afternoon and then evening again, and I’m so tired and so determined that I barely notice any of my surroundings. I don’t notice the change in the roads, or the cars, or the road signs. I just keep my eye on Slick, promising myself I won’t let him out of my view. And then, somehow, it is almost midnight again and we are stopping near Seattle’s docks.
I pull up out of view, six or so warehouses down from where Slick stops near the water. When I step from the bike, my legs, my back, my arms—everything in my body screams out its punishment. Everything in my body tells me I’m an idiot for following the Road Rage’s best courier. But still, aching body or no, I have to admit I’m proud. Once I’ve worked the kinks out of my body, eaten a couple of energy bars and washed it down with bottled water, I crouch down behind a crate and watch Slick.
The docks are dead this time of night, the moon reflecting off the torpid water, a deep night-blue. Slick stands on the edge of the water, a suitcase in his hands, rolling his shoulders and shaking out his hands. Slick has always had an animal look about him, but now it is exaggerated. He looks like a lion about to make a kill, the way he shifts his muscles, the way he moves. I can’t see his face from here, but I can imagine the intensity of it. Throughout all his movements, however, he is careful with the suitcase, so careful that I begin to wonder if there’s something dangerous in there . . .
“A bomb,” I whisper. “God help me, don’t say it’s a bomb.”
Slick turns at the sound of somebody’s voice. Men spill onto the dock, dozens of men, and I creep closer, from my hiding place to another hiding place about a dozen yards ahead: a pile of discarded netting, heaped up, which I lie down behind.
“Look who it is,” a man is saying, a man with a vicious, mean voice.
“Oh, wow . . .” Another man sniggers. “It didn’t take you long to return, did it, Slick? Did you really miss us so much?”
“I want to say one thing to all of you,” Slick says, his voice dark, his tone steady.
“What?” a man snaps. “What you talkin’ about? Are they the diamonds?”
“You tried to break me,” Slick says, in that same intense, calm, deadly voice. “And you failed. You tried to warp me, and you failed. You tried to turn me into a monster, and you failed. Now—”
“What the fuck’s in that package you son of a bitch—”
Suddenly, the sky blazes orange-yellow, a plume of light blotting the stars. The sound is like the world breaking in half, the wood of the dock shattering, and the smell of smoke and flesh reaches me, dim from my place over here, but definitely there. I place my hands over my ears, wincing at the sound of the explosion, and bury my face in the netting.
I close my eyes to the explosion, as the dock is torn near in half, and as men die screaming and roaring in agony. To my side, a man sprints, spouting flames and charging madly for the water, only he must now be blind, because he charges straight into an old broken crate instead. I crouch away, shimmy along what remains of the dock, and peer through the devastation. My ears are ringing, my eyes stinging and red with smoke, my face warm as though I have sunburn. Parts of the dock hiss as they crumble into the water, their flames dying.
I should be running. I should be thinking of my daughter and sprinting as fast as I can away from this mayhem, not toward it, but I keep thinking of Slick, keep wondering if one of these pieces of severed flesh belongs to him. I can’t bear the thought, and so I find some bravery in me I didn’t know I had. Or maybe it’s stupidity. I’m not sure. Whatever it is, I move through the smoke, calling his name over and over. “Slick! Slick! Slick!” I step on mulchy, bloody patches of what used to be Flaming Skulls, have to jump more than once to avoid falling into the sea, and choke on the smoke, wheezing with each breath. “Slick! Slick—” I keel over, coughing, as a spot off to my left goes up in flames. Whoosh, and a tower of fire rises into the air.
I have no choice but to back away, but backing away means leaving Slick behind, backing away means leaving the father of my child behind. I think of him, not just how he is now but how he was as a kid, the older kid with the bright blue eyes and the protective attitude, taking me into the mountains to ride and play like a boy. Now he might be lying here, facedown, as dead as the Skulls are dead. Tears sting my eyes, slide down my cheeks, and I know it’s not just from the smoke. I want to collapse to my knees and weep—and maybe I would, if Charlotte was not waiting for me—but instead I turn around and stumble away from the smoke, back toward my bike. The further I get away from the heart of the destruction, the more my vision clears, until I am standing on the opposite side gasping in breaths and watching as one remaining man stumbles in a circle, confused, dazed, burning.
“Slick!” I shout, voice hoarse. “Slick! Please, Slick!” Through the hissing water, the spitting flames, the moaning dying, I am sure I hear the dim ringing of sirens, growing louder. Soon, they’ll be here, the flashing lights my family has ignored for as long as I can remember. They’ll question me, which might lead to the club, and eventually my daughter . . . I can’t let that happen. I am crying openly now, as I limp toward my bike, images of Slick’s fire-charred exploded body forefront in my mind. I have to go, though; there’s no other choice. I’m not sure if that’s true or if it’s just what I’m telling myself.
I’m about to climb onto my bike when I see it: a Slick-sized blur of shadow, a few yards out in the water, swimming toward the docks. I know it could be my mind playing tricks on me, and I know I should just go, but even the remote possibility that it might be Slick is something I can’t ignore. I kick my bike alive, and cruise to the edge of the dock.
“Slick?” I call uncertainly.
“Bri—Brat—Bri!” Slick calls back, gargling water.
“Slick!” I scream, kicking my stand and jumping from my bike. “Are you hurt?”
“Just a headache,” he calls up to me. “I jumped, before it exploded, but—A bit of shrapnel or somethin’. Can you help me up? I feel like a fuckin’ twelve-gauge just went off next to my goddamn ear.”
I lie flat on the dock and reach my arm into the darkness below. The flames have died down now, providing no light. Slick’s hand is wet and cold, but it’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever touched. Going from assuming he’s dead to knowing he’s alive in the space of a few minutes is enough to make me want to burst into tears all over again. But the sirens are blaring, and we need to go.
“You’re heavy.” My muscles strain as I pull. I know I’m not even pulling half his weight. He has his arm hooked around the metal frame of the dock foundations, and is hauling himself up as I haul him.
Slick stumbles onto the docks, collapsing on his front, panting. The side of his head is covered in blood, but when I examine the wound, I see nothing but a bruise. No cuts, no punctures.
“Tired,” Slick mutters.
“Yeah, I bet,” I reply, helping him to his feet.
“What’re you doing here?” he asks, as I climb onto the bike. “How the hell’d you get here?”
“Don’t worry about that right now,” I say. “Just get on.”
He has no choice, and does as I say.
“It feels damn strange to have my arms round you like this, Brat,” he says. “Like I’m the damn woman or somethin’.”
“Well, I’ve always been a tomboy. Maybe it’s time you tried.”
“Fuck that.” He snorts. “Just get us the fuck outta here before my dick turns into a pussy.”
“You’re disgusting.”
I cruise along the docks, making sure not to go too fast just in case somebody sees and thinks we’re fleeing, and soon I’m riding to the outskirts of the city. The sirens grow quieter, being replaced with the mundane, welcome noises of honking horns and humming traffic. I take us to a deadbeat motel, the sort of place with neon letters which stopped working sometime around the turn of the century and a communal pool with more condoms cigarette butts moving across the water than floats.
“Wait here while I get a room,” I say.
I expect him to argue—Slick has always liked to be in control—but he just leans against the wall, staring at the ground as though replaying the explosive moment in his head, dripping water. I know it’s my imagination, but before I leave him I’m sure I see a flicker of flame in his sky-blue eyes.