24.

Elise

Next week. Thursday…

Liv stands next to my head, snickering under her breath at me. No. Strike that, her laugh is not at me per se, more at how uncomfortable I am—the squirming clued her in to that—to have to lay on an exam table wearing nothing but a paper gown. Or it could be from the way my eyes just about pop out of my head because, with my feet up in stirrups, Dr. Coty, as she introduced herself, rolls a condom on a thick wand and bends down to insert it up my who-ha for an internal ultrasound.

A regular ultrasound wouldn’t do? Uh yeah, I asked.

“It will, but an internal ultrasound will give us a better picture and with your history. We want to make sure everything is good.”

How could I argue with that? I can’t, and brace as she does exactly what she explained she’d do. Even wrapped in a condom, the wand feels cold. It’s a shock to the system, and I shudder. Not one of my better Thursday afternoons.

“Everything looks fine,” she finally tells me after several heart-pounding minutes. “Don’t forget to set up your appointment for next month before you leave. I’m going to go, you can go ahead and get dressed.” As suspected, I’m at seven weeks gestation. And as promised, she withdraws the wand, throws the condom in the trash, and exits the room for me to get dressed.

Before leaving—loaded down with a bag full of prenatal vitamins and other stuff they said I’d need—we make my next appointment, although I cross my fingers that I won’t still be in town next month. Then we head downstairs to the main floor lobby where Crass said he’d be waiting. We told him this was Liv’s yearly appointment because I didn’t want him to know about the pregnancy yet. He talks to Beau several times a week.

Something feels off.

Both Liv and I scan the seating area for Crass. When we don’t see him, we wait by the restrooms to in hopes he’s just inside relieving himself. When after ten minutes, he hasn’t joined us yet, we decide to check outside in the smoker’s section. What we find are three older men, two balding, and one in a wheelchair, no Crass. And probably not one of my smarter decision, I let Liv search the left side of the parking lot, while I take the right.

“Hello, Elise.” The whisper is the last I hear before a sharp pain strikes the side of my head…and blackness.

***

Good, good. My eyes creak open, which means I’m alive.

First I register the pain, although duller now than the initial strike, and foggy vision. I blink several times in an attempt to clear the vision and wait for my brain to slowly get back online. Pain. Foggy vision, and—constriction? Yes. Constriction. I try to move my arms to figure out why there’s a constriction, only my arms won’t move.

But my chest burns. Because I’ve never not been able to move my arms before. It burns as my heart beats faster and faster with every second that passes. Even as I will myself to take long, meaningful breaths, my nose and lungs only allow short, shallow pants. Too short and too shallow to do any good. I feel about ready to pass out.

Keep it together, Elise. Think, why won’t they move? Why is it taking so long for me to think? Okay, I got it. They won’t move because strait jackets are made to keep ones arms from moving.

Chest pain. Tightness. I really can’t breathe.

He didn’t kill me, but I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to—stop it. You’re pregnant. It’s not just you in the room. Calm down, now.

Yes. I’m pregnant. I have to act like a mother now. Focusing on the baby helps me to settle. Those long, meaningful, greatly desired breaths start to slowly replace the pants. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Still alive, and breathing. What next?

My eyes aren’t foggy any longer, but somewhat blurred by tears. And I can’t wipe them away. Still, I turn my head from left to right, to take in my surroundings.

There’s nothing in the room but four windowless walls, and me on the floor. In a strait jacket. Cracks in the walls and ceiling filter small pockets of natural light inside since the place lacks artificial light. I’d be surprised if electric had ever been hooked up.

But no Liv.

Without a doubt, I know who’s behind this. It’s his most famous escape. God, why couldn’t I be chased by a biker who calls himself Olaf, and likes warm hugs? Since I’m alive, I know I’m meant to be last. So then, where is Liv?

The panic begins to form a ball in my gut again, but panicking won’t keep my baby safe or save my friend. What I have to do is set about unjacketing myself from the strait jacket. As I begin to wriggle, I find it’s not as hard as I thought it’d be, contorting myself into crazy positions until I can reach the buckles and actually unbuckle them.

The whole process takes maybe ten minutes. Hard to know for sure without a clock, but I do it. Then try the door. It pops open. Either he’s set a trap or never expected me to free myself. So I go cautiously, but I go.

Liv’s not anywhere in the four rooms of the dilapidated farmhouse. Meaning I don’t spend too much time snooping around. I probably should look for clues or evidence as to Houdini’s actual identity. But I don’t want to get caught if he should decide to drop by for a visit.

I shield my eyes from the bright sunlight, still daytime outside or daytime again for all I know. Down the dirt drive, I run toward a gravelly road. It’s this time that an old Chevy pickup, beat up and rusted-out orange, rumbles along the road, popping stray rocks out from under the tires. An old man behind the wheel stops, rolling down his window.

“Need help, little lady?”

“Yes. I was kidnapped and escaped. Do you have a cell phone?”

Maybe he doesn’t believe me, or maybe he picks up escaped kidnapped victims as a matter of course, but if the man feels any concern for my situation, he doesn’t show it.

“Sure,” he answers as if ready to share a little town gossip on an easy Sunday afternoon after church. “Keep it in the glovebox for emergencies. Climb on in,” he drawls even slower, like I hadn’t just told him I’d been kidnapped and escaped.

Without hesitation, I round the hood of his truck, and press the handle to open the door but with all the rust, the door sticks. And it takes several good tugs to crack it open. Cautiously-relieved tears stream down my cheeks when I finally climb on in and pull the door shut.

My savior leans over and pops open the glove box while he continues at the same speed he’d been traveling before down the dirt road. The signal bars hit three bars while I punch in Beau’s number.

“Hello?” he answers gruffly. It’s so good to hear his voice that I forget to answer. “Hello?” he asks again.

“Beau?” I half whisper, half cry.

“Darlin’?”

“It’s me Beau. We need help.”

“What’s wrong, where’s Crass?”

“I don’t know. H-he got to us, Beau. Liv and Crass are gone. I woke up in a strait jacket…maybe he meant for me to escape, maybe he didn’t.” I keep rambling. “But they’re gone, and I’m in a truck with a nice man who picked me up…I’m scared, Beau.”

“Listen baby girl, put the man on the phone with me. I’m commin’ for ya. Got my word. We’re mobilizin’ now.”

“Okay. Here.” I hand the man the phone. “My fiancé wants to talk with you.”

After the cab fills with several affirmative sounding grunts and head nods that Beau couldn’t possibly see, the old man flips the cell closed and hands it back to me. “Put this back in the box, little lady.” I do immediately. At the same time hearing the snap of the latch on the glovebox the old man speaks up. “I’m supposed to take you somewhere public and stay with you, so we’re heading to IHOP.” The pickup rolls to a stop at a four-way intersection. Dirt having replaced the gravel about a mile back. He idles a few moments and the truck vibrates. Then the old man pulls away from the stop sign. “Feel like pancakes. You feel like pancakes?”

No, I don’t really feel like eating pancakes, I don’t really feel like eating at all. But as I’m currently expecting and the man continues to be so gracious about the situation he’s found himself in from just doing a good deed and stopping—a good deed he’ll probably think twice about repeating from now on thanks to me—who am I to rain on his pancake parade? Thus I answer with an emphatic, “Pancakes sound great.”

About twenty-five minutes later, the old man, who’d introduced himself as Lester Greene, sits across from me pouring a berry-flavored syrup over his second stack of all-you-can-eat pancakes while I continue to pick at the only three stack I’d ordered.

My friends could be dead for all I know.

Crass, he’d lost a lot in his life. We’d had some pretty intense late-night conversations over whiskeys for him and ginger ales for me once I suspected I might be pregnant. I’d come to care for him in these seven weeks like the brother I never had.

And Liv? What would I do without Liv in my life?

The room suddenly goes quiet, the silence pulling me from my thoughts enough that I turn my attention to the door along with the rest of the patrons. That’s when I see Blue, Levi and Blaze scanning the room and let out a gasp of pure relief when Levi’s eyes lock with mine. A Lords cut commands a room. Any room. And these three men, even being prospects, are no different.

Lester Greene stands once they reach our table. The wrinkling around his eyes and pursed lips tell me that even at his age, he’s willing to go to battle to protect me, even in the face of badass bikers.

“You the man I talked to on the phone?” he asks Levi.

“No Sir, he’s been detained on important business. He’s put us in charge of gettin’ Elise back to safety,” Levi says.

Lester Greene turns to me. “You know these boys? You okay with going with them? I’ll have the cops here before they can drag you out to their bikes.”

“Yes, these are my friends. I’m good with going with them. Thank you so much, Lester.” I stand from my seat and walk the two steps to where Lester Greene partially guards me. A farmer in his dirtied farmer’s overalls and red and black-checkered flannel shirt, no weapon, wielding only his sense of decency as his sword.

Respect for Lester Greene. So much respect for Lester Greene that I swipe my thumb over his aged skin, briefly resting my forehead against his soft, silver hair, then kiss his cheek.

“We owe you anything for takin’ care of our girl?” Blue asks.

“No son, you do not.” Those weathered eyes, which had looked so soft on me moments before, turn hard and glaring at Blue. “A man should never need compensation for doing the right thing. And taking care of this lovely young lady was and remains the right thing.”

Levi’s quick to smooth things over. “Not trying to ruffle any feathers, here. We’re just grateful to you and want to show our gratitude. At least let us pay for breakfast. It’s the least we can do for you getting our Elise back to us.”

Without waiting for a response, Levi pulls his wallet, secured to his belt loop by a thick silver chain, from his back pocket and drops two twenties on the table. It’s way more than the price of our breakfast, and Lester only glances ruefully at the bills but doesn’t pick them up, which means our waitress will have a good tip day.

One last goodbye to Lester Greene, and Levi guides me by the hand out to Beau’s pickup. Blue leads and Blaze takes up the tail. I’d say I have badass biker-in-training bodyguards, but who am I kidding. I’ve seen these guys in action. They might not be full brothers yet, but they are full badass bikers, nonetheless. And in the same formation they walked me out of the restaurant, Blue mounts his bike, taking off in the lead, then Levi and I follow next in the truck and Blaze on his ride, takes the rear.

We’ve only just turned right out of the parking lot and driven maybe a mile down the road when Levi’s cell starts blowing up. At the first red light he answers.

“Shit!” His response sharpens the edge I’ve been on since I came to in that old farmhouse, an edge that had only started to dull when her bikers showed in the IHOP.

He hangs up, dialing Blue. His one-word clipped into the line, “Shipyard.” Then he hangs up on him without a sign off. Repeating the same with Blaze, “Shipyard.”

When the light goes green, the boys speed off, weaving in and out through traffic. “Hold on tight,” Levi finally addresses me, shifting down more like navigating the Daytona International Speedway than a busy boulevard. “Change of plans, Boss needs us at the shipyard. When we get there, you stay in the truck and keep the doors locked until one of the brothers you know comes to you. Get me?”

Get me? Here I sit, totally freaking out inside, those pancakes a regret waiting to happen. And he expects an answer? The gurgle my stomach makes suggests that regret might appear sooner than later.

“Elise? You get me?” He repeats himself.

His tone startles me out of the fear stupor. I swallow back the breakfast on the verge or resurfacing. I’m a Brimstone Lady, I can’t lose it, at least not yet. “Get you.”

“Nope. Beau says I need the words from you, or it don’t count.”

Really? At a time like this, Beau’s going to worry about me lying to him? Fine then. I give him what he wants to hear. “When we get there I stay inside the truck ‘til one of the brothers I know comes to get me.”

“Good girl,” he says.

Fear replaced by irritation, I reach over and punch his shoulder. Not hard, but satisfying. “Don’t be patronizing. Remember I’m older than you, buddy.”

He only laughs. So I narrow my eyes at him. Bikers.

When he turns into the shipyard, the scene looks right out of a movie where the protagonist finds his way to one of those bike rallies, there are so many Harleys scattered everywhere. Also scattered everywhere are their riders, so many Lord’s cuts. All in black leather, all sporting the flaming devil head, only some with Illinois rockers, some with Kentucky and even some from as far away as Missouri. I didn’t even know they had a Missouri chapter.

Both Blue and Blaze park then hop off their bikes. Before he leaves too, Levi turns to me. “Remember, Elise, doors locked. Only brothers you know.” That’s all I get. He swings open the door and slides out, slamming the door behind him.

I, being the ever dutiful biker old lady, do as directed by my badass biker friend who was given his command by my own personal badass biker, and reach over to lock his door after making sure mine is secure.

Now the waiting commences. I watch through the windshield of Beau’s truck as the bulk of the men take off toward a pier at the end of one of the shipping lanes.

Please let Livvy be safe.

Please let Crass be safe.