REBEL
I started out murdering people from a very early age, killing my mother as I made my way out of her body. I took a twenty-two-year sabbatical after that. Since then, I’ve put a good many people in the ground. I like to console myself sometimes, when I’m feeling shitty about things, by reminding myself who those people were. They were violent, evil men. Men who made a living from the abuse of others much smaller or weaker than they were. Afghanistan left me with a zero tolerance for that kind of thing. It’s just not in me to let it slide.
As Sophia’s showering, I’m wondering whether I should start by telling her how many people I’ve shot or stabbed, y’know, just to get it out of the way. Shay comes by the cabin with the clothes I asked her to go buy first thing this morning; she’s weighted down by all the bags she’s holding in her arms, and she’s mighty pissed off. But then, that’s her usual expression: resting bitch face.
She doesn’t step foot inside the cabin. She just dumps everything at her feet, blowing her bright pink hair back out of her face. I can barely keep track of what color her hair is from week to week normally, but the fluoro pink seems to be sticking. Propping a hand on one hip, she casts a disgusted look at all of the bags at her feet and sighs. “You realize, this is probably very, very unhealthy, boss.”
“What is?’
“You, hoarding women’s clothing. I knew you were kinky, but I never knew you were balls-out weird.”
“They’re not for me, Shay.”
She lifts her eyebrows, nodding slowly. “Uh-huh. That’s what my Uncle Donald used to say. He likes to be called Princess now. He’s married to some guy down in the Florida Keys. Left his wife and kids. The works.”
“Shay?”
“Yeah?”
“Leave.”
She eyes the bags one more time. “None of that shit’s my style, y’know. If it ain’t right, you can’t blame me.” She saunters off the cabin porch and starts to climb the ridge back over to the compound, hips swinging as she goes. I’m pretty sure she knows I have a girl in here. She just doesn’t want confirmation. We had a thing once. A thing where I fucked her and she decided she wanted to be my old lady. That’s not how Widowers work out, though. I don’t need an old lady. I need an equal who will still shoot someone in the face for me if I need them to.
Shay was feisty from the moment I inked her into the club to the moment I sunk my dick into her on top of the pool table, but the moment she fell asleep on me I knew I’d made a horrible fucking mistake. She changed in a heartbeat. The fire I’d seen in her went out. She wanted to spoon and shit. She wanted to be subservient in all things, and while I do like that in the bedroom, I don’t wanna have an empty fucking vessel following me around, day in, day out, waiting for me to tell them what to fucking do.
I gather up the bags Shay left behind and carry them inside the cabin, tipping out the contents one by one. Winter in Alabama isn’t that cold. I told Shay to pick up thin sweaters and jeans. T-shirts and dressy tops. Some boots and some lighter shoes. I leave the last bag zipped up—a garment bag, presumably containing the eveningwear I told Shay to get. I shove everything into the duffel bag I’ve already packed with my stuff, folding the garment bag neatly on top, and then I wait for Sophia to come out of the bathroom.
I’m getting seriously fucking impatient by the time she eventually creeps out, wrapped in a towel. She stares at me, defiance written all over her face, and says, “I don’t have anything else to—” She sees the underwear, pair of jeans, light shirt and Chuck Taylors I’ve left out for her on the bed and shuts up. I pick up the duffel and sling it over my shoulder.
“I’ll be outside.” I’m feeling pretty damn smug as I sit on the steps outside the cabin, waiting for her. I don’t know why I’m taking such perverse, intense pleasure in one-upping her, but I am. It might have something to do with the fact that no one ever questions me. No one ever challenges me, and it feels fucking awesome.
I feel less awesome when my cell phone starts ringing and I find Maria Rosa’s name on the caller display, though. “Fuck!” I should have called her already to tell her which of her options we were going with. I definitely should not have left it so long that she is now calling me.
“Maria Rosa,” I say. “Sorry to have kept you waiting.”
“I assume you know how much I like waiting, uh?” She sounds bored, but she must be fuming. She’s about to get even madder. “What have you decided, my love? What are you offering in return for my help?”
I take a deep breath. “Nothing.”
The line goes utterly silent. I hold my tongue, waiting for her to say something. To acknowledge that she’s even still there, let alone that she heard what I said.
Eventually, I hear a sharp scraping sound on the other end of the line—sounds like fingernails down a chalkboard. “So you expect me to help you for free? Is that what you mean to say?”
“No, Mother. I’m saying we can’t afford to start fucking around with a federal agency. And we won’t hand over the Widowers for your personal use, either. That’s what you want from us, and it’s not possible. So we’ll go without your help if we have to.”
“You’re an arrogant motherfucker, Rebel. You think I couldn’t smash your little club into the dirt if I wanted to? You’re pathetic.”
This is not going well. “Oh, Mother. Of course you could, but I’m hoping you won’t. If you do that, we won’t be friends anymore. I’d have to retaliate, and you’d do the same. It would be the start of a vicious cycle. And let me tell you, you may think my club is small, but it can be really fucking vicious.”
“Pssshh. You’re threatening me?”
“No. I’m just politely retracting my request for assistance.”
“You couldn’t be polite if your life depended on it, motherfucker.” The tone of her voice changes, then, softening. “But I understand. You don’t need my help, anymore? Fine. I’ll let you handle Hector on your own. But I’m a business woman, my love. When you’re up to your balls in hot water and you can’t fucking see a way out—that’s when you’ll call me again. And my prices will be a hell of a lot higher than they are now, I swear that to you.”
I smile, even though I have absolutely no reason to. “I won’t call, Mother. I never do. It’s kind of my thing.” I don’t know if she hangs up first or I do. All I know is my phone is in my hands and I’m staring down at the blank screen, wondering what just happened. Maria Rosa is a complete psycho. She could either take severe offence at what’s just gone down or she could have forgotten about it by next week. A person can never tell with her. This whole situation is one gigantic motherfucking head fuck.
The sound of the door clicking shut behind me has me reaching for my damn gun again. Sophia backs into the closed door when she sees the look on my face. “I’m sorry. You said you’d be waiting, so I came out.”
I stand, cracking my knuckles one at a time. I’ve been doing that since I was a teenager—a coping mechanism, a ritual I complete when I’m on the verge of flying off the handle. Saved me from kicking Dad’s ass about twenty or thirty times, that’s for sure. “Come on, let’s go.” I snatch up the bag and heft it onto my shoulder, setting off to the right, toward the flat, graveled area where we park cars and motorcycles that won’t fit into the compound. I don’t check to see if she’s following. She better fucking had be, though. I’ve just given Maria Rosa the flick, so now Sophia’s our only option. I will pick her up and toss her the fuck over my shoulder if I have to. My boots skid down the loose shale slope that drops away in front of the cabin. I’m almost at the bottom when I hear the cautious, sliding steps of someone coming down after me.
Good. She’s doing as she’s told. I wait for her, no more than ten seconds, and then I’m walking again, around the buttress of a tessellated rock formation that shields the parking area from view. The Humvee’s right where Cade left it when he got back from our little road trip. Alongside the gleaming black beast, a not-so-shit-hot Dodge Charger—blue, rusting wheel arches, a total bomb—has been up on blocks for the past eight weeks. Carnie keeps saying he’s going to fix her up, but so far all he’s done is sit in the driver’s seat and smoke pot for hours on end. If the fucking thing isn’t either souped-up and ready to roll or completely gone by the time we get back, I’m towing it out into the desert and firebombing the fucking thing. I throw the bag into the back of the Hummer, growling under my breath.
“Am I allowed to sit back there?” Sophia asks. Her arms are folded across her body, but she’s not defensive. She’s unsure. I don’t have time to be arguing over stupid shit with her right now, so I just shrug.
“Whatever you need, Miss Daisy.” She goes to sit on the driver’s side in the back and I grab her by the shoulders and forcibly redirect her to the passenger’s side. “I know you’re a pretty smart girl, so stop planning stupid shit.” She’s seen too many action movies. I’m willing to put good money on the fact that she thinks she can try and subdue me from behind while we’re driving or something, and that isn’t gonna happen. Not without one or both of us dying horribly when I flip the damn car. Her look of irritation only proves my suspicions.
I bundle her in the car and hop into the driver’s seat, starting the engine. She stares out of the car window, the muscles in her throat working overtime as she clearly tries to come up with another scheme to get herself out of this situation. I hit the lock button, and all four doors to the vehicle respond instantly, thunking closed. They won’t open until I hit that button again. Sophia gives me a tired roll of her eyes—I see it in the rearview as I speed away from the compound and the rest of the Widow Makers. We’re silent for a long time. Surprisingly, she breaks the silence first.
“How long does it take to get to Alabama?”
“’Bout nineteen hours.” I look in the rearview again and catch the stricken look on her face.
“I am so sick of being trapped in cars. Why do you insist on driving everywhere? It’d probably take a couple of hours on a plane, max.”
She’d fucking love that—me trying to herd her through TSA. Her screaming about my holding her captive. Me getting my ass thrown into jail. I reach behind me, shifting so I can grab my gun from my waistband. “I don’t know of any airlines that will let me take this as carry on,” I tell her, holding up the Glock I stole from my father when I was twenty-four. The night Laura went missing.
Sophia tries not to react, but I see her eyes go wide in the mirror. I’m used to being around guns now. Something feels off if I don’t feel the weight of the Glock at the base of my spine at all times. For Sophia, a weapon like that is something to be afraid of. For me, it’s a necessary accessory that enables me to get through my day without ending up dead.
“You should be careful with that,” Sophia tells me, angling her body so her back’s half turned to me. Looks uncomfortable. I laugh, returning the Glock to my waistband.
“You think I don’t know how to handle a gun?”
“My dad’s an anesthesiologist. He’s sat in on so many surgeries where guys have been shot in the feet. In the thighs. In the junk.” She seems especially pleased with that one. “All because the assholes tuck their piece into their pants like a G. So fucking stupid.”
I’ve heard her curse before, but this time it actually registers—the Widowers have plenty of groupies, women who aren’t exactly what you’d call ladies. The language on some of them could rival any of the club members. It’s not that I think chicks shouldn’t swear, but there’s something about Sophia. It’s just seriously entertaining when she does it.
“What the hell are you grinning about up there?” she snaps. I forget that since I can see her, she can see me in the mirror, too.
“Absolutely nothing. Just enjoying the scenery.” Ironic, since we’re staring at scrub and dirt and not much else for miles.
“You’re just like them, y’know? The men my dad used to come home talking about. Reckless. Selfish. People like you don’t give a shit about anybody else.”
“I might be those things, Soph, but just to set your mind at ease…I’m not stupid enough to blow my own balls off just because I shove my gun down my pants.”
“Oh, I feel so much better knowing that.”
“I’m glad.”
“You’ll excuse me if I choose not to believe you, though. You don’t strike me as the intelligent type.”
“I don’t?”
“You probably didn’t even finish high school.”
The irony of this statement almost has me wheezing. “Oh, sweetheart…”
“I’m not your sweetheart. And don’t call me Soph, either. I don’t like it.”
I hold my hands up. “All right. Whatever you want, One Eighty-One.” She kicks the back of my chair, lashing out hard enough that I actually feel the dig in my back.
“You’re a son a bitch,” she growls. “I’ve never met anyone as infuriating as you.”
Cade told me to flirt with the girl to get her on side, but at this rate I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t claw my eyes out instead. I just can’t help but bait her, though. The opportunity is just too good to pass up. There was a time when the old me would have knocked the new me out stone-cold for even talking to a woman the way I talk to her. But life’s a roll of the dice, and people need to evolve to survive. That guy doesn’t even exist anymore. I buried him under the dirt floor of a barn somewhere between San Antonio and Floresville, Texas.
“Just thank your lucky stars you’re not riding with Raphael Dela Vega right now.” I tilt the rearview so I can’t see her anymore. We can’t carry on like this. The whole point of this trip is to win her over to our side, not to alienate her even further. I’m gonna have to implement the age old practice of thinking before I speak. Trouble is, I’ve never been very good at that.
******
SOPHIA
Yeah, the guy’s a douche bag, but he’s right: I am glad I’m riding with him and not Raphael. And the more time I spend with him, the more I can read him. Rebel’s not the type of guy I’d ever hang out with voluntarily back home, but despite the way he looks—the tattoos, the hard set to his jaw, the ice in his eyes—I get the feeling that he’s not a violent man by nature. And it makes no sense that I believe he’ll release me once we’re done in Alabama, but I do believe it. More fool me. I could be setting myself up for a devastating disappointment, but what was I supposed to do? Hang around their clubhouse and potentially get gang raped by a bunch of bikers? Not happening. I’d rather take my chances with Rebel. At least there’s only one of him.
Two hours pass, and neither of us says a word. I think about my family, about Mom, and Dad, and Sloane, and how they’re definitely going out of their minds by now. I feel terrible. My heart is still aching with the pain of it all when Rebel pulls off the highway and kills the car engine.
We’re in the middle of nowhere, no buildings in sight as far as I can see. I can think of no good reason why he’d pull over here, and yet he has. Panic flares through me. “What are we doing?”
Rebel twists in his seat, throwing his arm over the back of the passenger chair so he can look at me properly. He runs his hand through his hair, brushing it back, the action an absentminded one. I find my stomach twisting in a most unnatural way—a reaction I do not appreciate.
So.
Time to get this over with.
The guy is hot.
I’ve done everything I can think of to not think that way, but it’s hopeless. He can be an ass and he can be rude, and I can want to punch him in his face, but that won’t change the fact that he’s smoking hot. He has a small dimple in his left cheek, lower than it should probably be to make him cute. It deepens into a small line when he smiles, a little crooked imperfection that breaks the symmetry of his face and draws my eyes to his mouth. I can’t stop looking at his mouth. I even turned away from him entirely when we first got into the car, but that lasted all of five seconds, and now here I am staring right at his lips again.
“We’re having a bathroom break is what we’re doing. You wanna go first or should I?”
I can just tell he’s waiting for me to kick up a fuss about dropping my brand-new jeans and peeing out in the open. He has no idea how many church camps I’ve been on, though. “I’ll go first. Are you sure you aren’t gonna come with me? Stand guard in case I make a run for it mid-stream?”
He just laughs. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and trust you.” A chunking sound echoes around the car—he’s unlocked the doors. I unfasten my seatbelt and climb out of the car, headed straight for the back of the Humvee. The massive vehicle is plenty big enough for me to squat down behind without him seeing a thing. It doesn’t take me long to finish up. I take a moment to stretch out my legs, though. I’m not used to all of this sitting down. Back in Seattle, I run track. I go rock climbing with Matt.
Oh my god, Matt.
My insides knot when I realize how badly he must be freaking out right now. Mom and Dad, too. It’s only been three or four days—with the head injury I suffered, it’s hard to be sure—but that will feel like an eternity to my parents. Sloane will be going out of her mind. She’s always been so overprotective of me, always thought of me as her responsibility.
I look up, pulling a deep breath into my lungs—the sky’s so damn blue. Feels wrong somehow. The driver’s side door opens to the Humvee, and Rebel climbs out of the car, sliding on a pair of shades. “Come here for a moment,” he says.
“Where?”
“Here.” He jerks his head toward the other end of the car. Stepping on top of the tire, he climbs up onto the hood of the Humvee and holds his hand out to me, offering to help me up.
“Why are we climbing on top of the car?”
He shrugs. “Why not? I need a moment. I’m sure you do, too.”
I look at his hand, suddenly exhausted by all of this. By thoughts of my poor, worrying parents. By thoughts of how to keep them safe. How to get away. How to cope. It all seems so…insurmountable. I take his hand, allowing him to pull me up onto the hood of the car. I can feel the heat of the engine through the soles of my new Chucks.
Rebel lowers himself so that he’s sitting on the roof of the truck, legs kicked out in front of him, crossed at the ankle. Seems like an odd pose for him; he’s always so rigid, back straight, chest proud. Right now, he looks pretty much how I feel—like he’s on the brink of saying fuck it and giving himself over to the powers that be, because what’s the point in fighting anymore? He nods at the spot next to him, raising an eyebrow.
“You gonna sit down or what?”
I sit down. Arguing with him would be futile. We sit there, side by side, staring off down the arrow-straight road, and for a moment I don’t hate him. He pulls a cell phone out of his pocket and taps something into it, and then he turns to face me, frowning slightly. “You believe in vengeance?”
“You mean like revenge?”
He shakes his head. “Revenge is a selfish act. Retaliation for something. Vengeance is a different thing altogether. It’s about obtaining justice, usually for someone who can’t claim it for themselves.”
This is an odd line of questioning but I decide I’ll bite. Maybe I wouldn’t if he were being a jerk like he was a couple of hours ago, but that’s not what’s happening. He’s pensive, the live wire that apparently runs through him dulled for the moment. “I don’t know,” I say. “Probably, in that case.”
“What if I simplified the question? What if I say, do you believe in justice?
“Then, yes, I do believe.”
“Okay.” Rebel fiddles with his cell phone again, and then he’s showing me a picture on the screen—a picture of the silver-haired man I watched die back in Seattle. He has a huge grin on his face, wearing a really bad Christmas sweater with reindeer on it, and a small kid is sitting on his knee. A baby, really. A little girl. She’s smiling so wide her little fat cheeks are round like apples. Can’t be any more than two years old.
“That’s Maddie,” Rebel says. “She’s older now, but not by much. She’s my cousin, but she might as well be my little sister. Ryan,” he points at the man in the picture, “Ryan got married late. His wife Estelle was in her forties when she had Maddie—surprise kid. They found out she had breast cancer at the same time, and she refused treatment so she could keep the kid. She hung on for three weeks after, got to hold her daughter in her arms, be a mom a little before she went. I guess that’s some consolation.”
I look at the picture, knowing what he’s doing. He wants me to testify so badly that he’s willing to pull the old poor-kid’s-mother-died-when-she-was-born-and-now-her-dad’s-dead-too card. It’s shitty and it’s underhanded. And it’s kind of working. “Who’s taking care of her now?”
“The state of Washington Child Services. She’ll be placed into a care home soon. At worst, some fucking drunk with a penchant for touching small kids will get her. She’ll grow up thinking it’s normal for Daddy Steve to touch her in her special fucking places. At best, she’ll be given to some down-and-out family who don’t give a shit about her so long as the government keeps on sending through the checks.”
“And how will me standing up in court and testifying against Raphael and Hector change that? If you’re so worried about her upbringing, Rebel, why the hell aren’t you petitioning for custody of her? She’s your blood relative right? You just said she’s your cousin.” Which makes the man in the photo, Ryan, his uncle. Rebel’s refusal to let this drop suddenly makes a whole lot more sense. His uncle. God, this gets more and more fucked up by the day.
“I can’t have her with me,” he says flatly.
“Why not? You afraid looking after a kid’s gonna cramp your style? That’s pretty fucking selfish.”
He clenches his jaw, clearing the picture from his cell phone screen and sliding it back into his pocket. I can tell I’ve made him angry just by the way he’s pressing his knuckles into the roof of the car. “I have a criminal record, Sophia. I live on a compound out in the middle of nowhere with a group of people who all have rap sheets as long as your arms. I’m not fucking evil. If I could take her, I would.”
I’ve accused him of being an asshole from the moment I met him. Turns out I’m an asshole, too. “I’m sorry, okay. I just—”
“A guy in my position, looking like I do, involved in the shit I’m running…you made an assumption about me. An assumption anyone else would make, too. Don’t sweat it. But know, the reason why I’m doing this…the reason why I’m going to convince you to do what I’m asking, isn’t because of me. Not because the man who helped raise me was murdered and I’m pissed about it. Which I am. But because I want justice. Justice for Ryan, because he didn’t get to watch his little girl grow up. And justice for Maddie, because of the shitty hand she’s just been dealt.” He slides off the roof of the car, jumping to the ground. I can hear him pissing against the side of the car. For the moment, I just stay where I am, eyes fixed on some vague, not-there point in the distance.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know how he expects me to choose between helping him and keeping my family safe. This is the first time that I’ve even found myself considering it, and the prospect is terrifying. If I testify, they find out my real name. They can track down my family and Raphael can make good on his promise, regardless of whether he’s behind bars or not. He’s the type of man who will find a way.
Rebel taps the hood of the Humvee—I can almost see the dark cloud hanging over him. “Come on, we gotta go.”
“What would you do?”
He looks up at me, eyes sharp. Pained. “What do you mean?”
“If you were in my position, what would you do? If it were Ryan and Maddie who were in danger, would you risk their lives just because it was the right thing to do?”
“Our situations are a little different, sweetheart.”
“How so?”
“I would kill anyone that threatened my family with my bare fucking hands. It would never be an issue.” He opens the driver’s side door and leans against it. “If you do what I’m asking, Sophia, I will do the same thing for you. I swear to God and all things holy, before you right here and now, I will spill the blood of every single member of Los Oscuros before I allow a single one of your family members to come to harm.”