No one could find Gabe. That was problem number one. It seemed like the little weasel had skipped town with his pretty boy face to go swindle someone else. They first tried knocking on the door, opting to go in broad daylight when The Black Death guys were likely to be gone. There was no answer. Chance tried several times until Moose got impatient and worked at picking the lock. When the door opened, they were met with an empty apartment. An empty apartment and no sign of their money anywhere.
“I can make some calls,” Moose said. “We can try and track him.”
“We make our hunt for him too obvious and it might give us away,” Chance said.
“So what do we do then? The little punk owes us a couple thousand. That’s not pocket change,” Moose said.
Chance wasn’t even sure what he was suggesting himself. They needed to get the money back from Gabe to make sure their reputation didn’t suffer. Loan sharks who couldn’t get their money back had very little future in the business. The additional problem was having no money to bargain with The Black Death with.
“We need to regroup. Send some guys out to look for this fucker but otherwise keep it on the down low,” he said.
Moose nodded and headed off to fulfill the orders while Chance went to meet with Link at the clubhouse. This was such a fucked up situation and one he wanted to avoid the second he became the chapter president. He didn’t want to get caught up in prostitution and drugs and now he was ready to break a guy’s knees to get money so he could buy back a girl sold into a prostitution ring. He told himself he was using his powers for good. He was doing this to get her freedom back, not to turn her into some pass-around girl for his gang. But he still had to get mixed up in it all. The Knights would forever be tied to The Black Death through this deal. He hadn’t saved anything for the gang. He’d only managed to get them dragged deeper into a world they were trying to escape.
He hit the accelerator on his bike and sped through traffic, dodging stopped cars and running some questionable yellow lights as cars honked at him. He pulled into Ruby’s diner where he saw Link’s bike was already parked. He pulled into next to him and took a moment to let out a sigh and relax himself before getting off the bike, removing his helmet, and walking into the diner.
“He’s in the back corner,” Jess said when he walked in, blowing a bubble with her gum, popping it with a loud crack, and not looking up from her phone.
He moved back to the usual table and saw Link sitting there with a beer bottle, half finished, sitting in front of him.
“A little early on a Tuesday to be drinking,” Chance said, nodding to the beer.
“I’m self-medicating,” he said, tipping the bottle back against his lips and taking another sip. “What do we have?”
“The punk skipped town or is dead. Either way he’s got whatever money he owes us with him because we can’t find a damn cent,” he said. “And it’s only a matter of time before The Black Death gets particularly antsy about the whole affair. We need a cleanup plan if this all goes south.”
“I can get the money for the girl. That’s not a problem.”
“You want us to pay out of the gang’s bank to buy this girl back?” he asked. “How do you think that’s going to go over?”
“I don’t really care how it goes over and neither should you,” Link said, slamming his bottle down and earning a few stares from people near them. “You’re the chapter president. You don’t answer to anyone except yourself. You don’t ask their permission, you tell them what you’re going to do. If we need to shell out a couple thousand from our savings to take care of this mess, we’ll do it.”
Chance couldn’t help but feel like Link was actually telling him what to do. He couldn’t say he disagreed though. He wanted this handled, he wanted it behind them. He wanted Hannah safe and back in school so she could go become that amazing lawyer she said she was going to be because, whether he admitted it or not, he kind of believed in that dream for her.
“You get the money, I’ll organize the meeting,” Chance said.
Link smiled and nodded, giving him a small salute.
***
It seemed like no woman in Chance’s life wanted to give her a shot. If she felt Kat was cold and quiet to her, her daughter was even worse. Scout Cooper seemed to have only one facial expression: total glare. She was constantly watching Hannah. Throughout the day she moved around the house and Hannah stayed put, taking notes from her textbook on the couch. The girl was younger, not a child, but certainly younger than her and chance and too young to look so angry the whole time.
She introduced herself as Chance’s younger sister first and Ben’s old lady second. Hannah didn’t really understand what they meant by “old lady.” She could gather enough to understand it was a term for a partner, in biker language. But she didn’t know quite what it entailed and imagined it was a little bit more intense than having a Facebook official relationship status.
“You going to be a lawyer or something?” Scout asked, nodding to the text book in Hannah’s lap.
“That’s the idea.”
“Lawyers are crooks.”
“Only the bad ones.”
“There are no good lawyers.”
She knew the girl was trying to bait her, trying to rile up. She wanted to get Hannah to snap and she wasn’t about to fall for it. She concentrated on her notes and the Hannahe sentence she’d read several times in a row now thanks to Scout’s constant comments.
“Let her study,” Kat said from the kitchen. “Come help me get these cookies together.”
Scout got up and walked away, giving Hannah once last stink eye before leaving the room entirely and going into the kitchen. Soft jazz music was playing from the radio in there and it gave Hannah something to focus in on. She listened to music often when she worked and read for school. It helped her keep her eyes on the page and she let the music in the kitchen do that for her now, despite the sounds of talking and laughter that occasional burst in to interrupt her thoughts.
She took Scout’s words as fuel. She was going to be an amazing lawyer because the world needed one and that was going to be her. Scout’s provocation had the opposite effect the girl intended, instead making Hannah eager and ready to take on the road block in her way.
She worked in the living room for what must have been hours based on the way the sun seemed to be moving through the sky and getting closer and closer to the horizon. She was only pulled out of it when she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Kat standing over her.
“I think you’ve earned a break kid,” she said. “Why don’t you get something to eat?”
She almost wanted to ask if it was going to be poisoned, she wouldn’t put it past Scout to spit in her food or pour some hot pepper just to watch her eyes water. Still, her stomach was grumbling. She decided to risk it as she stood up for the first time in hours and felt her bones creak. She let herself stretch out and heard the cracks as her joints moved into place once more.
“Do some yoga or something once in a while,” Kat said. “Those joints sound worse than mine.”
Hannah smiled and walked into the kitchen behind her. Scout was in there, sitting at the table nibbling at a cookie and shooting a glare Hannah’s way as she came in. She tried not to roll her eyes too hard as she ignored her, walking in and sitting down. Kat placed a plate in front of her and offered to make her a sandwich.
“I’ve got the old standbys:PB&J, ham, salami, take your pick,” she said.
“Surprise me?”
She smirked, nodded, and went into the fridge to pullout ingredients. Hannah turned back to face the table and help preserve the surprise.
“So how long you been a hooker?” Scout asked.
“Scout, watch it,” Kat said before Hannah could even frown at the comment. “None of this is her fault. We’re on her side.”
“Chance is using all his resources to try and get this girl back to her life when I don’t see how it’s our problem,” she said.
“There is no ‘our,’” Kat said. “You’re not in the gang, you don’t have a say. Drop it or I’ll make sure you drop it.”
Hannah sat that awkwardly, making emotionless eye contact with Scout. She wasn’t going to be scared out of her own ability to control her gaze just because some twenty-something thought she was hot shit and was going to talk about in her in the third person like she wasn’t there at all.
“I’m grateful for all this help,” Hannah said. “I mean. I know it’s weird and frustrating and we’re all in kind of a crappy situation but I don’t know what I’d do without Chance looking out for me. I might be three guys into a gang rape at this point.”
She shuddered. She owed a lot to Chance, as frustrating as he had been the first few days she knew him. So she’d play nice with his family even if his family didn’t want to necessarily play nice with her. Kat seemed to be warming up to her, or at least putting on the mom PR face that she used whenever she didn’t like one of her son’s friends but couldn’t outright be truthful about it.
“That’s not something you need to thank us for,” Kat said. “Any decent human being would help in a situation like that. We’re here for you dear.”
As if to punctuate the sentiment she brought over the sandwich, placing it in front of Hannah. It was peanut butter and jelly, something Hannah was secretly hoping she’d make. Must be a mother’s intuition with stuff like that.
She dug in greedily, not realizing how hungry she was until the food touched her tongue for the first time and it felt like heaven itself had just invaded her mouth and stomach. She may have even let out a moan but chose to ignore it in favor of getting as much of the sandwich in her mouth as fast as possible.
“You must have been hungry, kid,” Kat laughed.
“Usually my meals consist of protein bars when I let myself take a two minute break during study,” she said.
“You’re really dedicated to school.”
“I have to be. You don’t just cruise through law school. It’s a lot of hard work and takes a long time. I’m trying to make it take as little time as possible.
“Want out of school that bad?” Scout asked.
“I want to be doing my job of helping people as fast as possible,” Hannah said and took another bite of the sandwich.
After that the mood seemed to change. Kat talked more, talked about her cookie recipe, how Chance could pretend to be a big bad gang leader but he always turned to putty for her homemade cookies. Hannah filed that away as well along with the information about him being a total mama’s boy. She’d have an entire archive of things to make fun of him for by the time he got back later tonight.
On the next batch, Kat asked if Hannah wanted to help out, get in on the cookie making. She couldn’t bring herself to refuse. She’d never really gotten the chance to bake cookies with her own mother. Her childhood had been a bit too tumultuous for any of that. Homemade cookies were not really part of the narrative of her life. But she jumped at the opportunity now, laughing along with Kat and even Scout when she failed at even doing the most simple task of cracking eggs.
***
Chance tapped his fingers nervously on the table. He never liked being in the clubhouses of other gangs. They smelled strange, they looked strange, the furniture and colors were all in the wrong spot. He was like a dog hovering near a foreign fire hydrant that had already been claimed. He fidgeted more than he should. It didn’t look good for the calm he was trying to get across but he wasn’t exactly calm.
Hannah technically belonged to The Black Death, but they hadn’t even seen proof of their product yet. Convincing them to sell her to another gang was going to difficult, especially without arousing suspicion. Why would a rival gang offer money up for something they weren’t even sure existed? It was a tough spot. But Chance had to find a way to swing the deal.
“We’re not in the interest of selling off our fresh new product,” said Tank, the chapter president. “Besides, I thought you were getting all righteous with the Knights, wanting to get out of sex trade.”
“I did,” he said, watching Tank flick the butt of his cigarette into the ash tray. “I do. This is a personal thing. A gift for a friend.”
Ben was next to him and not making any of this any easier, glaring the entire time. He wasn’t happy about the plan and gave Chance a whole “I told you so speech” about how he should have just taken the girl. Chance pointed out that still was no guarantee that Gabe would have the money and Ben just wanted a girl to fuck, reminding him Chance’s own younger sister was his old woman. Ben rolled his eyes and shook off the veiled accusations.
Since then they’d been quiet, Ben sitting there with his arms crossed and a very unbecoming pout adorning his face. It wasn’t doing much for their negotiations and Link looked like he was ready to drag Ben outback and beat the look right off his face.
“And I’m supposed to want to do you a favor?” Tank asked. “What have you ever done for me?”
“I’m not asking for favors,” Chance said. “I’m willing to pay for the girl. She’s just special to my pouty friend here.”
“What? She his fucking high school sweetheart or some shit?” he asked.
“Something like that.”
Tank took a long drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke directly into their faces, laughing as Chance’s eyes watered in the billow of smoke.
“You ain’t your daddy, that’s for sure, kid,” he said, letting out a wheezing laugh and Chance felt himself getting hot under the collar, his fists clenching. “No deal. Got give me some better reasons than these.”
Chance wanted to get up and flip the table. He wanted to smash every beer bottle that littered the club house and he wanted to punch Tank and Ben in the face. He held it all in though. A hissy fit wasn’t going to solve anything and it wasn’t going to make anyone change their minds. He sighed, nodded, and got up with Ben and Link following after. Moose was waiting outside for them, hovering near the bikes and watching a few kids loitering a little too close for his liking.
“How’d it go, boss?” Moose asked.
“No dice,” Link said. “Moose head with me back to the club house. We need to regroup.”
“Ben and I will check and make sure mom and Scout haven’t totally killed Hannah yet,” Chance said.
“The bitch that annoying?”
“Shut up.”
He didn’t meant to snap so viciously. Ben had been on his nerves all night, he hadn’t helped to make that deal go any smoother—or anywhere at all. And now he was insulting a girl he fully intended on letting get raped by God knows how many men. He wasn’t going to stand for things like this. Ben knew Gabe couldn’t payback that loan. He was hoping to have a little fun with the kid while he worked to get his money back. Now they were all wrapped up in a crappy situation and in a little over their heads over Ben’s poor loan decision with one kid.
Ben was glaring at him again as they got back on their bikes but dutifully kept his mouth shut as he started his engine. They road together back towards Kat’s house. Ben kept a respectful distance behind Chance, as was the custom but got a little too close a few times. They were warnings and Chance wasn’t going to give in. He’d gladly teach Ben a lesson if he had to, make an example out of him for putting them all in this situation and continuing to show disrespect.
They pulled into the driveway and killed their engines, waving cheekily to the neighbors who glared at them. The homeowner’s association had tried several times to get her evicted from the property for gang activity but so far they hadn’t been able to prove anything illegal went on in his mother’s house, so they settled for glaring and talking loudly about how awful they though her kids were.
“We’re back,” Chance called into the house but got no response. Instead he heard laughter coming from the kitchen, the only place in the house where lights seemed to be on.
They walked in to find the kitchen covered in white powder from an exploded flour bag, the culprit was still sitting on the floor. Three women were also sitting on the floor together, clearly toppled over for some reason, laugh their heads off and gasping for air. He’d never seen Scout look so lively before and Hannah looked positively gorgeous while her eyes crinkled and laughter poured out of her throat.
“What in the hell?” Ben mumbled.
“Having fun?” Chance asked.
“Oh, lose the sour faces,” Kat said. “It’s not like you two are going to have to clean it up.”
The girls laughed some more and Chance felt like he walked into some alternative universe of his mother’s house. Nothing made sense. These were not the Hannahe women he left in the house this morning. Those had been quiet, cold women who wanted nothing to do with each other. Now they were helping each other stand up and laughing to the point where it seemed their sides were hurting.
“Hannah’s got quite the stories,” his mother said. “You should get her to tell you about them some time.”
“I’ve lived an interesting life,” she shrugged, smiling.
“All right, all right,” his mother said. “Time to wash up for dinner. And I mean that this time. No one’s getting flour all over my kitchen table, too.”
They shuffled out of the room, Ben grabbing at Scout with a questioning look but she giggled and shook her head at him as she made her way to the bathroom behind her mother. Chance was left in the room with Hannah, flour spattered over her at odd points.
“You got a little,” he pointed to a specific clump that clung to her rosy cheeks and he reached out to brush it away.
He wasn’t sure why he made the effort, she was covered in flour all over, what was a little bit on her cheek going to hurt? But he knew he wanted to touch her, and he was rewarded with heat under his fingertips from her blushing face. The skin beneath the callouses of his fingertips was hot to the touch. He immediately craved it, his fingers lingering there of his own accord. Her face was bright and her eyes even brighter, they seemed to shine with the dull powder surrounding them like a halo, just for him.
Their breath was lingering in the air between them, mixing together so that the heat from it couldn’t be traced. He wasn’t sure which burst of air belonged to him and which belonged to her. He couldn’t tell whose gasp he was swallowing when he took a deep breath moved in towards her, the gap between them lessening and lessening.
“Yo, we need to get this place cleaned up for dinner,” Scout’s voice called, drawing closer and closer.
The moment was gone. In an instant there was a chasm between them made up of stale air. Their breath no longer touching. Chance was backing away farther and farther until he was out of the room completely and moving to the bathroom where he was splashing the coldest water he could get out of the tap into his face and taking the shivers with gusto. He did this until he couldn’t feel his face anymore, until he was sure he somehow managed at least a tiny bit of frost bite from his own frozen water out of the bathroom sink. Only then did he wake up enough to return to the kitchen without looking guilty over knowing exactly what nearly happened.
His lips, however, stayed warm no matter how much ice he tried to throw their way, as if they had kissed her already and were remembering it.