Break Me Open (Desert Wraiths MC) Read online

  "That's the condition for keeping you around?"

  Ghost rolled his shoulders lazily as if they were negotiating a used car. “It’s the condition for keeping us all around."

  Nico's eyes flared. Just for an instant, but I had seen that look plenty of times working at a clinic. That was fear.

  "I know that wasn't a threat pendejo." His voice boomed louder. I wondered how much of this was show for the people watching.

  "It's not a threat, boss," Ghost said. "I'm just telling you the situation."

  "Well, let me tell you the situation we're looking at. I got all sorts of cops sniffing around here, asking about you. Asking about the guy you killed."

  "The guy you had me kill."

  "That's the one. And I don't care how tight that little pixie over there is. I don't care if you got your dick in her all day. She saw what happened and she's not one of us. "

  "That's what we came here to fix."

  Nico's frown deepened. I fidgeted and hoped I hadn't already ruined everything by standing here all meek. Maybe I should be up there swearing at him. I wasn't sure I swore at anybody though.

  Though I had found a few reasons to swear to the walls and ceiling in that motel room the past couple days.

  "She's a city girl," Nico said. "Look at her. No desert grit."

  "I have looked. Much closer than you. She's solid as a mountain on the inside. She'll take what she has to. She's loyal even when she has no cause to be."

  "That's a lot of words to say you two been at it like rabbits."

  "I wouldn't be standing here if it weren't for her.

  "No, you wouldn't." Nico jabbed a hand back at the bar. "You'd be in there with your brothers."

  Through the anger, I could see a flash of pain. The man might prefer me not breathing, but he was no monster. I threatened his family. I'd already taken away the guy he relied on most.

  "I would be with my brothers. But not there." Ghost spat at the earth. "That's the ones I'd be with."

  "What?"

  "I ain't what you think I am, Nico. I'm no god. I should have died with everyone else at the motel."

  "You weren't shot," Nico said, looking him over again, unsure.

  "I shot myself. Full of my chems. Too much. I would have fallen apart if I hadn't stumbled to Katie's house. If she hadn't dosed me with downers instead of calling the cops."

  Nico's eyes fell on me for only the second time, narrowed again, but not in hatred. He was trying to see who I was. I nodded, hoping I was reassuring him and not confirming a flaw.

  The president went back to Ghost. His eyes stopped on his jacket, right where that little patch that said "Vice-president," hung right above one of the ghostly arms of the club emblem. He nodded, as if believing what he read.

  "She did you a solid. Now you're telling me she'll do one for us?"

  "She's on my side. I'll be on yours. We'll both be there, keeping your secret, keeping the Wraiths riding."

  Nico's head bobbed, but he wasn't looking at either of us. I didn't like that. It meant he was thinking. "Ok, then I’ve got terms. She joins right now."

  It was just a twitch, but I saw Ghost's arms go more rigid. "Nico..."

  "Nothing loco. I'm just respecting your wishes. You say she'll ride on our wind. Alright. Then she gets marked as one of us from now on." Nico looked at me. "She gets her ink, right now."

  My ink?

  Nico's eyes weren't augmented but they were keen in their own way. He saw right through to my mind. His hand absently scratched at the star tattoos running down his neck.

  Ink.

  "She doesn't need that." Ghost growled.

  "Her word ain't worth shit to us yet. So how else do we make her ours? This way, she talks, she rots with us."

  Ghost turned to join Nico's continued appraisal. His dark look softened, lifted in a question. It was my turn to read minds, but this was simple.

  Should I start killing people?

  "No," I came forward. "It's fine. It's fair. I'll get ink."

  Ghost cupped my shoulders as I drew near. Those hands had the same soft strength that had assured me and thrilled me while we hid and planned and loved. But now I eased out of them. I walked right past the two men and toward the battered wooden door leading into The Oasis.

  If this was my choice, then I was going to make it boldly. No more hands saving me.

  "Who's got ink?" I said to the watching windows as I stepped in.

  The inside hung dark and sticky like a tropical forest. It stank of beer and smoke, and the little sun that got in didn't make things much prettier. A sea of bearded and leathery faces studied me.

  These are my people now, I told myself. I have to believe these are my people.

  I have to make them believe.

  I forced myself to drown my own emotions and meet their eyes. I wasn't really here. It was just my eyes taking in the scene. It was a technique I'd learned in the clinic, but it worked equally well here

  A woman pushed through the crowd. She had blonde hair that hung in a bleached bun like shredded dough, a ripped white tee, tattered jeans and a tired look. But she was at least another woman in this cloud of testosterone and I loved her for it. Then I noticed she held something sharp, and froze. After the first burst of panic left me, I realized it must be for tattoos.

  "I'm Denise," she said. "I can do you.”

  The needle thrummed like an angry hornet. God, I hated getting stung.

  I nodded, afraid to trust my mouth. Denise led us away, and a path formed.

  "Careful with her," a familiar voice boomed. I turned and saw Ghost's blue eyes alight as he entered the shade of the bar.

  "I'm ok," I mouthed. To him or me, I wasn't sure.

  I returned to my path, but not before I caught a glance at Nico by Ghost's side, his frown reduced to a tight-lipped stance. It looked like as close to a smile as he was likely to have.

  Denise led me back past the bathrooms and the kitchen to a small storage closet. The air stank with chemicals. It reminded me of the med storerooms and put me oddly at ease.

  She shoved me down into a metal chair and sat on a bench next to me, shutting the door. The needle buzz echoed through the room and my heart sounded loud enough to be heard.

  "How big?" I asked, trying to delay that moment. Her arms were inscribed with mosaics of colors. I knew she'd have no sympathy for a newbie.

  "One size," she said. "One design. One location."

  "Where?"

  "Where the whole world can see you're one of us."

  She pulled out a jar of blue ink. I looked all over her, searching for the logo. I had almost given up and tried to meet her gaze, tried to fake strength. And then I saw the blot of blue by her jaw. I followed it and saw the jagged maw of the vapory blue skull on the right side of her neck.

  I was going to be stabbed in the neck. I almost wanted to laugh.

  Denise tied my dark blond hair with a scrunchie and threw it past my shoulder. Her eyes mapped out my soft neck and she leaned in, needle pulsing close to my ear.

  I held my breath and waited for that first sharp point of agony.

  "You ready, honey?"

  Her eyes were tired, unfeeling. But they were blue. Blue enough to remind of bluer ones.

  Ghost had given me an out. He would take them apart. But that would take apart what was left of him. I’d seen it behind his gaze. I was good and I was new, but I wasn’t enough yet. I hadn’t had time to fill his life. So I wasn't going to do that to make him blow it up right now.

  "Yeah," I sighed.

  The needle screamed into my skin. It was all I could do not to join its sound.

  I sat at the edge of my bed for half an hour, watching her chest sink and fall. Her neck roared out at me, angry and red.

  I could have stopped it. I'd splintered the edge of the walls under my grip listening to her whimper. When it was over, I'd carried her to the bunkhouse and let her rest. The feel of a real bed and the pain wiped her out. Or maybe it was knowing
there was no turning back. She had only woken up once for a glass of water.

  I'd passed the rest of the day in the club room, arms folded, listening to everything. Not just the info being passed around between drinks. The way it was said. The words being held back. Nico's little nervous glances my way, as if he didn't truly trust me anymore.

  He shouldn't. All that bravado yesterday had been an act, so I'd let it go, but if he wasn't real careful in issuing orders, then I might just have to rearrange the leadership. We both knew I could, but I preferred to do my own thing without a couple dozen ugly mugs looking to me for advice.

  Well, I wasn't gonna get less angry sitting here.

  A hard 10 mile through the desert burned off some of my temper. I blew right past the measly marker I'd used for my halfway point before. It wasn't just my soul coming back alive with Katie around. My body felt it too. It was a good thing. This whole past week, the fine machinery that the army had put into me seemed to be stopping up. Spiking used to feel like a gunshot down my spine. That gun felt more and more jammed. Eventually I would fire a shot that shattered the barrel.

  The jitters that followed the spikes were coming quicker now, and harder. Maybe I was building up a tolerance. At least, it wasn't a dependency.

  I thrummed into a sprint that suffocated the thoughts from my head. Action had always been my salve for panic. And with a little more action - once the Scorpions skittered back into their Sands and the FBI took their price and went back to their towers - I might never need to spike again. Not that I had an idea of what else I could do instead. All the army ads talked up the skills and tools you'd be trained in during your service. The tools I knew mostly delivered death, and the skills I'd learned were mostly in putting those tools to use.

  But the idea that I should do more… That still sat as fresh on my mind as the sweat did on my skin. The possibility would do for now. Any future that Katie could inhabit was a good one.

  I got back to the room to sneak in a quick shower. The stench of sweat didn't bother me. The ability to relieve it, though, that was still a pure joy. 6 months back from the army and standing under a never-ending cloud of steam and hot liquid still was on my list of most favorite things.

  The girl at the top of the list lay with her eyes open, firmly fixed on me as I emerged from the bathroom in a haze of heat. Her gaze blew over my bare chest like a soft drift of sand. I tried to see what she saw. Other girls had been impressed by the wall of weathered muscle, but her eyes seemed to see beyond that scarred exterior.

  "Still worth it?" I asked.

  She nodded.

  I sat down next to her, so she could take a closer look. Eventually she looked up at my eyes.

  "Did you go to the city?" she asked.

  "No not yet."

  "So everything's still the same," she said, more to herself. "I'm still here."

  "You can go back home soon," I said. "I've got a plan."

  She rubbed at the sore patch on her neck. That was not something she could easily return from.

  "When does the itchiness go away?" she asked.

  "A week, tops. Just think of it as a distraction from the pain.

  "Pain, I can handle. But this is just annoying."

  If it were any other girl, I might smile at her idea of pain. Not many had ever felt their entire spine on fire from chemicals they didn't even need. Katie had a darker understanding of the world though, of how quickly life could rob you of its pleasures. But emotional pain and physical pain were two different beasts.

  "What pain have you handled?" I asked.

  She looked at me curious, then tried to uppercut me with her elbow. I thought she was playing but I noticed a fine line winding up the back of her arm. I traced the scar all the way to her shoulder.

  "You never noticed?" she asked.

  "I didn't think it was a scar. What's this from?"

  She flashed her teeth in a new and dangerous looking grin. "It was a motorcycle accident. I was 14 riding my dad’s and I tried to round a corner. Ended up smacking into the curb. "

  I pressed it firmer, felt the thick scar tissue. Hard to imagine her dainty figure perched on bike. Tough to remember that it was at ease there. She might not be right for this life I led, but she wasn't all soft.

  "Tougher to do that with a chopper," I said.

  "Yeah, not easy to turn at all, you mean."

  I loved that wit, but not enough to keep me from shutting her lips with mine. Her breath tasted mostly fresh, with just a hint of sour. Lack of food.

  "Let's get you some breakfast," I said.

  "Can you send it?" she asked, the lightness dropping off her. "I'm not ready to walk in there."

  "Yeah."

  I tossed on some rags and jogged out to The Oasis. Denise was working the kitchen with another girl and gave me a smirk as I dropped off the order.

  "My my, that girl got you running room service now?"

  "She's still recovering."

  "From a little ink? She's the one who wanted to sign up."

  I wondered if Nico had ever shared with his old lady what the other option was. As long as Denise had been with him and round us, she was much sweeter than a simple biker chick. Tougher too though, in her own way. Not just all talk and leather. I doubted she'd be happy to know what was supposed to have happen to Katie. Which was fine. It meant she didn't know what I would have done to the Wraiths in turn.

  "Just let me know when you have it alright?" I said.

  "I'll do you one better. I'll take it to her myself. Might as well check up on that dainty little neck of hers. " I started to complain but she slapped my shoulder. "Don't worry I won't tell her anything embarrassing about you."

  She handed me a plate of glistening protein and sent me off. "Nico's waiting for you, when you're done."

  I inhaled the food in minutes and went to the club room. Faces snapped to attention as I clomped in. Unlike old times, they stayed on me as I went round and took my usual seat by the boss. All their hands seemed to lie beneath the table, ready for any provocation. Only Nico sat with both hands clasped in plain sight.

  I didn't mind that they distrusted me. It was Nico that had brought me in, and I'd kept my distance on purpose. I'd been part of one unit that went down in flames. Wasn’t quite ready to insert myself too deep into another that could.

  Nico was my problem now though. Trying to kill Katie even knowing what she meant to me? A leader should care about the whole more than any one soldier, but that soldier had been me. As much as I cared about Katie, I was never going to just let her go to the cops. Probably.

  Then again, that's all most girls would have done. Katie was a special breed. Maybe I couldn't fault him for not getting that yet.

  Nico looked at me without a single crease on his dark Latino face. His copper eyes told a different story though - wide and worried. For me, or about me - I couldn't tell.

  "We were just talking about Gyro," he said. "Any thoughts?"

  Gyro. The head of the Sand Scorpions. Now not just competition, but a flat out enemy combatant. I'd rattled off a dozen suggestions on how to deal with the FBI investigation yesterday and finding out where that low life was hiding was one of them.

  "So where is he?" I asked.

  "Gone."

  "Gone? You mean that dog piss evaporated from Gilsner?"

  "Those Scorpions ain't even got the balls to look out for their own," one of the other guys said. "The guys the FBI captured spilled everything. They even told them why you killed that fuckface Shiny."

  This face was new, at least in his room. Spoke, I think they called him. The guy looked lean and scrawny, with brown shaggy hair and a shaven face. More like a drummer in some band than a rider - though he was apparently one of the fastest on saddle. He looked right at me without flinching, which wasn’t nothing.

  "So they can link Gyro with that bad batch of meth Shiny sold?" I asked. "That's a straight manslaughter charge."

  "Damn straight. They’re looking for him, warra
nt and all."

  "Which is fucking fantastic," Nico said. "But doesn't clear us of anything. It doesn't mean we get a free pass for killing Shiny. They're looking for the shooter. They got a description of you, but no name."

  "They're looking for a ghost.” Spoke chuckled at his own joke.

  "They're going to find it," I said.

  "What?" Nico leaned in.

  "We're talking about FBI," I said. "They're not just gonna stop looking. They’ll find their name soon enough. We gotta make sure the trail ends at me."

  "You don't have to do that," Dyno said, from my other side. "I know you feel guilty about putting the girl over us, but-"

  "I don't feel fucking guilty." I nearly spat it in his face. "And I'm not turning myself in. I'm just going to go in and very strongly suggest I know jack shit."

  "We all appreciate that you've got some kick ass army training," Dyno went on, stupidly. "But that don't mean you can handle an FBI interrogation."

  He had a benevolent look on, or at least as much as one as his red chops and stache would allow. Sergeant at arms my ass. All he was doing was getting me riled up. "I wasn't taught to endure an interrogation," I said. "I was taught to use it to escape."

  "So what," Nico said. "You gonna get these guys to become your amigos and then bash em over the head with a chair till they forget?"

  "Metaphorically. I’m going to find out what they want and cut a deal. Maybe help them put the Scorpions in a grave."

  "Fuck yeah," Spoke said.

  "That doesn't mean they're off our ass," Dyno said.

  "It doesn't," Nico echoed from the other side. "It also doesn't stop them from wanting to talk to your girl."

  I snapped to him.

  "They heard she was a witness. How can she withstand a FBI interrogation?" Nico asked

  I'd known that this would come up. "We'll find a way."

  Nico snorted.

  "They got a criminal claiming he heard she saw something," I said. "That's a fucking game of telephone, not a real lead. Easy to keep it buried."

  "So long as she stays hidden here," Dyno said. "No one will know."

  "Speaking of that," I said. "Nico, we gotta talk."

  He frowned at me. "We're talking now.