Sons of Mayhem 2 Chaser (Sons of Mayhem Novels, #2) (6 page)

“Come on Red, time to go.”

Dewey grinned to himself when Red didn’t respond. Of course he didn’t, he couldn’t speak at all.

Dewey went to grab the young biker. While Red wasn’t a small guy, he wasn’t massive either and Dewey was strong. He picked him up and slung him over his shoulder, a muffled groan emerging from a gagged mouth as he was winded in the process.

With Red safely back in his new regular spot in the trunk of the car it was time to get to work. Not only did he have to get Karen back, he had to get rid of this whole stupid motorcycle gang.

The door closed behind him with a solid thunk. “Soon it’ll just be you and me, my love,” he said, sighing because she couldn’t hear him. “Let’s see what the biker morons have planned.”

Dewey started the car and cranked up the air conditioning to maximum. He couldn’t imagine how hot it must have been in the trunk. Poor Red. Not.

Dewey hummed his song softly as the car bounced down the potholed road. When he reached the highway the road smoothed out and he began to sing instead. “Love...” he began as he headed toward the Sons of Mayhem clubhouse. He had to get within about half a mile of the bug to pick up its signal.

Once he knew what they were up to he could figure out the best way to use the bargaining chip he had in the trunk to destroy them.

K
aren

I stood up and brushed myself down, glad I had pulled on a pair of jeans that morning instead of something that left my legs bare.

Gauge gave me an appraising look. “I think we need to hear a bit more about this crazy ex of yours, huh?”

I nodded at him, there was a lot to tell. I wondered how much of it they would believe.

“You can ride with me,” said Bottle, his voice gruff and insistent. From the tone of his voice it didn’t sound like I had much of a choice. It seemed we wouldn’t be hanging around to talk to the fire department or the sheriff just yet, and that suited me just fine. I’d had enough of Farmington’s finest for one day.

The motorcycles had been parked on the quiet street and were luckily all undamaged. I followed behind Bottle and climbed up behind him, looking anxiously up and down the street. No one had appeared yet, but surely someone was home and would be out to investigate, and then soon after the authorities would begin to arrive. We had to get out of there.

He rolled the bike backwards with powerful pushes of his legs and pulled back the kickstand with a hook of the heel of his boot. He clipped his helmet on and tilted his head. “Sorry, there ain’t one for you. I wasn’t expecting
that
.” He nodded his head in the direction of the wreck of my solid excuse for a car.

I let out a little laugh. Who could have expected it? I knew the man chasing me was a bit unhinged, but I hadn’t realized he’d go as far as he had. I smacked Bottle on the shoulder. “I hear sirens. Let’s go.”

The biker leader gave a nod of his head then raised his hands to his mouth and let out a loud whistle. I swung my head around, the other guys were on their bikes and looking our way. Bottle pressed the starter button and the bike gave a little shake as she awoke from her slumber. Bottle revved the engine a couple of times with small twists of the throttle and soft vibrations, dulled by the bike’s suspension, poured through me making me shiver. Adrenaline surged through my veins as I sensed the power of the beast underneath me. I sucked in a deep breath and dug my fingers into the leather clad man in front of me, feeling the strength of his muscles through the leather of his cut.

Bottle raised his hand up and made a circling motion with his finger. Even I, who knew nothing about bikers, could recognize what it meant: it was time to roll. The other bikers started their engines and the quiet neighborhood was filled with the sounds of powerful engines and the smell of petroleum fumes mixed the acridity of the smoke pouring out of my home.

We rolled slowly to the intersection at the end of the street a few yards away. I looked back over my shoulder and shook my head slowly as I took a final look at my former home. I had been so excited a couple of weeks ago when I’d happily signed the lease. Now it had, quite literally, all gone up in smoke.

We turned at the intersection and my house swung out of view. Bottle let his motorcycle loose and I gasped as we soared away.

Flying down the streets of Farmington I realized that I now had nothing. No friends, no home, no car and almost no money. I had nothing. I was nothing. And I felt strangely liberated by this fact.

On the edge of town we passed a fire truck, blue lights spinning as it headed back the way we’d come. It paid us no mind as we soared away, my untamed hair whipping in the wind as I headed toward my uncertain future.

The clubhouse was more lively when we returned. There were more motorcycles parked outside as well as a couple of pickup trucks. A couple of girls who looked to still be in their teens were leaning against a truck sharing a cigarette. I saw them eye Bottle as we headed toward the double door entrance, their lascivious desire easy to read as they pushed out their chests and showed off their legs as he passed.

I trailed just behind Bottle, and one of the girls caught my eye. She gave me an unimpressed look and blew a stream of smoke my way, obviously annoyed to see me, a new face, trailing behind ‘their’ man.

“Come see me later, girls,” I heard Twist say behind me as I entered. I didn’t hear their answer but I could sense their derision even from where I was. I knew why - they wanted fully patched members of the club, not hangabouts or prospects.

Bottle, Gauge, T-Bone and I sat down at a table for four while Twist hovered over us.

“Twist. Four beers. Crazy-eyes, give us a description or something to work with. We’ll put the word out. Then you can tell us about him in detail.”

Crazy-eyes huh? He was probably right, I barely recognized myself in the mirror any more. As I had turned from a girl to an adult I’d found the person I saw in the mirror less and less recognizable. As my situation became less stable and my behavior more erratic I’d avoided looking into mirrors, avoiding my eyes when I was forced to use a reflection to apply makeup to my stranger’s face.

It was time to get down to business. “His name is Dewey Roland Finklestein—”

I was interrupted by laughter.

“For reals?” asked Bottle.

I nodded. “I know, he sounds like a dork...”

More laughter. “We’re supposed to take him seriously, with a name like that?” asked T-Bone.

I nodded again, a little exasparated. He was
dangerous
, no matter how dorky his name. “Do you want me to finish or not?”

In a low voice Gauge said, “Let her finish.”

The laughter subsided.

“He’s twenty-eight years old. Sandy blond hair, in a side parting. He’s fit. Really fit. He runs and lifts weights, he used to wrestle. He’s not massive like a bodybuilder, but he’s
strong
. And he looks like... a good guy.”

“A good guy?”

“I mean, like a good church going guy or something. Well dressed, never a hair out of place, shirt always freshly pressed.”

T-Bone let out a noise that might have been a chuckle. “A real boy scout, huh?”

I nodded. He most definitely was not a boy scout, but he had the look.

“Well, he’d stand out in this town. Ain’t too many people dressed like that around here.”

I nodded. Although I’d only been there a couple of weeks the only time I’d seen anyone as well turned out as Dewey had been a few young men heading to Sunday morning worship - the rest of the time this town was more redneck casual than preppy boy scout.

Twist came back with five beers and set four of them down. Bottle raised his eyebrows at him. He didn’t need to say anything. The young man gulped and set the last beer down on the table in front of us.

“You’ve got shit to do, Twist.” Bottle relayed a description of Dewey. “Put the word out everywhere. Check every motel, hotel, halfway-house and fuckin’ campsite within twenty miles of here, and tell every last prospect and hangabout that if they ever want to have a chance of getting patched they better be out with their eyes fucking peeled. I want this boyscout-fuckhead found.
And soon
.”

Twist nodded. “I’m on it.”

He began to turn away. “Wait,” I said, “He’s dangerous. He may look preppy, but he’s strong, and
vicious
. Be
fucking
careful. Okay?”

Twist let out a derisory snort. “He don’t know about me.”

The other men looked at each other as if in momentary confusion. Then, T-Bone smacked his thigh, Gauge shook his head in disbelief while Bottle gave out a kind of shrieking half-laugh. “Don’t know about you, huh? Tough guy Twist?”

Gauge’s gravelly voice was serious. “Listen to the woman Twist. No offense, but I saw you fly fifteen feet when a breeze picked you up last week.”

There were chuckles around the table at Gauge’s obvious exaggeration.

“You fuckin’ call if you find him, no heroic shit. Got it?”

Twist nodded and shuffled awkwardly. “Right.”

The men laughed again. “Alright, fuck off!” said Bottle good-naturedly. He clearly had a soft spot for the younger guy, even if they were somewhat mean to him. It was because he wasn’t a fully patched member yet, I guessed.

Twist scurried away to a group of long-haired hangabouts lounging around a table, where he began to speak in earnest. The club members’ watched him for a moment, before turning their attention back to me.

Bottle looked me in the eyes, “Alright, give us a bit more to go on. Why the fuck is he after you so bad? You’re a good looking girl, don’t get me wrong, but still...” his voice trailed off.

A good looking girl huh? Not bad yourself bike-boy. “It’s going to take a while. I need to tell you it from the start, from when we met. So you can understand what he’s like.”

“Alright, get to it. Hopefully we’ll be able to use some of this information.”

I took a big sip of beer as repressed memories began to flow back. I felt myself shivering lightly as I began to tell them about Dewey.

K
aren

I was a happy girl. I
was
a happy girl. We weren’t rich, but my home life wasn’t bad. I had a Mom and a Dad, and a sister five years older than me. Mom wasn’t even sick back then, when it started. We had a house, nothing fancy, but the neighborhood was decent, my school was as safe as any building full of dumb horny teens can be, and the local community was friendly.
Was
friendly.

In the summer before our final year of junior high we got new neighbors, and of course I was excited at first. Would there be a girl I could be friends with? Would there be a cute older guy I could sneak out at night to see?

I was disappointed when I saw what the moving-truck-fairy had bought: a chubby, sandy-haired
boy
who talked about video games as a substitute for a personality.

“Hi, I’m Dewey, you play Halo?” he had asked me, looking down and shuffling nervously. We were in my back yard, being forced to socialize by parents who love to inflict that kind of torture on their adolescent offspring. Mom and Dad had invited the new neighbors over for a welcome barbecue and beers. Beers for Dad, anyway. The neighbors didn’t drink.

We sat drinking sodas while I tried to be friendly, but we had almost nothing in common then. We liked different movies and different music. He didn’t read, I did. He played video games, I played the occasional game of Tetris. And his name was
Dewey
which immediately made me think of the weird younger kid from Malcolm in the Middle.

“How’s school? You’re going into eighth grade too right?” he asked me. I blinked at him in confusion. He couldn’t be the same age as me, could he? This harmless chubby boy looked to be at least three years younger than me. I couldn’t believe he’d be finishing up junior high with me.

In stunned disbelief I told him about the school, about the teachers, about the cliques. I wondered how he’d fit in (turns out, he didn’t. Not at first.) I told him about just how god-awful the cafeteria food was. I couldn’t help him when he asked about a video game club.

And that was it, for the next year or so. Sure we saw each other passing in the hallways at school, or around the neighborhood, but that’s all we did - pass each other and exchange a quick greeting. We weren’t friends; barely even acquaintances.

But what I didn’t realize was that something was happening to him. Something amazing - at least at first. When puberty finally hit him it was kind. No ugly acne or gangly limbs for him, instead the chubby boy turned into a golden young man. Over the course of a few months he shot up in height and his voice deepened. As his shoulders broadened his fat seemed to turn to muscle and his nervous grin turned into an infectious smile.

The fat didn’t just disappear on its own of course; as his body changed, so did his mind. His interest in video games waned and instead he became interested in fitness. I’ll confess I laughed the first morning we saw him running outside.

Mom and I were sitting by the window on a Saturday morning when we saw him half-shuffling, half-jogging down the street past Dad’s pickup which was parked in the driveway.

“Uhoh, zombie invasion” Mom had said, and we’d laughed. But it wasn’t a laughing matter for long. He kept it up. Day after day, week after week, he was out there every morning or evening. Rain or shine, snow or sleet, he’d be pounding the pavement, a look of grim determination on his face.

Mom’s somewhat unkind comment on the first day later changed to an impressed cry of “Look at him go!”

He started wrestling too, and he applied the same grim determination to wrestling as he did to running, always first to practice and last to leave, always looking for someone to grapple with one last time before calling it a day, and even asking older students for extra coaching.

Although the transformation was rapid, it took some time for
me
to catch on. Even though he developed into a good looking young man before my eyes I didn’t recognize it at first; he was still the chubby, geeky Halo-kid to me.