Burn (4 page)

“Why’d you tell Doc we’d be gone?
 
Shouldn’t we stay?
 
Help them load everything up?”

“You stay,” Mercer said.
 
“I’m going on to find Danni.”

Cruz put out his hand.
 
“No fucking way.
 
You need someone with you.”

Mercer was too tired to deal with his shit.
 
“They’ll need help loading the truck.
 
This place is a gold mine.
 
We have literally struck it rich and we need to get it loaded and have the protection to get it back to the clubhouse safely.”

Cruz lit a cigarette.
 
“You’re not thinking straight.
 
Your girl is missing and you want revenge.
 
I get that, OK.
 
But if you love Danni as much as you say, you know you’ll need help when you find her.
 
You think you’ll fucking dance into Rattler territory and walk out?”

Mercer lit a cigarette as well, but tossed it away after only one drag.
 
“Fine.
 
Let’s go.”

D
anni lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out her next move.
 
Tommy hadn’t been back to see her since bringing her lunch.
 
She was disappointed when somebody else brought her dinner.
 
It was Roscoe, the older man with long gray hair and beard.
 
He tossed a plate on the bed, not caring that the sloppily made sandwich slid off and landed on the sheets.

Danni was irritated by that, but didn’t show it.
 
She tried the same tactics with this guy as she did Tommy.

“Thanks,” she said as she ate greedily.
 
“I really mean it.”

“Shut the fuck up and eat,” he said.

It hadn’t worked, but she hadn’t really expected to.
 
If she wasn’t going to be able to turn Tommy or any of the Rattlers, then she needed to think of a new plan.
 
When she’d finished eating, he snatched the plate back and locked the door behind him.
 
Danni was alone again.

She tried to think of a time she’d been in a worse spot, but nothing compared to this.
 
She had been held against her will by Tank, the former president of Black Ice.
 
It had been terrifying, but only lasted a little while, and she had never doubted Mercer would save her.

No, the closest she had ever been to this was being lost in the woods when she was twelve.
 
She had been on her uncle’s farm, visiting for the summer.
 
Her cousin, Sara, was fifteen and Danni idolized her, imitated her hairstyle and her slang, and followed her everywhere.
 
Finally, Sara was at her wit’s end and just needed some peace and quiet from Danni.
 
It was supposed to be a practical joke.
 
She told Danni they would spend the day together hiking and talking, so Danni should meet her a few hundred feet into the woods.
 
Sara thought Danni would catch on to the ruse and head back to the house, angry but otherwise fine.
 
She hadn’t counted on Danni’s complete devotion to her cousin.
 
Danni didn’t want to let her down, so when she didn’t see Sara in the agreed-upon spot, Danni figured she’d gotten the place wrong and kept going into the woods, thinking she’d find Sara any minute.
 

She spent an hour searching the woods for Sara.
 
When she finally realized she wasn’t meeting up with her cousin, she turned to go back to the farmhouse, but couldn’t find her way.
 
Danni had spent so much time trying to spot Sara, she hadn’t been paying attention to any landmarks.
 
Everything looked the same and she couldn’t find her way out.
 

At least she was smart—she kept to the trails—but there were a lot of trails in those woods, a lot of trails that interconnected, and more than once she found herself right back in the same spot.
 

Danni was a tough kid.
 
She was friends with more boys than girls, and she was used to getting into scrapes and having adventures, so she didn’t worry… at least not until the sun started to sink below the trees.
 
Once the sky turned a dark blue above her head, all the spooky stories she’d ever heard started coming back to her.
 
Never mind the wolves or other very real animals that lived deep in the woods—what truly scared her was the tale of ghosts and witches that haunted lost little girls in the night.
 
She sat next to a large oak tree, wrapped her arms around her legs, and held tight.
 
She just wanted it to be over.

All it took was twenty minutes of being completely frightened before she turned it around.
 
There she was, a twelve-year-old girl, lost in the woods, with nothing and no one to protect her.
 
She knew right then, she could curl up and be scared, or she could fight.
 
Whatever was out there wouldn’t get her without going a few rounds.
 
She might lose, but whatever got her would remember her for the rest of its life.

D
espite Cruz’s arguments, they left the Rattlers’ secret weapon depot and headed south towards Casper, Wyoming.
 
Cruz wanted to stay until the others showed up, even if they didn’t stick around to help them load the weapons. He thought it was a bad idea to leave it unattended.
 
What if some Rattlers showed up after they left?
 
Doc and Red would be walking right into a trap.
 
Mercer ignored Cruz’s advice.
 
The Rattlers were finished, and that bunker with all its weapons was their prize.
 

They rode hard and fast towards their next destination.
 
The sun was gone and Mercer relied completely on his headlights to guide the way.
 
He fought through the exhaustion and the hunger to press forward.
 
He would find Danni, they would be reunited, and everything would be fine.

Riding through the night in almost no light at all, Mercer felt as if he were riding through a dream.
 
The world had taken on a surreal quality and he felt as if he could lift off the bike at any moment and be carried into the heavens.

An hour into the trip, the darkness was broken up by lights in the distance.
 
Cruz pulled up next to Mercer and signaled for him to stop at the lights.
 
As they got closer, Mercer saw it was a little middle-of-nowhere hotel, the kind he and Danni had stayed at while making their way to Rawlins.
 
The sight of it made him miss her even more.

After they rolled into the parking lot, Mercer looked to Cruz, wondering why he’d demanded they stop.

“We’re crashing for the night,” said Cruz.

“The hell we are.
 
We’re not stopping until we hit Casper.”

Cruz shook his head, switched off his bike, and dismounted.
 
“You’re weaving all over the road.
 
You’ll get yourself killed if we don’t stop and sleep.”

Mercer opened his mouth to argue more, but he hadn’t even realized he was riding badly.
 
It had been over thirty-six hours since he’d last slept.
 
As determined as he was to find Danni, even he had to admit that he needed a break.
 
They each got a room from the desk clerk, a tiny old man who suspiciously eyed their leather jackets and tattoos.
 
Mercer was reminded that he wasn’t in Rawlins anymore.

Mercer couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, so before turning in for the night, they went another half-mile up the road to find a local bar.
 
It was a dirty concrete building about a quarter full.
 
Technically, it was one story, but most of the drinkers were on a deck someone had built on the roof.

Mercer went to a table and sat while Cruz ordered their beer and burgers at the bar.
 
It didn’t look like the kind of joint that served good food, but Mercer was beyond caring.
 
He wanted Danni, beer, and sleep, in that exact order.

Cruz sat across the table from him and slid him a beer.
 
“It’ll be a few on the burgers.
 
I ordered us some nachos to get us started.”

Mercer nodded and drank deeply from his glass.
 
The beer was cheap and cold, just the way he liked it.
 
He never understood the so-called beer snobs.
 
Beer didn’t need to be savored and discussed.
 
You drank it quickly at the end of a hard day.
 
It was your reward for getting your shit done.

Neither man spoke.
 
Not so much because they didn’t have much to say to each other, but because the road had been long and it was peaceful just to enjoy where they were for the minute.
 
It wasn’t until the burgers were served and eaten, and they were on their third beer, that either of them said more than three words to each other.

“Did you hear from Doc?
 
Did they get everything out of that barn?” said Cruz, his word slightly slurred from the beer and exhaustion.

Mercer nodded.

“Helluva payday.”

Mercer grunted in agreement, but said nothing else.

Cruz tried to talk to him again.
 
“We’ll find her, man, don’t worry.
 
It’ll be cool.

Finally Mercer took his eyes off the women dancing in the bar and looked at Cruz.
 
“Will it, Skippy?
 
Thanks for the encouraging words.
 
It’s important in times like this to keep your spirits up.
 
Really helps.”

“Hey, fuck you, Mercer.
 
I been trying to help you out from the jump and all you do is give me shit.
 
So shove it up your ass.
 
Got it, pal?”

Mercer drained his beer, signaled the bartender for another, and lit a cigarette.
 
“Let’s get some shit straight here, Mr. Cruz.
 
We ain’t friends.
 
We ain’t buddies.
 
I didn’t want you on this trip.
 
You got your eye on Danni, you have from the beginning, and I think there’s something you’re not telling me.”

The truth was, Danni and Cruz had been keeping something from Mercer.
 
When Danni and Mercer were in the middle of their biggest fight, she and Cruz had kissed twice, but then they’d agreed that telling Mercer would accomplish nothing and that they should keep it to themselves.
 

“They only thing you don’t know is you’re too fucking stupid to realize we’re just friends.
 
It’s a foreign concept for you since you don’t have any, but some people just like having others around.”

Cruz drained his beer as well and lit his own cigarette.
 
The bartender put two new beers down in front of them, and before the bartender walked away, Cruz ordered two shots of whiskey.

“Tying one on tonight?” asked Mercer, sarcastically.

“We’re finally getting into this, so we need to lube up the conversation.
 
Hold nothing back.”

The whiskeys were delivered, and each man took a shot and chugged half a beer.

“I have friends, Skippy,” said Mercer.
 
“Me and Doc go way back.”

“Yeah, you do.
 
But when’s the last time you grabbed a beer with him?
 
You ever even been to his place?”

Mercer said nothing.
 
He couldn’t remember the last time he had gone out with Doc, or anyone, just to hang and shoot the shit.
 
The truth was, Mercer was just the loner type.
 
He didn’t need a lot of people in his life.
 
He had Danni, and that was enough.
 
At least, he’d always thought so.