CULVER: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (17 page)

“Safe? Safe? SAFE? Who
cares
if I’m safe?! They have my
mother,
Boon! They have her and they’re…they’re…they’re going to do
awful
things to her! And I’m fucking
safe,
so what? So what, Boon? This is
all my fault, all my fault!”

“None of this is your fault. It’s me, I did all this.
You’re going to go home now, and the cops will find your mother, and she’ll get
home safe. I know these guys, Samantha, they wouldn’t hurt a woman like that,”
Boon said, trying to catch me as I paced from corner to corner, arms flailing
wildly, meaninglessly.

“Oh, right, yeah, they’ll treat her like a QUEEN, huh?
You just told me they killed some poor old man, and now they have
MY MOTHER,
Boon! All
because…because…goddammit, I should never have…goddammit! Mommy…” I finally
collapsed again, on the mattress, tears flowing like a waterfall down my face.
I was exhausted and angry and so upset I thought I might actually break my
teeth off from grinding them so hard. Boon came to me, settling down next to
me, hand on my side. I barely felt it. Anything that had existed between us
seemed to have disappeared. All I wanted then was my mother.

“They’ll come and bring you to see your father,
Samantha, and before you know it your mom will be home safe and sound,” he
whispered.

“You don’t know that. You don’t know
anything.
You’re just…you’re just…I’ve
screwed up. I’ve screwed up so bad, Boon. God, if anything happens to her I’ll
just…I’ll just….”

I let him hold me, then, thought it gave me no comfort.
I stared down at the dirty mattress, listening for the sound of a car pulling
up. After a few minutes, Boon spoke again.

“Listen, I’m going to tell you some things. I know how
they do things. Please, try to listen and remember. If they took your mom, they
must have planned to take
someone.
You
don’t just kidnap people without a plan. They’ll have dumped their bikes
somewhere after, likely in the forest or on a deserted road. It won’t do the
cops any good looking for the bikes; even if they find them, the club will be
long gone. So tell them not to waste their time.

Someone will have been waiting with vans to take them
somewhere else – either a safe house or a hotel. They’d have booked rooms in
advance, under a different name, probably at a few hotels. It’d be too easy for
the cops to call around and find out if anyone got rooms for 15 dudes. My dad
uses pseudonyms; never the same one twice. And we always pay cash.”

Suddenly, I realized that I had no idea what Boon was
planning to do. I wanted him to come with me, to come and help me, talk to his
father, do
something
to show that he
was still invested. But the way he was talking just then sounded like he wasn’t
planning on doing any of that.

“Are you going to stay here?” I asked, unable to look
him in the eye, not taking my gaze from the mattress.

“No,” he said, his voice sounding like it came from
the end of a long tunnel.

“Are you coming with me?”

“No.”

The word seemed to hang above us in the air. I
shifted, moving away from him but still not turning to look at him.

“Then where are you going?”

“I don’t know. Mexico,” he said. I could hear shame in
his voice. I turned my face even further away, more tears coming now, but
quietly.

“I did all this…this all happened because of you. And
you’re going to leave me to deal with it,” I said, barely able to speak the
words. I knew what I was asking wasn’t exactly “fair”, but it also didn’t seem
fair that Boon got to waltz into my life, screw everything up, and then waltz
back out, leaving me to pick up after the fire.

“I’ll come back, Samantha. When all this has blown
over, I’ll come back for you. It’s just…it’s too hot for me right now. It’s not
safe. I’ll be getting it from the cops,
and
from my old man. Don’t you see? I’m fucked either way,” he said, his voice
desperate. I wanted to take his word and trust him, to understand, but I
couldn’t.

The only thing that all those promises and
explanations really meant, to me, was that he was a coward. He’d done things
that he wasn’t proud of, and now he didn’t want to face the consequences.
Well, shit, I haven’t exactly been a bastion
of pride either,
I thought to myself, feeling my face redden in anger. The
more I thought about it, the madder I got. I felt his hand reach out to me, to
my shoulder, and I thrust myself even further away from him.

“They’ll go easy on you if you help them,” I said,
knowing that it was at least partially true. The police always made deals with
people if they thought they could get something good out of them. I knew my
father talked about it often enough.

“Help them what? Take down my father? I might not love
him like you love your dad, Samantha, but do you really expect me to sell him
out? No, I couldn’t do that,” Boon said.

“Screw your father!” I cried out, the words
reverberating around the shack.

“Please, Samantha, please. I – I think I love you,”
Boon said, his voice wavering. I wish I’d turned to look at him at that moment.
But I didn’t; I just stayed where I was. His “I love you” fell flat in my
brain, and in my heart. Not a stir from the depths of my emotions. He might as
well have said “cat food is delicious.”

“If you love me, you won’t leave me alone with all
this. You won’t leave my mother at your father’s hands,” I spat, fully aware
that the last part was unnecessarily cruel. I mean, I didn’t
really
expect Boon, just one guy, really
just a kid, to go head-to-head with what was obviously a bloodthirsty group of
killers. He might be a tough guy, but he wasn’t
that
tough.

But it felt right to be so mean. It felt good, for a
split second, to think I could make him hurt like he was hurting me. And the
first part, I felt, was true. I
knew
in
my rational brain that it would be very, very,
very
dangerous for him to come back with me. I mean, his club had
put my father in the hospital and was currently holding my mother hostage, and
if they didn’t get him, the cops would, for sure.

“Samantha, they just want me. They’ll let her go once
they realize I’m not there. I promise, I’ll get in touch with my father once I
get far enough away,” Boon said quietly. Finally, I turned to him, my eyes
narrowed to slits, watery. I hated him then. I hated him as much as I ever
cared for him.

“They want
you,
but
it’s
my mother
they’ve got. Excuse me
if I don’t support your decision to split. You don’t know what’s going to
happen. And if she winds up dead, that blood is on
your
hands, not mine. And I’ll never forgive you for this. I’ll
never, ever, ever forgive you for leaving me with your fucking mess.”

I could see how hard the words hit him, and I liked
it. I wanted him to feel powerless, awful, guilty, like me. I wanted it to be
him
crawled up in a ball on that shitty
mattress. Our eyes were locked like that for a full minute before he turned
away.

“I’m sorry, Samantha,” he mumbled. “I understand you
can’t forgive me. I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive me, either. I’m so
sorry.”

I couldn’t respond. I turned back, facing the wall,
knees to my chest, shivering slightly from shock and fear and exhaustion. I was
hungry, but I didn’t want food. I was tired, but I didn’t want sleep. I just
wanted my mother to hold me and tell me that it would be okay.

I just wanted my mother to be safe.

Finally, I heard the scrunch of tires coming up the
road. Doors slammed as the tires stopped, and Alicia’s face appeared in the
broken window.

“Sammy? Sammy, we’re here to take you home. Take you back,”
she said, softly, almost too softly to hear. I looked up dazedly. I’d been lost
in my thoughts, remembering the times I’d gotten into stupid fights with Mom. I
wanted to take them all back. Boon rose from the mattress, holding his hand out
to me to help me up. I didn’t take it, but struggled to my feet on my own and
stumbled towards the window. Alicia’s eyes were wide and teary; I know I looked
frightful, and the reality of seeing me must have hit her hard. Becky’s face
appeared next to hers.

“Oh, honey, come here,” Becky said, holding an arm
through the window. I took it, the feel of her hand against mine the only
comfort I had in the world. Boon stayed back near the mattress as I clamored
out of the window. Alicia looked at him, shooting daggers. Becky was too busy
helping me in my ungraceful return to the real world.

It seemed too bright outside, too warm. It was about
8pm, and the long summer sunset was still illuminating the sky in bright pinks
and yellows. Becky began to lead me back to the car, but I stopped and turned.
My mind was still mostly blank, but I knew, deep down, that this could be the
last time I ever saw Boon, and as much as I hated him in the moment, he’d still
been someone to me before. He’d been someone I cared about, and who cared about
me.

I turned and went back to the window, barely able to
make out his figure in the darkness. He saw me and moved forward quickly, until
I could see him fairly well. I felt a sharp pain in my heart as I looked into
his eyes, saw the dejection and pain and guilt. He looked, suddenly, very, very
old, and very, very tired.

I thought of all the things those eyes had seen before
they ever laid on me. I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Alicia was
standing at my side, her hand on my arm. I felt strength in our bond, felt the
fog in my mind slowly clearing as I took strength in her mere presence.

“I don’t hate you,” I finally managed to say. Boon
gave me a sad grin, so unlike the grin that had started it all.

“I wish that could be good enough for me, baby,” he
said, his voice cracking. “You’re never gonna leave my dreams, are you?”

“That’s not up to me.”

“No, I guess it’s not. When all this turns out okay
and you’re on your way to whatever beautiful life you’re gonna have, I hope you
smile sometimes knowing I’m out there, lovin’ you just as much as I do now.”

My heart broke all over again. I wanted so badly to
hate him, to just wish him the worst of all things, but I didn’t. He was just
protecting himself, and what else could I expect from someone I’d known for all
of two weeks? I didn’t think I had any more water in my body, but apparently I
had enough for a fresh batch of tears.

“Come on, Sammy, we gotta go,” Alicia whispered to me.

“Take care of yourself, Boon. Get out. Make this all
worthwhile,” I finally managed to say. It seemed as good a way as any to say
goodbye. With that, I let Alicia pull me away from the window and back to
Becky’s car, which was now idling.

“Is that the car you stole?” Alicia suddenly asked as
she opened the passenger side door, gesturing to the car we’d come in.

“Alicia, if you had any less tact, I’d think you’d
need medication,” Becky said, leaning towards us.

“I want to sit in the back,” I said numbly. Being in
the front seat…even as a passenger, it would just be too much. I wanted to just
close my eyes and let the world pass by for a little while. I let myself be
helped into the backseat and felt a deep weariness spread over me. The door
slammed shut and I leaned my head against the window, staring at the car that,
yes, we had stolen.

Boon can take
responsibility for that, at least,
I thought, my last conscious thought before the purr
of the engine and the gentle rock of the car down the dirt road lulled me off
to sleep.

~
27
~

“We should go to the police first.”

“There will be cops at the hospital.”

“Yeah, but they’re just going to want to take her in,
anyway.”

“At least this gives her a little more time to
prepare. And she needs to see that her dad’s okay.”

I woke up to the sound of Alicia and Becky arguing
quietly. Their hushed tones drifted into my brain before I fully woke up, when
I was still in a dreamland where none of this had happened. The reality came
crashing down once I made out just what they were saying. We were parked in a
Dunk’n Donuts parking lot, and I could see by the time that I’d been out for a
little under an hour. I still felt exhausted.

“Guys,” I murmured, sleepily, from the backseat. “I
want to see Dad.”

Alicia and Becky both turned to look at me, their
faces grim. I was dazed but certain: before anything else, I wanted to see my
Daddy. I wanted to look him in the eyes, know that he was okay, and apologize
for everything.

“Okay,” Becky said. I could tell, from listening to
their voices in my half-sleep, that she had been the one arguing to take me
straight to the police. I was glad she was willing to drop the debate as soon
as I put my two cents in.

“How are you doing?” Alicia asked, reaching out and
grabbing my knee.

“Awful,” I said, tears pressing behind my eyes again.
Where did all this water in my body keep coming from? I was parched, and I was
sure that by now I’d be too dehydrated to cry. “Do you have any water?”

Becky handed me back a half-empty bottle and I guzzled
it quickly; the action not only helped my thirst but gave me something to do so
I didn’t have to keep sitting under Becky and Alicia’s concerned gazes. I loved
them, and I loved them for being there, but the way they were looking at me
certainly wasn’t helping the fact that I felt so awful. The good thing about
best friends, though, is that you can
tell
them things like that, and they’ll listen.

“Guys, please stop looking at me like I’m a wounded
bird. I mean, I know, I’m a mess, I don’t need you to remind me,” I said, my
voice sounding more pitiful than I wanted.

“You’re right, you’re right, of course. Let’s just go.
Let’s get you to your dad,” Alicia said, turning around in her seat. She
swatted at Becky, who was still looking at me, until she turned around and
turned the key. We pulled out of the lot slowly and began to drive towards the
hospital; I watched the mini-malls and business offices along the street as
they passed, thinking that everyone in them was having a normal day in their
normal lives and that they had no idea how quickly all that could change.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Becky asked, peering
at me in the rear-view window. I shook my head no, but then realized I
did
want to talk about it. Or, more
accurately, I wanted to
hear
about
it.

“I don’t want to talk, but will you tell me what’s
going on? What do you know?”

Alicia and Becky exchanged a look, then both looked at
me in the rearview.

“Not much,” Alicia said. “Your dad was shot trying to
get into the house. In the arm. He’s okay, he’s totally fine. He probably won’t
even have a wonky arm or anything after it heals. Your mom was already home
when he got there and…well, that’s about it. The whole crew booked it after
your dad got shot, and they’re not telling us anything else. We don’t even know
if they know where the bikers are. I mean, they can’t exactly be
hiding
anywhere, you know? It’s like
fifteen guys on bikes, they can’t get too far without someone noticing.”

“Yeah, they’re gonna find them in no time, Sammy,”
Becky added, her voice a few octaves short of convincing.

“They won’t be on bikes anymore,” I murmured,
remembering what Boon had told me.

“What makes you say that?” Becky asked, turning back
to me, this time with a curious look on her face.

“Boon told me. They’d ditch the bikes and then take
vans,” I said, looking out the window, letting the information wash over me.

“And you trust him? After everything, you trust that
little shit? How do you know he wasn’t just saying that to…” Becky’s tirade was
cut short by a quick elbow jab from Alicia.

“Becky, you snot, do you really think now’s a good
time to talk like that? I mean, really, you talk about
me
being insensitive,” Alicia said.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, tears coming anew as I
thought about Boon and how I’d trusted him, how I’d taken him into my home…

“No, it’s not, Sammy. I’m sorry. You don’t need to
worry about that. Let’s just get you to your dad, okay?”

I nodded, still looking out the window. Every minute
that I was in that car was a minute my mother was tied up with a bunch of
thugs. Every minute that had passed for her since she got home must have been
pure torture and misery. I wished I was dead, or better yet, had never been
born.

Finally, the broad white walls of the hospital came
into view. After a brief nightmare to find a parking space, we all clamored out
of the car and Alicia and Becky flanked me, each holding one of my hands, as we
entered the ER. Nurses and doctors and patients ran hither and thither as we
walked towards the desk; the chaos and disorder seemed well-suited to my mood,
but it made my headache worse.

I let Becky talk to the nurse, who pointed us down a
long hallway. I could see, towards the end of the hallway, a group of three
cops standing around in a semi-circle, arms crossed, heads down. My heart began
to race as Alicia led me through the doors and down the hall.

Everything was so white and clean and bright. I
remember, vividly, being made nauseous by the fluorescence of everything.
Nothing in the world felt clean, or bright, at that moment, and it made me
irrationally angry that the hospital was so spic-and-span. I felt that, for as
long as my mother was gone and my father was in pain, everything else should
look dirty and miserable.

The cops straightened up as I approached; they
recognized me, and I recognized a few of them, vaguely. One, a young man I knew
because he was sort of my dad’s protégé on the force, walked towards me, arms
out. I withdrew, not sure I wanted to hug him, but eventually let myself into
the folds of his arms. His name was Kevin, and I knew that of the people who
would be trying to stomp the Cold Steel Motorcycle Club into the ground, he’d
be one of the most fervent.

“I’m so sorry, Samantha.” he said, rubbing his hand up
and down my back. I sniffled into his crisp blue shirt. He pulled away, shaking
his head. “Go on in and see him. Then we will need you to come in and make a
statement. I know, it’s going to be hard, but it could help a lot to have your
input. Take your time, though. I’ll be waiting right here for you when you’re
done, and I’ll take you down to the station myself.”

“Can’t Alicia and Becky take me?” I asked, gesturing
to my friends, who were standing a little bit behind us. I couldn’t imagine
what would happen to me without them; they were, really, the only things that
were keeping me from having a full-on breakdown. Kevin nodded.

“Of course. But you’ll be talking to me at the
station, okay? So don’t worry. We’re going to take care of everything,” he
said. I was grateful, now, that he was there. I had always liked Kevin, and it
was good to have one more person I could trust on my side. Not that the entire
police force and, probably, the whole city wasn’t on my side; but it’s
different when you
know
someone is
fighting for you.

I almost couldn’t go into the room on my own. I stood
outside the door, chewing my lip, ready to break into sobs any second, trying
to find the words to say when I finally saw my father. How could I ever tell
him just how sorry I was for not listening to him in the first place? He had
been right; of course he had been right. Aren’t fathers always right?

Finally, I pushed the door open. The sobs that had
been hiding came out to play, and I wailed when I saw him sitting up and
looking at me, his face furrowed with concern.

“Daddy! I’m so sorry!” I cried, rushing to his side. I
wanted to hug him, but when I saw the sling around his arm I worried about
hurting him.

“Baby, Samantha, stop, it’s okay, I’m okay!”

“No, you’re not! You got shot and Mom got taken and
it’s all my fault!”

“It’s not, baby, it’s not your fault. None of this is
your fault, I promise,” my father said, reaching out to stroke my chin with the
back of his hand. The contact stilled me almost instantly. “It’s not, baby,
really.”

“But…but…” I said, sniffling.

“No buts. It’s not your fault. It’s not even that
boy’s fault. They were wearing masks, Samantha, but I know he wasn’t there. It
was that father. He kept asking for him…for Boon. But that doesn’t matter. It
doesn’t matter, Sammy. I’m going to be fine, and we’re going to find your
mother, and she’ll be fine too. I can leave here tomorrow, they said. And Mom
will be home by then, in good hands, and it’ll all be okay. Just like a bad
dream.”

I stared into my father’s eyes as he spoke, praying
that I would see only the strong, confident man I’d grown to trust so much over
the course of my life. But there was something else under the knowing façade he
was putting up. He
didn’t
know any of
that, and I could tell, just under the surface, that he had doubts about
everything he was saying.

Well of course
he has doubts, moron, his wife is currently missing, in the hands of a gang of
violent bikers,
I thought to myself, scolding myself for expecting my father to be brave
when it was him, not me, that got shot in the arm.

“Have you spoken to the police yet?” he asked.

“No, not yet,” I said, my voice regaining some
semblance of control. Talking to my father
had
made me feel worlds better, even if I knew he was just saying things he
didn’t believe in order to make me stop crying.

“Go. Talk to them. Any information you can give them
will do a lot more good than keeping me company,” he said, his voice turning
stern. I knew that he wanted me to talk to the cops so they could find my
mother quicker, but the thought of leaving him now was impossible.

“Daddy, please, just a few more minutes,” I said,
silent tears brimming. If I’d thought seeing my father cry was bad, seeing him
in that bed, with the sling around his arm, was a million times worse.

“Of course, baby,” he said, reaching out to cup my
chin. His eyes softened. “I didn’t mean to rush you out.”

“I stole a car,” I suddenly blurted out. I still don’t
know why I chose that particular time to come clean with that. Maybe it was
just part of an overall purging process as I tried to deal with everything that
had happened. I was amazed when Dad broke into a grin and chuckled slightly.

“Did you now?”

“Well, Boon did,” I said, my eyes on the ground.

“I don’t care. I mean, I do, and we’re going to talk
about that, but if you had to steal a jet plane to get you safely away from
that situation, I wouldn’t be mad,” he said. “I’m just so happy you’re safe.”

“Daddy, I’m so sorry. I thought he was worth it, but
he’s not. He just…he just left! You were right,” I said, gaze still glued to
the floor.

“Well, maybe I was right, maybe I wasn’t. It doesn’t
matter now. But it’s not your fault, and you can’t think that it is. It’s not.
And I mean…well, I’m sorry he hurt you, baby. You know I’d kill anyone who hurt
you. But he didn’t…well, he’s still just a kid. He might seem old to you, but
he’s just a kid to me. And he’s gonna regret leaving you until the day he
dies.”

“I just…what are we going to do? What if something
happens to Mom?” Even as I spoke the words, I felt panic creeping back into me.

“Nothing is going to happen to Mom,” Dad said, his
gaze growing as stern as his voice. “Don’t you dare think that something is
going to happen to her. I promise you, the whole damn force is out there
looking for her. They’re gonna find her, Sammy, and they’re gonna bring her
home in one piece.”

I nodded, not believing him but happy just to hear the
words in his voice. For once, I was happy for him to be speaking so sternly to
me. It was like he was commanding me to believe him, and I wanted to obey that
command.