Edge of Chaos (9 page)

What began as a
calm conversation twenty minutes ago has escalated into anything but calm. She
should have known better than to press Luke about his activities with the
Suicide Kings. Not even ‘old ladies’ are privy to that kind of information.

Finally, he shouts
at her, “You say you want the truth, but you’re not prepared for it!”

“Try me Luke, I
can handle the truth,” Kayla screams. Just about the last thing she wants is to
be with a man who just assumes he has to protect her from the harsh realities
of the world (or his life) by lying to her. It’s insulting.

“You don’t know
what you’re asking,” he counters.

“All I ask is that
you give me the chance to come to my own conclusion about whether something is
too frightening to handle, but you don’t even respect me enough to do that. In
a lot of ways, you’re totally different from Dillon, but in some very crucial
areas, you’re exactly the same.”

I know I shouldn’t
have said that last part; that wasn’t fair. But it was truthful, though. Just
like Dillon, he thinks I can’t handle anything and that’s not true at all. I
can literally see the change come over his face when I say Dillon. He knows
some of the terrible things Dillon did to me and for me to compare the two…well,
that’s an epic fail!

“If I let you in,
there’s no going back. I’m sure there are things you’ve seen in the ER that you
wish you’d never seen, right?”

“Yes, but these
were horrific things I’m talking about,” Kayla argues. “Tell me something about
yourself that you’ve never told another person. Let’s take this test run to see
if I can handle it.”

Luke agrees
because he knows he won’t see her again if he doesn’t play along.

“Okay…,” he
begins. “I enlisted in the military when I was 17. I was an emancipated minor
so no one had to sign for me. I found early on that I had unique wartime
skills.”

“What were you
good at?” Kayla asks.

“I have this
uncanny ability to control my body’s reaction to painful stimuli and I learned
how to override physical discomfort and how not to let pain dominate my brain.
Because of that, I flew through Special Forces and Army Ranger School, and I
became an expert sniper, and an expert with explosives. You name it, I was good
at it. I also found out I was very good at killing without remorse.”

“Don’t most guys
feel that way? When you’re sitting in a tank or something shooting at the enemy
during a war, don’t most people feel good to be serving their country? I read a
lot about the Vietnam War and most all of those guys were either very patriotic
or just fought for their brothers beside them and nobody was running around
feeling bad about it.”

“I’m not talking
about war, Kayla. Sure, I was involved in some fire fights in my first tour in
Afghanistan, but I’m talking about my last two tours. When I re-upped, the army
found that my specials skills were needed in not just Afghanistan, but Iraq,
Iran, Syria, the Gaza Strip, Palestine, Russia, to name a few. I became a one-man
missile for our wonderful government. They would just point me and pull the
trigger and I would do whatever necessary to eliminate my target, whether that
included a sniper rifle, a silenced pistol, a knife, or my bare hands to kill.”

Kayla just nods
her head while taking everything in. After a little while, a question pops up.

“Those hash marks
on your bicep. What are those for?”

“Oh, I think you already
know the answer to that,” Luke replies.

She does. “But
some are black and some are red. What’s that mean?”

“The black ones
were kills done in the service of my government and the red ones were done for
the club.”

Kayla catches her
breath. That just about falls under the too much information category and
something she’d rather not know the answer to. But she has to, so Kayla
painstakingly counts the black hash marks and they come to a scary 103 kills
for his country.

Then she counts
the hash marks that to her
really
count; the red ones. Those come to the
impressively scary number of twenty-seven! This guy can’t get enough of killing
in the army so he has to come back and kill for his club? How twisted is that?
But on him, the killing stuff, it just looks pretty normal like your everyday
course of business activities.

“Uh…Kayla, you
haven’t said anything in a while, are you okay?”

“Yeah…just adjusting…”

“Dammit, I told
you… Now you just learned something about me you can’t unlearn; you can’t
forget.”

“And I’m okay with
that,” Kayla replies, sounding much more confident than she actually feels.
“These people that you kill for your club…it’s not just random, right? Tell me
there is some strategy or some valid reason behind those kills…”

“This is not the
Thrill Kill Cult, Kayla. Of course, there’s a reason and the guys I kill are
usually some pretty bad dudes. They’re drug dealers, gang bangers, extortionists,
murderers… These are people who would rob your grandma for her life’s savings
and not give it a second thought.”

“Are you
describing yourself,” Kayla interrupts. “Or are you describing the people you
kill? ‘Cause you kinda are a…a mur…” She can’t say it.

She had meant to
call him a murderer, but she just can’t spit the word out. By her reasoning,
anytime you kill and you’re not a cop or not a soldier in some war, that’s
murder. Can she actually come to terms with what Luke does for the club? She has
no idea right now.

“I’m a murderer,
is that what you were going to say? Luke asks. “Fine, call me what you will,
but I’m comfortable with what I do and if you’re going to be with me, you have
to accept that part of me too.”

“Fine…but I wanna
go with you next time,” Kayla announces.

“What? What are
you talking about, Kayla? You don’t mean….No, I am not taking you the next time
I do anything for the club and especially not a hit. That’s insane! I don’t
tell you shit for your own protection and that’s also why I won’t take you with
me next time I have to kill someone for the club. You have to be able to look
at the police and answer truthfully if they ever question you about me. Also, I
will not let you make yourself an accessory to murder just so you can feel more
comfortable with me! We come from different worlds, Kayla…more like different
galaxies. I will never fit in your world and I’m damn sure you’ll never fit
into mine. And that’s one of the things I love about you; your innocence. You
can still look at the world through rose-colored glasses despite the work you
do for a living.”

Twenty minutes
later, they are still arguing, so Luke suggests they take a ride to clear their
heads. He takes her up to Tilden Park and Wildcat Canyon. The ride there is
spectacular in the summer and it’s the perfect distraction. By the time they
leave the rim, Kayla has decided she doesn’t really need to see Luke ‘work’.
She trusts him and that is enough.

They’re just
entering the city of Oakland when Luke starts getting calls on his cell phone. Luke
pulls over immediately.  He rips off his helmet, pulls his phone from his
pocket and answers it.

“What’s up?” he
asks.

Then after a long
pause. “Turns out I happen to be with a doctor as we speak. We’ll be there in
ten minutes. Just hang on bro, we’re on our way.”

Luke turns to
Kayla. “Well…you said you wanted to be more involved in my life. Do you still
feel that way?”

Kayla responds
without hesitation, “Yes. Are you going to go…uh kill someone now?”

“Not now, but
there’s been an attack and one of our brothers needs a doctor. After that, who
knows what will go down? Now are you still in? And remember, if you say yes,
there’s no backing out, understood?”

“We’re wasting
time, Luke,” Kayla replies.

That’s all the
confirmation Luke needs. He jams his helmet back on his head and they’re off.

Kayla can feel her
adrenaline soar as they speed towards the club’s headquarters. One of his
brothers must be badly injured. Otherwise, Luke wouldn’t bring her in after the
conversation they’d just had .Then a thought occurs to her. How much can she
really do with no medical supplies?

They reach King’s
clubhouse in no time at all. There’s a sea of two-wheeled metal monsters
filling the parking lot.

There must be
fifty bikes here
, Kayla
observes as she follows Luke into the clubhouse.

It takes a moment
for her eyes to adjust to the low light of the smoky bar. All she can see is a
grim lot of bikers in their traditional leather jackets or vests. An older,
grizzled biker meets Luke at the door and motions him to follow. They go around
behind the bar to a thickly-padded door. Kayla follows the two men through and
barely controls a gasp when she sees the problem.

A man, dressed in
leather from head to toe, is lying on a huge oak table. He is severely wounded.
The stench of blood and sweat in the cigar smoke filled room is nauseating.
Kayla tries not to breathe too deeply.

The man on the
table suddenly wakes up and cries out in obvious pain. She rushes to his side.

“What happened?” she
asks no one in particular.

“Harbingers jumped
him,” someone replies.

“Can you be more
specific?” Kayla asks, as she begins to unbutton the man’s bloody leather vest.

“Someone shot the
hell outta him,” a voice nearby replies. “I think—"

The man on the
table begins to thrash about. One of his arms smacks Kayla across the face,
snapping her head around. Two men grab his arms before he can do any more
damage to her. With the help of the surrounding bikers, she manages to get his
vest and shirt off and it does not look good. She grabs a towel someone hands
her and she uses it to wipe the blood from his chest and stomach. She sees four
small round bullet holes; one dangerously close to his heart, one just under
his right clavicle, one in the upper stomach area, and the last one right over
his right lung. There really is nothing she can do for him here. She directs
them to roll him over, so she can see where the exit wounds are, if any.  That
might give her a better picture of which organs are damaged. A quick search
tells her all four bullets are still in the man’s body. As they lay him on his
back again, he begins kicking his legs and screaming in agony.

“Doc,” Luke yells
over the man’s screams. “Can’t you do anything for the pain?”

“No, unless you’re
carrying around vials of morphine, I can’t. You should know some field medicine
from your military training, right?”

“Yeah, but this is
out of my league, Doc.”

“Well, it’s out of
mine too. Unless we can get him to the hospital, there is really nothing I can
do.”

“What do you mean
nothing? You’re practically a doctor, right? There’s gotta be something.”

“Look Luke, he’s
probably got a punctured lung, a perforated liver or a ruptured spleen. It’s
obvious he has internal bleeding.” She points to the bullet hole closest to his
heart. “Judging by the size of the normal heart, it may have nicked his aortic
arch. That one next to his collarbone may have severed his subclavian artery.
Any one of those bullets is enough to kill him. He needs emergency surgery.
Without that, there’s nothing anyone can do, and even that may not be enough.”

Luke is at a loss
for words.

Kayla looks up and
addresses the room full of bikers. “Does anyone know how long ago he was shot?
How long was he lying here before I arrived…anybody?”

“I don’t know,”
someone mutters. “Maybe half an hour or more…”

“Half an hour?
Holy crap! You have to take him now! Can’t someone just drop him off at the
hospital and leave if you’re afraid of getting arrested yourselves?” Kayla
asks.

She can’t believe
no one is going to do the right thing here.

The man on the
table falls silent again. Kayla checks to see if he’s breathing, then checks
his pulse at his neck. She can’t find evidence of either.

“Shit!” she
exclaims. “Who of you knows CPR?” she shouts, as she climbs onto the bloody
table.

“What the hell are
you doing?” someone asks.

Kayla looks at
him. “You,” she says. “Climb up here and straddle him. I’m going to show you
where to do chest compressions. I’m too small to be effective.”

The man balks at first,
then climbs up and Kayla shows him what to do. Then she goes around to the head
of the table and steels herself for what she is about to do; the breathing part
of CPR without a mask. She takes a deep breath and gives the big man the first
breath. They are about ten minutes into it when she realizes how futile this
is. As long as they’re not willing to call an ambulance or take him in
themselves, giving the man his only chance of survival, she can’t do much. The
guy’s going to die. She stops and motions the man doing the compressions to do
the same. Disgusted, she wipes her mouth on her sleeve and walks away from the
table. She’s grateful when a thoughtful Luke hands her a Corona.

Suddenly the door
bursts open and a giant of a man charges in. He has long, shaggy greying hair
and a longish grey beard. He may be a lot older than Luke, but he’s got the
same brilliant emerald eyes. He is well above six feet tall, and built like a
tank. His arms are nearly as big as Kayla’s thighs; he has a barrel of a chest
and a formidable gut from way too many beers. Kayla shrinks back away from him
as he approaches the table. The other brothers back away, giving him access to
the dead man. The man is, of course, Luke’s father. He grabs the deceased
brother by the shoulders and gives him a shake.

“Who the fuck did
this?” he growls.

Kayla looks at his
hands. He has long fingers like Luke’s and he has several oversized rings; a
dragon head, a coiled snake, and the last one is a two-fingered ring with the
initials GM.

I would hate to
be punched with those hands,
Kayla thinks to herself.

The big man turns
to the group of brothers gathered around. “Who the fuck is responsible for
this?” he rages.

Then he turns and
focuses on Kayla. “Why are you standing there? You’re the doc, right?”

Kayla stares at
him and nods.

“Well, then what
the fuck are you just standing here for?” he asks.

Kayla takes a deep
breath and breathes a silent prayer for her protection. “That man needed
emergency exploratory surgery and none of your precious brothers were willing
to call an ambulance or take him themselves to the hospital so he bled out in
front of them!”

“Of course, he
couldn’t go!” Luke’s father snaps. “He’d have wound up in prison the day he
recovered. Why didn’t
you
save him? What’s your fucking excuse?”

Luke steps forward
between his father and Kayla but she just steps around him. She will not let
the man talk down to her or threaten her in any way, no matter how big or who
he is!

“Save him how…and
with what?” Kayla snaps back in frustration. “Do you see any supplies here? I
see towels and that’s it. What do you expect me to do with towels?”

“Who brought the
helpless doctor?” Luke’s father shouts back.

“I brought the
doc, but it was already too late. We couldn’t take him to the hospital, so there
was nothing she could have done.”

Gunnar forgets his
argument with Kayla and changes the subject. “Who can tell me what happened
here?” he asks the crowd of brothers.

“We was at
O’Malley’s, the three of us,” begins a skinny little guy. “Me, Roark, and Mack
was drinking there. Harbingers came, slashed our tires, and kicked over our
bikes. We ran out to see what the hell was going on. Mack was the first out the
door and they opened up on him and sped away. We shot back but I don’t think we
hit anyone.”

“How many
Harbingers were there?” Gunnar asks.

“Four or five, I
think,” the skinny guy replies.

Luke’s father is barely
controlling his rage and Kayla is terrified by just being in the same room with
him. If this guy really loses it, somebody’s going to die. By the way he’s
looking at his son he is obviously thinking that Luke is somehow involved.
Kayla looks around the room and catches Luke’s eye. She motions towards the
door with her head. She desperately wants to leave. She’s had enough biker
drama for one day.