Seven Sunsets (10 page)

I just stared at it. I wasn’t shaking on shit. “You killed my parents. You’ve had my sister for fourteen years. You threatened to make her your old lady if I didn’t get here in time and now you’re telling me what? You and the General are all cozy now?”

“I just thought you should know the Gods didn’t just happen into the diner boy. They’d been after us, yes, trying to get to Katherine before us, but you’d be kidding yourself if you think the result wouldn’t have been the same. Katherine ended up leaving the General too. It’s no secret he was also looking to spill her blood, but instead he found you.”

I was tired of all this cryptic bullshit from the man who’d done the killing. “Give me my sister.”

“Come on.” Serpentine led me outside the back door, to a basement door hidden in the wall. I couldn’t believe he was just handing her over. It was like my dreams had come true. I didn’t trust it. He unlocked a pad lock and went down before me. I wasn’t about to follow him, not knowing if all this had been a trap or what. He came back up the stairs looking livid. “She’s gone.”

“What?”

His hands were on his hips like a woman. “She was locked down here, but now she’s gone. I swear I planned to give her to you.”

Looking around, I saw we were still alone. I drew my blade from my boot before he could go for a weapon himself. I held the blade to him, daring him to make a noise while I scanned the area. I saw the bloody hand print on the inside of the door, too small to be a man’s print, and my heart stopped. I led Serpentine downstairs to have a look, afraid I’d find her dead.

A lone bed sat amongst a stinking mess. I covered my nose with my sleeve, noticing it was a blood covered bed. “What the fuck have you done to her?”

“Nothing. She was here before you came,” he said, seemingly studying the blood too.

I pushed the blade against his neck. “Are you sure, old man?”

“She was here. Maybe the boys know what happened to her.”

“Did you kill her?”

“No. I swear. She’s been down here for five years.”

“She’s been locked down here for five years?”

Serpentine backed up to the wall, his eyes telling me what a sick bastard he was.

“You mess with her?”

He smiled too big, enjoying my pain. This had all been a set up. He wanted me to find her dead. My head spun with the memories of what happened to my mother and now, I could feel it in my gut. Halley was dead too. I started to push my blade in his chest, but a quick death was too good for him. I seized him by his hair and threw him on the bloody bed. My knee in his neck, I asked him again, what’d happened to her.

“Maybe the boys got too rough.”

I jerked out his snake like tongue, and sliced it off.

Still alive, though bleeding profusely, he clutched my shirt.

“Can’t lie now, can you fucker?”

Blood gushed out of his mouth as I sliced his shirt open, and cut a message into him
S…C…A…R.

Shutting the pad lock, I locked him back in the basement. Covered in blood, I walked back into the empty bar. I lit a cigarette and poured my whiskey on the counter. I threw down my butt before taking off my bandana lighting it and throwing in the puddle. I walked out the back. When all the boys had run to the fire at clubhouse, leaving my ride alone, I squealed out of there, just numb.

In a haze of too many pain pills, I rode back to Arizona, the thought of Emery the only thing keeping me from swerving left, crashing head first into a semi. When I skid into our Tucson clubhouse in a cloud of dust, I ran straight to Jessy’s room to find her. I’d take her away right now. We wouldn’t wait like I’d said in my note. She wouldn’t have to live this life.

“Emery,” I bellowed, throwing open the door.

Jessy sat up in her bed. “I’m sorry, Scar. She’s gone.”

I sat on the bed in disbelief. My head in my hands, the one thread holding me together broke, and I let tears fall for my sister.

Jewel touched my shoulder, her voice softly saying, “She’d asked me, so I told her the best way to escape.”

I wanted to slap Jessy Bell, but didn’t have the strength.

What would Emery do now?

The next thing I knew, I was standing in the General’s bedroom. It was morning after all. “I thought you’d said you would watch her like a hawk?”

“What am I supposed to do if a girl doesn’t want to live the life, wants to leave? She done stole Hannibal’s chromecycle.” The General patted me on the back. It fucking stung, but I held in the pain. “I am sorry that sum’ bitch wasn’t telling the truth about Halley though.”

He’d said all my life we couldn’t trust Serpentine and if we went against him, he’d only kill Halley. I hung my head.

The General didn’t say he told me so. “Got the call around midnight you’d killed him. Well done, son.”

“He told me about my mother.”

“I’m not your daddy, boy, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“So, the truce is over.”

The old man looked bewildered. “What truce? I paid what ya’ll agreed upon. Didn’t talk about no truce.”

That settled it. I washed everything Serpentine said out of my mind. Wanda led me to their couch where I slept until nightfall, past the fucking sunset.

The General woke me, saying I was needed at the clubhouse. I popped a handful of pills and followed him. Everyone was waiting for me, my brothers, the ladies and independents from the area who we kept close.

“What’s all this?”

“We’re celebrating your office.” He was talking about me agreeing to be VP again. “And were drinking to Halley.” The General raised a glass to my sister.

It was time to get shit faced. My brothers sure knew how to party, heavy metal and hard rock blaring, plenty of whiskey and weed and loose women. They kept my glass full, and I gladly threw them back until I couldn’t feel a damned thing. Now, I was ready to party like tomorrow wasn’t coming.

The General was arm wrestling Root, a crowd circling them. Brothers were playing darts and shooting pool while the women made sure we were all happy. All except Freedom, Anarchy and Harlot, the three women who were patched members. They weren’t making sure anyone was happy. Harlot was emasculating as many men as she could, taking on any man who wanted to get beat, arm wrestling beside the General. Anarchy pouted in a corner, Cowboy having obviously made his way back home. Freedom was giving me a show, sticking her gorgeous ass out my way as she talked to some Independent, probably a local well to do businessman. Hannibal was nowhere to be seen.

I was too high to play poker with Toes, another brother I’d grown up with. He’d lost a few toes mowing the grass when he was a kid, and we’d never heard the end of it. Popping another pill every time the pain came back, physical and the other kind, I didn’t care if it was too much. I laid down my cards, hiccupping just as a piece of tail walked by. I snatched her, pulling her into my lap. Even in my drunken stupor, I remembered Debbie. Just another hardbelly, she’d been on more wieners than yellow mustard. Her big breasts were practically already hanging out so I yanked a titty out, squeezing it as she ran her fingers through my hair. She turned, straddling me just right. I noticed she had on a leather pleated skirt with her Harley tank so I found her panties, moved them aside and treated her like a bowling ball.

Toes suggested, “Time to earn an eight ball?”

“What’s an eight ball?” Debbie asked as I pulled my hand from her pussy and wiped it on my jeans.

I laughed but told her it was a surprise as Toes slipped me a condom. “Good thinking, man.”

She was bent over the pool table before too long. I didn’t quite remember how I got there, but I was pulling her skirt up and her undies down while my brothers watched, cheering me on. I’d have to fuck her ass with no lube in front of my brothers. Not just fuck, I had to give my brothers a show. I’d have to destroy her ass. Debbie was in for it, and I didn’t care. The whiskey and painkillers had found my automatic switch, and this was the worst me, the strong me, the only part of me that could survive the pain I was in.

Punching into her ass was easy, pounding it with no holds barred, felt fucking amazing, the roar of my brothers in my ears as satisfying as spilling my seed thankfully in a lambskin. But I pulled out unsatisfied. I zipped my pants, and stumbled back to the bar for another round of drinks.

Freedom sat beside me. Road captain, her body was still smoking under her cut. Tonight she wore painted on jeans, high-heeled boots and a white tank top, cut low, showing off her new tits. She had full sleeves of tattoos now, unlike when I was fucking her. Her dyed bright red hair hung in ringlets, she wore too much makeup now, making her look so different than when we were getting it on.

“I see you still got it.” She’d watched me earn an eight ball.

“Where’s your man?”

Freedom’s hand was resting on my leg as she bit her ruby lip. “He’s on a run. Won’t be back for a while. Plus he’s taking your place and you’re taking his.”

“He’s going Nomad?”

Batting her thick lashes, she nodded her head, her hand moving to the bulge in my pants. “My ass is pretty jealous of Debbie right now.”

Placing another pill on my tongue, I downed another drink. The next thing I knew I was in Freedoms bed, her lips like morphine, kissing away my pain.

Somewhere in Mexico

Emery

I hadn’t wanted Scar to leave me in Arizona, but I never imagined I’d be sitting next to Hannibal riding through Mexico to meet up with Manul. He took Scar’s note from me and threw it out the window. It didn’t matter. I had it memorized.

Emery,

You are the fire that consumes me. I’ll be back to watch the sunrise with you tomorrow. I’ll find a way for us to go far away, away from this life, all three of us.

I promise—
SCAR
Edmond

Cowboy

In the earlier morning, I rolled out of Anarchy’s bed a happier man than before. It was my turn to leave her while she was sleeping. It felt damned good that my heart didn’t belong to her anymore. She was kidding herself if she thought I’d forgiven her. I only wanted her pussy last night. I stretched before I pulled on my pants, staring at her naked body crashed on the bed. It felt even better to use her like she’d used me all those years ago.

I went to find Scar, wanting to ride with him to Cali only to find Hannibal yanking Emery around. He was pulling her kicking and screaming out of Jessy’s room, out of the clubhouse. I hid away and watched him push her in a long black car that was waiting up the road. He got inside with her. Fuck, the General had traded Emery to the Mob.

My loner bike wouldn’t start. With Hannibal gone, I took his, hotwired the shiny piece of shit. Hannibal was a fucking chromosexual. I’d be riding on more chrome than Harley. But Bones and I’d talked about it after we watched Scar get whipped, deciding I should go help him since Bones couldn’t ride. No one was watching me. They weren’t afraid I’d do something. I must have been a fucking nobody to them all. I could make my way back to Louisiana at my leisure, the General had said.

I’d known the way, having been down this road before. The actual road and I’d been on a run to rescue Scar’s sister more than once. She was a damned mythical creature we could never find. We’d raided the Sons of Satan’s clubhouse before. We’d followed false leads, fought and lost. I was beginning to think Halley didn’t exist. Parking Hannibal’s metal monster about five miles up the road, I made my way to the Devil’s Den crouched behind bushes and trees. When I got close enough to see the lights in the distance, I went to my elbows in the grass like a snake. Sometimes if you want to catch one, you had to become one.

“Halley, come on.” I froze in the grass at the name, stopped breathing even. It seemed tonight was my lucky night. Holy fuck, I’d found Halley.

“I can’t,” the girl said before dropping to her knees, her hands following. Her eyes met mine.

I smiled, trying to show I wasn’t her enemy and put my finger to my lips as her eyes grew as wide as saucers. Seeing her face, I was sure she was Halley now. She looked like Scar but beautiful as a star lit night. I caught the man by the ankle, knocking him down and was on him in a flash, my hand over his mouth, my blade against his neck. The girl watched silently, still on her knees as if in shock. It was Snakebite, Serpentine’s son. He was sneaking Halley away before Scar even made it here. Snakebite rolled me off him but didn’t fight. He went straight for Halley, picking her up and running the direction I’d come, away from the clubhouse. I chased slowly while digging in my jacket and then screwing my silencer on my gun. When I was ready, I sped up, running faster than I ever had to get close enough to make the shot. I fired once toward his legs so I didn’t hit the girl. I watched the figure in the distance fall, dropping Halley. Damn, I was good. I jogged over and bent to see if the girl was okay. Bleeding, her clothes were soaked with blood. I hadn’t shot her, I was sure of it. He’d hurt her and by the looks of her, I wasn’t sure if she’d survive a ride to Tucson. I shot Snakebite again, this time in the shoulder. He’d die way out here hidden in the grass before his brothers found him. Ignoring his cries of agony, I picked Halley up in a cradle hold.

“Halley darlin’, name’s Cowboy, and I’m taking you away from here.”