The Rising Sons Motorcycle Club (21 page)

Gunner stood just outside the kitchen. He was only in her periphery, but Raven knew he was there. He wasn’t happy with her, but she didn’t give a shit. It was his job to step up, but instead he’d decided to turn it into a dick-measuring contest, and the Rising Sons didn’t have time for that.

Raven told the club about her connection to Allan, about getting Bear out of jail, and about Tanner and Jenny. She laid all her cards on the table, except for the mention of the blackmail. She played it off like Allan might be out for revenge. There was the occasional comment, but most of the club listened. They wanted to understand why Raven was the one in front of them.

She wrapped things up, ready to send people into action. “I don’t know if Allan did this, but if he did, it’s just the start. I need weapons, and I need them here. I need a group to take care of that.” Raven looked to the door near the kitchen. “Gunner, since you are the Sergeant-at-Arms, do you want to be the one who steps up?”

She tried to hide the frustration in her voice. She may have, she may not have. It didn’t really matter to her. He knew she was pissed, and he knew exactly why.

“Yeah. I’ll round some guys up after you’re done with your talk.” She was surprised at how easily he fell in line with the other bikers.

“Good. Trask is going to be here in about five hours. I want everyone except Bear, Tanner, and Trigger here when Trask gets in. Trigger, you’re heading to the hospital to be a second pair of eyes.” Gunner’s sibling nodded. “If anyone knows who else might have attacked Bear besides the cop, I need to know.”

The Rising Sons looked around. She knew they weren’t all the brightest minds, but they knew who their enemies were.

“No one thinks the Mexicans did it?” Raven thought if she threw a name out, they could get a dialogue going. They were all listening, but she wanted to hear from them.

Cecil, one of the old-timers that served a sentence with Bear, spoke up. “The Mexicans ain’t messed with us in nearly five years. When they did, we cut them down to less than five members. Jorge Saldana’s got a truce goin’ with Bear that’s ironclad. They mess with us, they open themselves up to a world of hurt. Nah, it’s ain’t the wetbacks. We heard anything out of L.A. recently?”

Cecil looked around, directing his gaze at the older members of the group.

Clyde shook his head. “Not since ’99. They teamed up with The Rollers from Vegas and tried to come after us. I don’t think they made it to the city limits before we had them runnin’ for the hills. Facts are, there ain’t too many clubs that try and fuck with us no more. We got things pretty good locked down in this area.”

“Maybe we’re not looking for a club, then. Could it be someone else?” After asking, Raven’s mind jumped to Earl McFadden. She could only imagine how pissed off he would have been once the case against Bear was dropped. “Anyone think he’d be chicken-shit enough to go after Bear himself?”

Clyde shook his head with force. “No fuckin’ way. That chicken-shit is only chicken-shit enough to call in the adults when the kids get into a playground scuffle. He’d never go after any one of us, inside the bar or outside. He’s got no problem callin’ the cops and screamin’ assault, but he’d piss himself if anyone challenged him, especially you after what you did to him last time.” A few of the bikers around Clyde laughed. Raven could feel the hint of respect from her peers. It was about time.

“Anyone else that we might suspect?”

She waited, but no one spoke. “Fine. If we rule out McFadden, then we have to assume it’s the cops. All right, if you don’t have an assignment, you’re hangin’ here, but no more drinking for the night. Everyone else, like I said, I want you back here by the time Trask arrives. Let’s do this shit.”

Gunner headed toward his compatriots, calling out to a few of them. Raven stood back and watched them all jump into action. She had given the orders, and to her surprise, they were following them.

She was also surprised that such a tough group of outlaw bikers would be paralyzed with Bear out of action. She saw it as a major weakness that had never been addressed, apparently. Bear had been president of the club for its entire existence, and Raven wondered if that was maybe a bit too long. It was time for a changing of the guard.

Gunner’s group headed off to load up on weapons. Trigger left for the hospital to stand guard along with Tanner. Raven thought that Faith would feel safer with an extra set of eyes standing watch over Bear. She watched the bikers all get to work. Some called in reinforcements. Others discussed possible enemies.

Raven leaned back against a table. She wasn’t happy about the circumstances leading up to it, but as the de facto leader of the Rising Sons, she had never felt so good.

The machines beeped in a steady, depressing rhythm. Bear was bandaged so much that he was almost unrecognizable. One of his eyes was covered, and gauze was wound around his head. If not for the salt and pepper stubble around his mouth, Faith wouldn’t have recognized him at all.

She stood over him, squeezing his hand and trying not to concentrate on all the flashing lights, pumps, and bouncing lines on the monitors. It made him look like a monster about to be brought back to the world of the living. She didn’t want to think of her man like that.

In her love-colored glasses, Bear was a rough, smart, bad boy. Ever since getting out of prison, he had kept his promise to his wife: he’d never gotten in trouble with the law, and he’d never gone back to jail. Even Faith knew the thing with Earl McFadden was horseshit. If Raven hadn’t gotten the case thrown out, Bear would have gone free. There was no weight to it. Earl just wanted to look like a big man after getting his ass kicked by a girl.

Faith looked older. The second she’d walked through the hospital room and saw Bear unconscious, the years came down on her. Ninety-nine percent of the time, she could have passed for a woman in her mid-thirties, not edging on fifty. She never came to the bar unkempt, and she was still turning heads. They turned right back around in a hurry when they heard who she was married to, though.

When he’d first arrived from Davis, Trask had stood in the doorway and watched his mother. They were never close, and when he’d learned the truth about his father, not much changed. By then, Bear was the president of the Rising Sons, not “Dad.” It was too late for them to have the father-son relationship. They got along, and they were built from the same mold, but that crucial connection would never be.

Trask still hurt to see Bear looking so broken. His age showed far more than Faith’s, but he wore it well. Bear played the aging badass card all the time. In negotiations, he said, “I been around a time or two. You can’t expect me to pay that.”

In fights, he used his looks to his advantage. He’d move slow and favor one leg, and when the enemy tried to exploit the weakness, he would strike hard and fast like a man half his age. Trask admired his father in many ways, and as he stood looking at the older man, his blood raged. He wanted to know exactly what had happened.

Faith looked up and saw her son in the doorway. He gave a weak smile. “Hey, Mom.”

She laid her man’s limp hand down with care and stepped around the bed. She nearly dropped to the floor before she even reached her son. Trask moved forward and scooped her up. He wrapped his arms around her and muffled her cries.

Trask didn’t know how long they held each other, but when the embrace broke, what was left of Faith’s makeup was running down her cheeks. He pulled his bandana from his back pocket. Handing it to her, he grabbed the chair sitting near the hospital room window. He pulled it right next to Bear’s bed, and then he led his mother to the chair. Faith wasn’t one to ask for help, but she let her son move her into position, and she slid down next to her husband.

Her son got down on his haunches and looked at her. “Tell me what happened.” His voice was low.

Faith shook her head hard. “I don’t know. Somebody that Raven knows told me. I don’t know if he just went down, or if somebody came after him. The doctor hasn’t been in yet, so… I don’t know.” Her voice wobbled and got higher as she spoke. Near the end of the sentence, Faith couldn’t go on. She bent her head into the bandana again. Trask watched her sob.

Outside, Tanner and Trigger sat in chairs they had dragged from the waiting room. At first they were told not to move the chairs, but the nurses soon realized the two bikers weren’t going to listen to reason, and they let the men be. They were the antithesis of cops standing guard outside of a wounded officer’s room. After all, it was the cops they were guarding against. It had been about four hours of nothing but sitting. The nurse would come by check on Bear, but there was no news or change to his condition.

Trigger would doze from time to time, but every time his head fell back against the wall behind him, he’d spring back awake and look around. One of the better-looking nurses thought it was funny. He’d regain his composure and wink at her each time.

Tanner was glued to his phone. He texted his sister and Jenny, letting them know what was going on. Almost none of it was news, besides Trask’s arrival. When a doctor would walk by, Trigger and Tanner would look up with expectant eyes, but they’d fall as the doc kept walking.

An hour after Trask arrived, the doctor finally made a visit. Faith saw him come in and stood up, her hands still clutching the bandana. Trask put an arm around her shoulder after shaking the young man‘s hand. Trask didn’t consider himself old, but he felt that way standing opposite the doc, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. When he spoke, Trask expected his voice to crack.

“I’m Dr. Childers.”

“Hey, Doc,” Trask said. He knew his mother wouldn’t be able to say a word. Trask squeezed her shoulder. “Nobody’s told us anything, so lay it on us.”

“Well, your father has been in a motorcycle accident. Luckily, he was wearing his helmet, although it was only a half-helmet, which didn’t protect the lower part of his head. We aren’t sure how long it was between the accident and when it was called in, but we do know the injuries were severe.

“He has a broken arm, some broken fingers, and a bruised spine, but the major injury that we are monitoring closely was the trauma to his brain.”

The doctor let it sink in. The broken bones were no big deal. They would heal, but Trask didn’t understand what the doc said about the brain injury.

“You said he was wearing a helmet, so what’s so severe?”

Dr. Childers gave a doctor’s smile, the one that said,
oh, you who know so little.
“The helmet helped, but Mr. Rivers hit the ground with such blunt trauma that even a fully padded, covered helmet wouldn’t have prevented this. It’s called a diffuse axonal injury. Essentially, there are lesions on his brain. They cover a fairly large portion of the upper left side.

“The force of impact was so great that the helmet cracked in several places. It saved his life.” Dr. Childers looked down at his chart, flipping through the pages.

Trask looked from his father to the doc. “Well, what’s the plan? Brain surgery? Is there swelling?” He wished to God that Hope had come with him. She was in her last year of med school, and she might be able to translate for them. Trask was barely hanging on to the doc’s words.

“Mr. Rivers, your father is in a deep coma. At this point, all we can do is manage the lesser injuries and monitor his brain. We may need to schedule a small surgery to reduce the swelling, but at this point, we are playing a waiting game. Comas as a result of diffuse axonal injuries are common, but the chances of regaining consciousness are low, and I’m afraid that patients suffering from this injury are often impaired mentally afterwards.”

The doctor looked back and forth from Trask and Faith. When he saw that they weren’t getting it, he had to speak plainly. “He may never come out of this coma, and if he does, he may require twenty-four hour care for the rest of his life. There’s just no way to tell. I’m going to leave you two, but I’ll be back in an hour or so to check on his vitals again. If you have any questions, feel free to ask the nurses. They’d be more than happy to help you. Take care.”

With that, the doc left the room. Faith turned and looked at her son. There was horror on her face. She slid back down into the chair and grabbed her husband’s hand. Trask stood there, unmoving. He was processing a ton of information. He pulled out his phone and dialed Hope. She’d be able to break it down for him.

When she picked up, the worry was already in her voice. “Hey, love. What’s the verdict?”

Trask pushed the words out, realizing there was a solid lump of emotion in his throat. “Uh, the doc called it a diffuse axonal injury. He’s in a coma.”

Hope didn’t respond for a long time. Each second magnified Trask’s worry. “I’m so sorry. How’s your mom?”

“Hanging in there. When are you coming down?”

“I’ve got class until four tomorrow afternoon, then I’ll skip Friday and head down. Unless you need me to come down sooner?”

Trask smiled a little bit and walked out of the hospital room. He nodded at Trigger as he passed him, “No, tomorrow’s good.” Once he was out of earshot, Trask asked, “The doc made it sound like things aren’t great. Can you shed some light on things for me?”