I close the file, then wave it over my shoulder to prove he and I are good. The house phone goes silent, but then my cell’s ringtone begins.
I answer and it’s Oz on the other end. He and Chevy—they’ve been my best friends since birth. “You got trouble?”
“Could say that. How’d you know?”
“You’re late to orientation, and Pigpen saw someone with Jefferson County plates headed down your drive. He gave you a few minutes to show on the main road, and when you didn’t...”
Oz drops off. He doesn’t have to explain. The club, as always, has my back. Especially Pigpen. The brother adopted me as his protégé.
The detective bangs on the door. “Come out here or tell me I can come in, but if you leave my sight with that file in hand, I will bust down this door.”
“I gotta go.” I hang up and stride out onto the porch. The cop snatches the folder from my fingers and his hand edges to his holstered gun as Pigpen and Man O’ War burst off their bikes and stalk in our direction.
Pigpen earned his name as a joke because the girls fall over themselves to gain his attention. Blond hair, blue eyes...a late twentysomething version of what I hope to be. Man O’ War acquired his road name because when he’s in a fight, he’s famous for causing pain.
“Got a warrant for something?” Pigpen asks in a low voice that’s more threat than question. Less than a year and a half ago, the guy was crawling around in the muck in some foreign country as an Army Ranger. Even though he was recruited by the Army because of his mad computer skills, it was a bullet in the shoulder and chest he took saving someone in his squad that brought him home for good. The brother is damn lethal.
“Just having a conversation,” the cop answers in a slow drawl, “and I was leaving.”
Pigpen climbs the porch and Man O’ War lags behind on the grass. I lean against the house and stay the hell out of the way. Most people say my wires are crossed, but even I know to grant a wide berth when these two are pushed into irritable.
Pigpen slides into the man’s space and goes nose to nose. To the cop’s credit, he doesn’t flinch.
“He’s still in high school.”
“Razor’s eighteen,” the cop bites out. “Legal age.”
“Leave and don’t come back. You have questions, you bring them to the board. I hear you’re slinking around him again, you’re dealing with me.”
“Is that a threat?” The cop cocks his head to the side like he doesn’t give a damn Pigpen’s in his face. What I find more interesting is that the two are talking like they’ve met before, or are at least familiar with each other.
Pigpen grins like a crazy man. “Yeah, it is.”
The cop slips a white card out of the file and holds it out to me, but I keep my arms crossed over my chest. With his eyes locked with mine, he drops the card and it floats like a feather to the porch.
He walks down the stairs, across the yard, and within less than a minute his Chevy Caprice is crackling rocks under rolling tires.
Pigpen releases a long breath and glances over his shoulder at me. “Am I going to want to know what that was about?”
I shake my head.
“Will the board?”
The club’s board—the group of men who oversee the members. They tackle the day-to-day operations of the club and they tackle any problems that arise. The detective suggested the club killed my mom, so, yeah, guess they will want to hear about this. I incline my head in affirmation.
“Shit.”
Sums it up.
“Get to orientation. I’ll set up a meeting with the board soon.”
Pigpen swipes up the card, but I catch a peek as I head past him to my bike. The cop’s name is Jake Barlow, and not only is he a detective, but he’s part of a gang task force.
We’re a legit club. We don’t dabble in illegal nonsense. We aren’t the clichéd MC that sells guns, drugs, or deals in prostitution. We’re just a group of guys who love motorcycles and believe that family can mean more than the blood running through your veins. This guy, he was fucking with me. Just fucking with me.
“Razor,” Pigpen calls as I straddle my bike.
When I meet his eyes, he continues, “Are you tight?”
I’m not a talker. Speak only when I have something worth saying. Everyone knows this, but this silence is beyond my normal. My mind replays the image of Mom’s car. It was crushed almost beyond recognition. The cop said there were no skid marks, no signs she tried to stop. My lungs ache as if someone crushed me beyond recognition.
Am I tight? Hell, no. I look away and Pigpen says, “Whatever this is, we’ll figure it out.”
I nod, then start my bike. Not sure about the we’ll part, but I plan on getting some answers and getting them soon.
I KNOW THAT the capital of Bolivia is Sucre. I know that the average distance from the earth to the moon is 238,900 miles. I also know that blue whales can go six months without eating. Random, bizarre stuff. That’s what my head is full of. Nothing that will boost my math scores on the ACT or secure me a date to prom. Nothing that will save me and my best friend from this being our last day on the planet.
While my brain is obviously wired differently, there are certain commonsense rules all girls in town comprehend. It’s not knowledge that has to be taught, like when I was six and my oldest brother spent weeks teaching me to tie my shoes or how at four my older sister spared a few minutes from her overly important life to show me how to spell my name.
In fact, sitting here on the top step to the entrance of Snowflake High watching this potential disaster unfold, I search my memory for the first person who warned me to steer clear of the Reign of Terror Motorcycle Club.
There was no pamphlet handed out during health class. No sex conversation like the one my mom had with me in kindergarten because I referred to a certain male body part by the same name as a round toy. Stupid brothers teaching me their stupid slang.
But when it pertains to the threat that is the Reign of Terror MC, it’s not learned, it’s known. Like how an infant understands how to suck in a breath at the moment of birth or how a newborn foal wobbles to his legs. It’s instinctual. It’s ingrained. It’s fact.
“Do you think his motorcycle will work this time?” Addison asks.
“Hope so,” I breathe out, too terrified to speak at a normal level in fear of drawing the scrutiny of the men wearing black leather vests who circle the broke-down bike. Reign of Terror arches over the top of the black vest, in the middle is a half skull with fire blazing out of the eye sockets and drops of fire rain around it. It’s ominous and I shiver.
Addison and I sit huddled close.
