A Bone to Pick, page 25
Mark’s fists clenched. We’re a year out of high school, and he still thinks he can make me one of his thugs?
I can’t let him rattle me. Rafe couldn’t have seen him duck back here; he had to be bluffing, calling blindly up each corner to see if he’d get an answer.
Then Rafe spoke again. “This time, the best place you can be is away from Joe Dennard. This won’t stop until it comes out the far side of ugly.”
Dennard. The night of the gang war. Suddenly that was all Mark could think of—even after ten years, after most of the Blades who’d lived through it must be dead or in prison. What could Rafe and the rest of them know, or care, about what might have happened back then?
But if they did—Mark found he couldn’t breathe. If the gang was after Dennard—and they’d spotted Mark for being outside Angie’s—were they already closing in on the father and the daughter too?
Then he heard a footstep, then another, the sound receding as Rafe walked away, up the pavement, to be swallowed up by the sounds of the city. He hadn’t seen Mark after all.
Mark stayed flattened against the van for five more long, controlled breaths. Then he crouched down to look under it—he hadn’t been so well-hidden, after all, not if anyone stopped to look for his feet—but saw nobody lingering out there.
His hands were trembling as he started the bike up the alley. At least his tires were silent as they built up speed, not like running feet would be. But he had to go faster, faster, get some space to stop and call the Dennards.
“Bastard!”
The sudden yell twisted his head back, to see the other two Blades charging up the alley at him. He flung himself forward.
Then the handlebar lurched and tipped, and he wrenched it blindly to keep it clear of the wall, clinging for balance, still looking back at the Blades... seeing the bungeed-down box working loose from the rack...
It’s dangling over to foul the wheel—
Somehow, somehow, he kept the bike steady as he leaned forward and kicked back wildly, then felt the box break free. He scrabbled for the pedals again, fighting to build speed and hoping the gang would duck away from the falling box—or even stop to tear it open to discover the sample suit coat some designer had been so damn eager to have delivered.
Push! The street ahead still looked empty, no barriers to him, but also no witnesses if they caught him. Still, the thought of racing blindly into the lane made him twist, sweeping around the corner onto the sidewalk past a flash of red hair that had to be—
He heard the curses first, so fierce he had to steal a glance back. In that one instant he saw two recycling bins falling by the corner in a mess of green and blue and strewn metal. And a door, closing. Angie must have already ducked through it after knocking the bins into the Blades’ path.
Mark had to imagine the rest as he powered up the street: how the first Blade might twist around the bins, but maybe the other would slip on some of the scattered cans... his mind kept supplying the sound of bowling pins crashing down together, but of course what mattered were the seconds Angie had bought him to get up to speed at last. And that she had spotted the bins and the open door in the one split instant he’d raced past her. Of course.
He rushed past block after block, keeping to the clearer side streets and zigzagging between them when he could. As he worked on picturing the evening streets’ layout he remembered his new cell’s GPS tracker app; of course, when he had broken off his call with her to run from the Blades, Angie could have used her own cell to find him. That could have given her some little warning that he was doubling back here, enough to set her trap.
With that guess in mind, it was only a matter of time before he settled onto the bike lane on Garcetti, and looked back to see a motorcyclist wearing a familiar denim jacket and red helmet moving up from behind him.
The old relief at seeing her was colored with an odd stain of envy, now that Angie’s nimble Kawasaki had held up while his Chevy’s breakdown had sent him back to pedaling. Not that that matters, if the gang is hunting her father. He pulled over to wait.
As his feet touched the pavement he felt his head spin, tension suddenly squirming up and down his muscles and turning them to water. The Blades had almost... and Rafe had...
A sudden thought made him burst out laughing, sagging against the handlebars.
Angie pulled up beside him, frowning at him as he fought to get a full breath. “Mark? Did I miss something?” Concern softened her voice more than usual.
“Just realized,” he gasped out, trying to show her he hadn’t lost his mind. “Even without your help, they... they lost that chase years—years!—before they met us...”
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “And why is that?”
He hauled in some air, and tried to say it properly. “When the first punks started their ‘club.’ Motorcycles couldn’t squeeze through where I did, and runners couldn’t keep up... but e-e-ever since they named themselves the Blades...” The laughs broke through again and he collapsed over the bike.
A moment later he heard her finish “...they wouldn’t dare chase you on skates!” and break out laughing herself.
When they both had their breath back, Mark drew himself up, his lanky frame looming over her compact one. The one friend he’d kept by him, the girl who’d gone from severe pneumonia to winning track records. The girl who still held on to even bigger dreams, if she could get away safe from what he’d just learned.
He made himself meet her eyes. “Except... it was Rafe Martinez himself. And when they spotted me, I think it was because they were watching your place, and... he said they’re after your father. I mean, if they finally found out he was there, and he really did know something about how the gang war started—”
“He threatened Dad—and you think it’s for this thing again?” Her simple features tightened in frustration. “For the last time, give it a rest.” She spun away, glaring up at the blackening clouds. “And it’s been ten years. What could Rafe ‘find out’ that can have dug all of that up?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know why he warned me; I’ve already turned down enough of his damn offers. But what I think—”
Mark stopped and bit back the flare of anger; he should have known arguing this with her wouldn’t be easy. He met her gaze and settled his voice to its gentlest, steadiest tone.
“I think something had them waiting around your place, when I rode by it, and they even knew me, all of them. And that means they’ll be back for you again, if you stay around here.” He stopped there; no need to say again how he still couldn’t forget the fury Dennard’s face had held that night—or the shame after, then and when he turned in his badge, after weeks of bloody inter-gang warfare.
But Angie must have guessed where his doubts led, because she sighed “But years back—while he was saving our lives!—he was a block away when the 66s opened up on the Blades, and yet somehow it’s his fault? No, this has to be about what he is now. If they can control the park’s guard, they control the park, control the drugs and God-knows-what else they can do there. And they want me as a way to get at him.”
She glanced around the sidewalk traffic, as if the gang might already be creeping through the crowd toward them. In just moments, Angie had it all figured out—without blaming the man they both wanted to trust. And he had to admit, her answer did make more sense.
A car honked on the street beside them.
“Mark?” She was looking back toward him.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Look, maybe it doesn’t matter what they want from him. If they were at your place, they want to use you against him, but you’re leaving the city anyway—and you still are, right? Staying isn’t supporting him, it just gives him more he has to watch out for. And don’t think about putting your plans on hold, that’s one more way the gang wins.”
“I... oh of course I’m leaving, I know that. I should like it more when you’re right.” Her head sank, then straightened a second later. “But you both have to keep yourselves safe, too, or I’ll just be right back here.” And she grinned.
“Sure, anything to keep that from happening.” The joke came as a reflex, while his thoughts scrambled to catch up to how she’d be safe again, free, gone. He added, “If they’re watching your place, I can round up some reinforcements to help while you pick up a few things—”
“No, I should just call Dad and go, and work the rest out later. Besides, you still have to explain to your boss about that package. And aren’t you seeing Grace tonight?” she added as she started her engine.
He only smiled back and dug out his phone as he pulled onto the sidewalk. He only had to keep the smile up a few more seconds, and then she was gone.
She’s gone off to learn to fly planes, and when I’m trying to show her I’m the fastest courier on a bike, I get shot down. “Nice going,” he muttered as he dialed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“Whispered spells for breathless suspense.”
Ken Hughes dreams of dark alleys and the twenty-seven ways people with different psychic gifts might maneuver around each corner. He grew up on comics and adventures before discovering Stephen King and Joss Whedon, and he's written for Mars mission proposals and medical devices, making him an honorary rocket scientist and brain surgeon. Ken is a Global Ebook Award-nominated urban fantasy novelist, creator of the Shadowed Steps books, the Spellkeeper Flight trilogy, and more.
Don’t get him started on puns.
KenHughesAuthor.com.
Ken Hughes, A Bone to Pick
