Nobody's Darlin', page 22
Mickey is standing there, looking dumbfounded over the fact that Lily is missing. I turn to face him. “You. With me,” I tell him. He nods his head and follows me to the body shop, and while we walk, I get Tate on the phone.
“What?” he groans on the other end.
“Wraiths took Lily and one of the sweet butts,” I inform him quickly. Suddenly, the grogginess in his voice disappears, and I can hear him getting dressed.
“How long ago?”
“Just a few minutes ago. We need to be smart about this,” I point out, and he curses on the other side of the phone. I’m sitting at my desk, Mickey behind my shoulders as I pull up footage from the cameras I’ve placed throughout the compound. “I’m looking through the footage now,” I tell Tate on the other line.
“I’m packing up weapons; We’ll get her back,” Tate reassures, though there’s panic clearly laced in his voice.
I watch the footage showing the altercation with Axel, how he went down, and how these pricks grabbed the girls. My heart sinks as I watch Lily scream and then freeze with terror, while the other woman fights back.
I rub my chest as an ache rips through me. It feels like I might throw up.
“How did they get in?” Mickey asks from behind me. I almost forgot he was here.
I don’t respond, but I pull up the camera that covers the front gate, and I watch in horror as I see them input the code, the gates opening for them. Mickey and I are silent as Tate growls over the phone.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Someone in the club gave them the code,” I answer with disbelief.
“Who in the fuck would let the Wraiths in?” Mickey wonders with absolute hatred in his voice.
“Tate?” I question.
“This fuckin’ ends now. Get as many members as you can pull together—only those we can trust—and meet me at the gas station on Hines Street. I’ll bring a van with as much artillery as I can scrounge from the warehouse. Everyone needs to be armed. We get Lily out of there and take out every single piece of shit who stands in our way.”
“How do I know who to trust?” I ask Tate. Clearly, there’s a fucking rat in our midst.
“None of the old guys, newly patched and younger members only,” Tate replies.
“What about your informant?” I ask, not caring that Mickey is hearing details he shouldn’t know. Finding Lily is the priority. If I have to kill him after, I will.
“I’m callin’ him now,” Tate replies.
“How do we know he didn’t let these fuckers in?” I ask. The last thing we need is to give more information to the cunt who gave up our club.
“He didn’t. I’d bet my life on it… Lily’s life on it,” he reiterates, and I guess I’ll have to just take him at his word, because I have little else to go off of. “Now, get off the fuckin’ phone and do what I told you so we can get Lily back,” he barks before hanging up.
If we don’t find Lily soon, I may kill everyone in this fucking club.
I’m able to gather six guys quickly to meet Tate so we can come up with a plan. On bikes, it’s Atlas, Ink, Mickey, and Maverick. Doc and Axel follow in the SUV, seeing as there’s no fucking way Axel could ride with the state of his arm. Doc said he got extremely lucky with a through and through that didn’t hit any major arteries.
The ride to the gas station is tense, and the only thing running through my head are the worst-case scenarios. What if they hurt her, abuse her, or God fucking forbid the unthinkable?
Guilt seeps deep within my stomach, and I can’t help but wonder if this is the retaliation for the raid the other night. But how would they be able to get into the compound? Or even know to target Lily?
The more I get lost in my head, the more questions I have. Everyone knows the story of Teresa being saved from the Wraiths and brought to the compound with Lily and her brother Ambien. How would another club just allow that? And why would we keep peace with this club for over ten years?
I’ve gone along with what Tate has said. I know he knows more than he’s been telling us, and right about now, I’m ready to strangle his secrets out of him. If his keeping secrets is the reason Lily was taken… I take a deep breath.
I can’t let the switch flip.
Not yet.
Lily’s safety is the priority. I chant that over and over in my head. Keep your shit together for Lily.
We pull up at the gas station and wait for Tate to get here, but I can’t help feeling like every second we waste is another second that Lily is in severe danger. I don’t smoke, but when Mickey hands me a cigarette, I take it. The cool nicotine helps the shaking of my hands as we wait.
I picture the pain I’m going to cause any motherfucker who even lays a finger on her. I’ll make it as painful as fucking possible, ripping them limb by limb, and forcing them to watch as I take down every single one of their club members.
There is no innocent Wraith in my mind.
They all deserve to fucking die, and I’ll gladly do it with my bare-fucking-hands.
I toss the cigarette away and consider taking over everything, saying fuck it when it comes to waiting for Tate to pull up when suddenly the black van squeals into the parking lot.
He’s barely parked before the driver’s side door flings open, and he’s rounding the vehicle to show us the arsenal he brought.
“We’re ready when the time comes,” he states, addressing the gathered members of the club.
“What do you mean when the fucking time comes? We need to go now,” I argue.
“We can’t go in right now.”
I grab Tate by the cut and get in his face. “Fuck you, we’re going in now.”
He shoves at me, but I don’t move. “You’re gonna wanna get your fuckin’ hands off of me, brother,” he warns calmly.
“You don’t fucking get it. I need her back now,” I bark.
The dark trauma of my past creeping up, of being too late to save someone I loved. I can’t fail again. I fucking can’t.
“I want her back just as bad as you fuckin’ do. But we can’t do that at this very moment. There aren’t enough of us. The Wraiths have three major commercial properties, and right now I don’t know which one she’s at. Until we know which building and what we’re up against, we need to wait.”
“This is all your fucking fault,” I seethe at him. “If we didn’t intercept that fucking cargo, she’d still be here. In fact, she’d be so safe and fucking far away from your bullshit, we would have been better off.” I’m nearly screaming and all the other guys look so confused with what’s happening right now. I don’t give a shit about airing our dirty laundry.
“If it’s anyone’s fuckin’ fault, it’s mine. She was with me when they took her,” Axel admits, placing himself in the middle of Tate and me. “I want Lily back more than I need to fuckin’ breathe. You two assholes fightin’ isn’t goin’ to get her back. So what’s the fuckin’ plan?”
Tate glares at me, but readjusts his cut as he circles us up to go over the plan. It’s flimsy at best and requires the trust of a third party that Tate won’t identify.
Every fiber of my being is telling me to storm their closest clubhouse and kill everyone on site. I get a grip on myself and decide to follow the program. One slip-up could have them moving Lily to another location, and then we’ll never be able to find her again.
Phase one of the plan is stationing at least two of us near each property so that we have eyes and ears on each building before we act. I’m with Mickey at their main clubhouse. Bikes are lined up in front of the large building, and it’s decorated heavily with Wraith tags on the outside.
Mickey and I stand a good distance away, tucked behind some foliage as we watch and wait.
“We’ll get her back,” Mickey reassures softly.
“You get ahold of her brother?” I ask him.
“Not yet. He’s been on a run in Athens for a few days. Plus, he’s been avoiding my calls for some time now…” he trails off. I don’t give a shit about his relationship drama, so I leave it alone.
The rest of the club has been radio silent. We don’t know who to trust, and Tate stands firm on not telling the Prez or anyone who’s been patched in for more than five years. I’m not sure if his paranoia is warranted or not, but we can’t afford anyone fucking this up.
Two Wraiths are laughing as they bump into each other. Drunk before five, classy.
“Take your cut off,” I mumble to Mickey, who follows my instruction.
We toss them on our bikes as we casually make our way over to the two guys. They’re apprehensive of us, but not completely put off. Having a club as big as theirs comes with the issue of not knowing every club member personally.
“Any good pussy tonight?” I ask with a head nod towards the clubhouse.
“Just the typical club sluts,” the one with long, greasy, black hair says. The other guy laughs like the joke is absolutely hilarious.
“You’d think they’d throw an Omega our way every now and then. I mean, we work hard, we deserve it,” the older one with the graying goatee supplies.
“No kiddin’. How long has it been?” I respond, thickening my accent.
“Months, Prez has gotten fuckin’ greedy,” Grease-ball replies.
“Maybe we should take one,” Mickey chimes in, and I’m glad the moron didn’t just stand there looking like a fucking idiot.
“Yeah, right. He keeps that place locked up tighter than a nun’s cunt,” Gray goatee dismisses. It’s clear this one knows more information, so I see how much I can get out of him.
“Where is he holdin’ them nowadays?” I ask.
He squints his eyes and looks over at me and Mickey again. When he gazes down at Mickey’s hand, seeing the DPMC signet ring, I know we’re fucked.
Without a second thought, I take out my pistol and quickly fire three shots. The first is right between the older man's eyes. His death is quick, and his body thuds against the ground with a satisfying thud.
I shoot the other man in both the thigh and the shoulder. He falls to the ground, wincing in pain, and I smile as I get down to my haunches. I press a thumb firmly into the wound in his thigh, causing him to scream out in pain.
“Tell me where he keeps them, and I’ll end this quickly.”
“Fuck you. I ain’t tellin’ you shit,” he groans, and I dig my finger deeper into his thigh.
“My patience is pretty fucking thin. You get one more chance. Where does he keep them?”
He coughs and sputters.
“Fuck you,” he grunts.
As a man of my word, I remove my thumb from his gunshot wound and take everything else off of him. His wallet, gun, and cell phone are all in my possession.
I nod my head to Mickey. “Go get the bikes.”
He doesn’t gape or seem surprised at my show of violence. He’s quick to roll my bike over to where I’m standing in the woods. I take out the long piece of nylon rope, tying a secure knot on the triple tree of my bike while Mickey goes and gets his own bike.
“What are you doin’?” the man sputters, blood now seeping out of his mouth. He doesn’t have long, but I plan on dragging this out a little longer.
“I warned you. Unless you’re having a change of heart?” I say calmly as I loop the nylon around his underarms, tying it tightly enough that he can still breathe, but it’s going nowhere. Once Mickey is back with his bike, I grab another piece of rope, securing it around both of his ankles. Both of our bikes face in opposite directions. “Mickey, you wanna start her up?” I ask as he starts his engine, and my plan becomes clear.
“We’re going to rip you the fuck apart,” I explain with a smile as I walk towards my bike, starting the engine.
“Please,” he begs. I can’t control the menacing smile that spreads across my face.
“I mean, I told you I would only give you two chances, and you said no. If I gave you another that would make me a liar.” I have to nearly shout to be heard over the purring engine.
“I’ll tell you where they’re at,” he rasps out.
“Should we believe him, Mickey?” I ask him. He shrugs his shoulders and looks down at the poor unfortunate soul.
“Probably not. He’s most likely lying, and I kinda want to see how this whole medieval shit works out,” Mickey comments, and I smirk at him.
“Where?” I growl behind me, revving the engine, letting him know I mean business.
“The… the home in Buckwood,” he sputters.
“See, how hard was that?” I ask him. “Let’s end this then,” I say, pointing my gun at him. “Mickey, how do we know he’s not lying?” I ask, toying with the man, neither of us leaving our bikes.
“We don’t,” he replies.
“True. Only one way to find out.” I rev the engine again as the man I have tied to the bike sobs.
“I’m not lying,” he wails.
“Neither was I,” I reply as both Mickey and I start driving in opposite directions.
I watch the entire thing, the way his body stretches and contorts. It doesn’t rip him in half, but it does the job intended as I watch the life leave his eyes. I take comfort in knowing without a shadow of a doubt that he suffered.
The kill switch deep-rooted in me has been flipped, and I’ll destroy anyone who comes between me and my Omega.
The hood stays over my head as the van parks, and I’m dragged forcefully around by two Alphas on each side of me. I keep quiet; I even try to make my breathing more even, anything that won’t call attention to myself. I don’t hear Shelby, so I assume they are carrying her. I just hope they take us to the same place.
The idea of us being separated is crippling, and it makes my breathing pick up.
No. Stay calm. Don’t let them see you panic.
Their hands are like manacles around my upper arms, and I want to wince at the treatment. I’m not a completely fragile person, but it’s the malicious intent wafting off of them that makes the pain ten times worse.
It’s relatively silent as they march us through a series of doors and hallways. I couldn’t tell you where we are. We could have been in the van for a half hour or multiple hours. What I do note is that I don’t think we’re at a clubhouse. My feet sink into carpeted floors as they walk me to wherever they’re taking me. Clubhouses would never have carpet. The knowledge makes my stomach drop.
They’re taking us somewhere that won’t be easy for the Dead Palms to find. Maybe that’s part of their plan. Keep me as far away from my saviors as possible. It’s what any villain would do, right?
But then the silence stops and what I hear only makes the situation more dire. There’s more than one person crying. One of them seems closer than the other, and my mind races with what they could be crying about.
Based on what the men in the van said about what they wanted to do to me, it doesn’t take long to imagine the horrors that happen in a place like this. I don’t even have to physically see anything to know that. This building oozes trepidation just from the sounds and smells alone.
The scents are overwhelming and putrid because they’re so mixed. It’s a barrage of different designations, and it’s sour. It’s not the scent of arousal, but dread.
A doorknob clicks, and my hood is removed from my head. My hair sticks to the material before falling flat against my face. The scent is ten times worse without the hood on, and I wrinkle my nose in distaste. It takes a few minutes for me to blink and get my bearings, and when I finally get a look at my two captors I see the scythe tattoos on their necks. It confirms what I already know: they’re Wraiths.
They shove me into the small room that’s probably ten feet by eight feet. The only things in the room are a bucket and a worn mattress on the floor with two blankets that look like they were dug out of the trash.
“Welcome home, princess,” the man with the deeper voice sneers: Reg.
There’s one card I have in my back pocket. One that might not even be valuable. I don’t know if the man is dead or alive, or if he even gives a single fuck about me. “My dad, Hammer, can I see him?”
Reg laughs so hard he has to clutch his stomach. “Hammer died a long time ago. Jesus.”
He and the other guy continue to laugh like what I said is the most hilarious thing in the world, and I just blink at them. How did I not know he was dead?
“What about Rex?” I ask, the one man in my mother’s pack who was kind to me, who actually loved my mother, at least it seemed that way.
“Damn, girl. You really don’t know any of your own history. Don’t worry. We’re here to teach you.”
Nothing about what he’s saying makes sense, my mom’s face is physical evidence of how the Wraiths treated her. Why wouldn’t she tell me my biological father and her pack were dead? Wouldn’t she be happy to tell me this? It would have put me at ease as a child knowing they were gone. As happy as I was to be a part of the Dead Palms, there was always this fear that the Wraiths would come back and demand that we go home. I guess they are now, just not in the way I thought.
I take a few steps back until my back hits the wall. The wall is sticky and smells like tobacco. Another man with a black eye comes in carrying a limp Shelby. The hood still covers her face as he drops her roughly onto the mattress.
Reg throws two bottles of water and a sleeve of crackers into the room. His hand is on the knob, looking like he’s going to leave, but he pauses. His gaze watches the men trail down the hallway before he looks back at me. I’m on my knees, removing Shelby’s hood and pushing back her hair.
“You’re Wraith’s property now. The sooner you get that through you and your little friend’s head the easier this will be on you.” He slams the door shut behind him, and I finally let myself really cry.
Tears rain down my face as I finally get a solid look at Shelby, which only makes me cry harder. She has a bruise forming on her jaw, a busted lip, and her eyebrow is split open.
“Fuck, Shelby. I’m so sorry,” I whisper as I pet her hair and cry.
There’s a muffling of someone else crying through the walls, and it breaks any spirit I might have still had buried deep inside me.
