Page 40

Banshee

By the time we make it to the Cedar Creek clubhouse, I’m beyond road weary and I know Scythe and Kracken are as well. Two long, hard days on the road with minimal stops has all three of us aching and out of sorts. So, when we pull into their parking lot after the prospect opens the gate, I have to bite back my groan when I see what appears to be a party going on.

“Fucking hell,” I mutter, backing my bike in where another prospect motions, Scythe and Kracken following suit. The last thing in the world I’m in the mood for is partying, although a couple of cold beers wouldn’t go amiss.

“Yeah, same,” Scythe retorts, and I realize they both heard me through our helmets. Smirking, he pulls his off and locks it into his saddlebag, before swinging his leg over and standing. “Fuck, I’m getting too old to ride like that.”

“Brother, we’re close to the same fucking age,” I state, “but I gotta agree with you. I don’t think any of us have ever gone that long over such varied terrain.”

“Gypsy is a fucking asshole,” Kracken says, stretching to his full height. “Honestly, I think we’d have been better off taking the fucking interstate. Who’d have been able to catch us?”

“The point was to stay under the radar, jackass,” I reply. “C’mon, Wrecker’s expecting us.”

Once the bikes are secure, although in reality no one would dare to fuck with a brother’s bike, we head as a unit to the door being manned by two prospects, our saddlebags in hand. One looks like he’s barely legal, and his wide eyes tell me he’s never been around a club before. The other, who has dead looking eyes, sees our cuts and opens the door, waving us inside.

The pounding music immediately adds to the headache that’s been brewing behind my eyes for the past two days, and I fight to hold my grimace back. Glancing around the room, I spot Wrecker at a table and change directions, my brothers at my back.

I see relief briefly cross his face as we approach and am soon engulfed in a man hug. “Good to see you, Brother,” he says, pounding my back.

“Glad we finally arrived. Swear to Christ, our man needs to realize some of the roads he chose were less than stellar.”

Butcher, the Cedar Creek chapter’s vice president and brother, bursts out laughing, slapping his hand on the table. “Did he send you down through the bayous?”

“Fuck yeah he did,” Scythe sneers. “I’m just glad our girls can fly because there were a few times, we saw motherfucking gators on the road. Gators,” he reiterates, as if they didn’t hear him the first time. “Only ever saw those ugly ass fuckers in the zoo when I was a kid, y’know? They don’t exactly hang in our neck of the woods.”

Snickering, I sit once a prospect brings over several more chairs, then he hurries off when Wrecker barks out to bring out some beers and shots. Looks like we’re drinking whether we’re up for it or not.

“Do we have any update as to when we’re going in?” I quietly ask.

Instead of verbally answering, Wrecker shakes his head. “Plenty of brothers here, though, so hopefully once everyone’s arrived, we can have Church and come up with a plan.”

“But Dragon’s okay?” I ask because he’s their president and from what little Brick shared, he’s in a rather precarious position.

“He can more than handle himself,” Wrecker assures me as the prospect drops off a tray loaded with beers and shots. “Tonight’s about relaxing and getting a little bit loose. Time enough for us to get ready for the battle ahead. We got y’all’s rooms ready too. Prospect!” he yells and when the guy turns, he circles his finger and states, while tossing some keys at him, “Get their bags into their rooms, lock the fucking doors and bring me the keys when you’re done.”

“Appreciate that,” I say, taking a swig of my beer. Raising my shot glass, I wait until the others at the table raise theirs and state, “Here’s to success, Brothers!”

The clubhouse gets louder as the night wears on, and I swear at this point, I can feel my blood coursing through my veins as my head continues to incessantly pound. Wrecker leans over and whispers, “I know y’all have been on the road for two days solid, Brother. You don’t have to feel as though you need to stay up for all of this. Trust me, it’s been almost non-stop since Dragon left.”

I smirk at him and nod. “Yeah, I could use a shower and some sleep. Not sure about Scythe and Kracken, they seem to be enjoying themselves.” Both men are currently off to the side, club girls on each of their laps and from the looks on their faces, they don’t care about lack of sleep right now.

He tosses me a set of keys and points me in the direction of the bedrooms. “Some of the girls will be cooking a buffet-style breakfast at some point later this morning, but we’ve always got coffee going in the kitchen. Make yourself at home, Banshee.”

“Will do. Catch y’all later,” I reply, standing and heading toward the hallway Wrecker indicated. When Scythe and Kracken act as though they’re going to stand, I shake my head and let them know to keep enjoying themselves. I just need away from all the noise, smoke, and chatter right now because my head feels as though it’s about to explode.

Once I’ve found the correct room, I slip inside and lock it back behind me before looking around. It’s definitely different than our clubhouse, but the room will work for what it’s intended, which makes me chuckle while moving to grab my saddlebags so I can pull out my hygiene kit and a pair of lounging pants to sleep in. At home, I typically sleep nude, but since I’m at another chapter’s house, I opt to be prepared for anything.

Dry swallowing a couple of painkillers for my throbbing head, I walk into the attached bathroom and start the shower so the water warms up. I grab my shampoo and bodywash and set it inside the stall before brushing my teeth. When the steam starts to fog the mirror, I step inside and let out a groan of exhaustion as I let all the miles seep from my body. “At least the water pressure is top-notch,” I mutter before making short work of washing myself.

Part of me is nervous as fuck about letting Wrecker dabble in my memories, but I trust my president, and know he’d never knowingly allow anyone to do anything to me that could hurt me. I just hope like hell I can handle whatever he ends up revealing to me. I mean, it’s not like I know how it works, which reminds me to make a mental note to ask him what I can anticipate. I’m pretty sure we’re going to wait until after we deal with the situation Dragon has uncovered, but don’t know that for a fact. Something to ask, I guess. Now dry, I head back into the bedroom, see a mini fridge and open it, grabbing out a bottle of water.

“Nice,” I murmur, seeing beer, several sodas, and also some of those meat and cheese packs which are great for late night snacking. Only, I’m not in the mood for that tonight. Pulling the comforter back and folding it so it’s at the end of the bed, I crawl between the sheets, plug my phone into the charger that’s already waiting for me and shoot off a message to Brick.

Me: We made it okay, Brother. How’s it going at home?

Brick: Same old, same old. Calvin scared the hell out of Stormy again and she threatened to kill him, so I had to step in to keep your sister from losing her shit.

Me: My sister? You mean your ol’ lady?

Brick: She’s your sister when she gets irrational.

Me: Lol. You can handle her. She’s a little slip of a thing.

Brick: She looked like a fire-breathing dragon. But all is well, Pops lowered the boom so to speak.

Me: Still impressed as hell at what Angel did for him, y’know?

Brick: Same, Brother. Same. I mean, he’s like his old self, but he has no desire to take the gavel back.

Me: Thank God for small miracles. He was a taskmaster.

Brick: No shit. Especially with me.

Me: Both of us, Brother. Okay, gotta get some sleep. I think we’re having Church tomorrow to discuss a plan of action where those fundamentalist fuckers are concerned.

Brick. Keep me posted. If I need to send more brothers, I will.

Me: I think we’re good, there are a shit ton of other chapters here already, but I’ll let you know.

After turning my phone over, I sip on some water while flipping through the channels with the remote that was next to the charger. Finding a fishing show, I settle in to get some sleep, hoping against hope that the slight noise from the television will cover any sounds I make when the inevitable nightmare shows up.

Wrecker

“He’s exhausted, honey,” Harper softly says as we lay curled against each other, sated after a vigorous bout of lovemaking. “I could sense it earlier and see it in his eyes.”

“I know. Trying to decide the best way to handle this, though,” I mutter. “There’s so much shit swirling with Dragon and Laney, I don’t want to miss anything with Banshee, in the meantime.”

“We won’t. You won’t,” she promises, her hand now stroking my pec. “You said that his president told you he doesn’t remember anything beyond trying to run with his sister?”

“Correct. The next thing he recalls is waking up in the hospital days later,” I confirm, kissing her temple. She’s my calm in a storm, the port I’ll always sail toward. Shaking my head at my fanciful thoughts, I focus on what I know of the situation we’re going to attempt to help Banshee remember. “A rival club came in, beat the absolute shit out of him, nearly killing him, stole his sister, and then sent pictures to the club to insinuate that she had been tortured to death.”

“She was only a little girl,” Harper whispers, tears filling her eyes. “A literal baby in so many ways. What really happened?”

“Well, Brick has put many of the pieces together, but a lot of the old timers, who were around back when it all happened, have either retired and moved away, or passed on. His father, who up until recently was lost in his own little world, thanks to Alzheimer’s, got injured and another brother from Ankeny healed him. He’s of sound mind again, so I’m sure he can give even more insight. They had planned to sell her and placed her with a couple to hold onto her until the buyer arrived, but the Raiders, which is what Brick’s club was named before patching in to the RBMC, basically wiped them out save for a few, so that plan fell through. The parents were killed, which left Banshee an orphan, and the couple who thought they were holding the little girl for just a few days got stuck with her. She was verbally and physically abused her whole life, then sold by the people she thought were her parents to another fucker for their drug debt. He beat her nearly to death then dumped her in the snow. Thankfully, she was found and saved, but it was months before they realized that the woman they were calling Rayleigh was actually Ryleigh , the club princess they thought was dead.”

“Jeez, that must have totally traumatized her,” Harper states, commiserating with young Ryleigh. Both abused in similar, yet at the same time, different ways.

“Angel stepped in and did what he could, and Brick got her into therapy. She’s happy and whole now, and expecting their first child,” I reply. “Now, as to Banshee, he carries guilt from that long-ago day because he was tasked with watching his baby sister and keeping her safe.”

“But he was a kid going up against grown ass adults,” she huffs out, a look of censure crossing her face. “There’s no way he was going to win against something like that! The cards were stacked against him from the get-go.” She’s steaming mad now, ready to fight the ghosts from the past on a brother’s behalf, endearing herself even more to me than she already is, her fidelity knows no bounds.

“I agree, so my plan is to go in and get his adult self to watch, instead of seeing things through youthful eyes. This way, he can see the difference of what did happen that day as opposed to what he thinks did for himself. This way, he’s with me, and I can help him understand the difference between the two times as they cross,” I murmur. “It’s going to be a hard road for him to distinguish between the two. They’ll blend together at first, it’ll take time for his mind to adjust with the difference. But I have concerns.”

She hums, reading my worry as if it were her own before I have a chance to voice them.

“It’s just, with everything going down with Dragon and Laney, should I do it now?”

“No time like the present,” she retorts, no indecision on her part. “Because I suspect as much as y’all want to beat down the doors and get Dragon, Laney, and all the innocents out of that place, you have to plan and get ready. Banshee’s right here, so why not?”

“You’re right, why not?”