Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
B EAST
Fuck.
It’s the worst-timed phone call of my goddamn life.
Every cell in my body tells me to ignore it. But I’m president of this club and I have a responsibility to answer it.
I break off the kiss, my cock screaming at me as I pick up the phone off the nightstand.
It’s the sheriff.
Dammit. A call from the sheriff at midnight tells me I’m about to get a serious case of blue balls.
“You need to get down here,” he says with a haunted edge to his voice.
“What’s going on?”
He pauses, then his voice seems to get closer and even more troubled. “It’s so fucked up, Beast. I can’t tell you what I’m looking at. Death, and a lot of it. Just get down here. I’ll text you the address.”
He clicks off, and a few seconds later I receive a text message with an address.
Belle looks up at me from the pillows, and I lean down to kiss her. “I have to go.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” she whispers against my lips.
“No, it’s not.” I kiss her and it gets deep, but I rip my lips away. “We’ll finish this when I get back.”
Lust flashes in her eyes. “Maybe.”
I cock an eyebrow at her. “No, that’s not a maybe. That’s a promise.”
I shoot off a text to Lars to meet me at the bikes in ten minutes, then quickly dress.
“Kiss me before you go,” she whispers. She looks so fucking beautiful in my bed. I oblige, gently taking her mouth and kissing her tenderly.
Feeling the tenderness in her kiss makes it even harder to leave her. But I force myself out of the room and meet Lars in the underground parking garage.
“What the fuck time of the night do you call this?” he grumbles, looking tired. “I was three strokes away from Valhalla when I got your text.”
“I’m sure whoever it was will forgive you,” I say, sliding onto my bike.
“She’s not the one who missed out. I’m a giver not a taker, my friend. She already had two mind-blowing orgasms. It’s my balls who are the victims here. They’re as blue as a reindeer’s testicles at Christmas time.”
Same, brother.
He grabs his crotch and has to readjust.
“Fucking hot rocks,” he grumbles with pain.
“Princess,” I mutter, starting the Harley.
He flashes his middle finger to me as he starts his bike.
We take it easy out of the clubhouse and then roar into the late night, making it to the address Sheriff Coulter sent me in fifteen minutes. We pull into a double-story house near the college.
I don’t know what to expect, but the tone in the sheriff’s voice tells me it’s going to be unpleasant.
Lights from three patrol cars and two ambulances light up the night sky.
The air is tight with tension. Like a storm is coming.
On the front lawn, one of the sheriff’s deputies comforts a young college girl who is sobbing uncontrollably.
“How could this happen? I was only with them a few hours ago at the bar.” She sobs. “How are they all dead?”
I find the sheriff inside talking with another deputy.
“Follow me,” he says, his face ashen. “They’re in the living room.”
Lars and I follow him through the modest three-bedroom home into the living room where I immediately notice the young woman sitting on the couch. She looks like she could be watching TV. Except her head is dropped forward and she’s clearly dead.
I crouch in front of her and look at the same crystal blue eyes I saw two days ago when I was standing over the dead girl beside the dumpster.
In front of her on the floor is another girl. College age. Pale lips. Blue, unseeing eyes. Gone.
“If you’re thinking the irises change color during death, then you’re right,” Beaver says from across the room where he is taking the temperature of a third body. He rises to his feet. “One of the components in the synthetic phantasia blows the irises at death, creating this otherworldly blue color.”
I look around the room at the dead. Three lives gone because of the drug the Psychos have brought to our town.
My fingers twitch at my side. We’ve waited too long.
We need to get this shit off the street now.
“Goddammit to hell. What a fucking goddamn mess.”
The livid male voice draws my attention away from the bodies, and I turn around in time to see Mayor Boney storm into the room.
“You,” he seethes, the moment he lays eyes me. “Of course you’re involved with this.”
“This has got nothing to do with the Knights,” I say.
But Boney ignores me. “Of course you’d say that. You don’t want the blowback from three dead college kids.”
He looks around the room at the dead. Sweat beads his brow. He’s agitated. Probably worried because this is election year and this might cost him voters.
But I can already see the cogs turning in his mind.
He’s going to use this to fuel his campaign against the club. Use the tragedy to his advantage.
But I’m going to make sure no one is going to blame this massacre on the Knights.
And it is a massacre.
A trigger pulled when the drugs were sold to these college kids.
I take a step closer, and Boney’s face shimmers with mild panic. His hate-filled eyes gleam with a mix of fear and rage.
“This is not because of us. Our product doesn’t kill people.”
“No, it just makes them chase the high, and when they can’t get the real stuff, they go for the cheap shit that stops their hearts and blows their eyes at time of death so they look like something out of a goddamn horror show.” He’s worked himself into a froth. “I will tell you this. I won’t rest until I have you run out of town.” He glances at Lars and then back to me. “You and your club of criminals.”
When he storms away, Lars has to stop me from going after him and breaking his neck.
Because right now, my darkness wants to come out and play.
“Wanna call Church?” Lars asks as we climb on our bikes.
It’s almost one thirty. I shake my head. “Let the boys sleep. I have a feeling they’re going to need it. We’ll meet in a couple of hours.” I ignite my engine. “I’m going for a ride.”
“Where?”
“I need to think.”
“And I need a bottle of whiskey.” He nods toward the house, his jaw tight. He’s seen a lot of death. But when it’s the innocent, it hits different. It hits hard.
I feel it right down to my fucking bones.
“I’ll see you back at the clubhouse later. Church at seven. Spread the word.”
I roar into the darkness, leaving Lars and the death house behind me. Venom bubbles in my veins. My shoulders are tense. I know Belle is waiting for me in my bed. But I can’t ride home to her. I can’t touch her with these hands, not when they itch with a violent need to annihilate those cock-sucking Psychos and their poison. No matter how much my body aches for her touch, I’m not bringing that poison into our bed.
So I ride deeper into the inky night, feeling the whip of the wind against my face and the cool air in my lungs. My mind roars with thoughts of what to do next. Of the right path to lead the Knights into. And what is right for the town I love with every beat of my black heart.
I hear the call of the road and head toward the cliffs.
I know where I’m going. I’m going to ride until the darkness crawls back inside me and I can return to the clubhouse and hold Belle in my arms.
But the minutes become an hour and I’m still no closer to calming the urge for blood.
So I decide to walk it off.
It’s the other thing that calms the noise in my head. I did a lot of it before Belle came to the clubhouse. It’s where I went every night when everyone thought I was meeting a woman. They were partially right. Because every night I walked these streets, I ended up at the same location time and time again. Across the road from a little house on Le Prince Street.
I pull into one of the many alleyways of Devil’s Kitchen, the seedier side of town, and kill the Harley’s engine. The images of the dead girls cut into my thoughts. Their slack faces. Their pale lips. Their sightless blue eyes staring out at nothing. The memory cuts me to the bone and I need to quieten the clamor in my head and the pain in my gut when I think about them, and what the fucking Psychos are bringing into our town.
I start walking. Moving through the shadows undetected. Watching. Listening. Hunting. My urge for blood singing in my ears.
Just like my brother, I thrive in the shadows. But for very different reasons.
Gaston likes to play with his prey.
I simply destroy it.
We share the same darkness of the soul. A dark flaw etched into our DNA thanks to a father who was as violent as he was mean. But I can control mine, keep it caged until something like this happens, and I’m forced to let it hunt blood.
I don’t know where I am walking to, not now that the house on Le Prince St is empty. I just walk and think and let my mind churn with all the noise.
Dawn begins to break in shades of gold across the sky, and I’m walking back toward my bike when I hear it.
At first I think it’s a cat calling into the night. An alley cat warning off trespassers encroaching on his territory.
I pause and strain to listen in the darkness. For a moment there is nothing. But there’s another cry, only this isn’t a cat. This is a cry of terror. A whimpering plea. It bites into the night but quickly dies. Probably silenced by a pair of hands over the mouth.
But I know where it’s coming from. We’re deep in Devil’s Kitchen now. The part of the town where drug dealers and junkies dance the dark ballet of addiction. The drug dealers take advantage, and the addicts succumb to their needs.
I move through the damp alleyways and narrow side streets where evil reigns and the innocent have no place being. I cut across the dirty street toward the alley where I heard the noise.
Another cry cuts into the darkness. A plea for mercy. “ No, please don’t.” The hair on the back of my neck stands on end, because I know what I am going to find at the end of this alleyway, and it means my darkness will get to dance tonight.
I find them both behind the dumpster.
The woman lies limp on the wet cobblestones while a piece of shit in an Unhinged Psychos cut thrusts into her between her spread legs. Her eyes are hooded and heavy with the effects of whatever drug she has taken. She doesn’t fight him anymore. He’s silenced her pleas for him to stop with a hand over her mouth. And as he takes what he wants from her she slips deeper and deeper into her delirium.
I catch him by surprise, drag him off her, and run my blade over his throat, opening his neck before he can even make a noise. Blood rains down on the cobblestones and his limp body falls sideways and splashes into his own blood.
The girl barely moves. Her breath is shallow, and her eyes are now closed.
I check the man’s pockets and find what I suspected would be there. Bags of synthetic phantasia and rolls of dirty money. I tuck them into the breast pocket of my cut before lifting the girl into my arms and moving her somewhere safer. Somewhere where there is more light.
I call the ambulance and sit with her until I hear the approaching siren, then disappear into the darkness. But I don’t leave, I stay in the shadows and watch as the EMTs check her out before loading her into the back of the ambulance.
She will live to see another day, but she will probably succumb to her needs again by this time tomorrow night.
At least the man who dealt her the drugs won’t be around to sell it to her. A smile plays on my lips thinking of the dead Psycho lying in a pool of blood in the alley. He probably won’t be found until morning. The Psychos will suspect we’re involved. But the piece of shit was in the bowels of the town. Anyone could be responsible.
They won’t risk revenge without proof.
I find my bike and climb on.
Bringing it to life, I take off and head for home.
And Belle.