Chapter 34 – Keyshawn
Chapter Thirty-Four
Keyshawn
T he bald fat man descends the stairs, giving me and Zayna our opportunity to act. We only get one chance. He comes around the corner with two bags of McDonald’s. Zayna and I exchange glances and start our fake fight.
“You are crazy! He’s MY baby daddy!” she says before faking a slap across my face. I scream loudly and stumble backwards.
“YOU BITCH!” I yell back. We tumble onto the bed together. Zayna acts like she’s beating the shit out of me and the bald guy immediately falls for it. He unlocks the jail cell and we rush his ass. He might be big, but the element of surprise works. Zayna and I shove him back and as he falls over, I kick him in the nuts so Zayna can get the pistol out of his holster.
Thanks to Deacon’s creepy ass soundproofing… we can get away with it.
“Can the soundproofing hide a gunshot?” Zayna asks as she stands over the bald guy and puts a bullet into the chamber.
I cover my ears, but I don’t know if she hears my answer or even waits for it. She fires twice. Semi-automatic. Nice. But we both can’t hear shit because you need more than your hands to muffle a pistol going off. She grabs my hand and we run towards the stairs. Doesn’t matter if they heard us….
We need to get out of here and blow up my baby daddy’s house…
This is fucking crazy. Zayna throws the basement door open and fires again. I watch her body jerk from the kickback but the ringing in my ears is still too loud for me to hear. She glances around in confusion for a second because she doesn’t know where the exit is, so it’s my time to take over.
I grab her hand and we race for the door. I can feel the floor vibrating as the remaining bikers in the house chase us, but we make it to the door first. I glance over my shoulder and see Zayna holding something small and black in her hand. Metal clinks to the ground and she forces me to let go of her, tossing the grenade into Deacon’s house.
She mouths at me, “RUN!”
We both run faster. Pregnant as hell, but running for our lives. Just as she’s about to pass me, Zayna grabs my hand to pull me ahead of her. I hear the explosion, but we both get enough distance from the house that there’s just the loud noise and then… fire.
Zayna shows me the key she got off the bald guy. We just have to fit it into the correct bike and we’re free. I don’t know what they did with the keys to the rental – or the car itself. I watch the front door of Deacon’s house while she finds the correct bike. She gets it right on the third try. I have no idea how to ride and I don’t particularly want to ride without a helmet but… what choice do we have?
Zayna straddles the bike and gestures with her chin towards the seat. I can sort-of hear her a little better, but I still have to read lips.
“... my husband’s house…”
Sounds good. I hop onto the back and wrap my arms around her. Thick plumes of black smoke erupt from the front door. Zayna revs the bike and wobbles a little as she accelerates towards the main road and away from Deacon’s burning home.
She rides out towards the highway and we head north. I catch my breath, but I don’t know if I should let my guard down at all. Where the hell is Deacon? Is he dead? And what about those men? We might not have killed all of them and I don’t even know who they are or what they want.
We don’t ride as long as I thought we might have to before we get to Zayna’s house. It’s a pretty big log cabin, actually. She gets off the bike and wipes sweat off the back of her neck .
“I need to call Ruger. Come on.”
I follow her towards the front door of her house, almost nervous as she opens it. What if there are more killer bikers behind the door? But when Zayna opens the house, there are just houseplants… and a dog.
“BOOF BOOF!”
“Hello, Zeus…”
The dog sniffs around me a little bit and then disappears to a cute grey doggy bed underneath a large house plant with wide leaves. Zayna takes her shoes off. I follow suit.
“Ruger has a landline in the guest bedroom,” she says. “I never used it before but… he forced me to memorize his phone number. Make yourself at home. I need to call my husband before he finds out from someone else.”
I drink two glasses of water before I hobble over to Zayna’s couch. I don’t realize how tired I am until my ass sinks into the couch. I lean my head back and let the past few hours wash over me. Nothing really sinks in. I still feel numb, confused, and shocked that we even made it out of there alive… and I still feel like my hearing is slightly muffled from the gunshots.
I just blew up Deacon’s house. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me when we see each other again. Deacon might have a sexual obsession with me, he might have even had a good time with me otherwise, but I don’t see how this man could possibly forgive me for everything that happened since those masked men grabbed me from his kitchen, especially the grenade in his house.
I guess I could blame that on Zayna. When she comes back into the room, I realize that I must have fallen asleep on her couch. She sighs .
“Ruger is going to kick my ass.”
She sits on the couch opposite from me and groans. “Apparently, they’re all mad because the house blew up. He should be celebrating that my plan worked.”
“You could blame it on me if that helps,” I offer Zayna. She laughs.
“No, girl. I can handle my husband. Crazy ass man. What about you? What are you going to tell Deacon? And how did you get involved with a man like that?”
“I can’t tell anyone how I got involved with Deacon.”
“Why?”
Zayna leans forward, her dark eyes gleaming. She has a slightly crazy smirk on her face, but she doesn’t seem untrustworthy. Hell, this woman just saved my life. Zayna adds, “You wouldn’t believe the crazy life I had before I met Ruger. The bikers might be rough around the edges, but they have a way of fixing broken things.”
Broken. Is that what I am? Maybe that’s what I was before Deacon. Now, I have some purpose. We built that purpose together. It started with the strange way we fulfilled each other’s sexual needs, that spark of chemistry that I couldn’t bear to admit. He tenderly nurtures the masochistic side of me that won’t ever stop seeking pain from the men I love, making sure to balance it with affection and care beyond anything I’ve ever known.
“Come on,” Zayna says as she clearly searches my face for signs that she’s getting close to the truth. “You tell your story and I’ll tell mine. We’re both biker chicks now.”
I laugh. “Hardly. I’ve only ever been on a bike once.”
“Tell me before Ruger gets here. It will help us to hide our crimes better. ”
Crimes. Technically, she’s the one who shot a man at point blank range without even flinching. I look Zayna over and then start talking, telling her the PG-13 version of how I met Deacon Hollingsworth. It’s pretty hard to get around the part where I never even saw him until after he tilted my head back and slammed his dick down my throat but… I make the story work.
Zayna listens to every word with rapt attention. It feels good to get the details of the story off my chest and to have someone I can trust, even if she’s a pregnant murderer who carries around grenades…
We can’t miss the sound of bikes approaching. Zayna presses her finger to her lips as we hear and then feel the rumble.
“I think Ruger chose this spot on purpose,” she says. “Easy to hear your enemies coming…”
“And hopefully your friends…”
Zayna laughs in a strange and unnerving way. “Yes. But I can tell the sound of Ruger’s bike. He rides like he still snorts meth.”
She hops up off the couch, but I don’t have the energy for all that. Zayna looks out the window closest to the front door and calls out to me. “They’re home!”
My stomach sinks. I have to face Deacon now. His potential anger. The end between us. What if he believed that letter they made me write? What if he can’t forgive me for participating in blowing up his damn house? I can’t be worth that much trouble to him.
This could be the end of the good times between us.