Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
[WiseWave620: Is it wrong that I hacked into airport security to make sure they landed okay?]
* * *
C onstruction was still underway on the newly-named Andrich Bridge. Billboards on either side of the road displayed blueprints of what the safer bridge would look like within a year. Due to the fact that the bridge was the only way to cross the river that split the two sides of Mount Grove, other than an extremely long mountain pass that added over an hour to someone’s commute, they could not shut down the bridge entirely to complete the work faster. Short-term traffic lights were added to both ends to signal if the now single-lane bridge was allowing northbound or southbound traffic.
On a nearly moonless night, Scar stood amongst the construction equipment and temporary concrete barricades looking down at the dark water below. The water was much calmer than the last time he’d been here. It was certainly shallower too but would still accomplish the task Scar had planned for it.
Pieces of mangled guardrail were piled to his right. According to the blueprints, the future bridge would be made wider on the northbound side to create an actual walking and biking path. A sturdier barrier than the former guardrails would separate the pedestrians from the vehicles crossing and then another barrier and fall net would be added to the edge of the bridge. Southbound would also have the newer, thicker barrier as well as the fall net.
The entire project was being funded by the Groveton Foundation, which was run by Sophia’s parents. Local lore stated that the Groveton family were descendants of the first settlers who created the town of Mount Grove, but there was also a compelling argument otherwise. The Grovetons owned most of the land and real estate in town, in addition to several businesses. They were extremely wealthy, but they were also good people. Scar had looked into them when Sophia had first started hanging around the club. As Jasmine’s best friend, Sophia had been invited to most functions and had even shown up to the ones that she wasn’t invited to. It had driven Pirate nuts until he’d realized he was in love with her.
The Grovetons did not flaunt their money or use it to intimidate the townsfolk. They truly cared about Mount Grove and the people who lived there. Scar had even read a newspaper article of Mr. Groveton apologizing to the townspeople for not having made the bridge safer sooner.
Scar looked down at his feet. Without the guardrail, there was no current barrier between him and the river. His boots stood right at the edge he’d so precariously been hanging off of a month ago. His left shoulder twinged as if in reminder but Scar pushed it aside.
He was going to need to get a more thorough scan of his shoulder done soon, but for now, he was just minimally using it. He’d considered using a sling or binding his arm to his center, but he wanted the use of his arm if he needed it. So he was just keeping his hand inside his jacket pocket and using his right arm for as much as possible.
It would have to do for now.
The bound and gagged Primis mercenary lying on the concrete to the side of him glared up at him with hatred in his eyes. The barely visible moon did not illuminate much, but the night vision contacts that Scar was wearing gave him the ability to see nearly as well as the goggles he’d used in the military. Likely the man only saw Scar as a dark silhouette.
That was fine, though it wouldn’t matter if he saw Scar’s face or not.
The mercenary had been scouting the VDMC property, looking for a weakness in Keys’ security grid. Now he would serve as Scar’s message to Alpha. He’d already forced the USB drive down the man’s throat. It showed Alpha part of the information Scar had on him, including the evidence that Primis was behind the raid that resulted in two hundred and fourteen dead civilians in Pakistan in 2011.
The message was simple: stay away from Mount Grove or Scar would release the information to the media.
The mercenary had been carrying two semi-automatic guns, a few throwing daggers, and a pocket notebook with all of the Via Daemonia members’ and family members’ names. Scar had forced the notebook down his throat too. It hadn’t been easy one-handed.
Scar could have killed the man, but he thought it more poetic if the mercenary went over the same bridge that Primis had found Scar at. Whether he lived or died, it did not matter to Scar; he was merely the bottle for Scar’s message.
Scar placed the sole of his boot on the man’s hip. A small push later and the man went over the edge. Scar did not wait for the splash below before he turned his back on the water and headed towards the south end of the bridge.
Scar had arrived in Mount Grove that morning, which was the day after the Florida bound club members had departed. It had taken him some time to do the research necessary to put his plan together. He hadn’t come to Mount Grove looking for a mercenary, but he was the first Primis soldier Scar had come across since escaping Washington, D.C., so the unlucky bastard got to be Scar’s message in a bottle to Alpha.
Scar wandered into the woods surrounding the road after the bridge. He knew approximately where he’d left his motorcycle the day he’d been shot and figured there was a chance it was still there. After all, why would the police and the club have been searching the woods around the bridge when Scar’s body would have quickly been washed downstream? Even if he’d been conscious upon hitting the water, the strong current would have taken him a long way before he would have been able to fight his way to shore.
Sure enough, there was his bike.
Scar didn’t feel sentimental about his bike the way others did. He’d never gotten into the habit of calling a car a ‘cage’ or cared about a lot of the stereotypical motorcycle club traditions. Like many others who joined, he was looking for that camaraderie he’d had in the military. The knowledge that he was surrounded by good people who had his back.
Being around José again had also been a big draw. Scar had missed his brother.
His bike was on its side exactly where Scar had left it. Both it and his helmet were sunk into the mud. Likely the rain shower that had soaked Mount Grove the night Scar had been shot was not the last rainfall of the season.
Scar didn’t work to lift the bike out of the ground. He didn’t know enough about mechanics to know if the bike would work after being caked so thoroughly. He supposed that was something he should know, but he didn’t.
Most bikers kept emergency kits, rain gear, or their helmets in their saddlebags. Scar only kept one thing in his: his cut.
The day Scar had turned his cut in to Steel, effectively going rogue from the club, he would have sworn it was the last time he’d see the thing. Scar knew better than to get attached to things . He’d learned that lesson the hard way. And yet, the day he’d come back to Mount Grove to essentially say goodbye to José, he’d gone into Steel’s office to reclaim his cut.
It was foolish. Scar knew better, but he still wanted his cut back. Even if he couldn’t wear it anymore.
The right saddlebag was sticking out of the ground. Scar unhooked the metal buckles and lifted the flap up to reveal the black leather. He pulled it out, rubbing his fingers along the worn hide. It was folded in a way that his name and title patches on the left breast were facing upward. He touched the patch.
SCAR
It didn’t take a genius to figure out where the name came from. When José had first brought Scar to Mount Grove to be introduced to Steel, José had told Scar that his past was his own. He did not need to share more than he wanted. José knew that Scar had had a nickname in the military. Unlike José, who’d kept his moniker of ‘Bulldog’, he’d rightfully guessed that Scar would not want to keep the name ‘Solo’. When he’d been working the underground fight clubs in Texas, the organizers had called him ‘Creeper’, but Scar wouldn’t have wanted that name either. It had been more of a joke than anything, since it wasn’t like Scar had ever told them his real name or given a fake one.
José had walked into the clubhouse that first day and declared, “This is Scar.”
At first, Scar wasn’t sure he liked the name. It was a little too on-the-nose for his tastes, but he hadn’t cared enough to have the club change it. It was just a name, after all. It didn’t matter .
Scar had never expected the moniker to become a name he was proud of.
Months ago, Angel’s and Cage’s daughter, Bree, and Cage’s son, Aaron, were kidnapped along with Ollie, the boy Steel and Jenna had been fostering and had since adopted. Ivy and Scar had tracked them down after the kids had essentially rescued themselves. Scar had been so fucking proud of Bree. She’d suffered so much in her young life and yet she hadn’t let that terror define her as Scar had done with his own trauma.
“Uncle Scar, that man hurt Ollie… ” Bree’s voice rang through Scar’s head. She hadn’t been terrified in those woods. She was a paraplegic without her wheelchair, kidnapped, wounded, and yet so fucking strong. When she’d seen one of their kidnappers approaching them in the woods, she hadn’t flinched, hadn’t screamed. She’d placed her life and the lives of her brother and club cousin so confidently in Scar’s hands.
There hadn’t been a doubt in her mind that Scar would not only protect them but also avenge Ollie’s injury.
He never thought he’d be so proud to be ‘Uncle Scar’. Even before the number of club kids had exploded, the only person who called him ‘uncle’ had been Scotty. Sissy never had, though she had claimed the other officers and then members as her honorary uncles. Scar had always been Scar to Sissy.
For a long time, Scar didn’t know who he was. He wasn’t Julian or Solo anymore and he certainly wasn’t Creeper. Then suddenly he’d been Scar .
This cut had been more than a symbol of membership. It had given Scar an identity when he’d been floating through life like a boat without an anchor.
It had given Scar a purpose.
Standing, Scar tucked the cut under his useless left shoulder. He wouldn’t put it on, not again. But he needed it with him.
A reminder of what he was fighting for.
After getting in the car he’d taken from his Baltimore storage facility, Scar made one last stop to ensure that all was well at the VDMC property and no more mercenaries were hanging around. He noticed the land next to Demo’s new house was now excavated and utility lines were being laid. It made him wonder who was taking the new house, but he also knew he couldn’t stick around to find out. With his shoulder the way it was, Scar used the front door in Lucky’s house for the first time since the home had been constructed.
He wandered up to the second floor, opened the orange door covered in the handprints of the household’s family members, and placed a lollipop under the pillow with a printed picture of a giant squirrel.
A final goodbye before he headed out.
It wouldn’t take long, a day tops, for Alpha to get Scar’s message. It would be enough to make Alpha back off, but not enough to stop him. Until his shoulder was healed, Scar needed more.
Tallulah Meacham, Alpha’s daughter, lived in Atlanta, Georgia. She was thirty-two years old and had a rare condition called bilateral anophthalmia, which meant she was born without eyeballs. They’d never developed when she was in utero. According to what he could find on her, being blind hadn’t held her back much in life. She was a successful chef and owned her own waterfront restaurant.
Scar wasn’t sure if he believed the media hype about ‘The Blind Chef of Atlanta’ but he was about to go find out.
* * *
[WiseWave620: You should see this picture Jenna took of Steel in Magic Kingdom! He’s got blue cotton candy stuck in his beard! Fucking hilarious!]
[WiseWave620: {.jpg inserted}]
* * *
It didn’t take long for Scar to break into the secure apartment building that Tallulah lived in. While it was impressive, it wasn’t anything Scar hadn’t seen or gotten past before. He knew Alpha’s daughter was at work, so he had time to do a thorough search of her apartment. He learned a lot about who people really were by looking through their homes. People tended to put metaphorical masks on when they walked out of their front doors. Their home, and specifically their bedrooms, were generally where Scar found the person’s true self.
The first thing Scar noticed upon stepping into the apartment was how clean everything was. There was no clutter, not an extraneous piece. Everything was so pristinely placed that it could have been a magazine photographer’s wet dream.
Next he noticed small things that people tended to have in their homes that were missing from this apartment. Like photographs on the walls, lamps on an end table, a television in the living room, different color paint separating the different rooms, knickknacks, and display items. There were also structural differences. Curtains were missing from the windows and replaced with a film over the glass. Division strips were absent room to room and there was no carpeting at all.
A peek into her bathroom showed a walk-in shower as well as a bath rug that was built into the flooring. Just as in the kitchen, everything had its place. There wasn’t anything extra .
Scar opened the mirrored bathroom cabinet and blinked. Eyeballs stared back at him. Dozens of them. The fact that they were in four-ounce wide mouth jars with a liquid solution and black lids was the only reason he wasn’t reaching for one of his knives.
Picking up one of the clear jars, Scar noticed the braille label on the back. He knew about braille but didn’t know how to read it. Based on the different color irises on each pair of prosthetic eyes, he assumed the raised dots described the color. There were the basic eye colors, plus unusual eye colors like purple, pink, silver, or lime green, as well as ones that looked like yellow slitted eyes like a cat, red demon eyes, and completely black ones.
What he also found interesting was they weren’t circular. The eyes were hollow spheres, not entirely round like a real eyeball. He’d never considered what prosthetic eyes looked like before.
He put the jar back inside the cabinet and closed the door. The bathroom counter was completely clean with a single electric toothbrush on a charger in the corner. Opening the drawer of the vanity console, he found toothpaste, hairbrush, hair pick, and a cup full of thick hairbands in very specific spots within the drawer.
If he didn’t know any better, he would think the apartment was owned by someone with obsessive compulsive disorder. However, he supposed having clutter around would be difficult for someone who couldn’t see. She lived alone, which meant this apartment was designed for her. Of course, there weren’t pictures on the walls. She couldn’t see them even if there were. The only reason they would be there would be for other people.
Scar admired that she put her home how she needed it to be comfortable and did not bend to the comfort of any potential visitors.
In her kitchen, he found a braille microwave, oven, and range. Pots and pans hung on hooks in the wall by size. Cooking utensils were kept similarly, not thrown into a single holder as was typical. It took him a moment to figure out her measuring cup until he realized it was digital and had a sensor that told her the amount being poured.
Everything had labels, including her immaculately kept fridge and freezer.
He liked how her place smelled, clean with a hint of flour. It was a gentle scent that didn’t overwhelm. The only eyesore in the entire place was the puke orange couch with brown accents in her living room.
It was getting late enough that Scar wondered what time Tallulah would be home. He knew from the restaurant’s website that they closed at ten. Scar had no intention of harming Tallulah. She was innocent and there was a good chance she did not even know what her father did for a living. Regardless, Scar did not hurt women without just cause.
His aim was to surveille her for a few days, get some pictures to prove to Alpha that he could get to his daughter. It was unfortunate, but she was nothing more than bait. Then, once his shoulder was healed, he would go after Alpha.
Primis would be no more.
Scar did not set up cameras in the apartment. He did take pictures in case he had to show Alpha that he’d been inside, but he would not breach Tallulah’s privacy by setting up surveillance cameras any hacker could use to also watch her.
Scar’s old-fashioned camera was not connected to any network and therefore could not be hacked. He would take the pictures required and then go.
He headed towards her restaurant. Her apartment was within walking distance of the riverfront district, which was likely intentional because Tallulah couldn’t drive. She would either need to spend a fortune on cab fare or walk to work.
Scar found a roof across from her restaurant with a good view inside. The dining room looked packed, despite that it was after closing. He pulled his laptop out of the pack he had strapped securely to his back.
A phantom jingle bell rang in his head as he secured it again.
While waiting for the restaurant to clear out and for Tallulah to head home, Scar pulled up the blueprints for the building. The brick structure, as well as many of the buildings in the district, were over a hundred years old. Her restaurant, The Unseen Palette , used to be a clock factory that closed in the 1940s.
Scar glanced over the rooftop at the building below. He knew old clocks were radioactive and had heard that factories were too. Clearly this building was either decontaminated or the activity was low enough that the city allowed a restaurant to be opened in it.
Personally, his attention was fixated more on the play on words. From her test scores, he knew Tallulah Meacham was too smart to not realize the typo in her restaurant’s name. ‘Palate’ when referring to tasting and food was spelled with an ‘at’, whereas she spelled it with an ‘ett’.
He pulled up a video of an interview she’d done at her Grand Opening two years ago. Tallulah stood outside the same building below in a white chef’s uniform. Her skin was lighter than her father’s, a milk chocolate compared to her father’s dark. Her green eyes looked so real on the camera, but Scar had seen that shade of green in her bathroom cabinet. Did she change eye color each day? Though she was holding an all-white cane, she was not wearing sunglasses that people traditionally associated with someone who was blind.
Her long, black hair was held in a braid down the back of her neck. It shimmered in the sunlight like obsidian. She stood just enough off center that it was obvious she couldn’t tell where the camera was, though her face was tipped slightly towards the interviewer.
“Food is too fun to be boring. A mentor of mine once told me that people eat ‘with their eyes’.” On the computer screen, she waved her hand in front of her face. “I love food and I’ve never seen it a day in my life. I create my food like an artist creates a painting. This restaurant is my palette for your palate.”
Her voice was smooth and velvety. Based on how she spoke, he could imagine she had a great singing voice too. He noticed that the interview had a footer at the bottom of the screen that stated, ‘Chef Tally, The Blind Chef of Atlanta’.
It was after midnight by the time Tally left the restaurant. By then, Scar’s laptop was back in his pack and he was starting to grow concerned. He’d watched as the dining area emptied, then the employees trickled out. Almost twenty minutes after the last employee left, Tally came out of the restaurant.
Alone.
Scar’s eyes narrowed. Why the fuck was she alone? If any of the club’s ol’ ladies worked past midnight, her ol’ man would have a conniption. But to have her walk home alone in the dark? Fuck no.
Scar headed for the fire escape. He would come back to surveille the restaurant once he saw her safely to her apartment.
He reached the alleyway just as Tally was passing by. He didn’t move back into the shadows as he normally would upon someone’s approach. As he realized that he didn’t have to hide from Tally as he did for people with sight, it also occurred to him that he’d made the mental comment earlier that she was walking alone in the dark. But to her, everything was dark.
It still bothered him that she was alone, though.
She was not tapping her cane along the sidewalk but sweeping it side to side. It gave off a consistent plastic crackle against the concrete. But Scar heard something else, too, and it took him a moment to figure out it was coming from her.
“Click… Click… Click…”
Tally was clicking her tongue. It was a faint, very discreet, sound, but deliberate. It wasn’t something she was doing as a nervous tick or out of boredom. The way she moved her head, always with her ears tipped, Scar realized she was using echolocation. Like a bat using sonar.
She avoided trash on the sidewalk like she could see it. When Scar made to step out of the alleyway to follow her, her left ear immediately turned in his direction.
Scar froze, completely intrigued. People rarely surprised him anymore. They saw what they wanted to see, but Tally was sensing what was actually there .
What a marvel she was.
Scar did not move a muscle, didn’t even blink. After a second, she continued on. He remained where he was, needing to reevaluate how he was going to tail her home if her echolocation skills could detect his presence. Perhaps, like a submarine, he needed to disguise himself behind another object or as something else.
She was nearly a block ahead of him before he dared to move. How far was her range? He wanted to learn more, discover how she used sound to see .
Voices carried from across the street. Scar saw two men exit out of a building up ahead. He knew the moment they’d sighted Tally too.
Oh, fuck no .
He put on a burst of speed as the two men headed straight for Tally. He didn’t care that she was Alpha’s daughter. She was blind and helpless. Scar would not stand back and allow her to be harmed. No woman deserved that fate.
She may be able to sense their presence, but her echolocation skills would not be able to detect the evil intent on their faces. Scar could. He knew exactly what was on their minds.
Tally paused, her cane in front of her, when she realized her path was blocked. “Hello?”
“Well, aren’t you a pretty thing? He said you would be easy pickings, but this is just pathetic.”
Scar was nearly there. Red clouded his vision when the man who had spoken to Tally lifted his hand as if to touch her face.
Tally pulled her neck back, avoiding his hand, but that only managed to piss him off when he missed. He swiped at her again and Tally took a full step backward out of his range.
“The fuck?”
Scar heard the click of a switchblade open. He was feet away when Tally swept her walking cane out in front of her like a bow staff. She made contact with both men in front of her and nearly hit Scar behind her when she was completing her spin. Scar ducked just in time to avoid the blow.
She flicked her right foot upwards in a practiced move. The bottom of the cane tapped her shoe, and she used its momentum to bring it up in front of her, parallel to the ground.
Scar’s eyebrows drew down when he saw her feet shift into a fighting stance. She was perfectly balanced in her shallow squat. A synchronized flick of her wrists on her walking cane and the staff split into two halves. Each hand held its half in a tight fist as she swept them in front of her in wide arcs.
What the hell was going on? Was she not blind, after all?
Both men recovered from the initial hit almost immediately. She was just that fast . They advanced on her with the skill of street thugs, not trained soldiers. Tally, though, was all warrior. She moved with a speed and grace that was generally only seen in martial arts movies with the help of special effects.
The clicking noise her tongue made never stopped, though the speed had picked up like the quick ticking of a metronome.
Scar could have stepped in. He could have thrown his knives and taken out both thugs in a heartbeat, but he didn’t. Watching Tally fight was like watching a stunning performance of a ballet. And, with a twisted sense of satisfaction, Scar realized she was toying with them.
For the first time in a long time, Scar felt his lips twitch as if he was going to smile.
* * *
[WiseWave620: The guys played a trick on me today. I’ve been trying to grow my beard. Well, I fell asleep at my keyboard and they decided to glue a wig beard onto my face. I was so excited to see my face in the mirror until I realized it was fake.]
[WiseWave620: Sometimes it’s not easy being the kid brother.]
* * *
Tally knew the moment the two thugs that had approached her from the front scurried off like cowards, their tails tucked between their legs. The one behind her had not joined in on the fight. She found that odd and did not drop her guard. Her back might be to him, but he would soon learn that did not mean he could sneak up on her.
There was something different about this man though. The two that had approached her were the typical street thugs that Gordon Tremont hired to do his dirty work. The real estate tycoon would never dream of soiling his hands, and unfortunately, street thugs were a dime a dozen around these parts.
The man behind her had been the one from the alley further back. She was almost sure of it. She couldn’t smell him , not like she could other men. He wasn’t wearing cologne or aftershave. There was nothing distinctive like his shampoo or body wash. What she detected were things on him, like leather, metal, and a hint of polyester.
The scent of metal told her he was armed.
Tally shifted to face him. Her tongue was beating faster against the roof of her mouth than her heart was in her chest. She kept her breathing even, the exertion of fending off the two thugs minimal.
He continued to stand there, about ten feet from her. There was a lamppost to his right and a post office drop-off box beyond that. Tally walked these streets daily and she knew where everything stationary was. A broken beer bottle was next to the trash can behind her. A piece of paper crackled in the windshield wiper of the car to her left.
Her walking cane was weighted with lead, making her swings similar to a baseball bat. She knew how to use it in a single piece like a bow staff or separately like batons. She was so sick and tired of Gordon Tremont sending his thugs after her that she’d taken out some of her frustration on the two that had attacked.
This third one, though… She wasn’t sure.
He wasn’t moving, like he was studying her. While someone with sight would care about things like clothing style, hair and eye color, or facial features, Tally concentrated on more important things, like his height and build.
She was five-seven, lean with muscle. As her best friend, Simone, put it, she also had some junk in her trunk.
The man in front of her was six-two. He had muscle but was not overly bulky. She sensed he was dangerous, not simply a nuisance. Her father had trained her well, knowing the threats she would face out in the real world would be ten times more hazardous for her than the average woman. Yet there was no doubt in her mind that this man could cause her a lot of harm.
She tightened her grips on the halves of her cane. Time ticked on, and still the man did not advance.
Carefully, Tally took a step back. She was six and a half blocks, just over a thousand steps, to her apartment building. She could run that in a matter of minutes. It wouldn’t be running away, per se. At least, that’s what her pride tried to tell her.
She took another step backward. He remained where he was.
Tally did not lower her hands. “Unless you want to join your friends in the hospital, I suggest you stay away from me.”
Tally turned and bolted. It wasn’t the easiest feat in the world, running while using echolocation to keep herself from hitting anything, but it was a skillset her father had drilled into her since a very young age.
Her mind counted the steps precisely, so she knew the moment she needed to turn to reach the outer door to her apartment building. Switching both halves of her cane over to her left hand, Tally reached for the keypad at the side of the door with her right. Her fingers were off by a few centimeters. She adjusted, placing her pointer, middle, and ring fingers on the 4, 5, and 6 buttons. She did not need the braille on the pad to know which buttons were which. Using only those three fingers, she quickly typed in the code and then had to wait the agonizing second for the door to buzz open.
Tally burst inside, slamming the door closed behind her. She stood there for a second, breathing heavily. That man… He was so different from Gordon Tremont’s usual type. Who was he? What did he want? He hadn’t hurt her or even tried to hurt her. It had been like he was watching her.
Snapping the pieces of her cane back together, Tally journeyed up the stairs to her third story apartment.
She was exhausted, and it had nothing to do with the fight she’d just had. Though that certainly hadn’t helped. Tally loved finally having her own restaurant. It was her dream , but she was working seven days a week, fourteen hour days. The few times she’d taken days off, customers had complained that it wasn’t ‘the Blind Chef’ that had made their food, even though it was her unique menu.
Tally was behind on her office work because she was always in the kitchen. She loved her kitchen, but that didn’t get her employees paid as in physically processing their payroll. She really needed to look into getting an office manager. She’d had one, but he’d thought working for a blind woman meant she wouldn’t know when he started taking money from the safe. Tally hadn’t trusted anyone since to do the work and Simone wasn’t always available to help her.
Reaching into her left sleeve, she rolled the plastic wrist coil with her keys down her arm. She kept the key set, which only had three keys on it, around the crook of her elbow so she didn’t risk losing them.
Tally stepped inside her apartment—and froze. She was not alone.