Eighteen
E verything had gone to plan so far, my little spat with Micro in the bar keeping everyone busy long enough for us to tussle with each other, eventually sitting laughing it off with a couple of beers, while I carefully watched every other fucker in that place, for my own peace of mind.
Micro was the only one I was sure I could trust, because we were tight, but some of these others, I’d never really bonded with. Either they disapproved of me in some way, or I found them boring as fuck. I swear, when I joined a club, I expected more crime, more violence, and less sitting around drinking beer. Still, I had to admit that I loved the club, or at least I had, until I ended up wearing a knife in my back.
Once I had a text to say the camera was in place, I finished up my last beer with Micro, and said I was turning in for the night, because as much as I wanted to hang with him, I really didn’t want to be so exposed, especially if I’d had a few drinks. I made plans to shoot the shit with him in the morning in the workout room, which was basically just a makeshift gym, with free weights, and some punching bags. We bad guys had to keep in shape, after all. Not many of us bothered lately, but I felt like staying strong, or getting stronger, might keep me alive through this shit.
On my way up the stairs, I’d bumped into Ice, who told me Lissa had passed on my number to Grace, and he handed me a scrap of paper with hers on. I added it to my phone, and promptly burned it with one of my torches.
Texting with her, or even better, phone sex with her, was the perfect ending to our day.
“I’m close, Torch,” she hissed, while I stroked one off at a rapid pace, wishing it was her fucking tight pussy I was riding right now.
“If we were together right now, I’d be ramming inside you so fucking hard, you’d be begging me for mercy. Guess what though, babe?”
She let out a ragged moan. “There wouldn’t be any mercy?” She guessed, and I made a ding ding noise as I squeezed the head of my dick, and started jerking harder. I’d edged myself for long enough, and now I wanted a big fucking finish. I just wished I could paint her fucking face with my cum.
“Next time we do this on a fucking video, babe, so you can see me coming all over the screen, and painting your virtual face with my cum, got it?”
A long low moan, and ragged gasping was my response, and fuck yeah, I was ready to get mine too.
“Tell me you’re my filthy little whore, doc.” I jerked rapidly, picturing her on her knees, teary eyed from a throat fucking she’d never forget, covered in slobber, and about to get a facial she couldn’t get in a fancy fucking spa.
“I’m… I’m your filthy… whore,” she gasped out, still catching her breath from her own orgasm. Fuck! My orgasm suddenly roared through me, and lit me on fire in all the right fucking ways.
I made a bit of a mess with cum, but that’s what a guy’s bedroom looks like, just an FYI for any ladies who wonder. Whether it’s tissues, an old t-shirt, or a fucking sock… there’s cum somewhere from all the wanking off we do.
B eing woken in the middle of the fucking night was never a good thing, and being roused from a deep sleep, by fists thundering on the door, was even worse.
“What the fuck!” I yelled, charging naked to the door and unlocking it, wrenching it open to glare at a grim Stitch on the other side of the door.
“What?”
He averted his eyes from my nakedness, and growled at me to get dressed, and meet him in Ice’s suite asap. He was stomping away for the stairs before I could answer, so clearly some kind of shit had hit the fan.
I ran to drag on a pair of jeans, and my cut on my bare chest, because I might not have time to get dressed, but I’m a fucking club guy through and through. I wondered if the new camera had picked up what was going on, and we finally had an ID on this fucker.
I locked my door and ran bare footed up the stairs to Ice’s room, rapping sharply on the door and being greeted again by Stitch.
“Nice of you to kinda get dressed,” he hissed as he locked the door behind me.
In the room was most of us in the know, as in Ryder, Ice, Has, Grease, Stitch, and me. No sign of Reacher, of course, but fuck… suddenly I was praying we weren’t in here for bad news about Ally. What if she’d… fuck no…
“It’s not Ally, right?” I gritted out, grabbing Stitch’s sleeve as he tried to pass me. He shook his head, and I felt a little of the fear inside me settle a little, but still something was up and it wasn’t good.
He ran a hand through his hair, which looked like he’d done it a dozen times already, and cast a look around the room at us.
“Jock’s dead.”
We were all struck silent for a moment, as a ripple of horror shot through all of us, but it was the last thing we’d expected to hear, because Jock had made a break from the club to retire out by the sea somewhere.
“What?”
“How?”
Stitch ran both hands through his hair and whirled around to face us.
“Shit. Look, before what happened to Ally, Reacher got a call from Jock. He said he had something important to talk to him about, and when he said it related to the problem within the club, it was clear that he knew something. He didn’t want to say over the phone, because of the possibility of ears overhearing, but he arranged to meet with Reacher this morning. They were going to be meeting at a coffee shop about a mile from here.”
I grabbed one of the spare chairs and dropped my tired ass onto it, wincing at the twinge of dull pain in my back from, you know, being stabbed.
“Yeah?”
Ice was tapping away at something on his computer, but listening in that way he multitasks, while the rest of the guys were lounging about, or standing, listening.
“Obviously after what happened to Ally, Reacher wasn’t able to make the meet, and I got caught up in all of that with him, so I didn’t make it to the meet at all. We didn’t hear from Jock again, and you know Jock, he’d be pissed as fuck, especially coming all the way back up here to get stood up.”
Yeah, Jock would have nagged his fucking ear off, the cranky old bastard. Fuck, he was dead? I’d always liked the guy, even while he was drowning in his grief after losing his old lady.
“You getting to the point soon? It’s the fucking early hours,” I moaned, wanting them to speed this up, because bad news wasn’t something you wanted dragged out, was it?
“Sorry, man, didn’t realise you had a hot date to get to,” Stitch griped, shooting a frustrated look in Ice’s direction.
“Is anyone actually fucking listening here, or am I wasting my breath? This is one of our fucking brothers I’m talking about here.”
Ice lifted a hand and pulled up something on the screen behind him. We all leaned closer to see what it was. Fuck me. That was the familiar form of old Jock, walking past the clubhouse grounds and down the road, probably heading for the meet. We watched morosely as our old friend, our brother, walked his final fucking steps along the road, so close to where he’d lived for so long.
Ice suddenly pointed to a corner of the screen, and we saw a shadow moving just out of the range of the camera, and a dark clothed figure finally falling into step a few metres behind Jock. We couldn’t see where they went or what happened, after they were out of the range of the cameras, but it was pretty fucking obvious, wasn’t it? Our saboteur had struck again, this time killing a fucking brother, a former member of the club. Once a member, always a fucking member. He killed one of us.
“What the fuck are we doing about this?”
“How the hell did you find that, Ice?” Okay, we’ll ignore me, and go straight to what Stitch is asking.
“Me and Grease, we’ve been monitoring the outer cameras in sync with the inners, because now we know how the fucker is getting out, it’s clear he’d use this route here to head into town. We figure if we go back far enough, we might see him return from one of his jaunts,” Ice said, sinking back into his chair, leaving the screen paused behind him, with Jock already gone. In every possible way.
“Did he?” Ryder asked, suddenly stepping away from the wall.
“Did he what?”
“Did he return after killing Jock?”
Ice looked at Grease then back to us, a look of sudden comprehension on his face.
“No, not that we’ve seen.”
Ryder crossed the room, and flipped the fire alarm on the wall, filling the entire building with the sound of a deafeningly loud siren.
“You fucking idiot!”
Has didn’t wait around to curse him out though, he let himself out, declaring that he was getting the women to stay put in his room. That meant that every other biker based here would flock outside, and we could do a headcount, because while everyone didn’t stay onsite, too much had happened for this to be someone sneaking in to cause mayhem.
Of course, if he’d snuck back another way, this would prove nothing, right? Instead it proved two things. Two heads were missing.
Grace
I slept well after my scandalous phone sex with Torch, and had an early shift at the hospital the next day, so I made a point of stopping by to see Reacher and Ally again. If I was getting close with a member of his club, it made sense to offer support now, even though he barely knew me.
“Morning doc.” A biker I didn’t recognise was sitting in the waiting room with a book in his hand. He wore a beanie on his head, and the book was something about tattooing, judging by the front cover.
“Hi. I was just going to see Reacher and Ally. Do you need any messages passed on?” He grinned, shaking his head.
“Thanks, but he popped out a few minutes ago, so we’re all sorted. He made us leave overnight, but we’ll be here as much as possible. I’m Has-Been,” he said, standing and reaching out a hand to shake mine. He was tall, and very handsome, with a sweetness about him. Oddly familiar too, so maybe I had seen him around before. Maybe when Torch was still in the hospital?
“Grace. Uh Doctor Adams, but well, Grace to you guys. I mean, I’m with Torch, I think. I haven’t seen him today, but-” Has-Been, what a strange name, by the way, frowned and glanced around us.
“You’re keeping that quiet, right?”
He watched my shoulders slump and shook his head.
“I don’t mean that it isn’t great news, doc. I just mean while there’s some asshole trying to hurt people we care about, that’s all. I’m glad Torch won you over at last. I knew he was hot for his doc.” He chuckled and went back to his seat.
“Be safe, doc.”
That was the second warning I’d had about my safety from people other than Torch. Maybe I should be listening to them, instead of stubbornly clinging to this idea of being with another bad boy, even if he did seem to be the most decent bad boy I’d ever met.
“Morning, Reacher,” I said, noting with a smile that Ally was no longer prone in her bed, but sitting up, and smiling tiredly.
“Look who’s awake,” I added, smiling gently at her, as I stepped into the room.
“Hey, doc. Ally, this is the lady who’s taming our Torch,” Reacher said with a grin, and damn the guy looked thoroughly exhausted.
“I don’t know about that, but it’s nice to meet you. Reacher, have you slept at all?” He shrugged, leaning an elbow on the side of Ally’s bed.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead, doc.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Ally hissed at him, before glancing at me.
“Uh… can you go get yourself a coffee or something? Decaf, remember. I need a chat with the doctor in private.”
“Oh, I’m not the one treating you, but I can-”
“No, you’re the one I need to talk to. Reacher, go. Bugger off, for five damn minutes, and come up with an excuse for why you look deader than a damn zombie right now.” The big grizzled biker simply grinned, and stood up, pressing his lips to her forehead before he left the room, grumbling to himself.
“Wow, you have him well trained,” I said, stepping closer to her bed, and checking her notes, and vitals, because I’m a doctor and it seems like the thing to do.
Ally looked concerned about something, so I moved to where Reacher had been standing, and instinctively reached for her hand.
“What’s wrong?
She took a deep breath, steeling herself.
“Is there anything I don’t know?”
Huh, what the hell did that mean?
“About the club? They’re on full lockdown, but-”
“No, with me. I know about the surgery, but did they uh… is there anything I don’t know? Anything they found, or something wrong anywhere?”
I tilted my head, sensing that there was something she’d been hiding, maybe from everyone, and now she was putting voice to those fears.
“There’s nothing in your notes aside from the surgery, and your injuries from your accident, no. Is there something you’ve been worrying about?”
Ally lifted a shaking hand to her mouth, keeping an eye on the door, so Reacher wouldn’t come in and overhear us.
“I’ve just been noticing some symptoms lately that don’t make sense, that’s all. I figured maybe they might have seen something in there that could be bad.”
I retrieved her notes and flicked through them, shaking my head slowly.
“Nothing untoward noted as being found. I mean, they were focused on repairing the damage, but had they found anything alarming, they’d have addressed it with you. You’re worried about something like cancer?”
Ally nodded, biting at her nail.
“Little things are changing, you know? Like I know my body and I know my cycle, and it’s-”
“This is related to menstruation? Or are you concerned about early menopause?” Ally’s eyes widened, and I realised she maybe hadn’t even considered that.
“Early… my god, no, I hadn’t even thought about that. I guess I expected I’d feel old by then.”
I replaced the notes. “If you want my advice, because it’s not my area, I’d suggest getting better, making a list of your symptoms, and seeing your GP with them. Stop worrying though, okay? Focus on getting better and getting home to the club. That’s your priority right now.”
She nodded, looking a little less burdened, and mustering up a brighter smile when Reacher returned, coffee in hand.
“So, doc. When can I take her home?”
I laughed, moving out of his way so he could sit down.
“I think she’ll need a little while yet, Reacher. It’s only been two days!”
Ally suddenly gasped, turning to Reacher.
“You were supposed to meet with Jock! I stopped you from being able to see him. Did Stitch go instead?” Reacher shook his head, taking her hand again.
“Don’t worry about that, babe. Everything’s under control, yeah? Focus on getting better, so we can get back to our lives.”