Chapter 9 #2
A tiny frown tugged between her eyes. “But I think there are a bunch of people from Crimson Creek here, too. Probably out looking for a little taste of the wild side.”
“Is that what this really is? Wild?” I was pressing her.
But I needed to know.
I needed to know what the hell they were involved in and just how my brother had gotten himself entangled in it.
Air puffed from her nose as she continued to wind us through the mob.
Then she leaned close. “It’s a different lifestyle, Brinley, and at times it can be wild.”
She hesitated, peeking around like she was worried she was going to get caught dishing a betrayal, before she whispered, “Dangerous.”
Then she rushed, “But what they do is really important.”
Confusion smacked through me at her words. “What they do?”
How could living this type of life be important?
I was thinking more like a scourge.
Surprised guilt seemed to make her stumble a step, and her eyes widened in regret.
No question, she’d let something slip that she wasn’t supposed to.
“What does that mean?”
She pasted the first fake smile I’d seen her wear onto her face. “It’s nothing.”
Shucking it off like she didn’t have my brain swirling with questions, she pulled out ahead of me, dragging me along.
“Come on. If you think Lulu’s chicken smelled good, wait until you taste it.”
She angled us through a doorway and into another room.
It was like walking into another realm. The lights were brighter in there, and a few people were sitting at the three picnic tables that ran against the right wall.
On the left was a long buffet table.
The room basically a mess hall.
The delicious barbecue Elena was referring to was piled high on heated silver platters, and every side dish you could imagine was set out as offerings.
Trevan didn’t follow us.
I could only imagine he was leaning against the other side of the wall, standing like a sentry with his arms crossed over his chest.
An older woman was at the buffet, dumping a bowl of ribs slathered in sauce into one of the chafing dishes.
Her gray hair was twisted into a bun, and she wore a Crimson Crows T-shirt.
Tell me these guys didn’t actually have a fan club and merch.
“Lulu, look who I have!” Elena ushered me forward.
The woman’s eyes widened in appraisal before settling into welcome. “Well, if it isn’t our most anticipated guest.”
Guest?
That was a stretch.
“It’s about time you came down here and gave me a visit. And after I made my special French toast this morning just for you.”
There was no anger to it. Just a casual, easy warmth.
Uh, yeah, I’d skipped out on the breakfast Silas had mentioned last night since I would have gagged had I put anything in my mouth.
I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. “Oh, well, I’m sorry. I…wasn’t very hungry this morning.”
Her mouth stretched into a knowing grin. “Don’t you worry, honey. It’s a lot to take in.”
Wrinkles weathered her face, like tracks of harrowed memories.
Honestly, she looked like she’d been dragged to hell and back.
Worn down by years and tragedies.
If I had to bet on it, I’d guess she was probably in her early fifties, ten years younger than she appeared.
Elena snatched my hand and swung it between us. “Isn’t she sooo freaking pretty, Lulu? I told you.”
“Stunnin’,” Lulu drawled.
I shook my head as I looked at Elena. “You’re ridiculous. Have you looked in the mirror?”
Elena beamed like she’d never received a compliment before. “Really?”
Lulu chuckled. “Sweet girl, you’re gorgeous. No one tells you since they know they’ll get their jugular ripped out by your brother if they do.”
Frustration filled the roll of Elena’s eyes. “He’s so overbearing sometimes, I want to scream.”
“Well, you know why he is the way he is,” Lulu said softly. “After everything, I think you’re lucky he lets you out of the house at all.”
My attention volleyed between them. Trying to catch up. To understand the flash of what looked like terror rip through Elena’s expression.
Then she sighed and looked away as she mumbled, “I know.”
When she looked back, she was all bright smiles again. “Okay, Brinley is starving, and you know that will never do around here. We must feed her.”
“She’s come to the right place.” Lulu hobbled back to the buffet table, showing off a significant limp in her left leg.
While I stood there with the walls spinning around me.
Unsure of what was going on. I hadn’t expected anyone to extend any welcome, and these two had to be the most genuine people I’d ever met.
But I needed to remember what brought me here. Remember the man who was out haunting the periphery of the fire.
Lulu started making me a plate, scooping up giant spoonfuls of potato salad and buttered corn and cole slaw.
I moved to her side. “I can do that.”
“Oh no. It’s what I do around here, unless you don’t like something?”
I shifted in discomfort.
Was she here paying off a debt, too? Was she stuck working for this jerk?
I didn’t like it. Not one bit.
I gulped down the ire. “Everything looks amazing.”
Elena curled an arm through Lulu’s and set her head on the outside of her shoulder. “It’s how she loves us. Through her food.”
Oh.
Okay. Fine.
Not what I was thinking.
“Believe me, between her and Meems,” Elena continued, “you’re going to be well fed while you’re here. You may never want to leave.”
Yeah, that was not going to happen.
Lulu passed me the plate, then she insisted on making one for Elena, too.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
Flustered.
So out of sorts I didn’t know what to make of anything.
I followed Elena over to a table and sat down.
It felt like a moment’s reprieve.
A breath so I could try to figure out what I was really doing down here.
I scanned, gaze skating over the faces of the few who were in the mess hall.
A couple of super young bikers who were scarfing down their meals, and an older guy sitting a couple of chairs down from them.
Elena chattered beside me. I had no doubt she was keeping to safe topics, clearly confining herself to the parameters that she’d been given since she’d let herself slip earlier.
Going on like this was some sort of resort rather than a pit of depravity.
Then the air suddenly shifted.
A bolt of energy staking through the atmosphere.
A blast of that intensity there was no chance I could miss.
Her voice faded away as my attention snapped up to peer through the long open sections of the wall that ran above the buffet.
Sections that didn’t contain any glass, I assumed so food could easily be passed through.
Beyond them was what looked to be a hall of some sort.
A group of men were walking by, only their faces and shoulders exposed.
Trevan and three other men I didn’t know the names of, but one who I’d seen out in the autobody shop earlier today.
They were jostling and messing with each other. Laughter rolling.
But it was the one striding out ahead of them that sent a cold dread slipping through my veins.
A slick of fear and interest and fiery hate.
Power oozed from his tattooed flesh, and I swore it was obscenity that was scored on his stealthy body.
Every slashed angle of him as sharp as a blade.
For one fleeting second, his face turned in my direction.
I didn’t even know what the hell was written in it.
I figured he was just conjuring up ideas of exactly how he was going to torture me.
Elena didn’t seem to notice as they strode by as she told me about some new boots she’d ordered last night.
Each volatile man blipping by like a meteor set on a path of destruction.
This was it.
My opportunity.
I needed to know what they were up to.
“Um…where is the restroom?” I basically cut her off, and her head rocked back in surprise.
“Oh.” She glanced around before she gestured toward a door at the far-right side of the windows and buffet. “It’s right down that hall, first door on the right.”
She started to climb from the bench. “I’ll go with you.”
I popped to my feet faster than I should have, attempting to school the shaky anticipation that ripped through me. I pushed out a hand to stop her. “Oh no, that’s fine. Finish your dinner. I’ll be right back.”
Concern curved her brow. “Are you sure?”
“Yep. I’m all good. I figure I’m going to need to learn my way around here if I’m going to be staying, right?”
I wondered if she could decipher the guilt in my laugh.
Without waiting for her to change her mind, I beelined toward the door, putting on a show that I really needed to pee.
Sucking for breath as I curled my hand around the doorknob, my pulse thundering and thumping as I pulled it open to the dimly-lit hall on the other side.
The second I stepped into the darkened, dingy corridor, the air seemed to become nonexistent.
Stagnant and stale.
I might as well have been taking a bath in the stench of the corruption.
Music echoed from the left, beyond another swinging door that must lead back into the bar area.
A hall that was so long that I couldn’t see its end beyond the gloom that swallowed it to my right.
It appeared all the rooms were likely linked by the long hall.
My blood sloshed and careened.
I glanced back once more to make sure no one was around before I began to edge down the long corridor.
Sweat slicked my skin, just waiting on one of these assholes to reach out and grab me.
But no one was there.
With my breaths heaving, I crept down the passageway.
I noted the door to the bathroom that Elena had indicated. I bypassed it and kept on moving.
The quiet click of my heels that I tried to subdue made my heart beat even faster as I was drawn deeper into the murky shadows like one of those first to go in a slasher film.
And maybe I was making every horrible decision that I could.
Just begging to get myself chopped into pieces and fed to the pigs.
But this was my life.
My brother’s life.
I wasn’t going to sit like a good girl and get complacent.
Silas Mercer did not know who he was dealing with.
I made it to another door on the right, and I pressed my ear to the wood.
Moaning.
Okay.
Not what I was looking for.
I kept moving, my heart beating so loud I might as well have been shouting that I was coming.
Another door.
No sound.
Another and another until I made it to the very end.
Here, there were double doors.
The heavy wood extended the entire expanse and reached up to touch the ceiling.
Massive and foreboding.
That emblem was carved right in the middle.
The crows on the gravestone and the one celebrating on the grave.
Crimson Crows arched over the top of the scene, the words stretched across both doors.
My chest tightened to the point of pain, and the fear that crawled up my spine nearly had me retreating.
But the low tenor that barely seeped through the wood had me creeping all the way forward.
I pressed my ear to it. Frustration bubbled up when I was barely able to make out what was being said.
“You think he’s getting ready to betray us? Set us up?”
Half the words were garbled, so I wasn’t sure I was getting the full extent of the conversation.
A frown slashed into my brow.
Rocks in my throat, I pressed my ear closer, desperate to hear the exchange.
An unintelligible mumble then a, “…sure.”
A different voice. “…already dead.”
What?
What were they saying?
Dereck?
Is that who they were talking about?
Alarm clamored through my senses, and I might as well have become one with the wood with the way I was trying to get through it when there was the intonation of a voice that I couldn’t make out at all.
Crap.
Crap. Crap. Crap.
“…the girl?”
“…kill…handle it.”
A cold dread slithered beneath the surface of my skin.
Kill.
Panic shot through me faster than a bullet.
I had to get out of there.
Warn Dereck and protect myself.
Stop whatever was about to happen because whatever it was, I was sure it was bad.
I certainly didn’t mean for my elbow to smack against the door when I whirled away, but it made agonizing contact against the wood.
Pain streaked up my arm and nearly dropped me to my knees.
But the real problem was the bang of the impact reverberated as loud as a gong in the echoey corridor.
No question, they heard because the voices clipped off.
And I was running.
Running down the hall as fast as my boots could carry me.
Breaths raking from my lungs as I fled.
The walls blurred around me as I pushed myself as fast as I could go.
Whizzing by the doors, then the long window that overlooked the mess hall where Elena likely still remained.
Did she know? Did she know who these people really were? Did she know what they planned to do?
I wasn’t about to wait around for an answer.
Finally, the swinging door at the opposite end of the hall came into view, and I put my hands out, busting through it without slowing.
Because I could feel explosive energy behind me. A gathering of severity that blistered through the air.
Without looking back, I flew out into the bar.
The lights were low and the music was loud and people were everywhere.
So many bikers in every direction that it made me dizzy.
The air clogged with viscous, sticky fog.
I weaved through, sidestepping as much as I could to remain out of their reach, my eyes narrowed on one thing.
Escape.
I made it to the main swinging doors, and I burst out into the tacky night.
For one beat, I froze at the horde of bikers at the fire, wondering if they could smell my terror, before I shot into action, cutting right, hoping to duck into the cover of the forest on that side.
Praying I could make it to the property line. My mind calculated, wondering how the hell I’d make it over a twelve-foot wall, but people did miraculous things when their lives depended on it.
I would fight it out, but there were far too many of these assholes to take them down.
I would have to run.
Or maybe hide.
Whatever it was, I simply knew I had to get away.
Only there were footsteps behind me.
Heavy and hard.
The cool air coerced into brutality.
I ran beneath the trees.
Branches swishing and smacking against my flesh.
“Brinley!” The cruel, coarse voice curled around me, so harsh it could almost act as chains.
My heart thumped so frantically I couldn’t see as I raced through the underbrush in the darkness.
Only I could make out something in the distance.
Oh my God.
Up ahead, there was a fence.
A legit chain-link fence in the wall’s place where the forest was its thickest, one I doubted many new existed.
I could make it.
I had to.
I pushed myself as hard as I could go.
Boots pounding below me.
The fence three feet away.
Only one second before I made it, two massive arms curled around me.
A scream tore out of my lungs as I was getting tackled to the ground.