Oaks
I know something’s wrong before she says a word.
I’m halfway up the gravel path from the lower docks when I see her running toward me. Hair wild. Face pale. Eyes too wide. She ain’t dramatic. She ain’t putting on a show. She looks like somebody grabbed her by the spine and shook her hard enough to rattle her bones.
Shock.
That’s worse than tears.
“Brittany,” I bark, closing the distance fast. “What happened?”
She stops in front of me like she hit a wall, chest heaving. There’s a red handprint across her cheek and her hair’s tangled like someone fisted it. She swallows hard, like she’s trying not to throw up.
“Bethany,” she says.
My stomach drops straight through the soles of my boots.
“What about her,” I demand, and my voice comes out low and controlled because losing control won’t fix shit.
“She came at me,” Brittany says, words tumbling out like she’s scared they’ll get stuck in her throat. “Down by the water.”
I see red. Fucking bitch.
“Came at you how?” I ask through my teeth.
“She shoved me. Tried to knock me into the lake. Grabbed my hair. She slapped the shit outta me.” Brittany’s voice shakes but she keeps going. “She called me trash. I told her to back off. She wouldn’t.”
I can see it without trying. Bethany calm and cold until she ain’t. I’ve watched that switch flip before, watched her smile while she pushed a knife in.
“What did you do?” I ask, and I hate how steady I sound, like I’m asking about inventory when I want to kill a bitch.
“I shoved her back,” Brittany says. Her hands tremble at her sides. “She came again. I grabbed a board.”
My pulse spikes.
“You hit her?” I ask, amused, a bit proud.
She nods once, sharp. “I didn’t mean to hit her that hard. I just… I was done.”
The wind shifts off the lake and carries that damp, metallic stink that’s been clinging to everything lately. Blood and panic. I glance down to Brittany’s finger, capped in blood.
“She went down,” Brittany whispers. “She was breathing. I checked. I ran to get help.”
“And,” I say.
“When I got back,” she says, and her voice fractures, “she was gone.”
Fucking Bethany. Probably ran off ready to hand the club over to Sherrif Dix. Or maybe something got her. Or someone. For one long second, I don’t move.
Because reacting wrong right now would ruin everything. If I say the wrong thing, if I grab her too hard, if I look too angry, it becomes a story. It becomes proof. It becomes the kind of scene Hell feeds on.
“Show me,” I say instead.
We move fast. Not running. Not panicked. Fast enough to matter.
The shoreline looks peaceful from a distance, and it makes me want to smash something. Herrington keeps putting on that innocent face while it swallows people whole.
I see the board first. Then the disturbed patch of gravel. Then the faint smear of red in the dirt near the dock post, like someone wiped a finger through it.
No body.
No drag marks.
No obvious signs of a struggle beyond what Brittany described. That part doesn’t make me feel better. It makes it worse. It means whoever moved her did it clean, or Bethany got up and walked off before Brittany came back, or the lake did what the lake’s been doing.
I crouch and touch the gravel.
Still damp. Not from rain. From weight and movement. I glance at the mud near the waterline. It’s churned but not deeply gouged. No clear trail leading into the trees. No obvious track of somebody hauling dead weight.
Just disruption.
Ambiguous.
I hate ambiguity.
“You’re sure she was breathing,” I ask without looking up.
“Yes,” Brittany says, voice high. “I checked. I swear.”
I believe her.
That’s the part that hits hardest.
Bethany’s body ain’t here. Her head hasn’t been here for a while now. And if she turns up hurt later, Brittany’s the easiest target in the world. A Home wrecker with a temper. A club whore that everybody already decided they can talk about like she ain’t human.
Behind us, a shout rises from camp. Royal’s voice carries sharp over the noise, clipped like he’s already fighting three problems at once.
We don’t have time.
If Bethany walked off and resurfaces screaming assault, the story fractures the club in half. If she didn’t walk off, if she went into the water, if something dragged her, then we’re already behind and the lake’s laughing at us.
I stand and scan the treeline. Nothing moves. Not even birds.
“You didn’t push her in,” I say quietly.
Brittany’s head snaps up. “What?”
“I’m not accusing you,” I answer, still watching the water. “I’m ruling things out.”
Her breath shudders out. “I didn’t touch her after she fell.”
Good.
There’s no second set of deep tracks. No trail in the mud that screams body being hauled. No clean line that says a man carried her away over his shoulder.
Just scuffed gravel and a smear of blood.
My eyes go back to the lake. The surface sits there like glass, and I want to put a bullet in it just to see if it bleeds.
“Did you hear anything when you came back,” I ask.
“No,” Brittany says. “Just the water.”
No scream. No splash. No engine. No brothers calling out. Just silence.
That’s what bothers me most. This lake’s been loud with rumors and fear and engines and radios, and when something real happens, it goes quiet like it’s holding it in its mouth.
I turn toward Brittany.
“You’re going back to Hell.”
Her chin lifts on reflex. “What? No. I’m not running.”
“This ain’t running,” I snap, then force my voice down because she’s already shaking and I won’t add to it. “This is strategy.”
If Bethany turns up hurt and Brittany’s still at the lake, it looks bad. If Bethany doesn’t turn up at all and Brittany’s still at the lake, it looks worse.
I glance once more at the water. It looks back blank.
“You stay here and people will decide the story before the truth even gets a chance to breathe,” I say.
Brittany’s eyes flash. “So you’re hiding me.”
“I’m buying time,” I correct. “There’s a difference.”
She searches my face like she’s trying to decide if I’m protecting her or protecting myself.
Maybe both.
We walk back toward camp without touching. Not because I don’t want to. Because touching her right now will be read the wrong way by the wrong eyes.
I don’t announce anything. I don’t tell Royal. I don’t tell Holler. Not yet. If Bethany resurfaces screaming, I need control of the first version that gets out, and I’m not letting the club decide it for me.
I swing a leg over my Harley and hand Brittany a helmet.
“Get on.”
She hesitates for half a heartbeat, then climbs behind me. Her arms wrap around my waist, not possessive, not flirtatious, just holding on like the ground under her keeps giving way.
I kick the engine to life, and I don’t look back at Herrington Lake.
The ride back to Hell is a quiet roar. Wind tears at us. The road hums steady under the tires. My mind runs faster than the bike.
Did she wake up and leave?
Did Pearly Gates grab her?
Did someone in my own club see an opportunity?
Did the lake take her?
I don’t believe in monsters, but I believe in patterns. Girl’s missing. Boats damaged. Docks ripped apart. A tent shredded from the bottom up. Now my wife disappears in the one window of time where Brittany was alone and scared and defending herself.
It’s too clean.
Or it’s too damn messy in exactly the right way for someone who wants a story.
We pull up outside Lottie and Holler’s place and I cut the engine. Brittany climbs off slowly, legs stiff like she’s running on adrenaline and regret.
“Where are you headed?” she asks.
“Back to the lake.”
That answer lands like a rock.
“You stay inside. Don’t talk to anyone about what happened yet.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“I’m not asking you to,” I reply. “I’m buying time.”
“For what,” she demands.
“For the truth to surface,” I say, and it sounds like a promise even though I don’t know how the hell I’ll keep it.
She watches me like she’s trying to decide if I’m about to abandon her.
I don’t touch her. I don’t kiss her. I don’t do anything that could be turned into a headline.
I let her walk inside.
Then I ride back toward the lake. When I get there, I tell Lottie and Holler that Brittany hitched a ride back to their house and they should go check on her. They buy it.
By the next morning, the club’s already talking.
Bethany never returns. No body washes up. Her shit’s still here. No call from another town. No hospital check-in. No sighting. Nothing that gives me a clean direction to chase.
“The lake monster got her.”
Someone laughs when they say it, like it’s a joke they can hide behind.
No one laughs long.
By evening, the next version spreads.
“She ran off.”
“She was unstable.”
“She finally snapped.”
Then the one that matters.
“Oaks finally got rid of her so he could be with his new woman.”
I hear that one twice before sundown, and it makes my hands curl into fists I don’t want to use.
And the worst one reaches my ears from a prospect who shouldn’t be listening to gossip at all.
“They say the pawn shop girl swung first.”
“They say Brittany pushed her in the lake.”
That rumor sticks because it’s easy, and Hell loves easy. People already decided what Brittany is. They don’t want evidence. Bethany already made her a villain. They want a villain that fits the shape of their prejudice.
The search at the lake renews with a new target. When it comes up short, it closes around me while I’m on autopilot. Defeated on both fronts, we pack up and ride home.
Back in Hell, back at the Lockup, our clubhouse, where things are supposed to feel stable, like we have control, law enforcement calls.
Casual. Curious. Not accusing yet. That’s what scares me. When they get polite, it means they’re building something.
Pearly Gates posts a prayer vigil on their church page.
For the Kings of Anarchy MC’s missing sister.
I stare at Bethany’s empty side of the house that night and feel something ugly twist in my gut.
I didn’t love her. I didn’t even like her most days. Hell, she was a bitch who I rejected in highschool. So, she trapped me like a wild animal into a marriage with her daddy’s blackmail. And she called that love. But I didn’t wish her gone like this. Not like a ghost story.
And if someone took her, if someone’s using this, if someone plans to hang it around Brittany’s neck, they just made the wrong enemy.
Hell might love a rumor.
But I don’t.