Chapter Twenty
Last Stand at the Rinky Dink
Gunfire, rapid quick, filled the world with the acrid stench of smoke. Flashes of light in the darkened interior of the bowling alley were the only proof she wasn’t trapped in hell. Dusty could scent Death on the air, could feel him whispering against her skin. She dropped the clip in her handgun, slammed a spare one home, and filled the chamber just in time to place it neatly between the eyes of yet another member of the Brotherhood. They were everywhere, swarming the bowling alley like cockroaches. She wasn’t sure how many of the Legion were currently in the Rinky Dink, let alone how many members of other gangs had been caught up in this mess. All she knew was bodies falling all around like rain, and it would only be a matter of time before she joined them.
Dusty ducked back down behind the concession stand, the quick rat-ta-tat-tat of the grappling gun Rudy was manning from inside the coat check was buying them some time, but bullets were finite. The Brotherhood had managed to break through the barricade at the front door, but the gap was only big enough for a few of them to squeeze through at a time.
“Ape!” Dusty fired off another round. “Give me an ETA!”
The bodies were all blending together. How many was it now? Fifteen? Twenty? Not even close to the number she’d seen waiting outside. Fuck.
“Where’s our backup?” she bellowed.
“No one’s coming.”
She glanced over to find a grim Ape staring off into space. His Berretta lay in his lap, open and empty. He was bleeding from somewhere, the blood pooling beneath her shoes, and her breathing hitched.
“What the fuck are you talking about,” she hissed, moving in close.
Ape shook his head. “No signal,” he chuckled. “Damn, iPhone piece of shit can’t find a signal.”
At a loss for words, Dusty collapsed next to him.
Anyone who was able to hold a gun was manning a window or an entrance, including Eliot and Sweet Poppy, both of whom had refused to leave despite strict orders to do so. It was enough to make Dusty wonder if Edward had even put up a fight about leaving. Probably not. He was much bigger than Diesel. If he wanted to be here, he would have been.
She swallowed hard. Even though she was the one who’d sent him away, even though she knew it was for the best, her chest still hurt. Now, she was going to die without ever getting the chance to explain herself. He would spend the rest of his life hating her, never knowing how much she wished things could have turned out differently.
Dusty closed her eyes and imagined a world where she was anyone else but herself. What if she was a waitress? Or a flight attendant? She liked to travel. Maybe she could do it on a plane instead of a motorcycle. In her daydreams, Edward was some rich businessman on his way to do whatever the hell it was rich businessmen did. She’d bring him a drink, and then they’d fuck each other’s brains out in first class. The pussy would be so good he’d propose as soon as the plane landed.
Stewardess WAP. Yeah, that could work.
Poppy army-crawled her way behind the concession stand, tutu dripping blood.
Dusty grabbed her hand and shifted so Poppy could settle between her and Ape.
“I’m out,” Poppy whispered, voice tight and high with fear.
What would the Brotherhood—with their Harleys and obsession with White power—do with Poppy if they got their hands on her? Dusty’s teeth ground together until her jaw ached, and she met Ape’s eye over the top of Poppy’s head. Joey was still shooting, but even she could tell the the rat-ta was no longer tat-tatting like before.
Ape was an old hand at reading her expressions, at listening to the way she moved through the world. They’d been together for a long time. He’d tutored her through getting her GED and chaperoned her first drug deal. He knew her. So, when she met his eyes and nodded, his expression darkened with some unfathomable emotion and he turned away, throat working.
Resolute, he wiped sweat from the side of his face and climbed to his feet. “Meet us out back in five minutes, or I’m coming back to get you.”
“No,” Dusty shook her head and reached under her shirt for the joint tucked between her skin and the band of her bra. “You won’t.”
Poppy glanced between the two of them in growing concern. “What are you talking about?”
Ape handed her a lighter and then reached down, grunting as he lifted Poppy into his arms and tossed her, kicking and screaming, over his shoulder.
Dusty waited until Ape disappeared into the bowels of the bowling alley and lit up. It was over now. Eliot was smart enough to get out while he still could. No matter how noble his intentions were, he was practical, having been raised with the same values she had been. Which meant it was just her, Joey, and a handful of others left to keep the Brotherhood at bay. She knew what they would do to her if they caught her, but she couldn’t run. She wouldn’t. Dusty had spent the last seventeen years clawing her way to the top, demanding respect from the very people who would have spit on her in passing if given half the chance. She’d be damned if she undermined it all by running away now. No. They’d have to kill her.
Once again, her thoughts went to Edward. Had he made it home yet? What would he do about Andrew? If being with her had given him anything, she hoped it was the confidence to stand up for himself more. The thought of anyone making him feel small again was enough to make Dusty see red.
As if she were one to talk.
It was funny. Dusty had spent so many days denying it, dismissing the possibility as nonsense, but it had been staring her in the face this whole time. She was in love with Edward. It was new, something fresh and small, but she could feel how large it would grow if she’d let it. Could sense how it would derail all she was and take over everything. Already, pieces of her were moving out of the way to make room for him, which was terrifying and not at all the type of love people talked about in the movies. The kind of love she used to read about. This love filled her to the brim, left her gasping and on uncertain ground. It drowned her. Dusty couldn’t remember what life had been like, what she had been like, before him, and couldn’t imagine a future without him. Objectionably insane, wasn’t it? She was a human being with dreams and fears of her own, and yet inexorably, unexpectedly, she now found herself craving a man who would have never given her the time of day had they met in his world instead of hers.
But still …
Edward was the moon rising in the sky. All was darkness and distant stars until he’d filled the void with light, and then he was all she could see. All she wanted to see, and Dusty…she really, really wanted to see him.
Dusty swiped an angry hand across her face. After she emptied this clip, she’d be out of ammo. No telling how long she’d have then, but Bess was eager to come out and play – which should buy her a few extra minutes of fun. Death had always been a close friend of hers, the next name on her dance card. No point in getting cold feet now.
“I thought you would have scurried off.”
Dusty glanced up, meeting Diesel’s eyes upside down. She took another hit from her joint and blew a trail of smoke up toward his face. “The fuck are you doing back here?” she asked, voice tight. “I thought I told you—”
“Lover boy’s fine.” Diesel grinned, leaning his head into the palm of his hand. His eyes glinted in the next volley of gunfire. “I came back to see if you needed any help.”
“From you?” Dusty was incredulous. “Absolutely not.”
For as long as she’d known him, Diesel had been the kind of man who was content to stand on the sidelines and watch other people take all the risks. Dusty had never called him a coward to his face but couldn’t hide her disdain.
Finishing off her joint, she flicked the smoldering roach to one side and dusted herself off. “Make yourself useful and go check on Joey or something,” she said, waving him away as she tossed first one and then another gun onto the counter.
It was hard to see much with the lights out, but she was sure the brotherhood member she just put down had a semi-automatic. She missed her duffel bag, but whatever she’d snatched from the weapons cache would have to do. Dusty wondered if it was worth running to the other side of the building to see if there was anything left in the supply closet. Just as the idea occurred to her, she dismissed it. Chances were the others had cleared the place out. It wasn’t like there was a shitload of weapons in there to begin with. It was a waystation where people could stash anything that went boom or stabby-stab while they were at the Rinky Dink. It was a lot harder to shoot someone in a fit of pique if your gun was at daycare.
“I hate when you do that.”
“Do what?” She stepped past Diesel on her way to the first body.
The shooting from outside had died down, but the silence didn’t mean anything. They were probably getting ready to send in the next wave. The semi-automatic fit well in her hand. In the dark, there was no way to tell how many bullets it had left, though, which could get messy expeditiously.
“Ignore me.”
Dusty bent at the waist, gathering her hair into her hands so she could weave the mass into a quick bun. “What the fuck are you going on about?” she bit out.
Diesel came for her before she could rise. His hand in her hair, the pressure sudden and cruel as he yanked her off her feet. Then he was dragging her across the ground toward the darkened lanes by her braids. She twisted, legs churning against the ground in search of purchase. The deeper they went into the bowling alley, the farther away the sounds of fighting became, and ice filled Dusty’s veins.
“Diesel,” she snarled. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Finishing what I started,” he swung her around, the floor so slick beneath her that he tossed her down the nearest lane with all the ease of a bowling ball. Dusty rolled to a stop just beyond the dark maw the pins called home and struggled back to her feet, head aching. The other lanes stretched out on either side of them, and they were far enough away from the fight to have quiet. She pulled Bess, shivering at the click as the knife came to life in her hands.
“What are you talking about?” She panted. Her body was heavy, her arms and legs like lead. She was tired .
Diesel stared at her in silence for a long while. Bouncing where he stood, he licked his bottom lip in anticipation. “Désirée,” he said softly. So softly, as if her name were something he’d forbidden himself.
Dusty’s hand spasmed around the hilt of her knife and she lowered her head, staring at him as a slow grin spread across his face.
“Don’t look at me like that, Adele,” he said. “I loved your sister, and she loved me.” He laughed. “It was all very…wholesome.” He paused for a beat. “And boring. But then, you get what I mean.”
Exhaustion faded as if it had never been. Putting the switchblade between her teeth, Dusty pulled the bowie and began sawing through her braids. Wouldn’t catch her slipping twice. Diesel didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he wasn’t concerned. An idiot to the very end.
“The point, asshole,” she interjected, and Diesel scowled, stalking toward her.
“I had a whole thing I was trying to do,” he lamented, “and you’re fucking it up.” His voice was hateful and strange, and Dusty wondered how she’d never sensed it before, this poison in him. “You fuck up everything .”
When he was close enough, she flipped the bowie blade over handle and launched it through the air. The knife sank into his thigh with a meaty thunk that had her grinning around Bess’s cold steel.
Diesel screamed, clutching his leg as Dusty settled Bess into her palm.
“She cried,” he choked out, pulling the blade free with a grunt. “That’s my favorite part, when they cry. The first girl was an accident, but the rest of them?” Diesel straightened to his full height, his head falling back. He groaned, and the sound was pure sex. “The rest were because they sounded so damn sweet.”
“I’m going to kill you slow,” Dusty rasped, hating herself for giving him even that much. It was a struggle to keep her breathing under control, to stop herself from launching across the room.
“He’s baiting you. Fall for it, and you’ve already lost.”
Easier said than done when she could imagine the scene, when the memory of Desi’s cries still rang in her mind just as they did in his. Even now, years later, he was still using her, still stripping her down to the bone.
“Good,” Diesel said. “It’ll give me time to tell you everything I did to her before I snapped that bitch’s neck and tossed her in a hole.” He swiped at her with the bowie knife, testing its range to see if she were close enough to gut.
Dusty moved in by slow increments. A part of her wanted to wail her grief and never, ever, stop. Instead, she forced herself to swallow past the lump in her throat.
“What do you want to hear first, huh?” he teased, knife point singing through the air. Closer this time, a little too close.
Dusty danced back, careful not to slip.
“About the first time she kissed me, all sweet and shy? She tasted like apple cider, Dusty. At first, anyway. By the time I was done with her, she tasted like my—”
With a cry, she darted in, ducking beneath the first strike in time to rise and deliver her own.
Diesel’s forearm caught her by the wrist, driving her arm up and out until he switched his grip. He grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her in close so he had her elbow locked beneath his arm. She was hugging him, one-armed, when he headbutted her.
Dusty rocked back, blood in her mouth, already reeling even before Diesel backhanded her. She fell in slow motion, like a prizefighter out for the count. One too many hits to the head, thanks to Conners. Dusty hit the ground hard, cracking her skull on the alley floor.
It didn’t hurt. Nothing did. In fact, as she fell back, the world bled away into a sea of green leaves so brightly lit beneath the warm weight of the sun that it hurt to look at them. The air was hot and thick against her skin, vibrating with the rhythmic call of cicadas fresh from the earth.
“What are you doing here, Adele?”
Dusty turned her head to glare at her sister. “Same thing as always,” her lips formed the words from memory alone. “Looking for you.”
Désirée rolled her eyes, turning on her side and laying her head in the crux of one arm.
“It’s not your job to save me, Addy,” Desi told her, stern mother hen in her prettiest sundress. “Never has been.”
Dusty frowned. She wanted to turn away from her sister. Like the green leaves, it hurt to look at her. She hadn’t aged a day. Her features, so like Dusty’s but somehow not, were still rounded and vulnerable. A mirror for every thought in her head. Still, Dusty couldn’t pry her eyes away, even when tears stole her vision. “You really slept with that asshole?” she demanded.
Desi groaned, flopping onto her back in embarrassment. “He was charming!” she wailed, then wistful, sighed. “And cute.”
“He looks like Chuckie.”
“That’s ‘cause he’s trying to kill you,” Desi said sagely. “But when you’re fifteen, and the world never feels big enough?” She shrugged. “Then, a boy like him looks like freedom.” Desi lifted one hand, waiting. She would wait there forever, tirelessly, infinitely, eternally fifteen.
Dusty didn’t realize she was trembling until she lifted her own hand and laced their fingers together. And there he was, in a movie reel playing on repeat because there was no more life lived after him. The cutest boy Desi had ever seen had just rolled into town on the back of Daddy’s bike. Rat said he was a runaway, to treat him well ’cause his mother was dead and gone.
“He can’t stay at the bar, now, can he?” Rat reasoned, and Desi agreed.
He was seventeen, a whole two years older than her, and so, so quiet in the beginning. He never said much while Rat was around, but as soon as the sun went down and the Legion started knocking back drinks, Desi would sneak him in through the back door. They’d talk until morning, snacking on whatever they could find in the kitchen and watching television with the volume turned so low you couldn’t hear all the bad choices being made. When they were alone, he opened right on up. She knew all sorts of things about him, though some of the stories he told her made her nervous. He liked talking about the girls he knew before her, the ones he’d met on the road while traveling with Rat and Ape. Whenever he said their names, a smile would transform his face and he would brighten in a way he never did with Desi. Each time it happened, it was another blow to her young heart.
How the hell was she supposed to compete with the memory of so many? She’d never even kissed a boy, let alone had a boyfriend. The doctors said this second round of chemo would set her right, and Desi hoped they were telling the truth this time. It was hard meeting people when you were always stuck at home alone. Addy had school, so most of the time, it was just her and Gran. Desi loved her, but the woman was always rattling on about ancestors and lwa. She said if Desi worked at it, she could learn to channel the spirits when they came. It was the lwa who would make her strong.
“But be careful, baby. These spirits,” she shook her head in Cajun disapproval. “they forget what it is to be human. Some have never known. They’ll break you if you let them ride you for too long.”
But what did Desi care? Deisel said he loved her, and their first kiss was so sweet she wanted to love him, too. What were deities compared to a first love? Then Diesel stopped coming, and now Desi was afraid he’d found another name to add to his list and that it wasn’t her. He’d begun to ask about Addy when he came to visit at night, and insecurity was a tight knot in her middle.
***
Diesel hated her so much he could taste it. He’d been waiting for this for so long, and even now, he couldn’t enjoy it the way he wanted. Just one more thing to lay at her feet. It would have good company there, amongst all the other things he blamed her for. The wolves were at the door, hungry to get in, and he didn’t have much time before Joey’s suppression fire came to a grinding halt. Already, the silence between shots was growing longer.
He wasn’t worried about himself. He was a chameleon, a shapeshifter. He became whatever he needed to, whenever he needed to. He would fit into the Brotherhood, but they would want Dusty, and he couldn’t allow that. She was his, had been promised to him since she was a small, squirming thing in the dirt beneath him. He wanted her there again, but he would content himself with taking the life that had always been his to claim. He straddled her, hands wrapping possessively around her throat.
***
Diesel came for Desi in the dark and promised to take her somewhere quiet. Romantic. He’d passed the gauntlet and was wearing his Legion jacket for the first time. He was so proud, but there was a dark light in his eyes that scared her. They snuck away from the house, and he put her on the back of his bike, the one he’d been working on ever since getting into town. Soon, he’d leave with Rat and all the rest. Desi knew she would not see him again until the Legion came back home, and this scared her more than the light. So, she followed him and held on tight as they rode farther and farther away from the bar. Away from Rat. Away from Addy and Gran. He led her into the woods with kisses and trailing fingertips. But his weight was too heavy, and when she shied away, he got angry.
So, so, angry.
And Desi ran, but she’d never been very fast, not like Addy, and he took her down like a lion with a gazelle. His teeth were sharp, rending her, tearing flesh and girl apart by the seams and leaving the pieces scattered on the forest floor. She was dead before he offered her to the earth, dead long before Addy joined her there, and she curled around her sister in death much the same way she had in the womb, clutching her close lest she drift too far away.
***
In another time and another place, Dusty seized where she lay, back arching like a bow pulled too tight. Her fingernails left trails through the dust on the ground, and for a moment, just a moment, Diesel hesitated.
***
Above her, trees waved a lazy hello. Dusty stared up at them without blinking, her hand convulsing around Desi’s. It was getting harder to breathe, but there was nowhere else she’d rather be than here, with her. The scent of roses engulfed them, filling Dusty to the brim until every breath was rose water on the tongue.
“You taste of dead and dying things, Adele Burdot,” Desi's gentle accusation was easy to ignore. Something was coming. The trees told her so, the whisper of their leaves more of a scream, once you knew how to listen. She sat up, staring at the gathering dark. It ate the clouds, the sun, the stars. It trailed reaching fingers across the ground, a shadow with teeth biting down.
“Adele.”
His footsteps rotted the earth beneath his feet. He’s wearing shoes this time , she thought, but couldn’t understand why. His boots, with their iron claps, glinted even in the darkness he carried with him everywhere he went. Here, he was stronger. Here, he was something more than bones and nightmares half-remembered. His skin, as dark as night, peeked from beneath the edge of a leather jacket, and the skin of her arm burned . Head tucked low, he stalked toward her—a God risen and ravenous—and Desi’s world wept to host him.
“Addy!”
Dusty flinched, her gaze meeting Desi’s. She needed to move but couldn’t. Just like all those years ago, she was frozen in place, though it wasn’t terror gripping her now, but something else. Something she had no name for.
Desi grabbed her face, forced her to stare at her and only her while Eshu strolled forth to claim his tithe. “I can help you, if you’ll let me.” Between one blink and the next, she was no longer the child she was but the woman she would never be.
Hadn’t Dusty said something similar to Edward just days before? As above, so below. “You’re dead,” she reasoned.
“But not gone,” Desi said, and there was a sharpness to her that had never been there before. “Never that.” Her eyes bled to black as Eshu loomed close. “Do you trust me, Addy?”
Dusty nodded. Of course, she did. She always would.
Desi grinned as Eshu reached for Dusty, whispers trailing from the hidden places beyond his fangs. She could almost see something hidden in the darkness there, and a mad glee filled her. Then Desi was climbing within her, scrambling into her mouth like so much black smoke. She filled Dusty’s skin, taking up all those empty places until they were one body, one thought, one mind. Until Dusty was back in the world of the living and clawing bloody furrows into Diesel’s forearms. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, the last coherent thing in her mind was the screaming.
Endless.
Terrifying.
***
Dusty opened her mouth, and for just a split second, Diesel could have sworn a hand, rotting and gray, nail beds dark with dirt, reached for him. He flinched back, disbelieving, eyes wide. He gasped as something heavy struck him full force in the chest, flying backward. Rolling to his feet, Deisel reached for an abandoned bowling ball and lifted it above his head. Sneering at Dusty’s convulsing form as he brought it crashing down.
An armored car slammed full force through the front doors of the Rinky Dink. The wall crumbled around the front half of the truck, taking part of the roof with it. The whomp-whomp-whomp of helicopter blades and the scream of sirens flooded the bowling alley as searchlights, bright and inescapable, danced across the hood of the vehicle.
The driver’s door flew open, and Edward stumbled out. In the movies, the cadre of police officers who followed him there would have opened fire as soon as his feet hit the ground. At the very least, someone would have issued a warning - explained that to move was to die. But as far as Diesel could tell, the police were too tied up with the Brotherhood to do much of anything at all.
Joey limped out of the coat room, laughing his ass off. “Holy fuckin’ shit,” he crowed.
Edward turned at the sound, but it wasn’t Joey he sought. His eyes landed on Dusty first, bloody and pale, the bowling ball next to her head where its weight had cracked the wood floor. Then, inevitably, to Diesel standing over her. His expression turned murderous and he covered the distance in just a few long-legged strides.
“Pretty boy,” Diesel began, trying on an affable smile. “Dusty—”
***
Edward hit him so hard the crunch of bone reached Dusty even from a foot away. He followed Diesel to the ground, fists flying mercilessly, teeth bared with effort. Head aching, Dusty sat up. Her mouth was dry, and she hurt all over. Joey helped her get to her feet, and she nodded her thanks.
“Go,” she rasped, her voice practically gone.
The first time Diesel had tried to kill her, it had taken years to recover. This attack didn’t feel as serious as the first, but she wouldn’t know the extent of the damage until she found a hospital. One far, far, away from here.
Joey looked between her and Edward, nodded, and limped toward the back of the building.
There was a hidden entrance under the desk in the office where Dusty had first woken up. Once he was in the tunnels, he could catch up with Ape and Poppy. It was obvious by now that Eliot was long gone, and Dusty wondered if she’d ever see him again, or if she even wanted to.
The meaty thwack of Edward’s fist against Diesel’s face was like a heartbeat, the bass of her favorite song. Diesel begging beneath the onslaught, his face already twisted and swollen to twice its size, was the sweetest treble. If Edward kept it up, he’d kill him.
A second searchlight joined the first, the speed of the rotors kicking up dust and dirt as it circled the hole in the Rinky Dink. Dusty pushed her hair out of her face. “Smile bitch,” a voice chuckled from deep within her mind. “You’re on the six o’clock news.”
Limping over to Edward, she placed a hand on his shoulder. With anyone else, she might have been afraid that one touch would be enough to make him turn on her. But she knew better.
The muscles in his arms bunched as he reared back to hit Diesel one more time.
Struggling to breathe, the other man fell limp. Dusty wanted to let Edward finish the job, but she knew what it was like to kill a man, and Edward - her sweet, clumsy Edward - didn’t deserve the nightmares.
She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, marveling at how small her fingers were against his skin. “Got you, Ma moitié,” she rasped, voice barely a whisper. Edward turned his head, an animal scenting the air, and caught her eye. Reaching out, she brushed the hair from his forehead. “See?”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He abandoned Diesel, bloody and broken on the ground, and came to her. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he lifted her off her feet.
Dusty wrapped her legs around his waist, holding him tight.
“Is that a grenade in your pants,” he asked, voice muffled. “Or are you just happy to see me?”
Dusty lifted a brow. “Why not both?”
“Freeze!” a voice shouted. “Hands up! Now!”
“There’s no going back after this,” she warned. Her throat might never heal, but she had to get the words out; she had to give him one more chance to run away. Edward looked up at her, Icarus ready and willing to burn , and she pressed an open-mouthed kiss against his lips.
The clink of the pin against the ground was muffled by the sound of the helicopter. Dusty tossed the explosive toward the opening in the building, and the panicked “Oh Shit!” that followed brought a smile to her face. Edward took off with her, sliding behind the concession stand just as flames rocked the world and brought it all crashing down in a plume of acrid, gray, smoke.