Fire & Dark (The Night Horde SoCal Book 3) (8 page)

“Hair grows, T,” Connor said, trying to sound reassuring. “You can grow ‘em back.”

Trick turned hot eyes on him. “I haven’t cut my hair since I got kicked from the service. Ten years. It’s more than just hair. It
means
something. This…”—he turned to Hoosier—“are you shitting me?”

Connor’s father spoke calmly. “We don’t have another sniper, brother. I know what we’re asking. I get it. But there’s nobody else can do it, and you are easily identifiable. Our goal here is to get up and out and none the wiser.”

“We haven’t even voted on the fucking job yet!” Usually, Trick was calm and quiet, but this discussion had him agitated.

Still speaking in that careful, steady voice, Hoosier said, “We agreed we’d set a plan first and then vote on the job. Now we know the plan. You can vote against it, no judgment at this table. But this is the plan we’re voting on, and it requires you to get military sharp again.”

Again, Trick put his hands protectively to his hair. This time, though, he caught himself doing it and dropped them to the table. “Fuck me.”

When he didn’t say more, Hoosier turned to Bart and Sherlock. “Okay. Let’s hear the rest of the plan. Then we vote.”

After all the details were laid out, with more photos and maps projected onto the wall, Hoosier called the vote. When it came around to Trick, there was a weighty pause, and then he said, “Aye. And fuck you all.”

The vote was unanimous. They were doing the job for La Zorra, taking out the District Attorney for L.A. County. Without knowing why she wanted him dead.

When that business was finished, Hoosier said, “We have a new issue, too. Most of you know, but let’s lay it out. Connor, Diaz, and Sherlock had an interesting afternoon yesterday. Connor, let’s hear your take.”

Connor described the scene at the High Life, and Diaz and Sherlock added bits as they saw fit. He left out the part that Pilar and Hugo were Aztec family. He didn’t think it was pertinent to the Horde’s specific problem, though it was certainly pertinent to Pilar’s.

When the story was told, J.R. spoke up. “I’m not clear—why were you charging into Aztec turf? To do a favor for some piece of ass you don’t even know?”

A surprisingly strong bolt of anger went through Connor’s head at that. Before he could retort, though, Muse leaned in. “She asked for help. We help, right? That’s how we keep the citizens friendly. They know they can come to us when they can’t go to Sheriff Montoya.”

J.R. shook his head. “Yeah, but we help with petty stuff. We don’t get involved in internal trouble on somebody else’s turf.”

“It’s not internal trouble. Her brother isn’t in.” Connor could feel the kind of tension coming on him that usually needed a fight before it would dissipate.

And J.R. leaned in and poked some more. “But he did something to piss them off. That shouldn’t be our problem. This is about you chasing some sweet Latin pussy and dragging us all with you.”

“I want you in the ring after this,” Connor snarled. He was angry because J.R. was suggesting he’d dragged the club into trouble over a chick. He was sure that was the source of the anger. He was sure he wasn’t feeling some sense of protectiveness for Pilar’s honor. That wasn’t it. Couldn’t be.

J.R. blinked—he was slight, and Connor could break him in half if he had the will to do so—and if this kept up, he might. But then J.R. grinned. “Fine by me.”

Hoosier cut in, slapping his hand down on the table. “Fight it out in the ring if you want. But on the point that matters in
here
—I okayed their field trip yesterday. There wasn’t time to vote it, so I made a call. Now we might have a beef brewing with the Aztecs, and if so, then that’s on me. They’re not much of a problem on their own. Esposito is a cocky S.O.B—he could’ve just been popping off. The bigger issue is that he’s bent over to the Fuentes cartel. I don’t want to be the cause of shit rising up in Mexico. La Zorra has a truce with them. If what we do here fucks that up there, we will have a problem. So be sharp and pay attention.”

He sat back in his leather chair. “That’s all I got. If J.R. is set on being an idiot, then by all means, you two go fight it out. But brother, you’re in the wrong. Also, you pissed him off and he’s got five inches and sixty pounds on you. Maybe you should just fucking apologize while you can still walk.”

Connor just smiled.

~oOo~

“Can you take Lana for a minute?” Demon’s wife, Faith, leaned over the back of the sectional and held her daughter out.

Connor set the television remote down and took the pretty little infant into his hands. “Sure thing. Come see Uncle Conman, cupcake.” He settled her on his chest, and she immediately went for the cross hanging from his neck, pulling on several hairs as she tried to shove it in her mouth. “Ouch. That’s mine. Have this instead.” He put his hand up to her mouth, and she sucked on one of his rings, and his finger, instead.

As Faith led Tucker, Lana’s older brother, down the hall toward the bathroom, Connor looked back. “She’s changed and all, right?”

“Yes,” Faith sighed theatrically. “I promise you won’t have to do anything but be charming.”

“Good. I got that down.” Connor loved babies—when they were dressed and quiet and didn’t stink. He didn’t mind them when they weren’t quiet, either, up to a point. He could deal with a little squalling, as long as they settled down when he turned on the charm.

He loved all the club kids. But this little girl was the sweetest thing he’d ever known. Maybe because she was Faith’s, and Faith had been special to him since they were kids. She was like his little sister. He’d felt it hard when she’d run away back in the day. But it wasn’t until she’d come back home, about a year and a half ago, that he’d fully realized how much like a sister he’d felt her to be.

Her daughter was like a perfect little doll, with wisps of pale hair and huge hazel eyes. And she hardly ever cried—not with him, anyway. She was a watcher. Not even four months old yet, but Connor could tell. This little miss took things in and thought about them before she made a decision.

They were all at Connor’s parents’ house for dinner. It was a thing that his mom, Bibi, had started doing not long after Demon and Faith got married. She wanted her family together at least once a week. Horde family came and went all week long, to drop in for a bite, expected or not, or to help out with some home repair, or just to hang out. But this core group—Connor and his parents, and Faith and Demon and their kids—Bibi wanted them to sit down like a family. Both Faith and Demon looked on his folks as parents, too, which was fine with Connor.

He felt closer to Faith than to Demon. He and Demon had met when Connor was a Prospect and Demon had started hanging around the club, back in the day, when they’d still been in L.A. So they’d started off with Connor thinking of him as inferior. And then right after Demon got his patch, there’d been that whole bullshit with Faith and her father, and it was just tough not to think about all that.

He loved Demon as the brother he was, and they had an ease together, but they weren’t confidants. When Connor needed to bend an ear, he went to Trick. And Demon went to Muse.

Demon came into the room now and sat on the other side of the sectional. “You good with her?” he asked.

“You know I am, brother. I love this sweet little thing.” His hand was dripping wet with her drool now, though, so he shifted her into the crook of his arm, and Demon handed him a teether and a cloth diaper. “How’s Tuck doing?”

Demon grinned like the proud papa he was. “He’s real good. That preschool is helping. He’s catching up. When they took him from Kota, he was about a year behind in everything. Now he’s almost on target.”

It had been about a year and a half or so since the state had taken custody of Tucker from Demon’s junkie ex. “That’s great. That kid’s been through some life already.”

His grin fading, Demon nodded. “Yeah. But it’s good now. Faith’s adopting him, and he loves his baby sister, and it’s good. Life is good.”

“Yeah, it is.”

The young boy in question came in just then and put his hands on his hips. Tucker was nearly four, but he was small for his age, the byproduct of being born to a junkie mom and being stuck in her barely-conscious ‘care’ for his first two years. All of his problems could be put down to that. And his recovery since was due to the loving family that now surrounded him.

“Pa!” Tucker nearly shouted. “Granny say wash your hands and come eat.”

Demon turned and smiled at his son. “Okay, Motor Man. Just me?”

Tucker thought about that and then shook his head. “Unca Con, you eat, too. But not Lala. Mommy gave Lala a boob already.”

Laughing, the men stood up. “What should I do with her, Tuck? Should I put her on a shelf?”

“No! Unca Con! She’s a baby! Babies don’t go on shelves!” Again, he considered the problem. Connor and Demon exchanged an amused look and let him think. “Give Lala to Pa. Pa knows what to do. Right, Pa?”

“You bet, buddy. I got this.”

Demon took his daughter and set her in the portable swing, where she would sail happily through the meal, probably sound asleep in about five minutes.

When they were sitting around the table passing bowls around to fill their plates, Connor took a minute to think about what he and Demon had said. Life was good. They had the club family, and it was tight. And they had this family, sitting around this smaller table. His mother and father. His sister and brother. Their kids.

His relationship with his parents had always been good. He’d needed no rebellion, because they’d always respected him for who he was, and he’d always wanted to follow Hoosier into the club. His mother was nigh to perfect, as far as he was concerned. Sure, they’d all had their fights, but they were rock solid and knew it even while they shouted.

Neither Faith nor Demon could boast an upbringing as stable as his, which was how they’d come to be welcomed into his little family. And now he got to be Unca Con.

He was a lucky son of a bitch.

The main reason he was living in the clubhouse at thirty-six years old was that he didn’t want to live alone. He wanted family around him. He was too old to live at home, so he’d done the next best thing.

But sometimes he wondered if he might someday want a table like this of his own.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Fire Station 76 was located deep in the heart of Old Towne, the neighborhood that had, in the days when California was a frontier territory rather than a state, been the entire town of Madrone. In those days, the town had been little more than a depot, a few rough-hewn blocks of commerce surrounded by dusty ranchland.

That small town had not officially expanded its borders into the desert floor of the foothills until the latter half of the twentieth century, when the first middle-class stragglers began to flee the booming growth of the Los Angeles area, a sort of mini-reversal of the westward expansion that had fed the state its residents for decades. In the late twentieth century, when real estate values had exploded into absurdity, picturesque Madrone burgeoned into the quiet, tidy commuter community that it was.

Most of the town, then, was shiny and new, full of gated developments and landscaped, irrigated green spaces. The Chamber of Commerce renamed the original Madrone ‘Old Towne,’ adding an ‘e’ for flair, and exploited the rustic, Wild West feel of the clapboard buildings and wooden walkways.

Station 76 was housed in what had been the old livery stables. The emergency vehicles lived on the first floor of the livery. The sleeping quarters, showers, and rec room were above it. An addition had been built on in the Eighties to expand the kitchen and include administrative space and a gym. During the restructuring of the fire district a few years back, another building had been added to garage the brush unit and ambulance.

Station 76 didn’t have a ladder truck. The layout and architecture of Madrone was low profile, and few buildings were taller than two stories. The whole district had two ladder trucks, both at the same station. When a ladder was needed, Station 58 was called in.

Pilar rented a duplex only a few blocks from the station, in the small residential area that had been the home of the shopkeepers and bank tellers back when Old Towne was just Madrone. It was one of the only parts of the town that didn’t look, to her eyes, like every other part of the town. While the houses in almost all of Madrone were stucco faux villas in neutral tones with composite tile roofs, Old Towne was mostly wood-sided cottages with a faint Victorian flair. The trees and gardens were less uniformly landscaped. People took pride and care, but they weren’t so worried about perfect lines and patterns. The people, and their homes, were just more interesting in Old Towne, as far as she was concerned.

As close as she was—she ran by the station on her morning runs—she always drove or rode to work, because she never knew whether she’d go straight home or head out somewhere at the end of the watch. Even a twenty-four hour watch, like the one she was on now, which would end at seven o’clock in the morning, didn’t mean she’d go straight home.

After she’d pushed Connor out her front door so she could get ready for work, she’d showered and dressed, then she’d mounted her Victory and ridden the half mile or so to the station. She hadn’t bothered with breakfast, because nothing she could make herself at home would be as good as what was waiting for her at the station.

It was a stereotype and a cliché that firehouse cooking was great, but it was a true stereotype and cliché. Firehouse cooking was fucking awesome. Every watch had at least one, usually two or three, fantastic cooks. Her watch had Ron Reyes. That man knew what he was doing with a spatula. Her best buddy Kyle Moore was good, too—he was their master griller—but Reyes, man. They were always pushing him to try out for one of the cooking shows, but he was quiet and shy and simply shook his head.

That morning, with Connor slowing her down, she was one of the last ones in the barn. Everybody was already around the table, though Reyes was still at the range, and Moore and Perez were laying trays in the middle.

Perez was the first to greet her, turning with a serving spoon in her hand and asking, “So? Did you go back for seconds of bear meat? How was it?”

White backed her up with, “Must’ve been juicy—Cordero’s never late!”

Guzman stopped in the act of pouring orange juice. “You been at it with that guy since last watch? How’re you walking?”

Pilar simply flipped them all off and went to the counter to pour herself a mug of coffee. Moore came over and hip-checked her gently. “Come on, girl. Spill. You know we won’t let you up until you do.”

Her mug full, Pilar turned and went to her place at the table. “Get your thrills in your own lives,
chismosas
.”

“Don’t talk spic to the
gringos
, Guzman rejoined. “They don’t get it when you’re dissing them.”

Most of the firefighters spoke Spanish, but Guzman knew that and was just throwing shade at the Caucasians in the room. “I was dissing you, too,
ese
. I’m not talking about my sex life with you trolls. When have I ever?”

Just then their Captain came in, and they all stood. He waved them down and sat at the far end of the table with them.

Clayton Harrison had been Captain of Station 76 for all of Pilar’s years there. As Captain, his job was mainly administrative, and he hardly ever put on turnout gear anymore, though his was prepped to go just like everybody else’s. As leader of the station, he had the luxury of scheduling himself for a Monday-to-Friday, eight-to-five job, but he didn’t. He worked at least one weekend a month.

Pilar liked him. Everybody did. He wasn’t friendly, necessarily, but he was fair. And he respected his firefighters.

They didn’t talk smack around him. It was like their father had walked into the room.

“You want coffee, Cap?” Scott Nguyen, Perez’s paramedic partner, asked.

Harrison shook his head and reached for the pitcher of orange juice. “No, thanks, Nguyen. I’ve shot my limit already this morning.” As he sat back with his glass of juice, he grinned and said, “So, anybody got news
besides
Cordero?”

Pilar could have hugged him. Usually, she didn’t mind all the smack and banter, but she was feeling defensive about Connor. She knew why, too. She liked him. A lot. He had a wry sense of humor and a devil-may-care attitude. That could come off as superficial, and it had, at first. But he was smart, too. And thoughtful.

And he was smoking hot and a great lay.

Though she thought she’d covered it well, she’d been pissed when he’d said he was heading to the clubhouse to grab some pussy. She’d been more pissed at herself, however, that she was pissed at him.

Nothing serious. She wanted nothing serious, and neither did he. That was a good thing. A perfect scenario. It was
fine
that he was getting more pussy. It meant that she didn’t have to worry that he’d want more from her than she could give. He had no more to give than she. A good thing.

She didn’t have a life or a job that made room for a serious relationship. Every watch, there was a chance she could get killed or fucked up. She literally lived half her life at her job. Yeah, there were people in the barn who had families, but she didn’t have the temperament for it.

It was a spiel she knew well, and it was running through her head on a loop this morning.

So Pilar was very glad when Captain Harrison filled his plate and they all sat around the table and spent the rest of the meal talking about the weather and the drought.

~oOo~

After breakfast, they did their daily checks and assignments, making sure the equipment was in shape and the supplies were stocked and the barn was clean. It was Sunday, so they didn’t have training or public service to do. Weekday watches often included trips to schools or school trips to the station, blood drives, and a variety of other kinds of community engagement obligations. Pilar and Perez spent a lot of time on those details—they were two of the very few women in this job at all, and they made good press.

Especially Pilar, since she was the only woman in the county whose primary job wasn’t medical.

All the firefighters were EMTs, it was a requirement of the job, but there were two paramedics on every watch, and they took the lead in first-response medical calls. Pilar’s primary job was rescue. She was often the first into a burning building—or second, behind Moore. They were a team.

For a woman, Pilar was fairly average in size: just shy of five-seven, about one-twenty-five. For a firefighter, she was small. But she was strong; those one hundred and twenty-five pounds were solid muscle. She was agile, too—and fierce. The package helped her excel at rescue. She could get places a man could not, even in full gear. And she could lift well more than her own weight.

Moore was much bigger than she was; in fact, he was one of the bigger guys in the whole station. About Connor’s size. He was her brawn. Those places too tight even for Pilar to get into, Moore and she could clear together.

When people told her she was brave, she normally corrected them, at least in her head. She didn’t think she was brave. She preferred the term ‘fierce.’ To be brave, one needed to overcome fear. Pilar didn’t feel fear. She had respect for the risks, and she knew her job. She did her job. She barely noticed the danger. When she was on scene, fire was just something to be dealt with. She trusted her training and her instincts, and she did the thing she was there to do.

The truth was, though, that burning-building calls were the least common calls they went on. Much more common were the accident calls—vehicular or otherwise—and medical calls or public safety calls like gas leaks or water main breaks. There was a reason a structure fire made the news. It didn’t happen all that often.

In California, especially in the summer, though, they went on plenty of fire calls. They had an actual wildfire season, the way the Midwest had a tornado season. Though the Forest Service had its own firefighters, all firefighters were trained in wildfire management and took calls to assist, and the department jumped on brush fire calls like they were harbingers of Armageddon itself.

Because they well might be.

This summer, so far, despite the dry winter, the fire season had been quiet. But it was still early yet, really. As the dry season progressed, everything got more precarious, and August and September were often the worst months. There was always an extra layer of vigilance over every watch in the summer and early fall. One cigarette butt tossed out a car window could destroy hundreds of thousands of acres of forest and brush. It happened all the time.

And those fuckers were nearly impossible to fight.

But the watch on the Sunday after she’d been with Connor was quiet. The truck and ambulance went out on a vehicular call about eight hours in, but the only injury had been a driver whose airbag had made meat out of his face. Both cars had been obviously totaled, so they’d kept the truck around to block the lane. They’d milled about for an hour or so, directing traffic until the tow company could get the wrecks onto a flatbed and out of the way.

Then they’d gone back to the barn and run their checks again.

After dinner that night, Pilar and Moore were on cleanup detail, so they were alone in the kitchen while everybody was upstairs in the rec room watching the Dodgers game.

While Pilar loaded the dishwasher, Moore put away the cooking supplies. Reyes was a great cook, but a real slob at the counter. Leaning over her to put the spices away in the cupboard, Moore asked, “You got plans tomorrow? Want to head to Joshua and do some climbing after watch?”

It sounded like a plan to her. “Yeah—but I need to check on my brother first. Can we make it an overnight, ride out in the afternoon and climb in the morning?” It was too hot to climb past noon in the desert. “Indian Cove should be pretty light on a Monday night. Not too many tourists.”

She and Moore were both rock climbing enthusiasts; their friendship was based as much on their off time as it was on the teamwork on watch. They weren’t close in a ‘share-our-deepest-secrets-and-braid-each-other’s-hair’ way, but they understood each other without that kind of sharing. They’d come into the station within a year of each other, Moore after Pilar, and had hit it off right away. They experienced the world in similar ways, most of them physical. But they’d never been physical together, despite countless camping trips sleeping in the same little pack tent.