Rage's Story (Vanish Book 1) (6 page)

Evin sighs. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I’ll put money on his head.”

Evin looks to the men behind him, still seemingly disinterested. “Who’s the guy?”

“Big fucker, blonde, looks like one of you, to be honest.”

Evin pauses, the room gets rigid. They realize it’s me he’s talking about. The little shit, he wants me dead? He knows better than to think I’m the kidnapper. Who would return to the scene of the crime? He could be diverting. Maybe it was Aston. I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like the wimp would be capable, but masterminds don’t come uniform. Bold tactic. What would he take her for? Why stay here? What would he have done with her? I can’t stop the questions, and for each I conjure a possible answer, only to find more holes, more questions. I can’t dismiss the possibility same as I can’t entertain it.

Evin’s interested. He stands close to Aston, they whisper, and it seems Aston appears frightened. I have to hear what they’re saying, what Evin has planned if he finds me. I slide my ear nearer the hole, and feel my foot slide in the mud at the base of the warehouse, my shoulder slamming into the metal paneling. Fuck.

“What was that?”

I don’t know who said it, but now I know their attention is turned my direction. Move, Wes. Move!

I push off against the wall and slip my boots twice more on faulty steps before I gain traction. I’m picking up speed, but they’re already exiting the warehouse. Guns blast, I hear the bullets whiz past, embed in the mud, snap bush branches. I pull out the pistol that ended Richie from my jeans and fire back, twisting at the torso for a split second image with which to aim my shot. I fire three rounds and watch a brother go down, face first, falling straight into the mud. The others don’t miss a beat, they continue their chase and I run like hell out of there. I see, for only a second, the image of the lover boy behind them, watching with eyes wide, but I can’t discern between aghast or intrigued, the thought of the latter shooting a shiver through my spine, but I can’t stop to consider, have to keep running, have to ignore the pain in my side, in my wound, have to make it out, have to find Auna, have to save her from whatever took her away, have to run away, have to keep running...

9.

It’s a mile, or two or three, of silence before I feel safe accepting the notion I’ve escaped. At least, in this instance. My trail’s hot now, they know I’m here, know I’ve killed brothers. The MC won’t rest at this point, the certainty of their enemy and the betrayal of it all sets their egos on fire, won’t allow them to stop before I’m dead. I know, I’ve seen it play out before. Regrettably, I’ve carried it out with my own hands.

I’m still running, like my legs can carry me away from the past and the preceding events, but they’re giving out steam.

I pause, somewhere in the woods alongside the road that leads out of town, the same that led me to the Pussycat Lounge and kept me here in Westwood Valley. I lean forward, catch my breath, see it dissipate into the night around me.

What am I doing? I’ve got nothing now, no MC, no money, no world. No Auna. She was the last thing I had, the last thing to go. I suppose that instills something, wraps her with meaning more than it should, but while I recognize how foolish I’ve been, I also see things so clearly with her. She’s gone. I need to find her. It’s that simple. Nothing else has ever boiled down like that. Something about that simplicity reenergizes me, in the face of all that’s crumbling, so much history and bridges set ablaze by the last weeks.

What are my leads?

The rich pretty boy. He’s the only one I see right now, his smug face hovering before my eyes. Aston. The pathetic boozer who can’t get anyone to take him seriously. He couldn’t get Auna to take him seriously. So he kidnapped her. Make himself feel powerful by holding her captive, forcing her to respect him. To feign respect, under threat of violence. Clear motive. I need to track him, find his secrets.

The first time I saw him was the night I met Auna. She met him outside, they left together. If he knew her before, knew her well enough to pick her up from the club, someone else there must know about him, maybe where he lives.

That bouncer.

I’m connecting dots now, tracing a plan through images of my memory, finding a path I need to follow until it leads me to Auna. I have to find Auna. Fast. I’m going to become a whirlwind force that tears through this sleepy town and I won’t stop until something gets set right.

I set off down the road towards the Pussycat Lounge, this is a walk I’m all too familiar with now. I find my limbs and my mind more ready, like a purpose was all they needed.

There it is, that pink neon. Another minute and I see the bouncer come into view. I can’t question the other girls, or the patrons, it wouldn’t look right, might attract police. The bouncer is all I have, an unsavory option, but I can use my size to my advantage. If I need to. Try talking first, Wes. Easy. Auna’s depending on you.

I step up to him, the pink hue flickers off his grin, twinkles in his egregious earring. The sheen of his spiked hair glows with the color, as I’m sure it reflects off my sweat. He’s composed. I’m haggard. Something about that infuriates me, but I suppress it.

The soundtrack inside the club hums behind him as he stares at me, waiting. He wouldn’t let me in, not the way I look. Christ, the way I smell. Though I washed in the rain that’s come and gone, there’s a remnant of musk I can’t shake. And, well, the rest of me looks rough. The shirt’s stained side, made bloody, then washed, then bloody again. My pants are muddy, my face scraggly. My hair is greasy, tousled.

“I came here to speak with you,” I say. I pray he doesn’t laugh.

His reaction actually comes as the opposite. The grin fades, he looks serious. He lowers his head and steps closer for a softer voice. “I know,” he says. “The girl.”

He knows. Of course. Auna hasn’t shown up. He would’ve been one of the first to notice that she’s gone. “I need you to tell me about Aston.”

He turns his face up into mine, brow furrowed, maybe surprised, I can’t quite tell. “Aston?” he questions. “You think?”

I nod.

“Alright,” he says. “Step inside, to the back. I think we need to have a chat.”

He presses his hand against the door and I step inside. Suddenly, the club surrounds me again, for the first time since the night I met her. I remember the taste of the whiskey when I see the redhead behind the bar. She winks when she sees me, but then she does her best to hide shock when she takes in my appearance. She doesn’t turn away, she keeps smiling. Professional. We keep walking, I follow the bouncer past the stage where Scarlett, kneeling, parts her legs, undoing her bikini top. When it falls from her tits, she stares me in the eye and bites her lower lip. I’m apparently not altogether undesirable. She probably has a thing for bad boys. I nod my head in recognition, but I still feel the adrenaline buzzing from my escape, I can’t bring myself to smile back.

The bouncer opens a door to the side of the stage and we step into a dark corridor, which leads to the changing room. The doorway to the changing room is open, the light spills into the hallway. A chair seated just outside the door to the changing room rests against the wall. He motions to it with his hand. “Sit here for a minute, I’ll be right back. Have to make sure someone stays on the door.”

I nod and take a seat. He walks back out the door beside the stage. For a moment, the lights and the noise appear, then just as quickly, they’re gone, and I wait in this quiet, still hallway.

I feel antsy. I feel crazy. I came directly from a shootout to the club to ask questions about the man I saw at the warehouse. I’m raising red flags all over, thinking to myself I’ll just have to outrun the people who follow them. I’ll have to outrun Evin while I track down Aston. Their conversation at the warehouse settles in. Drugs. That little shit bought drugs from the Devil’s Right Hands and got screwed when he tried to sell them off. Someone named Al. Must’ve ran off with the package. Makes sense. I can’t think of any serious dealer who wouldn’t take advantage. Aston probably got cut off from his trust, little baby sucking at a dry teet. Priviledge turned desperate doesn’t bode well. Leads entitled pricks like him to make hasty decisions, like selling drugs and kidnapping strippers. Al. Smart man. Get one up on the rich asshole.

The door opens, but it’s not the bouncer. One of the women comes back. She’s blonde, tan, naked. She has one of those pale hearts just above and to the left of her hairless pussy, the ones you get while tanning. She sees me, doesn’t hesitate a moment. She walks right past, smiles, waves her manicured fingers and winks over her shoulder as she passes, tapping her ass playfully. I wonder how many men come back here. VIPs, or Johns, that they’re told to make feel at home. Another comes in, wearing her G-string. She adjusts it, pulling it out of her crack when she passes. She doesn’t look at me. I hear her start talking candidly with the first in the changing room, something they don’t care if I hear, but I don’t care to listen.

I ease back into the seat and sigh. I’m starting to feel it again, that exhaustion I’ve been staving off, that threatens to return in waves.

I hear the door creak open again, but then it shuts abruptly.

I peer through the dark hallway. I just make out the knob, golden. Still. That’s strange.

I turn my head back. I can’t hear the two women in the changing room any more.

I lean to the side, peer inside. I can’t see them. An empty hanger pivots on the rack.

Fuck.

The door swings open from the showroom, a powerful hand pulls it back, but I’m already bolting into the changing room, the chair tipped over behind me. I hear their voices, deep, calling out, but I pay no attention. I see a nail file laid on the vanity. I snatch it. I shove against the back door and feel a weight shift behind it, fumble itself forward. As the door closes, two shots slam into its metal, denting.

The weight was another brother, Victor, we used to race the country roads together. I always beat him. He twists around, his balance shaky. The hand with the pistol swings towards me, but I parry it with forearm, then plunge the nail file into his gut. I snatch the pistol out of his weak grip as he slams his back against the wall and crumples down. I sprint as fast as I can until I reach the edge of the light, where the parking lot meets the forest, where I watched Auna leave with Aston, where I waited for her, where I now swivel and fire on the door as it teases opening. Four rounds dent it from the other side, keep whoever’s in from running out just long enough to disappear into the trees. Evin. I hear him scream my name, it carries on the wind, bouncing between the trees, pained, vengeful. Desperate.

They orchestrated this. The bouncer. Rat fuck. He called when he got me in the back. He’s working with them. Aston was just in the way, clouding my thoughts. The filthy red hand has its fingers everywhere here in Westwood Valley. Which means they knew about Auna. They knew about us. Evin took her for me taking his father’s life. That coward. That sackless bastard. I will tear his head off for this.

The night air stings when I inhale, chilling to the bottom of my lungs. I race through low branches and muddy forest floor, twigs thwacking my face, snapping beneath my boots, I thrash against them with my arms, flailing. Bullets tear through the trunks and the leaves around me, he’s firing blindly from the edge he doesn’t cross. When the firing stops, I know he’s out of bullets, and they must be running for cover same as me. For the moment, it’s only me and the forest, the trees and the chill, the night and my thoughts. And she dominates them all, the world around me and the one within. I can feel her like I feel the sting of the branches.

Auna, I’m coming. I will find you.

10.

Moments. Paused time, the people frozen within them. I consider mine, the ones that chart the dots on my wayward path. Mike lives in one, holds his last breath there, staring down the barrel of my gun before it fires. Richie stays in another. Back against the pavement, years collected behind his glaring eyes, glossy. And Auna. She exists transcendent of time, every minute with her commands eternity, a creature so richly akin to myself and yet somehow wholly beautiful. I see her as an angel, wrapping feathered wings around my hard, weary body, finding in me some of the salvation I find in her. I wrap her in gold, every passing second etched in stone collected at the quarry of memory, I meander through often.

I know she’s human. I make no deities. An angel is no more immortal than myself. Salvation, though, found in the sweet sharing of another? That makes life’s meaning. For a night, I had it with Auna, and that was enough to entrench its value forever at the base of everything. I’ll die before I give up.

Seeing the inferno set behind Evin’s eyes as I stare into them, that may be the case.

Days have decayed my anger, lessened to a simmer, a place where I can think. As the hours passed, and I followed the desperate movements of Evin and the MC, I settled into an acceptance. I accept this situation. It’s the culmination of two halves; one from which I was born, the seedy and the shadow, against the future, where there is light, and beauty. Here, they meet, muddled grey in the middle, a territory I occupy with finite amount of time. It’s ticking, and one will win wholly over the other.

The sun burns behind his head, low, must be five, six o’clock in the evening. The river runs behind him, it’s the only sound as we exchange stares. I wear a hoodie, unzipped, exposing my chest, though the hood is drawn. I stole it from an outlet, with a fresh pair of jeans and socks. I needed to replace my outfit, ripped and filthy, calling attention, unwanted. I used public restrooms in diners, bars, freshened myself. I ate cheap, parceled out my last few bills to last as long as they could. I’ve run lean. I had to transform myself to stay out of the way, keep off the road and incognito.