Tear Me Away (Desert Wraiths MC Romance) (3 page)

Katie

The room loomed around me stark and wooden like a coffin. If only I was alone in it.

The man called Twist was emptying his pockets out on a chair. This was preparation for my education. The other gnarly biker had grinned and promised I was going to get some before rumbling back toward town. Twist had dragged me past an even shadier bar than the Roaring Pint and dumped me in here.

A powder hung in the air, and I couldn't help myself. I sneezed.

"Bless ya.”

"Ok," I said. "Can you take me back? I get it. You guys are tough. I won't say anything to anyone."

"We ain't that tough, sweetie," Twist said. "You might think we're hard after what you seen tonight, but we're all fluff and marshmallow deep inside. Well, most of us."

I felt an oncoming panic, but fought it back. If I stayed busy there wouldn't be room for fear. I searched furiously for some connection. Empathy was the key to getting people to listen. I knew that from work. I needed a lot of it to convince people their little buddy was better off resting for good. 

I had to find what mattered here.

"That guy," I said. "He was in your gang."

"Hell no." Twist reared up and spit right on the floor. "He ain't one of us. And we ain't no gang, neither."

"So he was in a rival...biker group?"

"Word's 'club', honey." He leaned in over me. "We'll get to that."
 

My heart pounded and the amped tension from my hangover threatened to flood me with panic. I couldn't break down. If I broke down I was just meat to this guy.

"So he was a rival club. He messed with you."

"Fucked us over, yeah."

"He's not a good guy."

"No, definitely not."

"Alright, so he's dead." I made out a big shrug. "Why would I report it? What do I care?

Twist stood and nodded to himself a bit. "Yeah, who gives a shit if another biker
dies?"

"No, that's not-, " I started, before realizing he was just trying to throw me. "Ok, yeah, another biker dies. Who
cares? I've seen a lot of much better people die, and they didn't deserve it either."

His eyebrows came close. "Oh yeah. You a doctor or something."

The guy was not dumb. I wasn't going to tell him that I was an orphan. That the only person who'd look for me was probably passed out. I sank deeper into the lie. "Yeah."

"Well, let's take a look huh?" He dug into my purse, next to the chair with his stuff. I wished I could just run up and knock him out right now. Maybe if I was 100 pounds heavier, not hung over and had my hands untied.

"Oh yeah, there we go." He held up my school ID. "Katie Phillips. That's a pretty name. They seem to have your job down wrong, honey. They think you fix dogs."

I flapped my mouth aimlessly. I was out of wit. The bright yellow bulb was killing my eyes. I could feel the panic taking over the vacuum my mind had left.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Oh, are we done with the part where you're being brave?" My purse flopped limp on the floorboards. "Damn, I like my girls feisty."

He pulled up the chair and sat down before me. I peered up as defiantly as I could, but the panic grew as the air soured with his breath.

"We're going to have a little talk. See what you saw."

"Nothing."

"You know you talk too much to suddenly act dumb."
 

He stroked my cheek and my nose stung with the chemicals.

"Then we figure out what's a fair exchange. We see how much you owe us."

"Money?"

He licked his cracked lips. "I accept all sorts of payment."

Rape. Rape was going to buy my silence? Or was it just going to come before a more permanent silence?

His hand cupped my face, and his eyes fell unashamed to my chest. I had always taken comfort in my ample body. If there was a button around to shrink my Cs to an A, I would have been hitting it so fast.

"Actually," he said, without lifting his eyes. "Maybe you should show me exactly what you have to offer."

"I have money in my purse."

"Oh we'll get to that." His hand cupped my breast. I closed my eyes.
 

Focus on the headache. Focus on the pain. Don't cry.
 

 
My heart pounded in my skull. Twist's other hand found me and I focused even harder on that pulse of life.

The door burst open.

"The fuck you doing?"

That thundering voice. I opened my eyes. The man who had killed filled the door, in the same jacket and jeans as before. His eyes went past Twist straight to his hands on my body.

"Just having a little discussion."

"Then use your mouth."

Twist stood, and the absence of that awful heat on my body had me shivering. "Fuck's your problem? You wanted me to clean up. I'm cleaning up, so leave me."

The killer moved into the room and the light seemed to dim, as if his body had been keeping it from leaving. He stood not much higher than Twist, but everything else marked him as something else. His hair was buzzed short. His body was packed but not overflowing. His face glowed and showed history, but it wasn't the leather hide that Twist and his cleanup buddy had. The man standing before me was trained for something else. He was more than just another biker. What did they call him again?

"Ghost, just get out of here." Twist backed almost on top of me.

Ghost. I remembered his eyes glowing against the darkness.

"Thanks for the help," Ghost said. "I'll take it from here."

"Like hell you will."

Twist's arm swung up like a piston, but where there had once been Ghost's face, there was simply air. No, that wasn't right. I had seen him step back, but it seemed so calm, so careless. It was like he had just drifted.

Twist stumbled forward and Ghost grabbed his arm. "Thanks for cleaning. We're even now," he said. Twist smacked the wall as Ghost spun him around. He was sent stumbling out the door.

Ghost shut it and looked down on me. His eyes were a rich ocean blue, but they were just that. No glow to them now. No cold, no warmth.

"Are you alright?" His voice was soft but rich within the wooden walls.

"Yes, thank you."  I felt safe, when I knew I shouldn't. This guy was a murderer. He was just another biker, though he had no jacket on now. He wore just a t-shirt that showed all the many creases of his muscle. His eyes though, held no harsh edge. I felt at peace just looking in there

He helped me up. My head came up barely to his shoulder. I had a sudden burst of vertigo and felt the sudden urge to lean in and place my head on him. I remembered again that I'd seen those muscles help bury a knife in a man's throat an hour ago.

"Tell me what you know," he said.

I started telling him the same spiel I'd given that slimy brother of his, about how I didn't care about the dead guy. I was tired of games, and I was starting to believe my words even.
 

Ghost listened until I ran out of words to say I wouldn't tell anyone what I saw.

"And what did you see?"

Up close, those eyes were luminous. No, I had actually seen them change just now, lit up by something inside. Not with that other world glow I'd seen before he killed. But it seemed like he could see through any lies.

"Everything." I hung my head. "I saw everything."

He parsed me a moment and then nodded. "Did you record anything?"

My eyes dashed to my purse. Ghost pulled out my phone and we listened to Twist's tiny voice as he talked about cleaning up dead bodies. A dark exhaustion threatened to take me off my feet. I didn't even care what happened anymore. Ghost played it a second time.

"Nothing on the murder?"
 

"No."

He tapped the screens a few more times, then handed me the phone and my purse. The video was gone.

"That should be all," he said. "You ready?"

How could anyone be ready for this? Then again, if no one was ready, then I was about as ready as anyone. "Yeah, whatever," I said.

Ghost opened the door and waited as if he were ushering me out of a house party.

Maybe he'd offer me some food now, or a drink. A little treat while he conferred with the rest of his brothers. His jacket had a little patch that said "Vice-President." So he wasn't in charge. Just muscle. Which meant he couldn't make decisions. 

They would make lock me back up here. If they were truly generous, they would let me develop Stockholm syndrome on my own rather than let a guy like Twist force himself on me. Maybe it was already happening. I felt a warmth toward Ghost that went beyond relief. I could barely remember the guy I'd seen commit murder. Heck, I hadn't seen it, not really. What I noticed now was the efficiency of his movement, the purpose in his body, the beauty of it under all that hardness. Quite a different thing from the naked ugliness of the other bikers I'd seen so far.

The sounds of the dirty bar outside hit me. My daydreams broke. I frowned at him. "Where do you want me to go?"

"Where do you want to go?"

I rolled my eyes. "Home."

"Ok. Let's go."

I tiptoed out as if my footsteps might remind him of how crazy his suggestion was.  Ghost shut the door then landed a hand on my shoulder. For a horrid moment I was kicking myself for believing his lie. But he simply led me to a bike.  

It was parked a bit apart from the line of Harleys along the road. Unlike their pitch black, his was painted tan, parts of it almost vanishing into the sand. I didn't even feel any tension looking at it. Maybe cause it was different from the ones I'd rode with Dad, maybe cause I could barely see it. Maybe cause I'd learned these kinds of bikes weren't half as dangerous as the men who rode them.

Ghost half lifted me on the bike before sliding on himself. 

"You ridden before?" His voice rumbled back at me. "I mean, other than tonight. I guess they brought you here."

He seemed to have gotten tongue tied. I was making this killer nervous? I almost wanted to laugh, but it seemed like we were doing a secret thing here.

"Yeah, I've ridden before."

I laced my arm around his thick waist, not quite able to reach around. I studied the vast slab of muscle before me and with nothing left to do, let my face fall against it. His heart pounded in my ear. His heat was like a warm pool to sink into after a long and terrible night.

"Yo, Ghost!'

A man was striding out from the front of the bar. He didn't look very big or tall, and was a bit darker than Ghost. But the pace of his walk and the thin frown told me this was more than just another biker. He had an entourage in tow.

"Where you taking her?" he demanded.

"Home," Ghost's voice rumbled into my ears. “She doesn't know shit."

Whatever his boss said next drowned in the roar of the engines. We kicked off and then we were roaring down the highway. The biker bar faded against the starry sky like a bad memory.

My only memories of the trip home were from my nose. The sand bitten emptiness as we fled through the desert. Then the metal and diesel sting as must have gone through the industrial circle. Finally the loamy richness as we hit the manicured lawns by where I lived. The thrum of the engine rattled my mind into oblivion, and when it cut off, I startled out of my trance. Ghost steadied me, and lifted me out onto my feet.

"You're ok," he said.

I took in my bearings, the half -open curtains of my little townhouse. The past came back like a nightmare and I shivered under everything that had nearly happened.

Ghost held me by the shoulders until I could look up at him. His face glowed under the moon, the hard edges of it a fuzz as if not sure where the air ended and he began. This must have been how that mouse of a man must have seen him, but I felt no fear.

"Thank you," I said, and sank my arms around him once more. From the front this time. My nose reeled with the scent of his body, richer than the air around. 

"Yeah." He let me go and I wobbled to the door. A few lights around me were on, and I wondered how loud and strange Ghost's Harley must sound at this time. By the time I got inside, he was already perched astride. I nodded to him. He simply stared back, as if my eyes were just as strange to him. His engine thrummed to life, softer it seemed than it should be.

Maybe because I'm here now
, my brain thought in its exhausted delirium. He weaved the bike around the street and fled off from where he had come.

I walked into the dining room, looked at my parents’ picture. I wondered what they would say if they saw the guy that had just dropped their daughter off.
 

Maybe it was good they hadn't been around to see this.

I laughed at myself for the first time in a long long while.