Tear Me Away (Desert Wraiths MC Romance) (4 page)

Ghost

I woke gently, the rays of sun creeping up on my eyes. I had been dreaming of her again. I had such a clear vision of Katie’s face, her hazel eyes alight in that pale moon face. Not fearsome like mine. But not afraid either. All she had done through the dream was look at me. That was enough to feel renewed

A sweet dream, but now all that was left was my dick standing salute. That was a good sight to see. Left me feeling that I wasn’t completely losing my mind over some girl I’d barely talked to. She looked good. That was the sum of it.

Still, it had been three days and I was still dreaming of her. It was also three days since the last time I'd shot upright in the wee hours of the morning, panting and heaving. The two had to be related.

We had a couple hours before today’s op. I ran my daily five mile through the desert. The sun had been up for
a while and my feet started to grill after a mile or two. The pain just made me run faster, kick up the wind to cool myself down. I wheeled around the lone tree that marked my halfway point and sprinted back to the bar. No spike needed.

A flash shower later, I sat down at a booth in the bar. People were keeping their distance after that night, maybe cause they'd heard about Shiny. Maybe something about the girl. Maybe they'd heard Nico lay into me when I got back from dropping her off. Something was different, and they'd barely started to understand me even before.

I only cared about the guys around the long table. If the rest of the club wanted to keep their distance that was more than ok. Nico’s old woman, Denise dropped a heaping plate of protein and carbs before me. The steam of grease and meat revved my appetite. I dug in, and to my surprise, Denise sat down. Her dark hair spilled over her shoulders and she tied it back before leaning in.

"How you doing, honey?"

Denise was the only one who got to call me that. "Fine," I said between chews.

She reached out and touched my forehead. Only one who got to do that too. "What?" I asked.

"Just wondering if you're in heat."

'What am I? A wolf."

"Wasn't that your unit's name?"

Not my last unit, but I had never talked about that one. "One of them."

She smiled, looking much older than the t-shirt and denim she was in. "I was just wondering why our best man would go nuts over a girl."

"It was just the right thing to do." I shrugged. "How much did Nico tell you?"

"Oh you know I don't like to touch the details of what you men are up to. I just saw you threw him in a right awful tiff. Never seen him so worked up."

"Twist was treating her bad, and she didn't choose to come out here," I said. "That's all. Nico would have made the same call."

She patted my elbow. "Well just make sure you tell him first then. I just hate when something comes between any of us. We're family you know."

She slapped it a bit harder then picked up and left.

Family. Structure. The things I'd needed after I'd been booted out of Ops. I’d returned to Gilsner and only truly found a home again once I joined the Wraiths.

Nothing like a veiled threat of violence to remind you of home. Some of the boys in my unit spoke of families who tolerated every transgression with patience and understanding. Didn't sound like any family I'd ever known.

So the girl had an effect on me. Just had to let Nico know next time. I was his VP and his best...everything. Shouldn’t be a thing to grant me a little boon now and then.

If only I could understand why I needed this one. Her look, her brown-eyed gaze. Like the bark of an ancient tree who'd seen decades pass and had withstood everything. Even threatened with rape or with death, she had shown no fear. Just weariness at the world. I
knew that feeling.

I scarfed down the greasy mess of calories, then went round to the club room. Nico was chatting with Dyno and some of the others, but threw me a nod as I came in. It was enough to know we were still good. Or at least, not bad.

"You ready, big man?" one of the newer Lieutenants said. Crispy, they called him, cause Leathery didn't roll of the tongue so easy. He grinned but looked away when I took too long to answer. A rite of passage for the new officers to hold my eyes without flinching.

"This ain't a thing," I told him, as I sat down next to Nico. And it wasn't. Running security for a day operation in sprawlsville, US of A. Captain Lee would have lobbed one of those vicious spits of his if he heard of my training being wasted on junk like this. Not that he was alive to hear.

Nico ran through the business part of the deal. He had a thoroughness to him that made me feel at ease, reminded me of mission briefs. He was making a few tactical errors, but it didn't matter much in this case.

The guy we were making contact with worked out of a
rundown motel just inside the town line. Took a few kilos from the Sand Scorpions. Now they were out and we were holding. The motel was wide open, with some foot traffic and narrow roads around to make a drive by unwise. And the Scorpions had no reason to go after us.

Let Nico talk. I'd set him straight later when no one was arou
nd. Nico listened to good advice. I guess he counted himself lucky that I was suggesting and not ordering. We both knew I could, if I wanted to. But I didn't.

"Ghost, you know your spot?" he asked.

"Relax, man. We'll be back with the money inside of an hour."

Nico stared me down. I guess he had to. I shrugged and told him which building I'd position on, and he finally looked away. Some people feared disorder more than any mortal threat.

Naturally, my mind drifted to Katie.

The room stirred up and I returned. We were on the move. Outside, we had a nice football huddle before moving out. Less poetry, more profanity, plenty of that same shoulder thumping. Even I cracked a smile under my shades. Do this and we bring wealth to our brotherhood. We grow stronger. We prove our worth.

After the mess of loyalties I'd traped through at the end of my service, it all felt refreshingly simple.

Five of us rolled out. Canyon, Crispy, me, a young blood who called himself Uncut, with no irony. And Twist. He growled at me under his shades as we passed. He had my back probably, but it would take more than three days to stand down such a gross offense to his manhood.

It was the one vice I'd never understood. What fun was there in a woman who fought you as you took her? We did plenty of shit that was beyond gray, but that one line I could not abide crossing. Easy enough to find a drunk or stoned out chick to lay around here.

We rumbled out in a short line across the desert. The ground glowed even under my thick shades. If I took em off, a spike might send me blind. It was an operational weakness that would have me worried if this job had any risk profile.

We turned a hill and the town loomed before us. Going to town always felt like entering a cage. Surrender your weapons, keep your baggage. Thanks for your service, Soldier, but we don't have space for your personal shit. I had grown up right on the edge of the city, and I was in no mood to go deeper in than I needed.

Then again, seeing Katie was starting to verge on need. To see what those eyes would do if they saw me again.

We ran the perimeter of the town, around smokeless factories, rusting warehouses, and cargo yards with lines of parked trucks. Things weren't great, which meant business was good for men like us.

Before the war that would have bothered me. Until the government had sent me to baby-sit the poppy fields of Afghan warlords. Nothing noble in that. But it had taught me that people would get what they wanted one way or another. If making a cut off it gets you through another day, then so be it. I wasn’t getting rich off this. Maybe I’d feel worse if I was.

We only had to turn in a bit to get to the motel. The parking lot stood cracked and baking under the noon sun. Mostly empty. The road it sat on had a car here and there but no pedestrians at the moment, neither druggies or civvies. The four riders rolled right into it, but I lowered my engine and crept out to an empty office a block away. A fire escape ran up an alley behind, just out of reach. I sighed, then spiked, and sprinted up the brick wall until I could reach the lower rung. I clambered up top as easy as climbing stairs.

The office was no more than 3 stories, but I could see out on all sides of Gilsner from the roof. Yellow and dusty on one sides, but grey concrete - broken up with blurs of green on the other side. Katie lived in one of those green oases.

I set the thought aside and crouched in the gravel at the corner overlooking the motel. I slung my rifle off my back and sighted it on my guys as two of them filed into the manager's booth. The grip was worn and the barrel rusty. Our gear was seriously out of shape, but at a couple hundred feet, it should work fine. If it needed to.

The booth had tinted glass. I could remove my shades and resolve the shadows I saw through my scope, but didn't want the hassle. I knew the deal. He'd check the stuff, complain a bit. Canyon would call him a prick and name a price. The guy would flinch, and demand something: security, reliability, a discount. He'd get one or two of the above. The show of force was meant to remind him we were still a legit operation. The Scorpions had probably fed him lies about our club’s impending demise.

Sure enough, about the five minute mark, Canyon and Crispy bust back out with a plastic bag, looking not-pissed. The four men nodded, and sauntered back to their hogs.

Another day, another deal.

Behind me, I heard the faintest scritch of one pebble crunching along another. A bird, I told myself, as I turned, but spiked anyway. Call it instinct, but it sounded like one fat fucking bird.

I swung the rifle around to see a meaty hand reaching up from the fire escape, joining the other already there. The first held a little black gun with a silencer.

There were little electrical boxes all along the roof and I leaped onto one, landing into a soft crouch. The world moved with all the slowness of a playground, as I leaped from one to the other, right up to the fire escape. When an ugly face heaved up to join the hands, I was already sighting it through my scope.

The guy pulled high enough for me to see the Sand Scorpions logo on his jacket, and then he noticed the long shadow and looked up.

"Oh shit." His face was ugly, but not quite as ugly as when my bullet cracked through his skull. The gunshot ran crisp in the air and then vanished. The biker's body went rattling down the fire rail.

I sprinted back to my nest, spiking again. The world resolved into high def under the yellow glaze my glasses gave me. If I took em off, my retinas would burn white for days. But even at my speed, gun fire rattled out in the parking lot below before I could peek out.

A dozen Sand Scorpions converged on my boys, from every cross-street, nook and alley. No engines rumbled, the firing vectors didn't criss cross. This wasn't even an ambush. It was a goddamn execution.

Canyon went down even before I sighted my rifle. He staggered back into the bikes and they all crashed onto the lot. I found a sharpshooter with a rifle on the motel roof and ran a round through his heart. One more was on the next building over, and I spun and took him out. Those were the executioners.

But there were too many file and rank, and they all spat out bullets with automatics.

Where the fuck were they getting this shit from?
I wondered as I turned one's head into an overripe tomato. Uncut was down now too, still uncut in a way, but puckered with a dozen additional holes. My guys should all be dead by now, but these Scorpions were just spraying. No training. It didn’t give me hope. Just better than nothing odds.

Something cracked near my head. In my hyper state I saw another bullet fly past my skull. More crashed on the low stone rise shielding me, and I had to roll to find a clean spot. When I popped up, Twist was down too. I felt nothing. It felt like a deeper nothing than for the others, and that sickened me. He was one of mine. An asshat, but blood. I took out another two guys in his memory, and another seemed to have been down from one of my guys, but it had shifted now. 8 on 1 was never a fair fight. Three of the guys advanced on Crispy and he slumped to the ground as if he had just heard shit news.

The guns turned on me. Concrete dust and chunks and steel were flying my way now. It felt like I was in a sandstorm. My cheek felt wet and I found blood. Men were shouting orders. I tried to sight another shot and found my viewfinder shaking. I had spiked way too much and my body was coming down hard. A dozen minutes and I would be making angels in the gravel. If I lived that long.

Police sirens wailed in the distance. I heard boot-steps clatter my way.

I needed to extract. I strapped the rifle to my back, and sprinted the side of the roof, leaping towards the next one. I tumbled right over the edge, rolled and broke right back into a run. The next roof was further or I was slipping. I barely caught the edge, and had to heave myself on. I lay there panting, looking at the cyan sky. Even with my shades it began to turn white and I had to look away.

This was probably safe from the Scorpions at least. But I couldn't stay here. The withdrawals might actually kill me if they were hitting so fast. Whatever modifications they’d done to my body must be coming loose. A long term problem that wouldn’t matter if I didn’t even make it through the short term.