Hard Rider

“You fuckin’ bolted after the fire,” he said, taking a long pull of his beer. “I asked the Captain what the hell was up, but he told me it was personal. That girl a friend of yours?”

Man, some of these guys were like bloodhounds for pussy. Every time we pulled some chick out of a burning building, they expected to get their dicks wet. I usually didn’t pay them much mind, but now we were talking about my stepsister, and that changed things.

Hoping to shut him down easy, I shrugged. “Not really.”

But goddamn Garfield couldn’t take a hint. “She looked really fuckin’ familiar. You bring her around here or something before? One of your conquests?”

I swallowed the bite of burger in my mouth. “She’s my fuckin’ stepsister, asshole. Watch your mouth.”

“You got a sister?” Garfield looked stunned, like I’d just told him that at night I grew wings and moonlighted as the Tooth Fairy. “Shit, I thought you were an only child.”

“We haven’t talked in a while.” Before he could say anything else, I added, “Look, man, I don’t want to get into it.”

Garfield went quiet for a minute, and I thought it was over. Then he frowned and I sighed. Dude was like a dog with a bone. “But I know I’ve seen her somewhere before. It’s starting to fuckin’ drive me nuts, y’know?”

All right. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

“I don’t know where the hell you would have seen her before, Garfield. I didn’t even know she still lived in the city. I didn’t exactly leave under the best circumstances, and if it’s all right with you, I’d really like to fuckin’ drop it, all right?”

“But, I mean, if you didn’t bring her around, then I must have seen her somewhere else.” Fuck-face McGee must’ve been drunk, because usually all I had to do around the station was tell someone to shut the fuck up, and they did it. They all knew better. “Does she go to the gym, or something?”

“For fuck’s sakes, Garfield, I don’t fuckin’ know. This is the first time I’ve even talked to her in years.”

“She go to school? I’m takin’ some courses at the community college. Maybe I’ve seen her there.”

“What’s a retard like you doin’ taking college courses?” Stoggins interrupted, and I heard a few of the other guys chuckle. “Shit, man. If that girl’s in college, she’s damn well outta your league. Plus she’s Gunner’s sister. She’s off-limits. Leave it alone.”

I cast a thankful glance in Stoggins’ direction and Garfield sighed, looking at the ground. I didn’t understand why this was bugging him so much. But the more he thought about it, the more agitated and determined he seemed to place just where he’d seen Tanya before.

“Where does she work?” he asked, looking up from a few moments of contemplation.

“I don’t know,” I sighed, rubbing my face. “I think she’s a waitress. Maybe the last time you were stuffin’ your fat face, she’s the one who served your food.”

“That’s startin’ to ring a bell, yeah.” He nodded, tapping his foot. Christ, I could practically hear the gears turning. If he thought about this much harder, he was gonna set off our smoke alarms. “I just can’t place her at any of my usual haunts. Shit, I feel like I’ve seen her a lot, thought. I just don’t know where. You know what place she waitresses at?”

“Garfield, drop it, man,” Stoggins warned.

“Some club,” I told him through my teeth. “Downtown. That’s all I got. Now fuckin’ give it up before I...”

Garfield’s face flushed for a moment, then went white as a sheet. No sooner had I mentioned it being a club than our conversation ground to a halt.

“Oh,” he said, his tone a mix of realization and dread. “Okay, Gunner. Whatever you say, man.”

I narrowed my eyes. I didn’t like the way that sounded one bit.

“What the hell does ‘oh’ mean, Garfield?”

“Nothing, dude, let’s just forget it.”

“No, I want to know what the hell ‘oh’ means. Spit it out.”

He sighed, running a hand over his slicked-back hair. His eyes darted around, his weight shifting in the cheap lawn chair he’d plotted his ass into. I could feel my heart rate rising as my annoyance with this whole conversation reached a boiling point.

“There’s the club I go to every once in a while downtown—y’know, someplace I go to unwind. Well, it’s the only time I ever go downtown, honestly, and...” He sighed, wiping his forehead as sweat began to glisten on his skin. “It’s not exactly the most savory of places, if you catch my drift.”

“Get to it, Garfield,” I snapped, my voice rising high enough to start getting the attention of the others around me. Deep down I knew where this was going, but I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted what Garfield was about to say to not be true with every fiber of my being.

“All right,” Garfield said. “I’m just gonna come out with it, then.” He looked at me very seriously. “You’re sister’s a stripper, Gunner.”

“Fuck you.”

“I mean it,” he said, pushing himself up out of his chair. I felt like everything was closing in on me. My chest felt tight and my heart was racing in my ears. “I’m not saying this to be some kind of a jerk, man. I’m just telling you what I saw.”

“You don’t know it was her. It could have been any fuckin’ girl. Just ‘cause she looks like someone who shook their tits in your face doesn’t mean...”

“Is her name Tanya?” Garfield asked, looking me dead in the eyes.

I swung my arm out wide and clocked him in his right eye, knocking him right back into his crappy lawn chair. One moment he was looking into my face and then the next he was on his ass, clutching his eye. It only took the other guys a few seconds to get between us, pushing me as far back away from Garfield as I’d let them. I fought against the tide of human bodies, yelling over the deafening tattoo of my pulse in my ears.

“Don’t you ever fuckin’ say that shit about my sister! You fucking hear me, Garfield?!”

I tried to push against the wall of my fellow firemen. I wanted to hurt him so bad, to make everything he said not be true. But inside I knew that he might be right. She’d been so adamant about me not driving her to work. Was she really hiding something like this from me? My blood felt like it was boiling in my veins as I finally turned away from the human barricade.

“Maybe you need to go home,” Stoggins said softly. He put his hand on my shoulder and I jerked away and headed toward my car. I was going to get to the bottom of this if it was the last thing I did.

I pulled into my driveway only minutes later, breaking more than a few traffic laws along the way. I didn’t care. I needed to know. Could my sister have been reduced to shaking her ass on stage like some slut?

I opened the door, calling out her name. “Tanya?” I took a deep breath and walked down the hallway, pushing open her door without so much as a knock.

“Tanya,” I began, but the room was empty, and the bed not so much as touched since I made it.

I let out a snarl, driving the heels of my palms against my forehead in a feeble effort to calm my anger. The hell was she doing taking off like that? I told her to rest!

I marched back out toward the kitchen in the hopes of grabbing myself a beer to calm my nerves. I’d never been a big fan of booze, but beer had a way of taking the edge off. It was just as I was reaching toward the handle of the refrigerator that I finally saw the note.

Gunner,

I just couldn’t sit around all day and do nothing. I went to work and I’ll be back late. I’ll catch a ride home with one of the other girls. Don’t wait up.

Tanya

“Goddammit!” I growled, crumpling up the note as I pressed my back against the fridge. I shut my eyes tight, struggling to think. This rage was like a fog that just wouldn’t lift, no matter how hard I tried. All I could think about was finding Tanya and bringing her home.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and started a search for strip clubs down town. I knew that one of the

m had to be the one Tanya worked at, and I’d check them all if I had to. I had all night.

Chapter 6

Tanya