All Dogs Bite (Club Chrome 2)

Hunter agreed. “Maybe you should wait outside.”

“I’m staying,” she said, determined to be brave. She wasn’t naive. The footage on that video would scar her for life but it was no less than what Jax, Hunter and Bronx had endured their entire lives. “If you don’t mind…I want to stay.”

Bronx nodded and the officer returned with a VCR and a new attitude. He set up the machine, dusted it off, and then accepted the old tape from Hunter.

Immediately, the old footage came into view and there was no mistaking what was happening. The camera angle perfectly — and nauseatingly — captured every perverted action, every muffled cry. The officer, his mouth tight and pressed into a thin line, shut off the video, having seen enough. He took a moment before he spoke again and when he did, he still looked as if he might want to throw up. “How did you come to have this tape?” he asked.

Jax spoke up. “Me and Hunter filmed it to save our skins. We were kids in that house. Me, Hunter and Bronx but not at the same time. It was the only way we could think of that might save us. We blackmailed them into leaving us alone.”

Bronx chimed in with difficulty, saying, “I witnessed the abuse. The kid’s name was Gage…I don’t remember his last name but he died in that house and there’s a record of it but it was deemed accidental. George and Millie killed him, I’m sure of it. I don’t know how but…this tape ought to be enough to break that case wide open again.”

“It sure as hell is,” the officer agreed. “Is this the only copy?”

Jax answered, “No. We made a copy for back-up sakes.”

“Could you bring that to the station as well? It’s a felony to be in possession of child pornography.”

“I will gladly hand it over as soon as I know those freaks have been prosecuted properly. I’d hate for the only copy to get lost,” Jax said.

“We aren’t in the habit of losing evidence,” the officer retorted, some of his previous attitude returning.

“Look, George and Millie…they knew people. I don’t know how deep the corruption goes. I’d feel safer knowing that I have a copy. Or, if you’d prefer, I can send my other copy to the press. Maybe I ought to do that anyway.”

“No, no…let’s keep the press out of this for now,” the officer said quickly. “Okay, let’s go over this from the start. Tell me what you remember about your time in their care…”

Each men gave their full statement, recalling to the best of their ability dates and incidents. It was difficult to hear but Delainey could only imagine how awful it was for the men to share. She thought of Zoe and how she’d brazenly and bravely loved her two men, in spite of any public censure she might endure as a polyamorous couple, and her admiration for her best friend grew. True love was a serious thing — one that endured hard times and flourished in the most unlikely of circumstances — and she knew she was hopelessly in love with Bronx.

The only problem…she didn’t know if he felt the same. He felt something but was it love? And even if it was love…would he have the courage to accept and return it?

Bronx was damaged. Listening to his statement only cemented that realization but she wasn’t afraid. She’d help him heal if would let her.

In that moment, she realized, she’d stand by him no matter what.

If that wasn’t love…she didn’t know what was.

-15-

Pyro rubbed at the grit in his eyes from too many nights without sleep and reached for the whiskey bottle at his bedside. The neon lights from The Rusty Chain cast a reddish glow around his small place, bathing everything in a hellish haze but he was used to it. The place was shit — a slum even — but he didn’t care. It was just a place to sleep (occasionally), shit and shower. He grabbed his lighter and flicked it open, allowing the flame to flicker to life and then snapped it shut with his thumb as he lifted the whiskey to his lips. The liquid burned his throat but he welcomed the numb that would follow if he drank enough. Leaning back against the wall, he finished the bottle and let it slip from his fingers to drop to the dirty floor and roll under the bed.

His eyelids drifted shut but he knew sleep wouldn’t find him, not yet. Sleep wouldn’t claim him until his body had absolutely nothing left to give and then he’d fall into a fitful, dream-laden coma that would hold onto him until he could fight himself out of the dreamscape and back into reality. And then it would start all over. Dreams…they fucking sucked the life out of him. Her face was ever present, the way she used to smile at him…the way she’d arched beneath him, giving as good as she got. God, he’d do anything to hear her breathy moans in his ear, or feel her fingertips graze his chest as she teased him without saying a word.

But he’d never get that. Ever.

She was gone.

Pyro squeezed his eyeballs with his thumb and forefinger, rubbing out the moisture that sprang forward, betraying his weakness to the silent dark.

Fuck this. No sense in laying in a bed that he wouldn’t find sleep in, right? He wasn’t about to lay there and get tortured by the past when he had shit to do. He climbed from the bed and padded into the kitchen where the steady drip of the faucet was the only sound. It was late, or early, depending on how you looked at it, and the streets were empty. He climbed out onto his fire escape and sat on the cold metal, staring up at the stars as clouds drifted on the pale moonlight. Storm was coming, he could smell the rain on the air. He allowed his eyes to close and he breathed deeply, allowing himself a moment to blank out. He craved oblivion. But even as he teetered dangerously on total exhaustion and mental delirium, his brain clung stubbornly to reality.

He thought of the situation facing Bronx and thus far had hit a brick wall as far as leads went. He didn’t trust Randy, his intuition was telling him that the man was a sneaky bastard but aside from personal feelings, he had no proof or sense of motive that Randy had anything to do with the attempted hit on Bronx. Pyro idly flipped his lighter cap on and off, his fuzzed brain not quite incoherent but not quite cooking on all four burners either. He drifted in and out of awareness, sinking into a black hole of exhaustion, tumbling into a void with faces from the past and the present crowding his mental theater. He didn’t fight the images — there was no point, he wasn’t in control any longer — and just let them whiz by. Of course, he saw her. She was always there.

Guilt had a way of making sure he was never given the opportunity to forget. But then Peaches flashed in his mind, surprising his sluggish mental faculties. The big, broad barmaid was a staple around the bar. Sort of the club mother. She didn’t take no shit and didn’t dish it out either. He chuckled when he thought of how she’d handled Randy. And then he saw Charlie — piece of shit loser — and a frown pulled at his brows as he struggled to find awareness again. Charlie, doing time for a drug deal that he’d been too stupid to walk away from, had been a drain on the club, always screwing things up and making a general mess of anything he touched. Pyro didn’t miss the guy.

But why did he think of Peaches? Was there a connection between Peaches and Charlie? One that they’d never known?

Pyro struggled to climb to his feet but stumbled back and landed on his ass as his eyelids dragged with the heaviest weight known to man. The phantom scent of oranges followed the realization that he was going down.

Shiiiiit…lights out, muthufucka…lights out.

***

Bronx held Delainey, his thoughts circling around the events of the past week. If he stopped to think about it, he was living an alternate life. As the leader of the Road Dogs, his daily life centered around keeping shit straight, the club out of the red, and keeping upstarts from trying to move in on his gig. He drank, he fucked, he did business and then he fucked some more. It was an endless cycle, doomed to repeat until he died or someone ousted him from his position, and he’d never questioned his role. Until now.

Delainey, sensing his disquiet, rose up on her elbow to gaze at him. “You okay?” He nodded because he didn’t trust what might pop from his mouth. Delainey mistook the

reason for his silence as something related to Gage and said, “You did the right thing.”

“I know,” and he did. He wished he were a better man and had done the right thing earlier but maybe it wouldn’t have worked out as well as it did if he had. “But that’s not what I’m thinking about,” he admitted with a sigh.