“Master picked up a passenger in New Mexico. I got sick and couldn’t wait for them, so I hit it for home.”
Little beads of sweat trickled down his face. There was no stopping it. The smoke letters tilted first one way and then the other, rocking as if in tune to music. He realized he was tapping a beat on the steering wheel as he often did, in keeping with the counting in his head.
“Really sorry about speeding, Jackson, must have started inchin’ up on the gas when I got closer to the turnoff without realizing it.”
The letters drifted by Jackson’s head. Spelling words. Death to the guards. Off with his head. Player closed his eyes, but the vision stayed in his mind, refusing to leave, the fog becoming smoke swirling around the truck and closing off the road so that even when he opened his eyes, it was difficult to see anything but the smoking caterpillar, Jackson, the wall of gray and those taunting letters that grew in length and width, filling the sky above the deputy as if condemning him.
Player forced air through his lungs as the smoke from the hookah began to swirl in time to his tapping fingers, the fog rings dropping like nooses around the deputy’s neck. Abruptly, he forced his hands away from the steering wheel. He used music to soothe his brain, but it was all part of the fracturing now. He had to get out of there before he hurt Jackson.
“I don’t think a few miles over the speed limit is worth Czar kicking the crap out of you. I think we can let it slide this time.” Jackson handed back the registration and insurance, watching with his cool, dark eyes as Player put the papers back in the glove compartment. “Make it home safe.”
“Will do. Thanks for the break. Nasty weather tonight. You be safe as well.”
Player didn’t wait for Jackson to get back to his SUV, nor did he look to see if the caterpillar had disappeared. He started the truck and eased it back onto the highway, concentrating on getting back up to speed, wanting to make those two miles as quickly as he could without further mishap. He just had to get to the clubhouse and into his room without any further contact with anyone.
The fog kept curling into shapes—hearts and diamonds, spades and clovers. They floated against the backdrop of the gray wall. The road wrinkled and moved, but he drove doggedly on, knowing the way, forcing his mind to work in spite of the images that had been familiar to him since his childhood.
He turned off the highway and drove toward the ocean, where the fog rose up like a large fountain off the churning waves, spouting into cyclones that danced toward the bluffs. Player tore his gaze from the waves and drove straight to the clubhouse, counting over and over to one hundred in his mind to keep his brain occupied so it wouldn’t build stories or shape those cyclones into anything monstrous in the foggy weather.
He drove through the open gates into the parking lot, and to his dismay, the lot was filled with Harleys, trucks and a few random cars. His heart sank. Music blasted out of the clubhouse. Two fires roared in the pits on the side overlooking the ocean, where men and women danced and partied in the fog. He could make out their eerie shapes gyrating even as their laughter was muffled by the heavy mist.
A fucking party. He was a day early, and the club was having a party. He’d forgotten it was on the schedule to meet with another club whose members had come, like them, from one of the four Sorbacov training schools in Russia. The club, calling themselves Rampage, wanted to join Torpedo Ink.
Player didn’t dare be around anyone in his present state. He was too worn, his brain fractured, the migraine too severe. He needed time to heal. To rest. A party with lots of people attending was the last place he needed to be. He forced his brain to keep counting, refusing to look at the grayish figures looking like silhouettes in the fog.
He pulled the keys out of the ignition and sat there for a moment, trying to clear his mind, eyes closed tight, breathing deep, counting in his head in the hopes that just by being in a familiar place, surrounded by his brothers, he would be okay. He opened his eyes slowly, reluctantly.
At once he saw the ocean, waves crashing against the bluffs—white foam rising in the air. The beat in his head became lobsters clacking claws together as they danced in the spinning cyclones rushing toward the bluffs, where the eerie shapes in the fog danced with that same beat. The lobsters called to the sea creatures to rise up, and they did, their forms growing in those whirling columns of mist as the beat accelerated, the drumming going faster and faster to match the crazy, gyrating twisters dancing over the wild waves.