Broken Ride (Men of Valor MC)

When I flicked the light out and stepped into the hall, I expected opening the door would illuminate my exit. But the hall was pitch black, like a complete black out. I made a sound of fear in my throat and felt for the door handle I’d just let go of. It took me several frantic tries but finally my hand landed on the cold solid metal of it. I wrenched the door open and stepped back into the dark bathroom brushing my hand along the wall to find the switch.

When the backs of my fingers hit it, I flipped it expecting to be bathed in its comforting light. But the switch did nothing and I flipped it five or ten times in denial of the sudden black out.

There must have been a power outage at the club.

My heart tom-tomed in my chest as if it were trying to escape while a scream rose in my throat, but never left, it sat there like a rock I couldn’t swallow while I tried to gather my wits. I couldn’t stay in the dark bathroom, my mom was in labor. I just had to find my way to the bar and Bear would be waiting there to take me to hospital, I reminded myself calmly.

I fiddled with my phone until I found the flashlight, it cast long shadows in the room and made me jump at my own reflection in the bathroom mirror. For a second, I looked like the same scared and forgotten girl I’d been just a few years ago. I shrugged off the image and told the shadow of my old self that she wasn’t welcome here in my new life.

The second time I pushed open the door, I was armed with my tiny lights, but instead of giving me courage, it made the whole hallway look menacing and cold sweat broke out on my forehead.

Just get to the bar and find Bear, I told myself over and over like a mantra. I knew the way, I’d done it quite a few times before, but it all looked so different in this weak beam of light that I felt I’d been transported into another universe—one that looked too much like the world I’d worked so hard to forget.

I dragged one hand along the wall to steady myself and turned left where I thought I’d pass Dex’s room again on my way to the bar.

Footsteps echoed behind me so I whipped my head around and scanned the long hall with my light. When I thought I could make out a figure through the dark, I intentionally shone my light on it.

“Well, well, well. There she is. Like a beacon in the dark,” a man in a long dark coat said. I was taken aback by his coat as most of the brothers at the MC wore their cut, unless it was Miller on his way to or from work.

“Bear?” I asked him tentatively.

“Guess again, Sky.”

I knew the voice, my heart sank all the way to the floor. My feet were glued in one spot and the dread paralyzed me completely. I’d said goodbye to my past. I’d confronted my demons with bravery and stood up to them trying to terrorize me with flashbacks and steal my hard won joy. It wasn’t fair. My years of hard work came crashing down in one frenzied heartbeat.

“Dex!” I screamed.

Without thinking, I turned and ran, my phone dropped from my hand as I sprinted to escape the evil that had somehow found me again. I rushed into complete darkness because it was safer than that man.

Chapter 11

Patriot

When I got to the site, which was the parking lot of highway rest-stop, my headlights picked up the chrome flash of two Harleys parked beside a Mercedes Benz with tinted windows.

When I pulled up, Blade and Knight exited the car and slammed the doors in unison. I stopped the bike and rolled up my sleeves.

The three of us walked over to the trunk Knight had popped upon exiting.

“You got a positive ID on him?”

Knight held out a photocopy of an ID attached to a full bio of the perp. This was one of the leaders of the sex trafficking ring we’d put years into bringing to justice.

“How the fuck am I supposed to tell if that’s him? You got him blind folded and someone already beat his face to a pulp. I need an identifier.” I tossed the papers back at Knight. He flipped through them and turned to a page, shoved in front of the light of the trunk. It was a photo-copied image of a shitty tattoo. Looked like an ugly bald bird.

“Where the fucks it at?” I asked him. Knight knew his tattoos, he was a talented inker, but had put in time in the Army—Black Ops and even a special assignment with the FBI identifying the origin of tatts linked to criminals.