I scan the area and Pigpen stiffens. “Son of a bitch.”
I’m off the table. That’s my father. He and I might not have figured out our crap yet, but he’s still my dad. Pigpen jumps off as well but snatches my arm, gripping me like he means to cause pain.
“That’s my younger brother.” Pigpen reacts like a viper coiled and ready to strike.
Shock ripples through me like a drop of rain in a puddle. Pigpen and I have been tight for years and it twists my gut how little I know about him. First the fact his father rode, possibly still rides with the Riot, and now that his brother does, too.
Pigpen starts to turn and I shove at his chest. “Stay back.”
“Fucking cute, but that’s my brother.”
“And that’s my father. We agreed to a plan. Trust the club, remember?”
Pigpen practically snarls at me, but he retakes his seat on top of the picnic table. “I liked you better rogue.”
“No, you didn’t.” My attention flickers between Pigpen and Dad. The guy about my age walks up to the bench and Dad scoots over. Pigpen’s brother sits.
“Stupid kid,” Pigpen mutters. “Didn’t check his six before he sat down. I like you better true to the club, but in this moment, it sucks.”
Convinced Pigpen isn’t going to rush his blood brother, I settle back beside him. “Guessing you didn’t know he was the defector?” Which suggests Pigpen’s brother didn’t reach out to him, but to another member of the Terror.
“I also liked you better mute,” he mumbles.
Even though Pigpen’s stinging, I can’t help the slight tilt of my lips. “No, you don’t.”
“No, I don’t,” he repeats. “Our club won’t take him if he patched in to the Riot.”
I may be expressing myself more, but there are times when a man talks that he needs people to be silent. This is one of those times. After a few minutes of watching Pigpen’s brother talk and watching my father listen, I attempt to be the man Breanna brought out in me. “Maybe he hasn’t patched in yet. Maybe he’s seeking asylum with us before he gets that far.”
Pigpen works his jaw like my attempt at hope is fruitless, but he says, “Maybe.”
His brother offers my dad his hand and, after two beats of glaring him down, Dad accepts. The tension leaves my body when Pigpen’s brother strides across the street. At least that didn’t collapse into an ambush and then an all-out dogfight.
Dad switches his attention to us, and when he locks eyes with me, he jerks his head for me to join him. With one are-you-going-to-live glance at Pigpen, he rolls his eyes, and I sit with Dad on the bench.
He says nothing as the two of us check out the passing traffic. Two red lights and a near collision of a minivan with a pickup later, Dad speaks. “Three o’clock might interest you.”
The detective who snowballed this entire saga with the club observes us from his car to our right. He notices me staring. “What’s he doing here?”
“I called him,” Dad says.
Wasn’t expecting to hear that. “Why?”
Dad rubs his hands together as he leans forward. “When your mom died...” He sucks in a breath like it hurts for him to talk. “I left town.”
This part, I remember. Nothing like burying your mother, then spending night after night looking out a window wondering if your father was going to be next.
“I came here, to Louisville. Eli and Oz’s dad were with me. At times Cyrus rode along. I was determined to find who ran your mom off the road...to hunt down who was responsible.”
Nerves cause me to shift. I thought I wanted this answer, but there’s an unsettling in my soul. After pushing and pulling Kyle off that bridge, the thought of being the man pursuing justice by taking a life tastes sour in my mouth. “And?”
“And I found him. Sat outside his house. Waited to make him pay, and when the moment presented itself, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t put a bullet in his head.”
I close my eyes. Half relieved. Half feeling like I’m losing Mom again.
“He had a son,” Dad continues. “Your age, and when I saw that kid running out to greet that damn bastard...I couldn’t do it. So I improvised.”
My eyebrows rise and Dad bitterly chuckles. “More like I bluffed. I didn’t have hard proof of what they had done, but I told the Riot I did. The deal was made that the Riot would back off us and I would make sure that the evidence I said I had would disappear.”
Growing up, I’m not sure I could have accepted that, but now I can.
“What’s this have to do with the guy you talked to?” In case Dad had no idea it was Pigpen’s brother, because that’s info he should drop, not me. “With the detective?”
Dad circles the wedding ring that he still wears on his left hand. “Thought about how you felt about us lying to you. In fact, the entire board has. What do you think about nailing the bastard that killed your mom? Finding the evidence that can put him away?”
I collapse back against the bench. “What about the peace between our clubs?”
“It’s something we’ll have to consider, but for the first time since she died, the possibility of hard-core evidence exists.”
The pieces click in place. Pigpen’s brother might be volunteering to rat. “I don’t know.”
“Neither do I, but it’s worth at least thinking about.”
We both regard the traffic again and it’s like doors I thought were closed open, but I’m not sure if they should be walked through. “Do I have time to think about this?”
“You have some.”
I nod and Dad twirls his wedding band again. “I’m in love with Jill.”
He is. I’ve had dinner with them twice. Dad looks at her like he used to with Mom. Jill makes him laugh, makes him think. Challenges him, I guess. A lot like Breanna challenged me. It’s acid and a Band-Aid at the same time. “Are you going to marry her?”
“I’d like to.”
I wish I could talk to Breanna. “Then you should.” And I meet his eyes to let him know the words rolling off my lips are sincere.
Dad somewhat smiles, but he strokes his goatee to hide it. “I know it’s been hard, but you’ve done good with giving the Millers space.”
It’s what they requested when they agreed to meet with Dad and Eli a few days after the train incident. Breanna had told them everything and I guess they met with the club so they could confirm her story.
Dad and Eli explained how the club intended to find evidence on the guys blackmailing Breanna. Turns out that’s what the board agreed and voted on after I had come to them for help.
The club has kept the Millers updated on what they’ve discovered and Breanna and I have been allowed no contact. Last image I have of her is with dirt on her face and pain in her eyes as she walked into her house the day Kyle lost his mind. Last words she said to me were “I love you,” and I told her, “It’ll be okay.”
“I promise the club will work this out,” Dad says.
I nod because there isn’t much else I can do. Dad, Eli and Pigpen set me straight after their first meeting with the Millers. Rushing over and disobeying her parents would make things worse on Breanna and she’s had enough of bad. I wanted her to have good.
“Ready to go?”
I stand and so does Dad. He pats my back as we head for our bikes. We have one more stop for the security business before we return home.
Breanna
THIS GIRL IS smarter than me. Way smarter. Where I remember random facts, she remembers everything. For instance...
“You wore those socks two days ago.” Her name is Denver and she bites on her pinkie nail. She’s always nibbling on her nails, and it’s odd how in the four weeks we’ve been roommates, it’s stopped bothering me. “There’s a small hole under the blue stripe.”
She sits cross-legged on her perfectly made bed. Denver continuously calls attention to these types of things. At first it annoyed the crap out of me, and it was easy to understand why every roommate she had jumped ship, but then I noticed how she sat by herself in the dining hall and how most girls whispered as she walked by, and the annoyance dissolved.
Somehow I had been making friends, because my level of freak-of-nature brain activity was the same as most everyone else here, but Denver had become the outcast. She didn’t know how to talk to people, because she was either too intelligent or too awkward. Either way, I wasn’t interested in being like the people who tortured me in Snowflake. Instead, I decided to be her friend.
Denver’s eyes flicker to my socks again and I note her white ones that are perfectly folded over. I pull a pair of pink socks with crazy red stripes out of my dresser and toss them to her. “You can have these if you want. I have two pairs of that type.”
“We have to follow the dress code or we’ll be in trouble.”
“In class. Outside of class and school events we don’t have to wear the uniform.”
We’re both wearing a plaid skirt that hits our knees and a white button-down shirt. My side of the room is filled with posters of puppies I bought at the campus store. I also went old-school like Razor and taped pictures of my family by my bed. I also have a few of him I was smart enough to print out before everything fell apart.
A sharp ache causes me to close my eyes. It’s been over a month since we last talked. Since he last held me in his arms and told me he loved me. I tell people I have a boyfriend, but I’m not sure if that’s the case anymore. How long can I expect a guy to wait when we haven’t had contact for so long?
I reopen my eyes and Denver’s weighing the socks in her hands like I offered her a loaded gun. “It’s just socks.”
“My mom won’t approve,” she whispers like she’s afraid her mother might hear her in California.
“Well, that may be true, but she’s not here, is she?” A wicked smile spreads across my lips and it widens when I spot the spark of an evil smile start to form in response.
Denver is definitely sealed shut inside her box, and if Razor taught me anything, it’s that boxes are meant to be broken down and thrown away.
A knock on the door and my happiness fades. Nervous adrenaline seeps slowly into my veins and Denver grabs her purse and slips on her shoes. My parents are here. They visit every weekend and meet with my school counselors so they can review my phone records to confirm I’m contacting only them and Addison.
They freaked over my post on Bragger and then freaked more after I told them what happened with Kyle. Mom and Dad promised I would never see Razor again. They didn’t care that he protected me from Kyle. They saw Kyle and Razor as the same problem instead of one guy being the issue and the other being the solution. I informed them I’d be eighteen soon and their opinion didn’t matter much to me after that.
Mom cried. Dad yelled. I remained defiant. A few days later they told me they would give Razor a chance if I showed I could be trusted again. It’s an argument that caused all of us to bleed.
I did break their trust, but there’s not a part of me that regrets it. Those few months with Razor were the best of my life.
But my relationship with my parents isn’t the only one that needed repair. Addison wasn’t too happy I was keeping secrets from her, either. A couple of times I thought about asking her to play go-between for me and Razor, but then I figured that wasn’t fair. Addison and I just need to be friends and I need to deal with the consequences of a whole lot of decisions.
Denver opens the door and my mother says, “Hi,” as my roommate bolts. I sigh. Denver has a long road ahead of her with socialization skills.
My room fills with my family. Elsie attaches herself to my side. Zac and Paul act like they’re going to mess with Denver’s stuff and I continually threaten their lives. Dad tells me how he won the client and saved the factory. I congratulate him, then Dad, Liam and Joshua ask about school, drilling me on my classes, and my mother stays unusually silent near my desk.
She studies the pictures of me and Razor and once she touches his leather jacket, which hangs on my desk chair. “Will you guys give us a few minutes?”
It was one of those moments where everyone was talking at once and then no noise. After several beats of awkward silence, Dad offers to buy ice cream and everyone but Mom vacates.
Mom stays quiet long after the door to the room shuts and I consider taking a page from Denver’s book and bite my nails. Mom and I...we don’t know how to talk anymore. I mean, we do talk, but it’s nothing more than her asking about school and me filling her in. There’s no ease to our conversations. It’s like we’re strangers now.
“You’re still in love with him?” Mom meets my gaze. “You’re still in love with Thomas Turner?”
“Yes,” I say simply. “And if you’re wondering, I’ve done what you’ve asked. I haven’t had contact with him.”
“I know. Truth is, I don’t know, but everything we check on says you haven’t, and deep in my heart, after everything that has happened, I still trust you.”
That statement felt more like a sharp knife to my stomach than a compliment, and I try not to wince with the impact.
“I don’t approve.” Her utter expression of disgust reinforces this. “Neither does your father, but we’re realizing that if we don’t figure something out with this issue, you’re going to end up like Mia Ziggler on the back of a Terror bike and we will never see you again.”
I scowl. Mia Ziggler is becoming a thorn in my side. If I’m ever granted a free pass to ask any question about club business and receive the answer, I’m so inquiring about her.
“So this is how it’s going to be,” she says. “We have reached an agreement with the board of the Terror. Your father and I will allow supervised visits between you and Thomas as long as his club promises that they’ll continue to make sure Thomas follows our rules.”
I’m bouncing. I’m on my bed and I’m bouncing. “I get to see him?”
Mom holds up her hand. “With rules, Bre. Lots and lots of rules.”
“I don’t care. I’ll take the rules.” Because as I’d pointed out to my parents already, I’ll be eighteen and will be graduating in the spring and then nothing can keep us apart. But to be honest, I’d love to be with Razor and still have my family.
Mom leaves the safety of her side of the room and sits on the bed next to me. “I’m aware of the role or lack of a role that your father and I played in this and we’ve apologized for that.”
She has and so has Dad, multiple times. Possibly as many times as I’ve said I’m sorry for seeing Razor behind their back and for keeping the blackmailing a secret, but somehow even though the words have been said, we can’t find a way to move forward.
“I can’t make this a rule, Bre, even though I would love to demand it.” Mom picks up a lock of my hair, and instead of trying to force it to curl, she smooths it out. “I wish you would talk to me again or maybe...”
Mom’s lower lip trembles and then she shakes her head as if to get hair out of her face. “Or start talking to me. I thought I knew you. I thought I knew your hopes and your dreams and what you wanted out of life and it’s killing me to realize I might not ever have known you at all.”
Mom lowers her hand and I link my fingers with hers as the sadness and hurt from over the years climb out of the box I had shoved them into. “You know me.”
The pain registering in her eyes says differently and it hurts to know there’s nothing I can do about that, but there is something I can do about going forward.
I suck in a deep breath and dive into uncharted waters. “In seventh grade, I walked in on Clara trying to commit suicide, and she told me if I told you, she’d do it, and if I kept silent, she’d never try it again, so I
didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything and I realize now that was wrong and it eats me alive to think the reason she is how she is now is because I didn’t speak up then.”
Mom places a hand over her heart, and when I draw back, thinking I’ve made a mistake, she engulfs me in a hug. It’s warm and it’s solid and it’s all I’ve wanted since I walked in that door in seventh grade. Hot tears gather in the corners of my eyes, and as my body starts to quake, Mom rubs my back and whispers, “It’s okay, baby, it’s going to be okay.”
RAZOR
WE PARK AT what appears to pass as a convention center in this small town between Louisville and Lexington. I scan the area, trying to figure out which client would want to meet us here and come up empty. Never claimed that rich guys made sense.
A prospect is with us and he stands by his bike as Dad, Eli and Pigpen take off their cuts and lay them on the back. Pigpen flashes that I’ve-been-judged-mentally-insane-by-a-court smile at the prospect. “This better be here when I get back.”
The prospect turns green and Dad pats the guy’s arm for him to suck it up. Eli jerks his head to the building. “You’re in on this, Razor.”
I slip off my cut and lay it with the others. Sometimes, like school, this happens. There are places that refuse people wearing club colors and then there are times that, out of respect, we take them off. It’s rare, but as I said, it happens.
We enter the building and receive plenty of terrified glances. Lots of people here. Families mostly, and people my age. Most of them dressed like they’re at a fancy business meeting. My stride slows when I realize how many people are in uniform...a private school uniform.
Pigpen grins at me when he opens a door but then puts a finger to his lips. “We’re running late and they just said they’ll kick anyone out who makes a sound.”
The world moves in slow motion when we walk into the back of a darkened auditorium. On the lit-up stage are two tables full of people and in the middle is one person explaining rules of how the academic competition will play out.