Page 49 of Deadly North

Dylan’s head snaps back, his body falling backwards. I lunge forward and grab for the knife, twisting it back toward him and ramming it into his stomach as hard as I can.

He bellows in outrage and pain. He grabs for me, but his center of gravity is off just enough that I can scramble away from him and off the bed. Sprawled backwards on the bed, he clutches at his stomach. Opening his mouth like a fish, he gasps, “You bitch…”

I reach for the first heavy thing I see, a smallish fire extinguisher attached to the wall. Pulling it free, I swing it, connecting with his head before he can duck. It makes a sickening crack; Dylan falls back onto his back. His eyes roll up into his head and he collapses, mouth agape.

I start to sob, but there’s no time to fall apart. Desperate, I grab the long T-shirt he was wearing and pull it over me. I rush to the door of the trailer, pushing it open, half-expecting someone to have heard the commotion and be running towards me. But there’s no one in sight. The trailer is on a weedy patch of land about five-hundred feet from a large square structure that must be full of Scorpions, judging from all the Harleys parked outside it. I exit the trailer, frantic and terrified but pushing forward because I have no other choice. I don’t know where I am or how I’m going to get out of here. But then I see something that gives me hope.

The keys to Dylan’s motorcycle are in the ignition.

“I can do this. I can do this,” I chant to myself under my breath. Barefoot, half-naked, I start up the bike and run through what I remember of how to operate it from my younger years. It’s heavy, and I almost dump it as I start off. But soon, enough momentum starts to help me and I pull away from the trailer, focused on nothing except moving forward and getting as far away from here as possible.

24

MACK

The Bastards ride like hell for the Scorpions clubhouse — or what used to be the Scorpions clubhouse. Because when we get there, it’s deserted. No signs of life. It’s like they all fuckin’ got raptured or something.

Which means our best bet of where Gigi is just evaporated into thin air.

The next couple days, I pretty much go out of my goddamn mind. Elmo is working around the clock looking for intel. Fury walks around looking like he wants to shoot everyone. I feel like my brain is on fire. Every second is torture, with me imagining what Gigi is going through right now — or worse, that it’s too late, and that she’s already gone.

Gone. Dead.

The woman I love.

I can’t fucking sleep, so I spend my time lifting weights in our training room, working until I’m physically exhausted and practically dead on my feet. I don’t eat, can’t drink away my troubles. Fury walks past me sometimes, catching my eye. He looks like he wants to say something to me, but he doesn’t. That’s fine. I can’t fucking have a conversation about his sister right now. It won’t end well. I’m barely hanging on by a thread, a hair’s breadth of losing all control.

Choppa comes and sits with me sometimes at the clubhouse. He tells me Gigi’s cat is prowling around the house looking for her. He tells me Reenie keeps asking about me. But I can’t call her, much less go over to see her. I know I’ll fucking fall apart if I do. So I stay away.

On the third day, I’m arguing with Magnus and Norse in the chapel about what to do next — I wanna fire bomb all the houses of all the Scorpions Elmo can locate — when a shout goes up in the main room of the clubhouse. Seconds later, Reed comes rushing in.

“It’s Gigi!” he shouts, looking like a wild man. “She’s here!”

The chair I’m sitting in clatters to the ground as I race out of the chapel. I skid to a stop in the main room, and there she is: Gigi, surrounded by Fury and half dozen of the men. She’s wearing only a sweat-stained, oversized shirt that comes down to her knees. She’s barefoot, her face bruised and battered.

Her eyes lock on me. The flat, dead expression in them chills me to the bone.

I rush to her and she collapses in my arms. It’s like all her muscles have given out at once. “Baby,” I murmur, scooping her up. She smells awful.

“Mack,” she whispers. “You’re not dead…”

“Christ, Gigi. I’m fine.”

I thought…” her voice breaks. She starts to sob. “I thought…”

“Sshhh. You’re okay. We’ll talk later. You’re gonna be all right.”

I keep murmuring things in her ear as I carry her to the apartment where she was staying before she went to my parents’ place. Inside, I start to lay her on the bed, but she shakes her head frantically. “I need to shower,” she says, her voice weak but insistent. I take her in the bathroom instead. I set her on her feet and start to pull the T-shirt over her head, but she grabs it and holds it down over herself. “No,” she insists, shaking her head frantically. “Please Mack, I want to shower alone.”

After not seeing her for days, the last thing I want to do is walk away and leave her in this bathroom by herself, but it ain’t about me right now. “I’ll grab you some fresh clothes,” I tell her, my heart sinking. Pulling the door to the bathroom closed behind me, I catch her expression as she turns away. She’s barely holding together.

And she’s shutting me out.

All her shit’s at Choppa and Reenie’s. I go out to the bar and ask Little Big Mama to grab a pair of her own sweats and a shirt so Gigi will have something clean to wear. When I get back to Gigi with the clothes, the door to the bathroom is still closed. The shower is running, and steam is billowing through the cracks in the door. She must have the water on as hot as she can stand it.

Fuck. What happened to her?

Gigi finally emerges from the shower, but refuses to come out until I give her the clothes for her to put on inside the bathroom alone. Wishbone arrives to check her out after that. I stay with them for the process, even though Gigi keeps glancing over at me nervously, almost like she wants me to leave.

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