Page 48 of Scotch: Unraveled

How does a biker in a biker gang go from telling me a man is unbalanced to asking what size diapers the babies wear? How does a biker in a biker gang even know that diapers come in different sizes? His words confuse me, but I nod. “I’ll avoid him. Girls wear three.”

“Keep away,” he says, then pushes off the wall to leave. I still don’t know what he’s going to want from me for this favor, but I promised I wouldn’t put up a fight. And I won’t.

I don’t know how much time has passed between when that bastard knocked my ass out and when I came to. The last thing I remember was the sole of his boot coming down on my face and then nothing. Now that I think about it, it was probably ridiculous for me to have propositioned Vlad, but most of these men would probably glean great pleasure out of sullying a Lord old lady.

“Hey, bitch,” one of the men I’ve only seen come and go over the past few days yells over to me. In my normal life, I’d have taken great offense to being addressed as “bitch,” though I try to be nice to just about everybody because you never know what kind of day that person has had or how your words affect them. Here, though, I hear “bitch” and turn to look. I learned that on the first day. “Brats won’t shut up. Shut them up orI’llshut ’em up.”

I nod, then make my way along the wall to the room where the girls are. Every breath hurts. Walking makes me feel like I have to vomit and I only just had that bar, so I don’t want to vomit. Brighton’s not in the room when I finally get to them. Tears fill my eyes because I don’t have a clue as to where she’s been taken, but they also fill with tears because the moment my foot hits the threshold of the doorway, my nostrils burn with the caustic aroma of baby poo. No wonder they’re crying. Even my easy-tempered Mollie has a breaking point. And that diaper definitely reached it.

My poor babies. When I begin talking, they start to calm, but it’s only momentarily because once I reach the cot and they see my face, Macie specifically screams even louder. My face must look like hamburger to get her to reach those decibels. Still, mostly one-handed, I unbuckle and lift my girl; she’s leaked right through the onesie she’s been wearing. Not just poo, liquid poo. And no Brighton to change them.

“You’re okay,” I say in a singsong voice. “I’ve got you again.” Scud never brought wipes, which means I have to waste a diaper cleaning her up and there are only three left. Thank the good lord Vlad agreed to help me. Her skin screams angry bright red, sores open in spots, meaning she’s been sitting in shit for quite some time.

Mollie is soaked through, but she’s nowhere near as messy as her sister. Like Macie, I leave Mollie lying on the cot on top of a clean diaper but let them air out while I turn to fix them bottles.

The water for their formula isgone. How long have they been without food or water? Cripe—they’re babies. They need to be checked out by a doctor. This can’t be happening. I know Vlad is going to help. I know I’m going to have to fuck Vlad to earn his help. Where the hell do they have us stashed that Rory hasn’t found us yet? The clouds at the top of a giant beanstalk?I can’t do thisanymore… I can’t do this anymore…My hands grip my head and I rock back and forth on the cot, attempting to calm myself down. The sobs sound so foreign, like they aren’t coming from me, but they are. They are because I don’t know how much more I have in me to take.

But it’s my fault that we’re here. I’m the one who started it back up with Rory even after I found out he was with the Lords. I let Elise and Caitlin convince me that the Lords were a clean club now and took what Rory offered. Took it to the point that when I found out that they dipped their toes in the vigilantism pool, I didn’t properly consider what all that entailed. He was shot and I was still too stupid drunk on that man to give it up. They don’t just dip their toes in a pool; they’re the British navy conquering the whole freaking vigilante ocean. And that creates enemies. Enemies that brought these two baby girls and the best friend a woman could ask for low. So damn low. Too damn low.

19.

Scotch

We drop behind one of the crates as four Horde round a corner from another area of the warehouse. The three of us could take ’em, but we have to be careful not to show ourselves just yet. I hate waiting to begin with, but this is excruciating. We’re so close to finding them, I can taste it.

When it’s clear, each man bends to keep low as we jump behind another crate, slowly, quietly, rounding more corners every time a voice comes near us. It’s like we’re playing a damn game of gun-crate-hopscotch, one crate at a time until we reach a shadowed bit of wall. The door’s cracked only slightly open, but I can hear the low whimpering in a higher voice. My muscles go tight. My stomach drops. Because if that moan comes from a dude, then his boys ain’t dropped yet. That’s a goddam woman.

I turn to look over my shoulder at Crass and Blue and by their hardened faces, it’s obvious that they’ve heard it, too. I nod once to let them know my intensions and keeping to the shadows, I jet to the door, peering inside first. When I see no one in the small space, I push the door open more to sneak in, my brothers on my heels. There’s an empty cot and the room is dark. Then I see her, slumped in the corner like a pile of dirty laundry. But it’s not my Frankie. It’s her best friend, Brighton.Fuck.

So much fucking fuck.

Blood soaks her T-shirt from wounds that I can’t see until we get a better look at her. She looks worked over. Her breaths come harsh and shallow, but at least she’s still breathing. We crawl across the floor to her. Her eyes open to slits and she whimpers, but with all the blood around her mouth, I think her jaw is broken.

“We gotta get her out of here,” I whisper. “Hey, Brighton, it’s me, Scotch. This—” I point to Blue. “is Blue and that”—I point to Crass—“is Crass. We’re here to help. It okay we touch ya?” Her head nod is hardly visible, but it’s there. “I gotta find Frankie,” I say to Blue.

“Got her,” he replies as he moves to lift her but is forcefully shoved out of the way by Crass.

“Don’t fuckin’ touch her,” he growls. Both Blue and I whip our heads to stare him down. “Hey, sweetheart.” He aims the softest voice I’ve ever heard from the bull at the scared, broken woman in front of me. “I got you now. Gonna get you safe.” Gently, he slips one arm under her, around her back by her shoulders, and the other he slides under her knees, then pushes up from the floor. When she whimpers, more blood oozes from her mouth. Tears leak from the corners of her eyes. “Got ya, sweetheart,” he keeps cooing. “Ain’t nobody gonna hurt you again. Safe now, baby.”

At the word “baby” Blue and I catch each other’s glares, knowing shite just got even realer than it had been. Though Blue doesn’t have an old lady yet, he’s well-versed in the ways of the biker and knows what I know, “honey,” “sweetheart”—those’re ubiquitous words for any woman. But “baby,” “baby”’s a word ya use for a woman ya plan on depositing in yar bed and keeping her there for a good long while.

Whatever he sees in her, he’s able to see it through the blood and bruises, meaning this woman is in the best hands possible and she doesn’t even know she’s been folded into the family. Another one bites the dust. Brighton just became an old lady whether she fights it or not, which she probably will because we ain’t that lucky, and that means shite’s gonna continue to go down because since Elise came into the picture, brothers get pulled through the wringer in a quest to win the hand of their lady in question—and they fucking drag the whole club along with ’em. And no, it’s not lost on me that I’ve dragged my club into my business with Frankie.

Brighton’s normally pretty eyes, now enormously swollen, barely slits to see through, she keeps them trained on Crass. Blue and I ain’t even in the room any longer, even if we’re standing right next to her.

“Checking the coast is clear,” I tell the men. They nod and I slip out of the tiny room for real. Left. Right. There’re Horde everywhere and I’m unsure how to go about getting her out without being seen.

Checking left a second time, I catch a familiar face out of the corner of my eye. Boss. Behind him is Chaos. And next to him, Blood. Reinforcements have breached the walls. Thank fucking Christ. I point to the crate nearest their group. It takes Boss a second to realize it’s me, but once he does, he nods, then leads the brothers to the crate. From there, they play the same game of hopscotch we did, weaving and dodging, keeping out of Horde radar. I slip back inside the room.

“Boss and the boys,” I tell Crass, who’s losing patience quickly if the clench of his jaw means anything, and at this point, it sure as hell does. Three men slide inside with us. Their faces when they see Brighton say what words never can. It’s how we’re all feeling.

“Ain’t that Frankie’s girl?” Boss asks.

I jerk my chin up. “Brighton. Hope to god that this means Frankie and the babes’re close. We gotta get her outta here, though.”

“Blood, Chaos, go with Crass. Keep his path clear unless—Crass you need one ’a the brothers to take her for ya?”

For his answer, Crass growls low and menacingly, like a pit bull protecting its family.

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