Page 52 of Ripper
“You ready to head out, Clay?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
The ride back to that little spot hidden between the patch of trees off the main road was silent. The air was starting to heat up around us when we moved in, and once I pulled my dome off, I was hit with one hell of a stench. We inched closer to the little bar to see that those lone riders all laid out, bloodied, beaten, and dead. I kicked a few of them to make sure they weren’t gonna fucking jump out at us before I rolled the collar of my T-shirt over my nose to mask the scent.
“Damn. Kings did a number on these guys, huh?”
“Yeah, looks to me like they were pretty goddamn angry they didn’t get what they came for. It’s only a matter of time before they try to hit us again. Any update on how they found our fucking warehouse?”
“Nah. Nothing yet. We ain’t some big hotshot operation, man. The fact that we even have those warehouses is a miracle. We ain’t got the place hooked up with cams or anything.”
“Tank really scored with them. Got them off a guy he helped out back in the day when an old factory went under. It’s fucked that one of them’s unusable now,” I said.
“We’re gonna get answers soon enough, man. Even if we gotta beat it out every last Freeway Fuck we can get our hands on.”
“Yeah.”
It bothered me that we’ve been trying to do just that for quite some time now, but every time we got close enough, they managed to slip away. Arch may have seen shit go down last night, but he couldn’t take them all down on his own. We needed to lure those fuckers out of hiding and pick ’em off one by one. That’s the only way we were gonna get shit done around here.
I canvassed the entire scene, heading inside the bar to hear the soft sound of the jukebox still going. There were broken beer bottles everywhere, and I could still smell the alcohol despite all of the bodies that littered the entire place. I was just glad that we were practically in the middle of nowhere, because the last thing any of us needed right now was to have the cops called on us.
I kicked up dirt around the back patio, feeling the warm air on my back while I patted the pockets of a few of the bodies left outside, but there was nothing. I was about to head back in when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It glinted and glimmered under the sun. For a moment, I thought it was a bullet or something, but when I got a little closer to pick it up, I realized it was lipstick.
It was a little gold tube and I pulled the cap off to see the light pink shade underneath. I furrowed my brow at it until I turned it over. That’s when it hit me.Anna didn’t just join the Freeway Kings to spite me after I practically shut her out when she made it back to town. She was here, she was helping Ray carry out all of his fucking plans, and now I had a feeling we were in deeper shit than I initially thought.
“Find anything?”
“Just an old memento my ex-girlfriend used to have stashed in the pocket of her jacket. Ah, cherry blossom,” I said, reading out the name to him.
He looked confused, taking the used lipstick to look at it a little closer.
“Anna’s got her hands in this, huh?”
“Yeah, she does. She warned me that shit was gonna start heating up around here, but I just thought she was fucking with me like she always did. If she was here then she’s in Ray’s pocket or worse, he’s in hers,” I said.
“We need to tell Tank.”
“Yeah, because if there’s one thing I learned being around Anna for as long as I have, she doesn’t go anywhere without this thing.”
Claymore pulled out his cell phone, dialing quickly, and I heard Tank’s voice on the line.
“Those fuckers were here, and they had Anna with them last night. We found her lipstick and something tells me she’s gonna come looking for this little thing,” said Claymore.
Claymore held the phone to his ear, listening carefully to what Tank had to say, hanging up a minute later.
“You got the key to Tank’s office, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Head back and stuff this thing in his desk drawer. If Anna really does come for it, it’s best we don’t have it on us, aight?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she dropped the damn thing on purpose,” I said, taking it from him when he handed it to me.
“Just another reason to see you again.”
Claymore patted me on the back, and I pressed my lips together, trying not to remember the fucking shitshow that was my relationship with Anna. She was the last person I wanted to deal with, and I had a gut feeling I’d be seeing a whole lot more of her real soon.
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