Blake, Her Bad Bear: A Paranormal Bad Boy Romance (16 page)

Son of a bitch,
she thought, turning her confusion into misplaced anger again,
you’d better not die, or I’ll never forgive you.

The plan was simple. Stupidly simple, if Lily let herself go over it again in her mind. She and Jimmy had left the garage in his old Studebaker pickup, a relic of its own history that had been renovated thanks to the savant mechanic’s skill and love. She had crouched low in the passenger seat as they rode past the main street, and though a few eyes looked up at the old truck, most of them recognized it as belonging to Jimmy—and as far as they were concerned, he was the dim and harmless mechanic, not worth their time, or their suspicion. He was like a local resource.

Whoever owned the town owned Jimmy, and that was just a fact taken for granted. Lily was thankful for their narrow-minded view of the young man as he drove them down one of the old avenues. It barely qualified as a suburb, and most of the lots were empty or overgrown with weeds, and those that were occupied belonged to other members of the Ursa or the town and were just portables or squat little houses that had been built decades ago.

“That’s Melissa’s place up ahead, Gavin said that’s where they’re keeping him,” Jimmy whispered, his fingers tapping against the wheel.

Lily sat up and viewed the place he was indicating. Like the other houses, it was nondescript, ahistorical. Like it had fallen out of favor with the times, and was lingering on. It made her feel sad, the way one felt sad when they saw something that no longer belonged in its own frame of reference. From her belt she took out the Swiss-made SIG that Blake had used to shoot himself.

If Samson could see me now
¸ she thought sardonically, imagining how her managing editor would handle the news about her suddenly engaging in a bear-shifter civil war and falling in love with one of their members. She almost laughed out loud, but it was just a way to take the edge off of her emotions. Two bikes pulled up alongside the Studebaker on her side, and through the rolled down window Lily saw Gavin again with a woman behind him—she was iconic Ursa, with leather jackets, tattoos running up her forearm, and a short punkish Mohawk haircut.

“This is Sarah,” Gavin replied, indicating the woman on the back. She had Gavin’s shotgun and jumped off his bike and leaned against the truck.

“I didn’t really believe that Blake was responsible,” she whispered, as if giving validation for her reasons to join them. “There are probably four shifters inside. I don’t see Melissa’s or Connor’s bike here, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’ve filled her in on the plan,” Gavin hissed. He had brought his own handgun, but after checking it, he quickly tucked it away and pulled an old fashioned baseball bat from the leather sheath on the side of his bike. “If possible, I would like to avoid hurting—and especially killing—anyone. These are our brothers and sisters, after all. They’ve been misled by Connor, but that’s not their fault.”

Lily nodded. She had seen the toll that Tanis’ death had taken on Blake, and the sort of guilt and burden he now carried with him—would carry forever.

“We’ll go in first,” Sarah said, “the guards will recognize us. No need to raise an alarm. Once we’re inside, it’ll be up to you. Lily, is it? You’ll cover our escape. And Jimmy…”

“I have it under control.” He winked, and slapped the steering wheel of his Studebaker.

Gavin and Sarah both exchanged looks and walked toward the faded blue house on the other side of the block. Lily’s hand tightened on the gun—she didn’t want to shoot anyone either. She wasn’t even sure if she could, if it actually came down to it. At the front door, the two shifters were confronted with another man who eyed them carefully. Sarah and Gavin said something to him, and they were let inside. Now it was a waiting game. She looked over at Jimmy.

“Wait five minutes, that was the plan,” she said and opened the door and stepped out. The sunlight was hot on her skin, and she waved at the mechanic. “Be careful, Jimmy,” she said, and walked casually across the street, taking up cover against a broken down shed that was adjacent to the blue house. She was supposed to cover the others, but she was also on lookout duty—if Melissa or Connor or anyone else showed up, it would be up to her to alert Sarah and Gavin. They’d have seconds to react.

She gulped, trying to calm her heart, and watched Jimmy pull the Studebaker up on the curb across from her. Then he fiddled with something and pulled a small device out from under his seat. Even at this distance, she recognized the timer and ignition machine that he had managed to scrape together. It was crude, but attached to a small homemade composite of potassium nitrate, it would make a bang. Added to the full tank of gas Jimmy had put into the Studebaker, it would definitely get someone’s attention.
Maybe too much attention
, she thought now, counting down the seconds.

It was the longest five minutes of her life, but Jimmy acted right on schedule. He put a brick down on the gas of the Studebaker and tied the steering wheel to keep it going straight. Then, leaping out of the old vehicle, it tore off without him, pushing forward across the back road like a possessed automobile. Even having come up with the plan, Lily stared in disbelief as it sped up, heading toward an abandoned junkyard.

The front of the truck slammed straight into the burned-out shell of an old Camaro and for a minute there was nothing, just the grinding down of gears and the crunch of metal. Then, a second later, Lily had to turn her head away to keep her eyes from burning from their sockets. The bright explosion of Jimmy’s improvised explosive rocked the interior of the Studebaker, blowing out the windows with a ceiling of flame. A second explosion rippled through the air, and stung Lily’s nose as the gas tank blew. When she turned back to the road, Jimmy had already clambered into the cover of some nearby trees.

They didn’t have to wait long.

From the front door, two men burst out, small automatic rifles in both hands. Lily ducked back under cover and saw them come down the steps and look in all directions suspiciously. The fires from the Studebaker were roaring, and a small shack nearby and a power pole had been caught in the blaze. Screams were issued as they approached the automobile, no doubt expecting the worst—that someone was still inside. Anxiously she looked back up toward the blue door—still nothing.

She was so focused on the house she almost didn’t hear another bike rolling up down the street until it was too late. Two things happened at the same time.

Connor pulled his bike to a sliding halt in the gravel on the side of the road and made eye contact with her simultaneously as he viewed the flaming wreckage of the Studebaker and two of his loyal supporters holding up their hands to shield their faces from the diversion. He growled and jumped off his bike, practically leaping in her direction. But as he ran toward her, she made out the front of his bike. Nestled in wrought steel was an emblematic skull. Its sunken sockets were like the dark caverns of a bat, and its mouth was open in a horrible endless scream. The face was terrifying, but it was also familiar.

No
, she thought, reaching for the gun in her belt.

She barely had time to raise it and fire off a shot. Like his mother, Connor had been gifted with unnatural speed and was upon her in a blur. The bullet brushed against his cheek, opening a shallow red gash, and he growled and grabbed her arm hard enough that she screamed. The SIG fell to the ground and she felt herself flying through the air, helpless. That moment of panic lasted half a second before the reality of the shingled wall behind her slammed her back and she grunted and fell, coughing.

Connor was livid as he stomped toward her.

“It was you!” Lily managed to get out, clawing at the grass. That was enough to stop him in his tracks, and he looked carefully back toward the flames. It wouldn’t be long now before the smoke and the sound of the explosion would bring the rest of the town here.

“Bloody human, you’ll pay for this—just like Blake!” he spat.

“It was you!” she accused again, looking back up at his bike. That skull shape, uncanny. “I saw the pictures,” she gasped, still winded by the impact of being thrown against the wall. “The bruises on your father’s hand—they weren’t caused by him trying to get out of the creek. The patterns of the bruises, they’re the same as your bike!”

It was out. She waited, trying to see what his reaction was. For the first time, Connor let his guard down, and she saw a crack form in his composure. Blake had described him as an equable nemesis, someone who was on par with him in every way. But she had gotten through, and it made him even angrier.

“Stupid human,” he whispered, and took another step toward her, his foot crushing into the grass. “So what? You think you’ve implicated me, is that it?”

“The evidence.” She tried to grin through her pain.

“Who would believe you?” he snarled.

The answer was enough to scar him. “Blake would,” she murmured, “and for all you’ve done, all your attempts to turn everyone against him, there are those who still stand with him. Because they believe in him. You’re over, Connor.”

The threat was succinct, and it made the Alpha stop again. His eyes were spinning in his head, as if he was trying to work out another problem, as if reality were as convoluted as a chess game. Perhaps, for him, it was. All Lily knew was that the more time she bought herself, the longer she stalled him, the better chance Sarah and Gavin would have of rescuing Blake. That was all that mattered.

“I’m not over,” he said grimly all of a sudden. “Not by a long shot. Not as long as I have you.”

Lily tried to open her mouth to scream, but it was cut short as he leaned over her.

Meanwhile, the others had managed to make it to the front steps of the blue house—the two guards were still staring at the massive bonfire of metal and rubber and holding their noses, and a few other bikers had started to congregate. In moments, there’d be a full crowd, and the questions would start flying. In the distance, the sound of the local fire department one village over could already be heard.

No one saw Sarah and Gavin trample down the stairs and disappear into the small patch of pine trees behind the house with a half-conscious Blake supported between them. He was bare-chested, and there were a few new bruises on his face and shoulder, and his ribs were still wrapped with his old black T-shirt which had gone stiff with dried blood.

“Where is she?” Sarah snarled as they came around the back and flanked the crowd of bikers and residents alike. Both hers and Gavin’s bikes were where they’d left them, but there was no sign of Lily anywhere. Blake muttered something in a daze.

“We can’t wait, c’mon,” Gavin said, eyeing some of the Blue Devil bikers that now outnumbered the Ursas. A few men had managed to stem the flames from spreading through the rest of the junkyard with buckets of water and handfuls of dirt, but it was still raging. Smoke had started to fall and settle at ground level like some impenetrable black fog, and Gavin coughed as he helped Blake onto the back of his bike.

All three of them made a swift U-turn and headed back down the road, but Gavin was swearing under his breath all the way. For all he knew, Lily and Jimmy had both been captured. Or worse.

CHAPTER EIGHT

One of Jimmy’s cold beers helped to bring his senses back. The physical beating he’d taken in the last day would require a bit more time to heal, but at least he could think straight again. Blake paced back and forth across the concrete floor of the garage, his face pensive. Gavin and Jimmy watched helplessly from the sidelines. The mechanic was fiddling with a small piece of motor, but in reality it was just a way to distract himself from the tension they all felt. It was palpable, and every time Blake circled around, Gavin would lower his eyes.

“It’s not your fault,” Blake said after a moment, “it was dangerous all the way.”

“I should have stayed to look for her,” Gavin said, shaking his head, not wanting to be forgiven for having lost one of the team—and certainly not someone that mattered so much to the Beta he looked up to.

“We still don’t know what happened,” Blake said. “In any case, I can’t fault you for trying to rescue me. In a way, this is all my fault. None of this would have happened if I’d just… left. Tanis would still be alive, at least.”

“To what end?” Gavin said angrily. “You were right when you said something was wrong about the way Connor was handling things. Bringing the other gangs here, for some sort of peace talks? No, that’s just a cover—it took me awhile to see it, and I can’t believe Melissa hasn’t seen through her son’s plans yet.”

“Unless she’s also part of it,” Blake said.

Gavin slumped his shoulders. “I don’t want to believe that. She was never like that.”

The beer in Blake’s hand found his mouth again and he downed it. “No, you’re right—she’s smarter than that, and she always loved Damian. I can’t believe she had anything to do with that, or with what’s going on now. She’s just been tricked like the rest of us,” Blake agreed, and then his eye drifted to Gavin’s elbow on the table where all the evidence from Damian’s autopsy was still laid out. “Is that all of it?”

Gavin looked down and brought his elbow up quickly like he’d been stung. “Oh! Shit!” he said, and rifled through several of the glossy prints until he found one of them and held it out. “I’ve been so stuck on Lily, I forgot. She may have found something—she thought so anyway, but couldn’t make the pieces fit together. She hoped you’d be able to.”

Blake frowned and took the photo from the young shifter. It was a high-def picture of Damian’s hands, black and purple with discolorations. “So?”

“She thought, I don’t know… there’s kind of a face in it. If you look closely. She thought you might recognize the pattern,” Gavin sighed. “Long shot.”

The Beta glared at the picture again, letting his mind bring the shapes into coherence. There was a face. It was like a nail being driven into his skull. He dropped his beer and it shattered with a muted implosion of glass and liquid on the cement, and both Jimmy and Gavin turned at him like deer that had been flushed out of the bush.

“She was right,” Blake said, his hand shaking as he stared at the picture.

Gavin stood up and looked over his shoulder again. “What? What is it?”

“The face, I’ve seen that shape before,” the Beta said. “And you have too, Gavin—I’m surprised you don’t remember. That bruise was caused by something hard enough to hurt even Damian. You said you found paint marks on the bridge that were the same color as his bike, and blood.”

“Still haven’t got the results back on it,” Jimmy interrupted.

“Doesn’t matter,” Blake said. “I think I know what happened to Damian. That bruise is the same pattern as the skull sculpture on the front of Connor’s bike.” The epiphany was equally as powerful to Gavin who staggered back. “Connor must have somehow gotten Damian by himself, lured him to the bridge, and then ran him down with his bike. Damian probably tried to fight back and put out his hand to protect himself. The handlebar skull hit his palm and bruised it. I don’t know what happened next, but presumably Connor threw the body of his father over the edge, hoping it would get carried away.”

“Fucking prick,” Gavin snarled, and tossed the picture back on the table. “That makes sense now. Assuming the blood results show that it was Damian, that makes a pretty strong case against Connor. More than enough to cast suspicion on him, and draw it away from you.”

“Perhaps,” Blake said, “I still have to pay for my crimes, but I’ll be damned if I let Connor drag the Ursas into a downfall. Gavin, Melissa trusts you. They’ll have discovered I escaped by now, but she’s still your best bet. Take the evidence that we have now, make a stand.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked, taking the picture again.

Jimmy looked up from a mop where he was sweeping up the broken beer bottle, and both men already knew the answer. One of them was missing, and that was a problem. Their thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Sarah turning off the ignition on her bike outside and walking in. Seeing Blake up and conscious seemed to enliven her, but there was still a cloud over her head. She’d headed out again after the rescue to keep her ears open, and it didn’t look like she had good news.

“They’re still talking about the explosion. It’s all over town—they recognized the Studebaker, so it won’t be long before they come here looking for Jimmy. I tried to lay down some flak, throw ‘em off the scent,” Sarah said, “but there was… there was no sign of Lily.”

Blake’s shoulders tightened, winched in like cables under his clothes, but he said nothing until Gavin coughed and cleared his throat. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

Sarah tugged at her own elbow. “There’s something else—it’s hard to tell, the upper ranks are keeping to themselves, but I overheard from one my friends who was chaperoning one of those Blue Devil bastards. Melissa apparently is enraged. I thought at first maybe she was pissed off about losing
you
Blake, but my friend told me it’s more than that. Connor’s disappeared.”

Both men turned frantically. “What do you mean,
disappeared
?”

“Just that,” Sarah shrugged helplessly. “No one can find him anywhere. Which is bad news for the negotiations. The other tribe leaders are getting anxious being this far into our territory, and away from their own territories. And Melissa has had to take over everything. She’s sent out all of the scouts to try and find Connor.”

“That’s too convenient timing-wise,” Gavin warned in a low voice, directing it at Blake who crossed his arms firmly and gave a curt nod. “First Lily doesn’t show up, then Connor goes missing? You don’t suppose that…?”

“Something happened,” Blake said, casting a glance at the scattered evidence on the table.

A terrible premonition formed at his mind, like ice slowly freezing over a puddle. Its cold edges sharpening, narrowing around the center of a premise that would be inescapable.
She figured it out,
Blake thought,
she knew that the bruises on Damian’s hand were the key—if she encountered Connor, if she saw his bike, if she made the connection.
He slammed his hand again on the table.

“Gavin,” he murmured, “your orders haven’t changed. Melissa has gotten herself into something that will bring her down if she’s not careful. We can’t let that happen. Take the photo and whatever other evidence you have, appeal to them and try to convince her of the truth behind your words. Take Sarah with you, it will help if there’s two of you.”

“Again,” Gavin sighed, “what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find Lily,” he said, “and Connor. And I’m pretty sure if I find one, I’ll find the other. I’m going to need to borrow your shotgun, and your sidearm, if you don’t mind.” Sarah rubbed her arm again and winced. She didn’t like the direction things were heading in—but then none of them present had any context for it. Other than Blake, neither Sarah nor Gavin had ever had to question their loyalties, and neither of them had really suffered loss. Damian had prevented outright war for generations.

All of it jeopardized by greed
, Blake growled inwardly. He accepted Gavin’s small pistol and cocked it, slipping it into his belt. He turned toward Jimmy who had gone pale and was frozen stiff as a statue, a gargoyle waiting to be animated again.

“My friend,” Blake said, “it is possible that someone will come to question you about your truck exploding outside the compound. Just tell them it was stolen, they’ll believe you. After everything that’s happened, they’ll have to take your word for it.”

Gavin drove Blake to the edge of town again where his bike was hidden and he hopped off, groaning. He had borrowed a first aid kit from Jimmy and wrapped his ribs again, but it still ached like fire every time he bent or breathed in too deeply. If it came to an actual fight, he’d be at a disadvantage, but he’d almost gotten used to that at this point. The borrowed plaid shirt smelled like Jimmy and was a little too tight, but at least it was clean and not covered in blood. His own face hurt in several places, and he had taken the discomfort for granted. He looked like some sort of post-apocalyptic survivor in his leather jacket over top, and the analogy wasn’t lost on Gavin.

“Take my shotgun, Mad Max,” he joked, “you’ll need it more than I.”

“Thanks,” Blake said, catching it in the air and pushing his bike up out of the ditch and onto the road, and strapped it across his back. His Harley growled as he kicked the ignition and it growled to life.

“Where are you going to go? We have no idea where Connor went.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Blake replied. “Besides, there are only a few places that he’d run to if he was really afraid of having his little conspiracy unveiled. I have to believe that Lily threatened him, and that’s why he took her. Which means I don’t have much time, and neither does she. But Connor isn’t dumb—he would have also guessed that she wasn’t the only one who had figured it out. He can’t just kill her off.”

“He’s panicked,” Gavin said.

“Aye, that’s what I’m counting on. As long as he stays that way until I can get to him.”

“We’ll try to hold things together here as long as we can.” Gavin gave a little salute and without another word turned his bike back and headed into town. Blake watched him go until he was out of sight before turning his Harley in the opposite direction and taking off with a growling yip of rubber and engine smoke.

Ever since Sarah had told him that Connor had gone missing, his mind had been racing, trying to predict his opponent’s stance. If their positions had been reversed, what would Blake do? Knowing that a human had managed to link him to a murder, he would have been faced with a dilemma: first, eliminating the human. But before that, he would need to know if there were any others who had found out, and what sort of evidence they had against him. But Connor clearly hadn’t suspected Jimmy, which meant he’d had to go back to square one.

So where
? Blake growled, turning up the RPMs on his bike.
If I was trapped, then I would flee—try to recollect my senses, make another plan, another stand.
There weren’t a lot of places someone could hide in Beaver Creek, and even fewer outside of it. In fact, there was really only one place, and it was a location that was familiar to Blake, if only because he’d woken up in it this morning.

He growled and slammed on his brakes, just as he passed the turn-off onto one of the dirt bike paths and pointed his front tire down it. In minutes, he’d reached the old back-road and turned toward the rickety old cabin. The forest flew by him, but he had tunnel vision and could only focus on the road directly in front of him as the tires ate it up. The shotgun against his back felt more than normal, like an omen. It butted into his lower back each time he hit a small bump, as if trying to punctuate some foregone conclusion.
I don’t want to kill again
.

As the forest thinned into an opening in the valley, Blake saw the squat black-raftered shack in the distance, as if floating on a sea of yellowing grass. Sure enough, there was a bike haphazardly parked against the ditch, and as he drew nearer it was very clearly Connor’s. Blake pulled in behind and turned off his Harley. As he came around, he looked again at the front of his enemy’s handlebars—the skull motif stared straight ahead, single-mindedly. Blake tried to visualize the bruises again. Yes, it was definitely a match. Connor was involved in his father’s death. Directly or indirectly, it didn’t matter. He’d taken Lily, and that had crossed the line between the things Blake was willing to do and not do. He pulled out Gavin’s small pistol and held it with both hands as he walked across the field, trying to lighten his footsteps.

There was no distinctive smell, but it blended together. Two scents, one male and one female. Blake growled, the muscles on his forearms tensing as he bore down on the shack. There was no sound, but that didn’t mean anything. He approached the door and turned abruptly, raising the gun and scanning the interior. Cautiously, he took a single step in.
Nothing
. It was almost as if he’d simply stepped out for a minute and returned—the blanket and the mattress were just as he and Lily had left them.

“Damn,” he said, lowering the gun and blindly took a step back out.

How he managed to avoid the swinging arc of the heavy piece of rebar, he had no idea. His body ducked of its own will as he stepped, and he couldn’t understand why until he heard the metal clip the wooden door frame, followed by a grunt of exasperation behind him and something heavy hitting him in the back. Blake flew through the door into the shack again but caught himself with one hand and rolled, avoiding the shock. The sidearm clattered against one wall.