Blood & Rust (Lock & Key #4) (34 page)

I shut down the phone and tossed it to the seat beside me and squeezed my eyes shut, burying my face in my hands.

Images of Nina’s hair matted in blood, her body a lifeless rag doll, rolled through me.

Just like Caitlyn.

Just like Stephan.

And the pitch of Deanna’s hysteria.

Just like my mother.

“He’s in a coma!” my mother yelled.

She never yelled. Dad was the one with the temper.

I swallowed hard. “A coma?”

“Yes! Do you know what that is, Markus?” Mom’s pale face was streaked with red blotches and wet with tears. “Do you understand how serious this is?”

My eyes went to Dad. “He’ll wake up soon though, right?”

“They don’t know if he’ll ever wake up again.” Dad’s voice broke, and he averted his gaze, taking in a deep breath. Defeat.

“And even if he does, he’ll probably have severe brain damage for the rest of his life.” Mom’s voice seethed. “Over forty percent of his body is burned.” The rage in my mother’s eyes, the tension in her limbs, was unmistakable. “He’ll never be the same. His spine is broken, and his one leg is so mangled that it will probably have to be amputated. And why? Why? Because of you! You were arguing with him, weren’t you? And he lost control of the car. Is that it? Is it?”

“Laura, calm down.” Dad pulled my mother into his arms.

“No!” she screeched.

I flinched at the sound.

“You were making him go fast, weren’t you? You dared him to do it, didn’t you? Anything below eighty miles an hour is a crawl to you! It’s all your fault! Your fault!” She pulled on my father’s shirt, pointing at me with her other hand. “How can
he
be here, perfectly fine, when Stephan is lying in there in pieces? My boy is broken! Broken!”

I sat in the wheelchair in the hallway of the ICU—my leg cast stretched out in front of me, my broken arm in a sling, my sprained neck and the long rows of stitches on my chest and back screaming in pain—as she shuddered, fresh tears streaming down her face.

I’d need a shitload of those pain meds the nurses were always offering me to get through this. Yeah, I'd take them up on it now. Load me up, ladies.

“All he did was try to help you. Again and again and again,” she continued. “But you don’t care. You don’t give a crap, do you? As long as you have your good time. What did Stephan ever do to you? Are you that jealous of him? Do you hate him? How could you do this? You’re brothers! How could you?” Her wails and moans filled the hospital waiting room.

“I’m not jealous of Stephan! I didn’t do anything on purpose, Ma! I didn’t.”

“No, everything just happens to you, doesn’t it? When are you going to learn that everything you do in this life has consequences? Do you even know the meaning of that word? I don’t think you do. Your alcohol level was sky high, as usual. All you ever think about is your good time. Your brother went all the way out there to get you, to make sure you’d get home in one piece. And now—” Her voice broke again. “I can’t even look at you right now!”

Her bright blue eyes, the color of the sky, the ones she’d given me, were full of strain and anger, a raging ocean. All of it for me. Her blonde hair, something else she’d given me, was pulled out of her usually neat ponytail. Our obvious visible connections didn’t matter right now. Now, we were disconnected, divided, detached.

Mom collapsed in my father’s arms.

Dad’s watery eyes slid to mine. “You need to leave.”

“You need to leave,” my father had said.

“You need to leave,” my mentor and friend had said.

“You need to leave,” two of my presidents had said.

Dad, Dig, Buck, my first prez, and Jump had all been right. Their disappointment in me had been deserved.

“I can’t even look at you right now.”

My mother’s words still stung. The others had said as much to me at one point or another.

Now, here was living proof that I was still riding the Fuck-Up train.

I wrapped my arms around myself and leaned over on my knees. Tania was in a heated discussion with Finger. Now, they all knew about the baby.

And me?

I glanced at Tania, her big dark eyes blazing with emotion as she listened to whatever Finger was telling her. I felt so far away from her at this very moment, as if the secret police were yanking me in the opposite direction and throwing me in a Soviet Bloc country with no visa, no return ticket. Doomed. But, of course, no one was forcing me, making me do anything. This was all on me.

No, Tania was better off without me. She had to be. Without me as a friend, without me as a lover.

Without me.

ALICIA WAS STOIC
.

Her eyes were glassy and red. But she wasn’t a mess. Maybe, as an old lady, she had been preparing for this moment for years. Probably. Her and Jump’s son, Wes, stood at her side before the open grave. A legion of bikers had arrived in a long procession through town. A solemn sea of black leather was in attendance at Rock Hills Cemetery on the outskirts of Meager, all these many men paying their final respects to the president of the One-Eyed Jacks, honoring their brotherhood.

Jump’s death was a shock to everyone. He’d been a part of the club since before Dig and Boner had arrived over two decades ago and an officer early in his career. Add him to the list of outlaw casualties.

The wind had picked up, and I wiped the hair from my face. The men took turns with a shovel, filling in the grave with earth. The service concluded, and the club members who remained, talked in sullen tones over Jump’s open grave. Butler, Boner, Kicker, Dready, and Judge, the president of the North Dakota Jacks, were in the center of the throng, hugging and fist bumping with brothers, all of their faces grim.

I hugged Alicia. I touched Wes’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks,” he muttered, his gaze darting away from me. His face was grim, pale. The boy’s once easygoing demeanor was gone, and in its place was etched a tense scowl. A rigid tension kept him standing at his father’s funeral. He was a rock for his mother, for his father’s club.

“I lost my dad unexpectedly when I was a teenager, Wes, and I understand. I’m very sorry.”

He only nodded.

I strolled across the rolling green lawn to where my heart drew me.

“Hey, Daddy,” I said, my voice low.

The granite was still clean and fresh, even after all these years—thirty, to be exact. Thirty years without his honking laugh, him yelling at the television over college football and basketball, him grabbing Mom in the kitchen in great big bear hugs.

He’d throw my brother high into the air, and I’d yell, “Dad! Stop! He’s going to throw up!”

But he and Drew would only laugh.

Dad had made a face when he caught me putting on makeup the first time. Had it been discomfort, embarrassment? I’d been twelve, going on thirteen, and I’d just gotten my period.

“You’re slipping away from me, sugar cube. Growing up fast. Pretty soon, you won’t want to hang out with your daddy no more.”

“Oh, Dad!”
I rolled my eyes at him.

But he was right.

I’d loved helping him on the farm and watching football with him. But I’d started spending hours yammering on the telephone with Grace and our girls or had my nose stuck in a book or a magazine rather than helping out on the farm as much as I used to. I was daddy’s girl. We would go into Rapid to his favorite sporting goods store, or go out for barbecue and root beer on his rare free Saturdays, just the two of us. He’d love to go fishing on the lake, or out on his cousin’s boat, or—

There was only a slab of granite now. My hand slid over the smooth stone engraved with our family name in big solemn letters.

“Love you, Daddy.” The breeze carried my hoarse whisper in the air over his tombstone.

“Hey.” A hand swept up my back. Grace’s hazel eyes were golden green in the sunlight.

“Hi. How’s it going?”

“It’s going.”

I slung an arm around her waist and pulled her close. “This is terrible.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Things must be nuts now. I’m worried about you and the baby.”

“We’ll be fine.”

“Is there going to be a war or something?”

“I hope not, but there could be.”

“Who’s president now?”

“Kicker is until they can sit down and vote. Right now, they need to find out who did this and why.”

“Why would someone want to target Nina?”

“That’s the million-dollar question.”

“
WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE
, Tania?” Butler asked me.

Standing in the doorway of his apartment in town, on the second floor of an old two family house, my rehearsed little speech flitted out of my brain like a balloon caught in the jet stream.

“I just—”

His full lips twisted into a smirk. An adorable smirk.

A noise escaped the back of my throat, my shoulders dropping. “I wanted to see how you were doing. I saw you at the funeral this morning, but I didn’t get a chance to say hello.”

I needed to make sure he was okay. We were friends. He’d listened to my tales of woe, so I could be there for him now.

Simple.

I stared at him in his ripped pale blue jeans, barefoot, a white V-neck T-shirt that showed off the taut contours of his chest and arms. The dark golden scruff along his chin, along the blunt angle of his jaw, emphasized his usual rough and tumble appearance.

Not so simple.

“Things are crazy right now,” he said.

“I’ll bet.”

“I just got back from the club. Big crowd still there. My head was killing me, and I needed a breather.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t want to interrupt your quiet time, then. You must be exhausted.”

“You’re not interrupting. It’s good to see you.”

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I can answer that right now,” he said, his voice husky.

“You don’t have to.” I held up the canvas tote bag I was carrying with the loaded glass containers. “All you have to do is eat.”

“What’s that?”

“Homemade food. Roast beef topped with really good Grandma’s secret recipe gravy and roast potatoes. Rhubarb pie for dessert. Not sissy food. Manly man food.”