Edge of Ashes (Sons of Ash Motorcycle Club) (16 page)

Her mouth opens and closes. Whatever she
was going to say gets caught in her throat.

“Yeah I know your hubby loves the stories.
You probably tell his all the gory details, right?”

“He finds them…entertaining.” She replies.

“You gotta stop doing that.” I tell her.
“People need to be protected from the world we see every day. If you don’t
protect him from this world here Jaime… he’s going to lose faith in the perfect
world he probably lives in now. He may-”

“He’s a cop!”

Well fuck! I’m at a loss for words so I
just turn around and head back to my chair in my dark corner to reflect on this
fucked up world that is just about to swallow up my sister.

“I-I hope she’s all right; your sister.
That’s your sister they brought in right?”

I look up and she’s standing there a few
feet away looking at me. I’m not sure if it’s compassion I see in her eyes or
what. I just nod. I don’t know what else to say and apparently she doesn’t
either. She turns and leaves me to my own messed up world. I close my eyes. I’m
pretty good at catnapping and right now I could use a little nap.

“Kari!”

My eyes fly open. Doctor Connors and my
best friend Jenny is standing in front of me. Their scrubs are covered in gore.
If I didn’t know better I would have thought they’d been battling blood thirsty
Vampires and Demons and not trying to save my sister!

Jenny kneels down in front of me and right
away I know what she is going to say. It’s the posture of death she has,
bringing herself to my eye level. She’s there for emotional support and Dr.
Connors is there for technical reasons; to explain why it is they couldn’t save
my sister’s life.

I open my mouth to speak but grief seems to
have me in its chokehold. Their faces blur as my eyes fill with tears. I can’t
believe this is it. My little sister is dead; killed by that animal, Ripper!

“I’m so sorry Kari,” Jenny begins. “We did
everything we could to save your sister’s life.”

“It was the stab wound that was fatal,”
Doctor Connors begins. “The blade nicked her descending aorta and she just bled
out. Even had we been able to get her into surgery the moment she was stabbed
we still would not have been able to save her. I’m sorry.”

Having done his duty, having said his
piece, Dr. Connors excuses himself and leaves Jenny to do the best friend thing
and console the inconsolable. I close my eyes again. I just can’t believe this
is happening to me.

“Kari!”

I jump in my chair and look up. Doctor
Connors is back standing in front of me. He seems to have changed into a clean
pair of scrubs for some reason.

“Let’s go see your sister.” He says with a
smile.

“Y-your s-smiling doctor…I don’t-”

“We saved her Kari.”

Suddenly everything comes rushing back to
me. I look at my watch; it’s nearly eight in the morning. I must have been
asleep for 3 hours.

“Kari?”

“Sorry… I guess it was just a dream. I
dreamt you and my best friend came in here to tell me she had died and then you
show up again…”

“It was a dream Kari, your sister is going
to be fine. That knife nicked her aorta but we were able to go in and patch it
up. She’s very weak and may be a little delirious if she does wake up but I
thought you’d want to see her.”

“Thank you so much doctor,” I gush. “I
don’t know what I’d do without you. What my sister would have done without you.
Thank you so much…”

“It wasn’t just me Kari. We had a good team
on tonight. She’s upstairs in ICU right now where she’ll probably stay for a
few days. She still has a tube in her throat so she won’t be able to talk even
if she is awake. If all goes well we’ll remove the tube sometime tomorrow.”

Filled with a new hope in my heart I follow
the doctor upstairs to my sister’s room. I find I am not quite prepared for
what I see. The moment the doctor draws aside the curtain I can’t help but
gasp. I realize he said she is alive; but she really looks more dead than
anything. Her skin is so pale it makes the sheets on her bed look grey. In fact
her skin almost looks translucent. She has a tube in her throat and is hooked
up to a ventilator. She has an IV, and central venous line, a heart monitor, a
pulse oximeter, and a morphine pump. It’s a lot to take in, but I steel myself,
plaster a smile on my face and go to her side and take her hand in mine.

“Anna honey…I’m here.” And when she doesn’t
stir. “Anna it’s me Kari. You’re going to be okay now sweetie.”

There’s a chair. I sit in it and lay my
head on the edge of her bed with her hand on my cheek. I cry. I don’t know what
else to do or say so I cry. For now, that’ll have to be enough.

“Kari?”

Somewhere off in the distance I hear my
name being called, or at least I think someone is calling my name.

“Kari!”

There it is again; my name. Sudden pain
shoots through my back and it makes me jerk awake. My eyes shoot open and it
takes me a minute to figure out where I am. Everything around me is white. The
floor, my chair, the bed in front of me, and even the sunlight streaming in
through the windows. It can only mean one thing; heaven.

“Kari?”

This time the voice is female and very close.
Before I can even think I just blurt it out. “God?”

“Really? All that time we spent in Sunday
school and you still think of God as a she?”

Wait…I’d know that snarky attitude
anywhere! I jerk my head up and sit up in the chair I have occupied for the
entire night.

“Anna!”

I shout. I stand up and nearly fall on her
bed on top of her. I must have been hunched over in that chair for longer than
I thought. I give my little sister a tender hug, then step back to really
examine her. Her cheeks have a faint blush to them; something they hadn’t had
when I fell asleep last night. She is deathly pale still, but she looks like
she belongs in the land of the living finally. She’s got an IV and a morphine
drip for the pain. She’s sporting a nasal cannula and is hooked up to a heart
monitor but her vitals are strong. If she was my patient I wouldn’t be worried
in the slightest about her. However, being that she is my little sister, I am
worried like heck!

She moves in bed and her night gown shifts
giving me a glimpse of several cigarette burns and suddenly I’m seeing red.
Anna notices my fixed gaze and covers herself up.

“It’s okay Kari. They barely hurt anymore
and besides, you can barely see them. They could have done it on my face you
know but they didn’t.”

I’m struggling with her new acceptance
attitude. How can you accept something like torture? My stare hardens and I can
feel my heart pounding. I just want to jump up, go to my car, get my gun and go
after the bikers who did this to her. It’s all I can do to stay seated. For my
sister’s benefit I plaster a smile back on my face. For my little sister I can
pretend it’s alright. But after I leave here there’s going to be a reckoning
for the Sons of Ash that followed Ripper and I’m not going to stop hunting them
until every last one of them are dead! Then I’ll go after the Cycle Demons,
starting with that slimy worm who betrayed Adam!

“Kari! Are you alright?” My sister asks.
“You’re scaring me.”

I shake my head, forcing myself to relax. I
guess I wasn’t smiling after all. I take a deep breath and force myself to
relax.

“Sorry sis… I’m okay now. It’s just hard
seeing those scars and knowing what they did to you.”

“I have to ask you something Kari.”

“Sure,” I reply. “Ask me anything.”

“Don’t go after those guys.”

Ask me anything but that! I swallow hard
forcing my anger back down inside. I take a deep breath and smile for her
benefit.

“Why can’t I?” I have to ask.

“How can I get it all behind me and heal if
you’re out there drudging it up every day. How can I forget about what those
men did to me if you’re out risking your life hunting them? What am I supposed
to do if they kill you? Kari, you have to promise me you won’t go after them.
Promise!”

I don’t know if I can do it.

“Kari…” She pleads with me.

I close my eyes and put my face in my
hands. How can she ask this of me? I understand why she is asking me, but I
just don’t know if I can promise, and if I do, I’m pretty sure I can’t keep it.
Unless…unless I can persuade Adam to do it for me. If I know he’s taking revenge,
which he probably will, then that relieves me of the obligation to do it
myself; at least I think it does.

“Kari, look at me and promise you won’t go
on some killing spree for me.”

I look at her and all I can see is her
bloody body covered in burns with a gash in her side. I close my eyes then open
them again hoping to clear my vision but I still see her as a victim.

“You don’t know what you’re asking.” I
finally croak.

“Promise me.” She remains resolute.

I force myself to hold her gaze. “Okay…I
promise I won’t go all postal on them. There you got your promise, now can we
change the subject?”

She stares at me for a few more moments
then sighs.

“Yes…I got my promise. Thank you. I needed
that. Now I think I’ll sleep.”

“Sleep? But we just started talking not ten
minutes ago.” I protest.

“Yes but I have been watching you sleep
since seven this morning.”

“So what time is-”

My voice catches in my throat. The clock on
the wall says it’s nearly 10:30 am.

“You should have woken me up!” I protest.

“But you were so tired,” she replies. “You
really needed the rest; I just couldn’t bring myself to wake you up.”

“Fine…I’ll let you rest and I’ll come back
after lunch.”

“Done.”

I stand and give her another hug and peck
on the cheek. I start to pull back and she hangs on.

“I never thanked you.” She says. “I know
I’m alive because of you and Adam and I never thanked you…so thank you for my
life Kari, and thank Adam when you see him too.”

“You’re welcome sis, but it was mostly
Adam.”

For a reply she just closes her eyes and
sighs. She’s fast asleep before I can leave the room. As I’m walking down the
hallway I am still wrestling with my conscious. Part of me…a very large part of
me is still set on exacting my revenge. I just don’t know if I can walk away
from this one no matter how much my sister wants me to. I’m pretty sure it the
roles were reversed she would be wanting to do the same thing I want to do. By
the time I get outside I have promised myself I won’t do anything today. It’s
all I can do. I’ll just take it one day at a time and if necessary one minute
at a time. Just maybe…just maybe then I can keep my promise.

Nearly six months pass before I finally run
into Adam again. I tried contacting him after that first day with my sister in
the hospital but he seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth. His
buddies seem to be missing in action as well and the combined forces of the
Sons of Ash loyal to Ripper (who somehow amazingly survived getting stuck in
the neck with Adam’s knife) and the Cycle Demons have become the alpha biker
club of Cave Junction and they run rampant unchecked by local understaffed law
enforcement. At least when the Demons were at odds with the Sons it kept
everybody in check. The new combined club call themselves the Sons of Demons
and they are as ruthless as ever. Crack houses, grow houses and meth labs used
to be the scourge of other cities but now thanks to the MC’s and MS 13 times
are a changing. Every neighborhood has it’s foot soldiers pushing meth and
crack and the clubs don’t even try to hide their meth labs and grow houses.
What are the police gonna do?

I’ve kept my promise to my sister; it’s
hasn’t been easy lately. The day I walked out of her hospital room I thought
I’d be out there hunting Ripper and his guys on day one but it was actually
pretty easy to just sit on my hands and do nothing. But now with the Sons of
Demons flaunting their power in everyone’s faces I am finding it impossible to
just sit there and watch everything.  In fact, the day I decide to break
my promise I run into Adam at my favorite coffee shop. I just sat down at a
booth with my coffee when a shadow came across my table.

“Is this seat taken?” Asks a familiar
voice.

I jump in my seat. I can’t believe it’s
him. I look up with a smile frozen on my face, and then force myself to frown.
He abandoned me for six months. Now why should I be smiling?

“Yeah,” I begin. “I’m saving it for
someone who doesn’t run out on his friends.”

“Perhaps you’ll give it up for someone
who risked his life to save someone he didn’t even know?”

“You’ll have to do better than that.” I
reply, as I study his handsome face.

He looks good. Gone are all those stress
wrinkles he used to carry around with him. He has always looked young, but now…
can you say jailbait…robbing the cradle…cougar much? He looks like someone who
has been carrying around this huge weight on his shoulders and has suddenly
shrugged it off and is reaping the benefits of his new no stress lifestyle.
That begs the question… did he go after the guy who betrayed him and kidnapped
me? Has he done what my sister forced me to swear off? That has to be it
because when we parted ways he had a substantial price on his head and a good
reason to be a little preoccupied.

“I knew about your sister,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“I knew she made you promise not to go
after the guys who kidnapped her. I came by one afternoon to make sure she was
gonna be okay and she told me she swore you to inaction. At the time she was
pretty sure you’d keep your promise all of ten minutes. I confess, I agreed.”

“Wow… thanks for the vote of
confidence.” I reply with a little too much sarcasm.

“Hey you had every reason in the world
to go after those guys. If I’d have been in your shoes the only thing different
is I wouldn’t have made any promises. I would have just straight up told her I
was going to do some ass kicking.”

“And did you? Do some ass kicking?”

“I don’t know if I would call what I did
ass kicking… but yeah I had to do something. You and your sister weren’t gonna
be safe without something being done.”

“So what did you do?” I ask.

“That’s a topic for another very long
conversation.” He replies.

“I’ve got time,” I reply.

“No you don’t. You and I, we have some
unfinished business to complete.”

I think about it for a minute. “What do
you mean?” I finally ask.

“How bad do you want that cup of
coffee?” He asks.

“I just paid two dollars for it.” I
reply.

For an answer he fishes around in his
pockets, then produces two crumpled up one dollar bills. He shoves them across
the table so that they are lying in front of me. He gets up.

“Let’s go.”

“What about my coffee?” I ask.

He grabs my cup and indicates the
crumpled bills still sitting on the table in front of me.

“It’s my coffee now.”

He walks over to the counter and dumps
it in the trash. Then he turns around.

“You coming or not?” He asks me.

“I can’t believe you just dumped my
coffee.” I complain.

“I dumped my coffee,” he corrects. “I
just bought it from you.” He says pointing to the money again. “Now come on, I
have something you’re going to want to see.”

Curious and angry I sit there until my
curiosity becomes stronger than my urge to punch him in the face.

“Fine, I’m coming, but it’d better be good.”

“Oh it will be,” He replies.

I follow him outside and over to his
motorcycle. He hands me a helmet and puts his own on. He hops on and fires up
the engine. There is just something about that deep throaty rumble that just
gets to me. The second I can feel the engine rumbling between my thighs my
whole attitude has changed. I slide my arms around his waist just as the bike
surges forward.

There is nothing like riding a
motorcycle. It gives you such a sense of freedom like nothing else can. Feeling
the wind on your face and watching the world go by so close to you it really is
surreal. For me a car has always been about getting from point A to point B,
but a bike is all about the in between; about the getting there. As we begin
winding along the coastal highway I promise myself to buy a bike myself. I have
to have this feeling more often and not just when Adam happens by. I don’t know
what he is planning on showing me, but if this is it… this ride, then I’m
satisfied.

About an hour later we pull up on Blacks
Beach; a fine stretch of the pacific ocean defined by its black sandy shores.
As we get off Adam retrieves a large blanket from one of his saddle bags. He
pulls out a second, smaller one and hands it to me. Without a word he leads us
along a winding path from one beach front to another until we end up on a very
small secluded beach with no signs of having been touched by people other than
ourselves.

As he lays out his blanket I’m beginning
to get some idea of what he has in mind. He takes off his motorcycle jacket and
forms a makeshift pillow; I do the same with mine. My breath quickens as he
takes off his vest and pulls his tee shirt over his head. I watch the ripple of
his muscles remembering the feel of his skin beneath my fingers. We are about
to do the one thing that has always escaped us from day one. I look from left
to right. No one is around. Can it be that we are actually going to… to do it
uninterrupted?

My breath catches in my throat as he
peels his jeans down over his hips and down to his knees. He is wearing a pair
of tight white briefs that barely contain his excitement. I let my eyes linger
over his body in a way they never had the chance to before. He kicks off his
jeans and lies on his back on the blanket. I’m still wearing my long sleeve tee
and jeans having made no move to disrobe. I want to enjoy the moment; unrushed.
He seems to read my mind and makes no move to hurry the process.

My heart hammers in my chest as I grab
the hem of my tee and pull it over my head. I have this thought of slowly
peeling off my jeans and panties, of making him work for every inch of flesh he
gets but I’m beginning to lose control. My eyes drink in his flesh, noting
every nook, cranny, pore, muscle, and scar. I want to explore every inch of
this man. I move to straddle him at the waist and the minute I lower myself
onto his thighs he reaches up, grabs me and pulls me down to the blanket,
flipping over so that he is on top and straddling me now.

He reaches for the button on my jeans
but I stop his hand with mine.

“Wait…what is it you wanted to show me?”
I ask with a mischievous grin.

“I’m about to show you!” He replies as
he tries to get at my button.

I slap his hands away. “Looks like I’m
the one whose about to show themselves.”

“Semantics,” he replies as he reaches
for my buttons.

I grab his hands. “Wait.”

“For what?” He asks.

“Maybe I’m not ready yet.” I reply,
glaring down at him.

“A rain storm could start right now and
you’d still be ready!” He growls.

I twist my neck around and look up at
the sky. It is actually clouding over and looking suspiciously like rain.

“You ready to test that theory?” I ask.

He cranes his neck and looks around me.
“You gotta be kidding!”

I reach for my shirt as the first drops
hit my cooling skin.

“Oh no you’re not!” He snaps. 

“You can’t be that desperate,” I reply.
“You must have had dozens of girls since we saw each other last.”

He shakes his head. “I haven’t even…”

“You can’t be serious.” I lay my hand on
his pulsating erection. “You mean to tell me this is six months of pent up…” I
can’t even finish my sentence.

He nods miserably.

“Oh my god,” I reply. “We better hurry
it up then. Soon as that thing hits fresh air it’s gonna pop!” I say laughing.

“Hey I’m not a teenager anymore!” He
replies, pretending to be angry. “But you’re right. I’m pretty much gonna
explode before you even get a chance to do anything.”

I decide a little teasing is in order. I
wiggle my way down his body until my head is even with his bulge. I look up and
his own eyes are fairly bulging as well. I look back down at the huge white
mound beneath my chin.

“Let’s test that theory,” I say as I
blow gently through the thin material.

“Oh no you don’t!” He moans, but he
makes no move to stop me.

I figure it’s better if he lets loose now
in a hurry then he’ll last longer when it’s important. I bring my face down
even closer as the heady aroma of his manhood fills my nostrils. I can feel my
own body responding to his scent. I lower my face and am just about to rest my
lips on his pulsating head when he moans sharply and thrusts his hips straight
up into my face.

“Ahhhhh…” He bellows and pops like a
teenager with his first hooker!

I lower my mouth onto his dewy shaft and
rub my lips up and down his cock as 6 months of pent up lust continues to spew
into his briefs. The smell is intoxicating! I stand and rip my pants off,
panties included. He pulls his drenched briefs down over his hips and kicks
them off into the sand. I can’t believe his cock is standing straight up and
ready for more action. No way in hell I’m gonna waste that.

An hour later as I snuggle up in Adam’s
arms, there is just one other thing we need to talk about.

“Ripper.” I announce to him as if he has
been privy to my thoughts.

“What?” He asks.

I think he was asleep just then.

“So Ripper’s alive then…”

“Yes…” He says, rolling over to look at
me.

“I know I swore to my sister and all…” I
begin.

“You have to let me come too.” He says.

“What? Aren’t you supposed to argue that
it’s too dangerous and I shouldn’t even be thinking about going after him?”

He laughs. “I know you too well to do
that Kari. If you need to go after Ripper I understand. I’m just not gonna let
you do it by yourself.”

“Spoken like a true boyfriend.” I reply.