Defiance (19 page)

Chapter Twenty

The alarms sounded then, startling her. No matter how many years she’d been hearing them, they’d always bring out some deep-seated panic inside her, and if it hadn’t been for Caspar’s strong arms holding her, she would’ve been running up and out of the tube instead of staying put.

Storms were coming in. Batten down the hatches. Everyone underground. Upstairs, the buildings were hurricane shuttered in preparation.

“Turn them off, Cas...make them stop,” she told him, wanting to shut her brain off.

“Make you not hear them instead,” he offered and she literally climbed him, wanting to climb into him and make all of this stop.

“Tru, baby, come on,” Caspar cajoled. She’d forgotten how completely persuasive he could be. His mouth on her neck, his tongue playing along her pulse point calmed her like no pill ever could. Her legs wrapped around his waist, arms around his shoulders, and it felt like he could hold her up like that forever.

She buried her face into his neck as he told her, “Not gonna be bad, Tru.”

She heard a radio blaring, loud classic rock. She imagined that there would be a party underground, with homemade moonshine and other liquor, some of it hard earned but most of it stolen.

“Come on, got a few things to distract you.”

He guided her back into his room and opened up a cabinet she hadn’t noticed earlier. Found herself staring at a pile of books and bent down to study them, because they looked like old ones that she’d had when she lived with Hugh.

“These are mine.”

“Really?”

“Innocent’s not a look that works on you, Caspar.”

He frowned. Snorted. “So they’re yours. They’re books. Good ones.”

She ran her hand over the covers. She remembered curling up, reading these over and over, trying to block out all the noise—literal and in her head—trying to transport herself. She’d studied these books almost as much as she’d made a study of Caspar. Both things fascinated her.

Her mom used to come into her room at night, tuck her in, read to her. Some mornings, Tru woke with her mother curled up next to her. But those nights got fewer and further between as Tru got older. That’s when Tru learned the art of being invisible.

She’s doing it for you—letting Hugh hit her so he doesn’t come after you.

Everyone had been protecting her for so long. “When is it my turn to protect someone?” she asked Caspar now.

“Think you’re protecting me now, in your way, no?” he told her.

“She took his shit for me. I stayed away. Holed up in the library. Read to escape, stayed quiet, because I wanted to be invisible. But you...I didn’t want to be invisible anymore. Not to you.”

“Sayin’ I ruined you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You know, I left the military when I realized I was doing the same shit I was doing inside the MC, but at least, for the MC, I understood why. I don’t mind keeping us safe from any goddamned enemy, but half the time I sat around waiting for orders. I don’t sit well. And the other half...I watched a hell of a lot of good men die for no damned reason I could see. Being in the MC with your guys is no different than being in any foxhole, shithole jungle in the goddamned world with your weapon, waitin’ with your dick in your hand. And fuck it if you think I’m tellin’ you anything else about what happened there. My job to keep you safe. Happy. That shit’s not safe or happy, hear?”

“What’s my job, Cas?” she asked quietly.

“Deal with my shit.”

“I can do that. Better yet, I want to do that.”

“Got a lot of shit going down. Need you by my side.”

“I’m here.”

“I’m not going to survive you. I’ve made it through war, the Chaos...but you’ve always been my goddamned Kryptonite. So what do you think, Tru?” He was tracing a finger over her left shoulder and she concentrated, because he kept making the same pattern. Finally, she felt the wings and realized he was talking about marking her with the Defiance symbol.

It was a smiling skull. Wings. A trident in the skull’s mouth, which represented the Navy, but extended to honor all military personnel. And a rose on the top of the skull’s head.

The entire tattoo was in grayscale.

Taking the tattoo would mean he’d agreed to bond with her. And while she already knew that was more of a public showing, knew that they’d already bonded in a way a tattoo could never come close to, the fact that he wanted a public showing meant everything.

She turned and faced him. “You’re serious.”

“Not a big joker.”

No, he wasn’t. That might have to change, because she really did love to make him laugh.

Staying with him, letting herself be owned by him, claimed by him in the MC was part of the price.

None of that mattered. The bottom line was, she loved him, with everything she had. It wasn’t about being ashamed of needing protection. It was about loving him enough to accept that certain things would always be a compromise.

“Thing is, I want this place to survive. All these people depending on me to keep the peace. Defiance survives from the tube money. That’s our bread and butter. Need to keep it in the family. Spread the wealth,” he said.

Caspar wasn’t really considered a legacy to the club. He’d had to earn his way in, in a way that Silas hadn’t had to. Caspar was one of the youngest probies, the youngest member of Defiance to ever get patched into the MC, this charter and the others.

Many followed suit after him, but Tru knew they never had Caspar’s combination of brains and grit. Getting into this club was more about the mental game than anything else.

It was the end of the line. She’d known it was coming, had survived for years.

“He’s running this place into the ground. Trying to,” he said. “Between me and Rebel, we’ve been saving the MC from a lot of stupid decisions.”

“Why?”

“Lance’s listening to Roan. And Silas doesn’t give a shit,” Caspar explained. “We gotta be smart with the money and the patents. Gotta keep it together.”

“Since I got here, I’ve been pulling it apart.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it or anything.”

“Why would I? And you’re pulling apart shit that was gonna fall apart anyway.” He brushed her hair from her face, his big hand calloused and somehow so gentle. “Are you with me?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Got a plan for us. But for now...” He popped in a DVD. There were no television signals, so people existed on their old DVDs and even some VHS tapes, all of which were hot commodities on the black market.

“This is a chick flick,” she announced and he grinned at her.

“Aren’t you a chick?”

“I’m a Defiance chick,” she said.

“Right.” He frowned as he pawed through his collection and finally pulled out
Lord of the Rings
. “Will this work?”

“They might be living in a gloomier time than we are, so yes, score!”

“You been drinking when I wasn’t looking?”

Her happiness had nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with Caspar. The storms didn’t matter. Her shoulder still tingled where he’d traced the tattoo and she already considered herself branded. The tattoo was simply a technicality.

Mathias

By the third day underground, I was slowly going insane. I’d annoyed the shit out of Bish a thousand times, until it stopped being fun anymore. We’d been out and into the main tube to get shit to eat and bring back to Caspar and Tru, and Caspar went out a few times to talk to Lance and Rebel.

In general, the mood was tense. I’d imagine that this brought back uneasy memories of the original storm, but hell, being underground was a thousand fucking times worse than it had been for Bish and I on the outside.

’’Course, I didn’t tell any of them that. Instead, after I’d gotten us all dinner, I went into my bag—we’d brought everything in and parked the van inside the warehouse along with all the bikes and cars—and started taking out the equipment I hadn’t used since well before we’d arrived in Defiance.

The last time I tattooed anyone had been before our company was attacked—two nights before, to be precise, when half our team was drunk and the other half stoned and we were trying to pretend that shit was all normal.

Hard as we all tried, it never fucking worked.

Bish put his book down,
fucking finally
, I signed and he shot me the finger but came over anyway. Even Caspar was watching, while Tru slept on the couch near the TV screen with a picture of the outside right in front of her, lulling her into thinking that she wasn’t locked into a fucking tube.

She’d had about ten panic attacks. I couldn’t blame her.

Caspar picked up some of the stuff I’d laid out. They tattooed around here the way people breathed or pissed. I used a tattoo gun sometimes, but I also had my own way to do tattoos, taught by my mama, who was part gypsy and grew up in the wild bayous of Louisiana.

They were some of the first things destroyed. I knew that, because Bish and I watched it happen from the safety of a pirogue headed through the swamps.

We’d tried to go back to my family, which was his family from the time he’d been eight, but we couldn’t get through to the house...not to any of them. It was the hardest fucking thing either of us had to do, but we had to keep moving forward. It’s what my dad would’ve wanted.

At least I had something of that culture to keep with me, a part of it I’d always pictured myself using.

Dad always said you only needed three things in order to be happy in life. You needed something to do, something to love and something to look forward to.

“Your dad sounds like a wise son of a bitch,” Caspar told me. I hadn’t realized I’d been saying that shit out loud but I shrugged and agreed.

Bish already had his blade out and his shirt off while Caspar looked between the two of us.

An old custom.
These tattoos are charmed.
Gotta keep the charms fresh by doing this
, I told him as Bish sliced the tattoo on his left biceps. I’d already taken out the bag of herbs, which cost me a helluva lot when I’d first bought the seeds on the black market. But now that I had light of my own, I was able to cultivate them more easily. I took a pinch and pressed them into the bloodied track Bish created, rubbed them like salt in a wound as Bish stared straight ahead.

You were supposed to say a prayer like a chant when you did this, and Bish always did it privately. I never knew who or what he prayed to or for but hell, we’d made it this far.

Caspar watched silently as I wrapped a wet towel over the herbs like a poultice. They’d mix with the blood and in a little while, we’d pick the herbs out and let the tattoo heal. Then it was my turn. I used the blade to slice down my forearm while Bish pressed the herbs for me.

Vodou lore said this had to be done once a year. In this brave new world, I did it way more than that.

Finally, when we were both wrapped, Caspar asked, “Can you do that to any tattoo, or does it have to be a special one?”

I held up two fingers to indicate the latter.

“Guessin’ you tattoo.”

Yes.

“I want one of those charms.”

Don’t use the gun for it.

“Don’t care.”

I hesitated. I hadn’t been there long, but Bish and I both knew this went against everything Defiance stood for. The symbols Caspar wore were of the club and its history. Everyone had their own interpretation of the symbols, so no one tattoo was alike, but this wasn’t approved. And we hadn’t passed through any official methods to become members, beyond the fighting. Which meant we weren’t supposed to be tattooing anyone, let alone the head Enforcer.

I indicated that it needed to go on a covered part of his body—at least one that was, for the most part, regularly unseen. His hip seemed the best place.

He studied me for a long second. I could do it and turn him in, although why the hell would I do that? It’s not like I was going to have a place high on the list here, although Bish and I had already made a name for ourselves by fighting off Paddy’s men.

He shrugged and pulled the kitchen table over before climbing on naked.

“Dude, we eat on there,” Bish told him, threw him a towel. Caspar shrugged and lay there, left hip up. Dude was hung, so hey, walking around naked wasn’t anything to be ashamed of but I didn’t need his dick getting in my way so I draped the towel over him, leaving the skin I needed exposed.

I leaned on his thigh and began to freehand the design. Carbon paper and the like were rare commodities and I liked being able to freewheel it. Of course, if I fucked up, Caspar would probably take my head off.

Bishop looked at me like he knew what I was thinking.
So don’t fuck it up
, his expression said.

I used the instruments that had been passed down through my family for generations. Some said the method was barbaric and hell yeah, it was but it meant more than the gun. I had that too but this took more skill, more precision.

I was sweating by the time I finished the old-time Celtic Cross with intricate swirls and long strokes that would be perfect to hide the blade marks, if he kept up with that. While he bled, Bishop pressed the herbs into it and Caspar hissed. I knew the burn well. I motioned to Bishop to tell him and Bish said, “Means it’s working. The charm’s accepting you—willing to protect you.”

“Smart fucking charm,” Caspar muttered.

Chapter Twenty-One

The first thing Tru noticed when she woke was the bloody towel on Caspar’s hip. She moved to the sleeping man, concerned, but Mathias stopped her.

“Tattoo,” Bish said in time with Mathias’s sign.

She really needed to learn signs. For Mathias, they were a necessity, but she could see how communicating stealthily like that also came in handy.

Like he knew what she was thinking, the silent, handsome man grinned, signed in tandem with Bishop’s voice. “Said he’ll teach you. Not hard.”

Mathias signed and Bish shot him the finger.

“What’d he say, that if you can learn them, anyone can?” she asked innocently and Mathias laughed silently and Bishop shook his head.

“You two are too damned much alike,” he muttered.

She was holding the tattoo gun now, didn’t need the translation of Mathias’s obvious question. “I know how to use it, yes. I learned before the Chaos. I was apprenticing for a woman in New Jersey.”

At the mention of the state, Mathias and Bishop’s eyes met over her head. There was concern there and she wondered who sent these two violent angels to watch over Caspar, and by default, her.

Mathias handed her some ink.

“It’s been a while,” she admitted. He shrugged, pointed between Caspar and himself. “No, I don’t think he’d mind.”

“He minds,” Caspar said. “She’s tattooing anyone, it’s me first.”

She was pulling down the towel, looking at the tattoo Mathias had done for him. “It’s cool.”

“It’s charmed.”

She glanced at him, traced the scar on his cheek. “I’ll never mind you have extra protection, but this was always your charm.”

His mouth quirked to the side a little. “Yeah, you get it, Tru. You get me. Might be the only one who ever will.”

“Trust that.”

“Trustin’ you with everything.”

She wouldn’t let him down. Not with what he’d told her, and not with this tattoo. It was all so important.

She took a few minutes, readying the gun. Bishop and Caspar were talking while Mathias helped her and she tried not to listen about how the storms were getting worse, not better.

Her hands shook as the hail sounded loudly, hitting the security cameras. She stared at the screen as it got hazy with hail and Caspar put hands on her shoulders and guided her away.

Mathias had been finishing the prepping of the gun but now he handed it to her.

Caspar sat on the table in front of her. “What’re you thinking?”

She glanced at his forearm that had a perfect spot and gave a small smile. “A compass. Think of it as a good luck charm.”

Mathias nodded his approval.

“Thought you said I already had my charm?” Casper asked.

“This one’s for me—because you are my luck,” she corrected.

Because I’ll always find my way back to you.

She breathed, steadied herself. Waited for the tremble in her hand to even out. As the gun buzzed, she held Caspar’s skin and then she brought the needle down and began the outline.

Caspar didn’t move. In truth, he looked like he might be asleep.

She knew better. The man never let his guard down, not while she was around.

That afternoon, she tattooed all three men, until she was so bleary eyed she dropped into bed and closed her eyes and didn’t worry about the storm.

“Did that on purpose,” she murmured against Caspar’s shoulder later, when she woke. It was quiet and he said, “Yeah. Worked though.”

“It did.”

“They look good, baby.”

“Thanks.”

“So, the tattooing thing...”

“I want to tattoo here, in Defiance.”

A small frown furrowed his brow. “That’s not going to go over well.”

“I know. And I don’t think I care. Do you?”

He shook his head. “Not much I can do to stop you.”

“Well, you could. But I’m guessing you’re giving me your okay?”

He smiled.

“What?”

“Just never thought you’d be tattooing.”

“What did you think I’d be doing?”

He stroked a hand over hers. “Didn’t know. You seemed sad a lot of the time. Like you were searchin’ for shit you’d never find.”

“You really did...watch me.”

“Yeah, did.” He ran a finger down the scar between her breasts that was revealed by the deep V of the T-shirt she’d borrowed from him earlier. “Storm’s letting up. Should be able to go out tomorrow.”

Suddenly, getting out of the tube didn’t seem so urgent and getting out from under Caspar’s body didn’t seem like anything she wanted to do anytime soon. “When are you going to tell Lance about Abel?”

“As soon as I want everyone to know.”

“And then what?”

“Who the fuck knows, Tru.”

“Just know I’m here, okay?”

She snuggled back against him until his nightmare woke her.

At least once a night, one of the three men had some kind of fucked-up dream. Here she’d thought she’d be the one they’d all have to take care of, but she found herself comforting each of them at different times.

They all dreamed of a different war, but war just the same.

“Was that the Chaos?” she asked, smoothed away hair from his forehead. He grunted and shook his head. “What, then?”

“Forget it. Sleep.”

“When can we go outside?”

“By tomorrow, this should all be over.”

She didn’t know if he meant the storms, the problems with the police or what. All she knew was that she trusted him enough not to question. Didn’t question when she heard him get up and talk to Mathias, asking, “You know where the cops are staying?”

Silence and then, “Give them a message for me. Tell them, tomorrow at Stone Ridge. Tell them I’ll bring them the girl they want.”

More silence and then she heard the snick of a door shutting. He turned back to her and said, “Trust, baby.”

And she did.