Through a Glass, Darkly (Assassins of Youth MC #1) (11 page)

He wasn’t smiling now. “I think you strive to know yourself just fine, Mahalia. You’re the smartest, sharpest woman I’ve ever known. That’s one of the things I like about you. You’re not content to flow with the herd.”

I closed one eye at him. “Oh, so we’re a ‘herd,’ now, are we?”

That broke the tension. We laughed, and I picked up my soda pop, and we pretended he’d never kissed me. As John Keats also wrote, ‘nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced,” and I had experienced the deep, soulful kiss of a real man. This would stay in my heart and soul until I returned to the memory of bliss from whence I’d come, and nothing, not even Allred Lee Chiles, could take it from me.

He gave me my bottle of pills. It had another girl’s name on it, Chelsea McTavish, and I asked him, “Who is she?”

He literally waved the bottle away. “Oh. No one. No one important.”

I knew right away. “Is she the reason you’re here? I figured you must’ve done something wrong in the eyes of your club to get sent on such an awful mission.”

“Ah…” He sucked on his empty beer bottle and set it down. “Yeah. You’re probably right. See? Like I said. I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

“But she must’ve been someone important for you to take such risks.”

“Hey.” Gideon looked utterly charming when he smiled like this, his eyes crinkling, his dimples deepening. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress.”

My heart fell. “Oh. So it’s just your nature, then, to try and ‘save’ me. Well, believe you me, I can save myself.”

He held my upper arms. He had to bend at the knees to look me in the eye. “It’s my nature when I see a woman suffering to try and help, yes. I understand if you don’t want to take me up on my offer. It’s a big change for you. But trust me when I say, worse things are coming, Mahalia. Your daughter might tolerate this sealing bullshit. Young kids are resilient. Look at Dingo. He’s been through the most sordid sort of dirt imaginable and he still laughs and finds joy in things. But I’m telling you now. There are worse things ahead with Allred Chiles.”

We seemed to share a connection then, but it was broken when the front door downstairs opened and slammed shut.

“Gideon!” Jonah’s voice rang out. “You wouldn’t believe what we talked about in class tonight. Quantum physics! Events occur on a timeline but not necessarily in order!”

His shoes thumped up the steps, but he came to an abrupt halt when he saw his boss gripping me.

“Oh.” His voice was suddenly small. “I didn’t mean to intrude. May I take your laptop to my room?”

“So Jonah has a room now,” I marveled.

He bowed. “Call me Dingo. That’s my MC handle. I’m only a Prospect, so Gideon might want me to polish his chrome…or do the dishes.” I saw he was wearing a new leather vest with a
PROSPECT
patch over the breast pocket. Gideon truly did like to save the downtrodden, and not just women.

I left then, because it was past time for me to have gone to St. George and come back with a load of donated clothing. Also, I’d seen that strange, hulking Vice President heading for the breezeway that led to the kitchen. I presumed he lived there too and didn’t want anything to do with him. It was only then that it hit me—I had no load of clothing in my truck. How stupid could I be?

I sat in the truck in the street below Gideon’s house and laughed maniacally. I texted him some more John Keats:

Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell

No God, no demon of severe response

Deigns to reply from heaven or from hell.

Then to my human heart I turn at once.

Heart! Thou and I are here sad and alone.

I say, why did I laugh? O mortal pain!

O Darkness! Darkness! Ever must I moan,

To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in vain.

I almost added, “Love, Mahalia” before I realized I truly had gone bonkers. What was I thinking? The stress of recent events was getting to my brain.

Or maybe it was the kiss.

GIDEON

“S
o Allred Chiles
owns this mine. You’re just the manager.”

I prickled at that “just.” Sax Saxonberg was a solid old associate of The Assassins of Youth from way back. He was currently the Prez of The Bare Bones MC out of Pure and Easy, Arizona. He was also a Ph.D. in geology, so he was technically a doctor. He was one brawny, hard-as-nails guy, and I’d asked him up to the mine to give me sage advice.

But now he was belittling my position. “I’m not
just
the manager. The other guy vanished, so it’s not like Chiles has got someone better in mind. And I’m the pipeline for the Russian ladies he’s saving up for doomsday.”

“Oh, is he one of those doomsday guys? We had a guy like that out of P and E, but we helped rid the town of him.”

“I presume he is. Why else would you want a truckload of MP5s and AKs? I’m doing a protection run later on today when it’s dark. That’s just the first shipment. He wants more.”

“Let’s walk on out and have a look.”

We left the office, which was basically just a double-wide trailer on the lip of the pit. The excavators looked like toys at the bottom of the massive angled walls, like some kind of inverse pyramid. It was an impressive operation, and about a dozen men moved around like post-apocalyptic warriors on the benches of the quarry.

I said, “We’ve found galena, sphalerite, stibnite, and hematite. The zinc sulfides are common in that berm by the haul road.”

Sax lowered the binoculars he’d been looking through. “Looks hugely profitable, from what I’ve seen. And you’ve got secondary oxidized cuprite and azurite.”

“Yeah. Beaverite was found in 1911 too.”

“Hey. You’ve got Tim Breakiron living with you.”

“Yeah.” I became wary. No one ever said “Tim Breakiron” in the same sentence as “outstanding,” “swell guy,” or “top of his class.” This was bound to be something bad. “I didn’t have much choice. Papa Ewey sent him out here with me to punish him for something. He’s pretty fucking useless. I can’t even send him into the pit. He wouldn’t go. It’s beneath him.”

“Hmph.” Sax squinted down at the open pit. “You do know he’s a fucking rapist, don’t you?”

“Papa Ewey said something about it.” I’d suspected something from the second Breakiron was found by those people on their way to Burning Man wandering around in the desert like some kind of castaway. But what did being a rapist have to do with that? “Is that why he was wandering in the desert? Was someone after him for raping their old lady?”

Sax snorted. “Old man. Let’s just say he was in on the Hellfire Nuts rape of one of the Bent Zealots.”

The Bent Zealots were a fairly new club started by a former Bare Boner who had come out of the closet. Most, but not all, of them were gay, something I’d never once suspected Breakiron of being. “Sexual assault is more of a violent crime, not a sexual one,” I said, remembering some shit from my Marine days.

“In Breakiron’s case I think it was both. The other guys responsible for the rape are gone now, but Breakiron got away, and Papa Ewey wasn’t thrilled, to say the fucking least. When I heard he sent Breakiron out here with you, I felt fucking sorry for you.”

Next, he was going to ask me what I did wrong to deserve such a fate. “So Breakiron gang-raped a Zealot? That’s bad news. The Zealots took over our old turf fair and square. Papa Ewey had to give it up, and we lost the whole Colorado River connection. I’ve always wondered if that’s why he’s pushing up here, trying to expand his power base up north, since we can’t go south. We’re not going to run into any other MC until we hit Provo.”

“Oh, definitely. There’s room to grow here, and it sure is gorgeous land. Sounds like he’s going to be keeping you here for awhile. Heard any news about starting a new chapter?”

That idea had crossed my mind. “Yeah. I’ve already got a Prospect. It’d mean keeping Breakiron though.”

“You never know. Maybe he’s served his time. Maybe you can send him back.”

The whole conversation with Sax was on my mind when I returned home. I just had a few loose ends to sew up before heading out to the Nevada border at Mesquite. That was where I’d meet the box truck hauling tools like wrenches and hammers allegedly bound for a hardware store in Cedar City. At least, that’s what the trucker’s bill of lading stated he was hauling. It was going to be avocados until we realized those might spoil and smell up the joint. Plus, I’d actually found a buyer for the tools, and he actually was in Cedar City. Chiles wanted some of them, too.

Mahalia flitted in and out of my brain while I mulled over all these business details. Kissing her had been one of the highlights of my admittedly selfish life. Sure, I knew I was giving her the thrill of a lifetime so it was good for my ego, too. But the fact that it was so spontaneous on my part told me a fuck of a lot. My feelings for her were so powerful my brain couldn’t override my body. My reflexes had a mind of their own, and I’d leaped on her like a panther.

She was soft and smelled of clean powder. So fragile and yet so sturdy underneath my hands. She was probably more shocked than I was, but she melted into it and kissed me back. I probably could have pushed her further, but did I really want to? Allred Lee Chiles was basically my boss out here, in this place I used to call a wasteland. Like when I had hooked up with Chelsea. Was it
really
the smartest thing in the world to be doing?

Could I help myself? Mahalia was a serene goddess with haunted eyes. Her face glowed with the sincerity of her beliefs. And she wasn’t one wave short of a shipwreck, like most of those Morbots I’d seen in and out of Cornucopia. She stood head and shoulders above them for her intelligence, beauty, and depth of her convictions. She would succeed without me, but…should she?

So I was sort of sidetracked when I went into the kitchen to get a bottle of water. Breakiron was there, leaning his stupid dirty ass up against the clean granite counter, eating directly out of my carton of Cherry Garcia. I sort of bumped into him as I went by, and he immediately slammed the carton down on the counter, the spoon twirling on the tiled floor.

I spun around. “What the fuck—”

He was on top of me.

He got me in a fucking headlock with his stupid brawny arms. He tried to do that movie thing where you put the heel of your hand against the guy’s forehead and press, allegedly breaking the guy’s neck.

What that moron didn’t count on was my self-defense skills. I hadn’t done two tours in Afghanistan for nothing, and I gave him a backward thrust kick to the kneecap. Yowling like the Cro-Magnon man he was, he staggered back with his arms pinwheeling in the air. This gave me an opening to form my hand into a rock-hard
U
shape and jam it up against his windpipe, slamming his tailbone sharply against the counter. I dug my fingers in while pinning his right wrist to the granite slab, but his palm slipped and slid in the ice cream, forcing us to lunge back over the counter like two fucking lovers.

Pure animal bloodlust overcame me when I saw his tongue start to protrude from his mouth, his eyeballs bulging. I held on and waited for that subtle change in skin coloring from white to blue.

I snarled, “You fucking gangbanger. You fucking had to rape another guy up the ass with the help of a bunch of Hellfire Aryans? That’s the fucking lowest of the low. I don’t want you in my fucking chapter, and I don’t even want you in my fucking club.”

But the sturdy Breakiron still had life in him. He had enough gumption to make a desperate elbow drive into my abdomen, sending me staggering back across the floor. I stepped on the stupid fucking spoon—I guess it was better than stepping on a fork—so I was completely off balance by the time I slammed into the fridge. Breakiron had the advantage now, landing a resounding uppercut to my jaw that had me seeing stars. A box of Dingo’s Froot Loops must’ve been knocked over on top of the fridge because the sugary rings sprayed all over my head harmlessly.

“And I’m not gonna be Veep in a new fucking chapter underneath
you
,” he roared goonishly.

All the wind had been knocked from me, so Breakiron started pummelling me in the gut. I had just the barest inkling of air left in my lungs to gasp, and I kneed him a straight bullseye to the balls.

This was a good time for my own uppercut to his nose, sending Breakiron lurching backward like a Frankenstein. I was gratified to see a fountain of blood spray from his nose. I was even sort of irked some of it splashed on the floor tiles.

I didn’t let up, taking the advantage I had and advancing on the moron. One, two, three, a right hook, then a left, then another right hook to his idiotic jaw, and he was crashing back on top of the flimsy breakfast table. The dishes that, of course, were still there from breakfast exploded as though a bomb had gone off under the table. A piece of a plate hit me in the forehead.

But I wasn’t going to give up. His face was already so swollen, broken wide open like a razzleberry pie, and his eyes looked like two cartoon
Xs
. But as soon as he started crawling up out of the breakage like the dickwad from the bottomless pit that he was, I was on him, chopping him in the throat with the side of my hand. He kept struggling to get up, and I kept chopping him down. I wasn’t going to let him stand until he cried uncle.