Viper's Run (31 page)

“Shade?”  Her voice whimpered.
 

“Yes, baby.”
 

 Lily sucked in deep breaths as if her chest was going to explode.  Her hand wiped at the tears on her face.  “Is Winter safe?”
 

“Yes, Beth’s friends stopped and helped.  Winter is waiting with Beth.  They are both waiting to hear from us. You okay?” Shade asked worried about the blood he had found on her clothes.  His eyes searched her body finding a scratch with drying blood on the underside of her forearm.
 

Lily nodded her head still trying to catch her breath.  “Lily, breathe slowly,” Shade ordered her in a hard voice.
 

Lily jumped, but her breaths gradually slowed.  Shade took a step back giving her some room.
 

“Can we go now?” Lily said, her soft voice gaining strength.  Lily sidled pass Shade making sure her body didn’t come into contact with his.
 

“Yes.”  Shade backed away giving her enough room to slide by him.
 

Shade opened the bedroom door, letting Lily go ahead of him following her outside.  
 

Lily walked out the door coming to a sudden stop, finding the yard filled with The Last Riders.  Winter watched from the back of Viper’s bike as Beth jumped off of Razer’s bike running to her sister, nearly knocking her down.  Shade’s hand on Lily’s back held her steady.  Winter smiled.  After the sisters talked for a few minutes, they moved toward Razer’s bike.
 

 Shade got on his bike and started the motor.  Viper had Knox ride it up the old mountain road to be waiting on Shade.  Knox was now riding with Rider.  Viper fired his engine too, waiting.
 

 Shade rode his bike up next to Lily.
 

“Lily,” Winter could tell by her face she didn’t want to ride on that bike, she wanted the safety of her sisters arms.  She wasn’t ready to lose her comforting strength after the nightmare of the night.  Winter heard Beth ask Razer to call Mick to bring her car.
 

“Get on Lily, I’m taking you home.”  Shade’s firm voice had Lily moving reluctantly towards him. She climbed on behind him, holding his sides with her legs, and trembling hands taking his helmet.  As soon as it was on, Shade throttled his engine.
 

“Let’s go home, pretty girl.”  Viper pulled out in the lead with the other’s following down the winding road.  Winter wasn’t afraid of riding in the dark anymore.  With The Last Riders, she didn’t have anything left to fear.
 

Chapter 18
 

Winter nervously smoothed down her skirt.  Viper grasped her hand giving it a squeeze.
 

“Don’t look so nervous,” Viper said smoothly.
 

He wasn’t helping; Viper was part of the problem.  He was dressed in one of his suits looking like the cold-hearted bastard before her assault.  
 

        “That’s easy for you to say, they’re too scared of you to say anything nasty.”
 

“If they know what’s good for them, they won’t say anything nasty about you either,” Viper said in a threatening voice.
 

Ms. Richards came out of the closed doors of the School Board’s meeting.
 

“They are going to call us back in a few minutes.  They are going to open the meeting to the public. I wish you would have taken my advice and waited for your hearing.”
           Her lawyer didn’t sound very happy with her decision.  Winter could understand her apprehension, looking around the hallway at the public ready to fill the meeting room.  All the women of The Last Rider’s were present.  That morning as she was leaving she found everyone waiting for her in the kitchen, including Viper who had disappeared while she was in the shower.  
 

All the women dressed in their regular clothes brought Winter to a standstill. They had informed her that they were going with her to the meeting.  Of course afterward they planned on dragging her to the local tattoo shop for her long overdue tat.
 

 Viper had told her, the day after the deputy’s attack, that all eight original members had given her their vote for trying to save Lily’s life.  Winter had managed to avoid the tattoo until now.  The women were determined that it was time that she made it official, she was a Last Rider.  Winter gave in with a smile knowing they were right.
 

Ms. Richards, on the other hand, was not as moved as she was by their show of support, asking snidely if she wanted her job. Winter had remained quiet, sucking up the haughty woman’s comment.   When Viper would have let the woman have it, Winter merely shook her head pleadingly, just wanting to get the ordeal over.
 

The doors to the school board meeting opened, giving the public entrance to the rest of the meeting.  As they were about to go through the door, the outside door opened and the biker bitches came through the door.  Winter’s face paled at their appearance.  They were wearing their tight blue jeans and leather jackets with biker boot heels.  Winter seriously wanted to melt in a puddle.  Beth, seeing them come through the doorway, hurried forward hoping to prevent them from coming into the meeting.
 

“Sex Piston, did you need something?” Beth asked quickly, hoping to get them out of the building before they were seen.
 

“Nope, when you texted me this morning saying you couldn’t keep your hair appointment and why, we decided to come too.  If it was important enough for The Last Riders women to be here, then we needed to be here.  The bitch needs all the support she can get.”  Sex Piston nodded her head at Winter.
 

“It’s all right, the room is already almost full.  I don’t want you to go through the bother. Why don’t we meet in the diner in an hour?”  Winter came forward, also trying to divert them.
 

“Girl, there’s nothing more important than standing up for another bitch,” Crazy Bitch butted in, her breasts barely squeezed into her tight t-shirt.
 

T.A., Killyama, and another one that they introduced as Fat Louise ignored her, moving on towards the meeting room.  Ms. Richards, striding out of the meeting room, came to a full stop when she saw who Winter was talking too.
 

“What are you doing here?” She asked sternly.
 

Winter didn’t understand her question until she realized she was talking to Sex Piston.
 

“Giving our bitch moral support.  Why you here, Diamond?” Sex Piston answered
 

“I have told you not to call me that,” she hissed.
 

“It’s your fucking name bitch,” Sex Piston hissed back.
 

Her haughty lawyer lost her cool.  “Don’t talk like trash.”
 

“I’m gonna tell mom you called me trash,” Sex Piston told her.
 

“You do and if she calls me, I’ll smack you silly,” Ms. Richards warned.
 

Winter’s mouth dropped open when it dawned on her they were sisters and Sex Piston was obviously the younger of the two.  The resemblance was there.  Both had the same shade of red hair and hazel eyes.  Sex Piston was thinner than her sister who was heavier, but just as curvy.
 

Ms. Richards inhaled sharply before she gathered her professional persona around her like a cloak.  
 

“If you lose this case, it won’t be my fault.  You cannot flaunt your lifestyle and expect to keep a job in this community,” she told Winter.  “I can’t perform miracles.  If you really want to support her, go home Sex Piston and take your whore friends with you.”  She started to leave, but turned back to Sex Piston for her final insult.
 

“If mom calls me, I’ll tell her to fuck off, so it’s up to you if you want to start another fight between us.” She concluded the conversation without a word of goodbye to her sister.
 

Sex Piston stood there and Winter could see that her sister’s words had hurt.
 

Winter stepped forward and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
 

“Let’s go in Sex Piston.” She owed these women her life.  She wasn’t going to insult them by asking them to leave.
 

Once everyone was seated, the meeting was called to order.  The meeting started with discussions of the budget.  Ben Stiles read the next item on the docket, which was to terminate Winter’s employment.  Ms. Richards stood to her feet.  When they gave her permission to speak, she gave clear and concise reasons why Winter should not be fired, stating her professional record and the contributions she made to the school system as a whole.  Not just the high school, she often volunteered performing duties beyond her job description. Several of her students had shown up also to support her,
giving their testimonials of what she had been able to accomplish for their future.  Then her fellow colleagues were asked to speak.
 

“They hire her back, I’m going to go back and get my diploma,” Crazy Bitch whispered loudly to Sex Piston.
 

“You’re too old,” Sex Piston told her, not trying to whisper.
 

“I’m not too old, I’m just twenty-five.”
 

“That’s too old, those snooty bitches,” Sex Piston nodded toward the high school teachers that had came to support Winter, “would be afraid you’d fuck the boys and turn the girls into bitches.”
 

“Don’t want no young dick,” Crazy Bitch refuted, not denying the possibly about recruiting the girls.
 

“You’d fuck young stud dick,” Killyama broke into the conversation.
 

“Don’t fuck young dick, wouldn’t fuck them stuck-up bastards behind that big desk either,” Crazy Bitch argued back.
 

Winter bit her knuckle as they talked, having long since regretted inviting the biker bitches to stay.
 

“Two of them are women,” Sex Piston said popping her gum.
 

“Which ones?” Both Crazy Bitch and Killyama scrutinized the school board members.
 

The board stopped further testimonials, calling for a vote while several members glared at the women.  Actually there were three female board members Winter counted.
 

Winter jumped to her feet. “Before you judge my future employment, I would like a chance to speak.”
 

“Go ahead.”  Ben Stiles motioned her towards the podium.
 

“First, I would like to thank the School Board for taking time in their busy schedule to give me a fair opportunity to explain.” Winter described her attack and her recovery at The Last Riders. “I will not deny I am in a committed relationship with Mr. James, who is the president of The Last Riders, but in all fairness, the board must admit it is not in my contract that I couldn’t live out of wedlock with a male.  Furthermore, I feel that it is hypocritical to hold it against me for living with Loker James when two members of the school board share a similar situation.”  
 

“Loker James has also become an important member of our community and will, in the near future, be one of Treepoint’s largest employers.  Next week, they will start hiring for over fifty positions that will also pay a very generous salary with full benefits.”
 

The school board perked up immediately, new business meant collecting more in taxes.
 

“If I cannot find employment in Treepoint, we have decided to move to Ohio, where Mr. James has an existing factory and I will be able to find a job in the field of education which I love.  Mr. James has no ties to this town.  It was his brother who was murdered by one of the very members who used to seat on this board.  Both of us would like to see his brother’s dream of helping our financially deprived community find opportunities and wouldn’t want this board’s decision to effect the community by denying them much needed employment.”
 

“Ms. Simmons, your job has already been filled by your vice-principal, Jeff Morgan.” Ben Stiles informed her with a frown. If the townspeople found out they didn’t get high paying jobs because of the school board, firing Winter could backfire on them.  There wasn’t a person in the meeting room who didn’t know that, in their economically depressed area, money came before morality.
 

“I don’t want my job back at the high school.  I want to be the principal at Riverview since Mr. Woods has long been overdue for retirement.  The extremely high rate of drop outs exhibits that he is unable to understand his student’s needs.  I feel, in all truthfulness, that I can make a change for the better at the alternative school.  My records will show that Treepoint High School had the lowest drop out rates in twenty years during my years as a principal.”
 

The school board members stared back and forth among each other.  Winter knew that Mr. Woods was heartily disliked. The only reason that he was still employed was because no one wanted the job.  It was a punishment to be sent there. Mr. Woods also had an affair with the gym teacher and had been caught in the equipment room.
 

“The School Board will return to a closed session and take a vote.  We will notify Ms. Richards within the next forty-eight hours of our decision.”
 

Winter sat back down in her chair.
 

“Is that three days?” Crazy Bitch asked.
 

“Yes,” answered T.A.
 

“Which one do you think Bliss is?”  Sex Piston asked, getting to her feet.
 

“I bet it’s the sweet thing at the end of the row,” Killyama’s threatening voice lowered as they moved away.
 

Winter turned, glancing sideways.  Bliss was sitting next to Beth. Winter had a feeling their appearance at today’s meeting wasn’t as altruistic as they had pretended.