“Why, yes, I suppose, but I obviously don’t know what that means in this club.”
“Getting a property patch is pretty serious.” A drunk old woman had overheard us. She waddled over and lifted up her shirt, showing me, she had four men’s’ names tattooed down her navel. “Don’t worry,” she said, reacting to the grimace on my face. She pointed them out one by one. “Buckwheat died back in the 70’s. Gunner, he ran off with younger tail. Killjoy, he made me a grandma when he knocked up my daughter. But, ol’ Reaper, he’s a keeper.” She glanced over to the tattoo artist, and he blew her a kiss.
Cowboy said, “Old Jenn, get lost.”
Three sheets to the wind, she wasn’t going anywhere. “Yep, pretty serious business if you ask me. With the Gods, that brand holds the same meaning as marriage. For the woman, it’s until death til you part.” Her fingers crossed her neck like a knife. “For the man, it’s until they find another hole for their dick.”
“Marriage?” I asked Cowboy.
“Not like actual marriage.”
I huffed at that, not sure why I was so offended in the first place. But I was.
“Halley, it’s another first. Another step. If you’re going to be mine in the eyes of my brother’s, in your brother’s eyes, I brand you. It’s that simple.”
“And if I don’t want to.”
“You’re not mine.” He shrugged, acting like he didn’t care one way or the other. But I knew he did.
I asked what I wasn’t too sure on. “What about the baby?”
“What about him?”
At a loss for words, I didn’t know how to ask what I was feeling. Cowboy wanted me to be his but hadn’t said aword about the baby. If I were his, did that mean my baby was his, too. Suddenly, I worried about the little guy. I couldn’t think about taking this next step with Cowboy until I heard he was okay. In a whirl of emotions, I told Cowboy as much.
“Call and check,” he calmly suggested.
Taking out the phone Scar had given me and programmed with names, I called Jessy Bell. To my relief, she said the baby had eaten and was doing just fine. Before I could tuck the phone away, it rang in my hands. It was Scar. He was short and to the point. Said that Emery would be calling us. There’d been some trouble. Cowboy and I needed to pick her up and head back to the compound. Next Emery called me, asking where to find us.
In a panic, I relayed all of this to Cowboy. He called off street names, and I repeated them. We ran out of the bar, to Cowboy’s bike. Riding around a slew of folks all dressed up or painted up like skeletons the same as Emery, looking for Emery was maddening. We called her back, but no one answered so we rode some more. There were more skinny, long haired, blonde women in the crowd than I cared to count. We thought we’d found her multiple times only to find out we were mistaken.
Cowboy stopped and tried to get a hold of Scar again, too. He couldn’t.
I figured they were in danger.
Cowboy called Jessy again, and she said Emery was with her.
Thank goodness. She didn’t know where Scar was though.
“Stay put. We’re coming.”
Cowboy turned to me. “We’ll hurry and figure this out and then head back out.”
My cheeks burned in anticipation, hearing we’d make it to the hotel after all.
We sped to the clubhouse to find out what happened. Jumping off Cowboy’s motorcycle before it even stopped, I ran to my house to check on the baby only to find it empty. Jessy, Teeth and the baby were gone. It only took a minute to realize all the baby’s stuff was gone too. Everything.
Our night out being cut short had sucked, but at the time, the baby being in danger was the last thing on mymind. I’d thought of everything but, because I’d talked to Jessy Bell, and Cowboy just talked to her, too.
I just never dreamed.
No, I had. I’d had a bad feeling all night. If I just hadn’t left the baby, I could’ve avoided this nightmare.
Tears gushed down my face. There was no way to stop them. I wilted into the chair and let the tears flow. Soon Cowboy and Scar ran in, talking about Emery being missing. And confirming the worst. What I already knew. There was no trace of my baby.
Scar talked about Teeth and Jessy Bell having showed up to the club around the same time a few years ago. About Teeth having a strange loyalty to the whore. Whore? I thought Cowboy said she’d be good to watch my baby?
“They must be with the SOS,” Cowboy concluded.
