Page 31 of Thick

I felt a hand on my arm. Someone pulled me to my feet. Our raid and half-assed rescue wasn’t like the scenes I’d written about. The intensity and emotion were unexplainable. The smell of week-old piss, stolen innocence, and unimaginable fear hung in the air, all but choking me from taking each breath.

I turned toward the kitchen.

Covered in blood, and not wearing a shirt, Crip stood over a man in the hallway with his pistol pointed down at his torso.

The barrel of the pistol jumped repeatedly. The thwack, thwack, thwack from the silencer preceded the smell of cordite that filled the hallway.

The sweat-stained shirt of the man at his feet transformed to crimson.

“Come on, Boss,” Pee Bee said. “I told ‘em help is on the way. We need to roll.”

“You guys go ahead. I’m not leaving these girls alone until I know they’re safe,” Crip growled. “Pick me up at the ball diamond. As soon as that cop pulls up, I’ll slip out the back.”

“You’re covered in blood, and you gave up your shirt, Boss. You’ll get picked up by the cops for sure,” Pee Bee said.

“Not leaving the girls, Peeb.” Crip glanced at each of us. Blood ran along his arm and dripped from the tips of the fingers on his left hand. “Get gone.”

We all stood and stared.

Crip pulled up his mask. His face was peppered with gray and black whiskers, and his eyes were filled with concern. “I’m not asking, I’m telling,” he said. “Now, beat feet.”

Pee Bee pulled off his shirt and handed it to Crip.

Pee Bee’s shoulder was covered in blood. Crip nodded toward it. “You get hit?”

“Just once.”

“You alright?”

Pee Bee motioned toward the door at the end of the hallway. “Better off than those kids in that room.”

“I appreciate each one of you fellas,” Crip said with a nod. “Now get gone. I’ll see you at the ball diamond.”

The entire event hadn’t lasted five minutes. It wasn’t like kicking the shit out of someone in a barfight, recovering a stolen bike from a rival club, or settling a dispute at a weekend rally.

It was different.

So much so that I wondered if I’d ever be the same.

Chapter Thirteen

Bobbi

After receiving an email from Amazon that book number six in the biker series had been released, I eagerly clicked the link. Frustrated to find that the book had been out for almost a week, I eagerly downloaded it and took my Kindle to work. My day was then spent anxiously waiting for my lunch break to arrive. Now that it was finally time, I sat in the observation station with an apple in one hand and my Kindle in the other.

“Must be a great book if you can’t wait until you get home to read it,” Perry said. “Never had one that I was that worried about reading.”

I seriously doubted he’d ever read a book. I glanced up, gave him a quick glare, and then went back to reading. Two chapters in, and it was so gripping that I couldn’t put it down. It followed the life of an ancillary character from book four. He was proving to be more interesting than any of the previous characters from the series.

His name was Becker Wallace, and he went by the road name Cricket. It’s been said that crickets are a sign of good luck, and Cricket was the club’s good luck charm.

He’d been riding with the MC for sixteen years, and was only 34 years old. Set in his old-school ways, he was a man well beyond his years in persona, actions, and state of mind.

He wore short unkempt hair, a full beard, and smoked a pipe – which he carried in his front pocket. Despite living in southern California, he always wore a flannel shirt. He didn’t have a television, carried a flip phone, and didn’t use the internet. He didn’t send text messages or have Facebook, and believed social media was the beginning of the downfall of the entire nation. If you wanted Cricket, you had to call him or somehow find him. If you weren’t one of his MC brethren, you couldn’t call him, because he wouldn’t give out his phone number to anyone. He only had it because the club demanded it in their bylaws.

He despised anyone who made online purchases for anything they could otherwise buy in person, and wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. He didn’t carry a gun, a club, or a knife. He did, however carry a straight razor in his back pocket, and made it know if anyone ever aggravated him enough to cause him to use it, that they’d end up being cut three ways.

Long. Deep. And, forever.