“Not better for me,” I argued.
“It’s better for me,” she said.
I couldn’t argue with that, so I didn’t stop her as she turned and left the room.
* * *
“Time to run the gauntlet, huh?” my Uncle Nix said, handing me a beer that night.
The drive to Portland had been easy. Driving one of the trucks wasn’t my preference, but considering the fact that it was pissing rain, I wasn’t going to complain. Sucked that it gave me so much time to think, though. My mind raced between the way Lily had looked at me in the clubhouse, and how I was going to get to Sokolov without anyone noticing I was at his hotel. I hated to say it, but I thought of Lily a fuck of a lot more.
“I volunteered,” I told Nix, nodding my thanks for the beer.
“Why?”
I watched my uncle as he dropped onto the couch next to me, trying to figure out how to explain it to him. He was different than us—not in a bad way—he just was. He didn’t live life by our rules, didn’t spend his life looking over his shoulder or figuring out new ways to stay off the government’s radar. He was a good guy, and definitely one I’d trust guarding my back, but he didn’t have the instincts or drive that the rest of us had.
“If it wasn’t me, it’d be someone else.”
“I’d rather it was someone else,” he replied seriously.
“Yeah, yeah,” I joked, grinning. Sometimes the guy reminded me of my mom, which was weird considering that they hadn’t even met until they were adults.
“You got everything you need?” he asked.
“Probably better, the less you know.”
He nodded and turned up the TV, ending the conversation. It was as easy as that.
I spent the next day hanging out in Nix’s apartment while he was at work, and driving across town to check out the hotel Sokolov was staying at. It was a shit hole, in a nasty part of town, but the place was pretty much deserted in the middle of the day. I knew the man’s room number, and tried to check it out as I drove past, but there really wasn’t anything to see. All the rooms looked the same, shitty doors that would be easy to kick down, and old as hell windows.
I parked a few blocks over and threw the hood of my sweatshirt over my head, thankful for the rain. Umbrellas were rarely used by anyone except out-of-towners, so my hood would go completely noticed. If you were an Oregonian, you pulled up your hood, tilted your head toward the ground, and dealt with the fucking weather.
I could hear a few people in their rooms, TV’s blaring and a couple fighting, which made me a little nervous. Thin walls were a pain in the ass when you were trying to get shit done without noticing.
I clocked Sokolov coming out of his room around lunchtime, and the fucker strolled down the street to a diner like he didn’t have a care in the world. The man was still as fat and bald as the last time I’d seen a glimpse of him, but the years in prison hadn’t treated him well. The guy’s skin was gray. Not just pale, actually fucking gray, like a corpse.
As soon as he was in the restaurant, I went back to his room and jiggled the handle until it opened. The locks on those rooms were a fucking joke. They probably hadn’t been changed since the seventies.
The room stank like some nasty aftershave, and as soon as I’d done what I needed to do, I got the fuck out of there.
I spent the rest of the day watching cable at my uncle’s and eating most of the leftovers he had in the fridge. The guy never cooked for himself, so the fridge was always filled with takeout from the week. He was anal about throwing shit out, though, so I knew none of the food was too old. He was the only person I’d ever met that wrote the dates on top of the boxes, so he knew how old the food was. Smart, but also a little pathetic. Uncle Nix was obviously going through a dry spell, because every guy he’d ever been with could cook, and there was nothing homemade in the fridge.
I fell asleep from boredom around four and didn’t wake up again until Nix was pushing through the front door that night with a bag of takeout in one arm and his ratty old briefcase in another. I raised my eyebrows in surprise as I glanced at my phone, realizing that it was almost eight o’clock.
“Work late?” I asked, sitting up. Shit, my eyes were blurry from sleep and I felt groggy as hell. I hated that feeling.
“Yeah,” he said, dropping the food on the coffee table. “New assistant at work fucked a bunch of shit up that I had to fix before I left.”
“Is she hot?”
“He’s not, no. The kid’s young and an idiot, and if he does this shit again, he’s going to be unemployed, too.”
I laughed and took the fork he was handing me, shaking my head at the beer he offered. I wasn’t having anything to drink when I needed to be sharp in just a few hours.
“Thai,” he said motioning to the bag of food.
We dug in and I almost groaned. Nix knew the best places in Portland to get food. He always found the hole-in-the-wall restaurants where you worried you’d get food poisoning, but decided it would probably be worth it.
“I’m gonna load up your bike in the morning,” I said, my mouth full. “Grease is gonna take a look at it.”
“You’re not?”
“Nah, I’m in the middle of a project.” I shook my head. “Grease has some time, so he’ll work on it, and one of his boys’ll drive it back up at the end of the week.”
“That’s some good service,” he said with a sigh, leaning back in his seat.
“Family, and all that.” I grinned. We both knew there was no way I’d be carting his bike around if I hadn’t needed the cover. For longer than I could remember, he’d been bringing it to Eugene himself whenever it needed work. It gave him a reason to visit with my grandparents and see the rest of the family.
The next few hours flew by and around eleven o’clock, I got up and went to the bathroom to get ready. I threw on a set of clothes that I wouldn’t mind losing and pulled a hat down low on my head, leaving my wallet on the bathroom counter as I left.
Identification was only good for the cops, and they had my fingerprints on file anyway.
“Leo,” Uncle Nix called out as I reached the front door. “I’m setting the alarm.”
My eyes widened in surprise.
“Setting the alarm in about two minutes. When you get back, come through my bedroom window. It’ll be open. That alarm’s not gonna show anyone going through the front door until seven tomorrow morning.”
I nodded and left, thankful that even though I was hours away from my club brothers, I still had family watching my back.
The hotel was a lot more crowded that night, but there wasn’t anyone outside beyond a couple hookers that were smoking as they left a John’s room. They didn’t notice me as I walked up the stairs across the breezeway from them, and I used their chatter to hide the sound of my footsteps as I made my way to the window in Sokolov’s room that I’d left cracked open earlier in the day.
Slowly, so fucking slowly, I pushed it open, listening to the TV he had going. The curtains were thick, and I didn’t have a problem as I made an opening large enough to fit through. Pulling my pistol from the holster under my hoodie, I stepped one foot inside and quickly brushed the curtains back. I was inside in one fluid movement, the curtains and window closed behind me before anyone could see my shadow from outside.
Sokolov was lying on the bed with his back to the door, like a fucking idiot, and he didn’t move even as the window made a small snick as it latched behind me. I figured that was probably a good thing, since he hadn’t started yelling the place down yet, but I got really fucking confused when he still hadn’t moved as I stepped through the room.
It wasn’t until I’d seen his face that I cursed.
Dude was already dead.
I couldn’t see any wounds. He didn’t have a single scratch on his bare torso or arms, but the man was definitely dead. His eyes were wide and unseeing, and his mouth was slack.
I huffed in disbelief.
Someone hadn’t gotten there before me, the du
de had just fucking died.
I shook my head and looked around the room, but everything was the same as the last time I’d left it. His open suitcase was on the chipped old table, and there were two pairs of shoes sitting by the door instead of the one pair that had been there earlier. It looked like he’d gotten back, stripped off his clothes and folded them neatly into his bag, and got into bed.
I checked out the window, making sure the parking lot was still deserted, put my pistol away, and walked out the door like I had every right to be in that room.
Jesus.
I laughed as I got to the truck a few minutes later. If I didn’t know better, I’d think my Gramps had come up and done the job before I could get to the guy—but I knew that wasn’t his style. Gramps worked with knives. If Sokolov had died from anything but natural causes, it would have been poison, and that shit was a woman’s weapon.
I climbed in my uncle’s window a few minutes later, and froze just inside.
“You took less time than I thought,” he said nonchalantly, setting his gun back on his nightstand.
“You don’t even want to know,” I huffed, laughing a little.
“Nope, I don’t,” he replied. “Want me to help you load up the bike in the morning?”
“Nah, I got it.” I strode to his bedroom door and paused in the opening. “Thanks, Uncle Nix.”
“No problem, kid,” he said with a nod. “Hit the light, would ya?”
I reached out and flipped the switch and closed the door behind me, realizing as I left that his eyes hadn’t even searched my clothes for evidence or my face for some kind of guilt. He’d treated me like I’d been out partying and he’d covered for me, nothing more, nothing less.
* * *
“I’m back,” I yelled to Grease after I’d backed the truck up to one of the garage bays.
“Church!” he ordered, lifting his chin at me. “Ray, come get this bike off the truck, yeah?”
The guys followed me inside the clubhouse, and we all quickly piled into the small room and sat at our places at the table. No one spoke until my dad came in behind us and sat at the head, slamming the gavel down once.
“How’d it go?” he asked, looking me over.
“Fucker was dead,” I said, shaking my head.
“That was the general idea,” Casper said.
“No, he was dead before I fuckin’ got there,” I clarified.
“Say what?” Grease asked, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table.
“Went during the day, saw him walkin’ to a restaurant down the street. Went inside his room to check shit out, and everything was cool. I went back last night, and the motherfucker was dead already.”
“Someone get to him before us?” my dad asked.
“No, dude was just dead. No wounds. Died in his ratty ass hotel bed.” I lifted my hands in confusion. Even after laying awake most of the night, and hours of going over it in my head as I drove, I still couldn’t figure out how the fuck it had happened.
Casper coughed, and then suddenly, every man around the table was roaring with laughter.
“No shit?” Grease gasped.
“No shit,” I replied, a small grin pulling at the corners of my mouth.
My smile got wider as they continued to laugh. “And I did good, too,” I said over the noise. “I was like fuckin’ James Bond.”
That made them laugh even harder.
“In and out, easy.”
“That’s what she said,” Cam muttered.
“Alright,” my dad yelled, lifting his hand for silence. “Alright, enough.” He shook his head and wiped a hand down his beard. “Everyone back to work. I gotta go tell Poet this shit.”
I stayed in my seat as everyone left the room, slapping my shoulders and giving me shit for my botched first kill. Technically, it wasn’t my first, but pre-meditated was different than shooting back at someone trying to take you out.
“You good?” my dad asked, laying his hand on the top of my head.
“Are you kidding?” I asked, scoffing. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Right.” His lips twitched, and he slapped the back of my head lightly as he kept walking. “Take the day off, anyway.”
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling as the clubhouse grew quiet through the open door behind me. Now that I was done doing what I needed to, my thoughts went right back to Lily.
Chapter 10
Lily
“What the fuck, Lily?” Rose hissed as she slammed open my bedroom door. “I waited for you for like half-an-hour!”
“Oh, shit,” I said, sitting up in bed. “Sorry, I skipped last period and came home early.”
“You could have told me.” She threw her backpack on the bed and huffed in frustration. “How the hell did you get home?”
“Brent drove me.”
“Say what? Brent, the guy who stood you up at prom last year?”
“He was leaving anyway, so I caught a ride.” I shrugged. I didn’t have to explain myself. I had a few classes with Brent, and he was actually a pretty nice guy. We hadn’t ever talked about the prom disaster, but he really didn’t seem like the type to stand someone up without a good reason. If he was choosing not to tell me why, I wasn’t going to push it. It was obviously private.
“You’re being crazy,” Rose said, looking at me in confusion. “This is like the fourth time you’ve skipped this month.”
“Oh, whatever,” I mumbled. “You skip all the time.”
“Yeah, but you don’t.”
“I’ve already gotten in to most of the schools I applied for,” I said, pushing her bag off my bed with my feet. “And it’s not like I’m going to fail any classes. I’m so far ahead, I could stop going altogether and still pass.”
“You’ve bailed on me a bunch of times,” Rose said darkly, pushing at my feet. “What the fuck?”
“Are you pissed that I skipped today, or are you just feeling left out because I don’t follow you around anymore?” I asked.
Rose jerked like I’d slapped her. “You’re an asshole,” she said tightly. “Fuck you, Lily.”
She quickly picked up her bag and threw it over her shoulder, not even bothering to look at me again before she left my room.
I just sat there like an idiot, resentment not letting me open my mouth to apologize. I was so frustrated that I was pretty much treating everyone around me like crap, and I couldn’t seem to help it.
After years of relying on everyone so much, I wanted to do shit on my own. I wanted to be by myself once in a while. I didn’t want to tell people where I was every second of every day. I didn’t want Rose to wait half-an-hour after school because she just assumed that I’d be riding home with her.
No one asked me what I wanted. No one thought about how I might want to do my own thing. Everyone just acted like I was the same Lily, and I wasn’t. I didn’t need someone to lead me around anymore. I didn’t need help the way I used to, and no one seemed to notice. They just kept helping and hovering and treating me like a little kid.
I growled in frustration as I got up and slammed my bedroom door. No one was home to hear it anyway, thank God.
I’d been pushing to get my license for the past month, and I still didn’t have a straight answer from my parents. It was like they couldn’t deal with the fact that I wanted to be independent, so instead of answering me when I asked, they talked in circles about it until I finally gave up. That had happened at least four times, and I was so goddamn sick of it.
I’d had no control over my life for so long, and it was as if it was all bearing down on me at once. I wanted to do all of these things that other people my age were doing, but I couldn’t, and it just underlined the fact that I had no control. None. Zero.
I needed to be able to get myself around. I wanted to drive myself to school and to friends’ houses. I mean, I didn’t really have any friends besides Rose, but maybe if I had a car, I could make some. I was so tired of being the blind girl that coul
d see. I just wanted to be Lily, and I just wanted to be able to do normal teenage shit that everyone else got to do so I could distract myself from Leo.
It all came down to Leo, and I knew it and hated it.
His girlfriend’s name was Ashley. She was blonde, gorgeous, and nice. I fucking hated that she was nice. I hated that everyone seemed to like her, even his mom. I hated that he seemed to come up in conversation, even though I did my best to avoid any mention of him.
More and more every day, I was beginning to remind myself of Cecilia, and I hated that, too.
I was just so frustrated. It went beyond the normal level of frustration that I assumed everyone felt once in a while. No, this was a frustration that colored every single thing I did. I couldn’t sit and play with my baby sister or let my mom do my hair—which she loved—without wanting to scream.
Every day, I felt more and more alone. Like I was in the middle of this thick gray fog all by myself, and I had no idea how to find my way out.
I shut off my light and crawled in between my sheets.
An hour later my mom and Charlie got home, and within minutes my mom was flipping on the light as she came into my room.
“Get up,” she ordered, pulling the blankets off me.
“What’s wrong?” I stretched and sat up slowly, irritating the hell out of her, if her expression was anything to go by.
“Nothing’s wrong.” She threw her hands up in the air. “But even though you seem to think the world revolves around you, it’s time you started helping out around here.”
“Fine,” I mumbled, getting to my feet. “What do you need?”
“Clean the bathrooms,” she said flatly. “Then you can vacuum the stairs and do the kitchen floor.”
“Is that it?”
“For now.” She turned to walk away.
“Are you mad at me?” I asked, throwing on a sweatshirt. “Or just in a bad mood?”
“Seriously, Lil?” Mom asked, turning back around. “You’ve been moping around for weeks, and I have no idea what you said to Rose, but you’re going to have to grovel like hell to get back into her good graces.”
“Maybe I don’t want to get back into her good graces.” I tried to scoot around my mom in the doorway, but she stopped me with a hand on my arm.