Page 16 of Raiden

Like we have a fight on our hands.I’ve got your back and you’ll have mine.

I like to pretend I’m not afraid of anything, but the truth is, I am. Often. I’ve learned to live through it, breathe through it, and listen to it. Ignoring your instincts is the dumbest thing you can do. We have a fight or flight mode built into us for a reason.

We sit down in a black so complete there aren’t even stars. I don’t know how that’s possible given that I never saw it cloud over. Maybe it’s too early yet. Maybe they’re coming. Our backs aren’t touching, but they’re close. The night chills off fast and I’m thankful for my leather jacket. Raiden only has a t-shirt onunder his cut, but he doesn’t shiver. I’m close enough that I’d feel it if he did.

The bugs are relentless, the mosquitoes homing in on our warmth.

“Motherfucker,” Raiden curses, with a smack that sounds like it’s palm to cheek.

“Tell me something,” I whisper after a few minutes. At this rate, the night is going to be six million years long.

“Hmmm?” He grunts.

“Have you killed anyone?”

He snorts. “Went away for drug charges. Not murder.”

“Gray’s never gone away. You said that he’s done what he had to.”

I get another gruff growl. “Is this confession time? Do you have something weighing heavily on your mind, but you want me to go first so we can compare tragedies?”

“Asshole,” I sass, without heat. “Fine. I’ll go first. I’ve killed three people. What you said about hard drugs is true. It turns men into animals.” The dark night closes around me, more comforting than suffocating. “I was new to the biker world and naïve, or dumb.”

He stiffens. It’s probably a good thing I can’t see his face, but he offers that same dry sarcasm, bordering on humor. “What’s changed?”

“You’re such a prick. Do you want to hear the story or not?”

“Not really, but the night’s going to be long.”

Disarming. In the face of hard memories and even harder emotions, sometimes what a person needs is to be heard and not judged and that’s what Raiden is offering.

“The club’s main supplier was this seedy gang that Zale was doing business with. Sharing territory. My dad knew it wouldn’t work out, and I think his hope was that the other gangs in the area would cause trouble and they’d kill each other and leave it all for us. He’s smart like that. He knows when he doesn’t have to even lift a hand.”

“My guess is not so smart. Someone lifted a hand. You killed three men.”

He’s good at keeping his voice neutral. I can’t tell what he thinks about his new forced wife being a murderer.

“I knew there was going to be a meeting. I overheard my dad talking about it at a club cookout. I waited and watched for hours that night and then I followed discreetly in a rental car so they wouldn’t know it was me. The city’s big and they were riding down the freeway. There was plenty of other traffic. They eventually went to an industrial area. It was hard sticking so far behind and not losing them, but driving around until I found the horde of chrome and metal parked in front of an old warehouse wasn’t that difficult. I found a door open and snuck inside. My dad wasn’t there, but his VP was and five other men. It was a lot of talking and it turned ugly. I don’t know if they were just being careful or if it was an ambush, but the warehouse was full of their men.”

“That’s a bad situation to be in. You didn’t have to be a part of it. You could have left before anyone saw you.”

“That would have been extremely cowardly.”

“Or smart.”

“I didn’t leave.”

“I guessed that.”

The memories are hard, graphic, and painful. I can still taste the smoke and blood of that night, but Raiden’s dry tone, disembodied by the night, the heat of him at my back, is like cleansing water on the stains.

“I had two guns with me and extra clips. I emptied everything I had and since it was so dark, no one knew where the bullets were coming from. Eventually, it was just the club’s enforcer, Machete left. He literally carried two. Nine rounds only gets you so far, even with extra ammo. I couldn’t just leave him there to get slaughtered. I got to him, he tossed me his other machete. We cut our way out.”

“Are you kidding me?” His normally deep, rough voice sounds detached.

“I wish I was. It was a bloodbath. The kind of gore you see in movies. I wasn’t thinking. One minute I was scared and then the next, I was just… this machine, killing right alongside Machete, with a machete. I say three, because that’s how many I know I killed for sure. I don’t know how many I shot before that. It was impossible to tell what bullets hit who. The rest that I had maimed, the club brothers who got called in we got out, finished off. I remember the floor was straight blood. I was covered from head to foot. It was the worst horror scene you could imagine.”

The silence of the night closes in on me. Tears sting my eyes. I’ve never spoken about that night. Machete filled everyone in and when my dad asked me for more, he could tell he wasn’t going to get it. Some people lock trauma so deep insidethemselves, they can’t ever dig it out. It was too soon then, but it’s been years now.

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