Page 58 of Rebel

“You can do what you like. We’re not going to risk getting more charges thrown at us for anything,” I said.

The young man scrambled to the back door and began fiddling with the locked handle before realizing that he couldn’t escape. Turning to us he stammered, “I don’t know why they keep arresting me,” he said in a panicked voice. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Storm smiled at him. “Tell that to the judge, son.”

The younger man flung himself back against the wall of the van and kept sitting on the floor instead of the long bench seats.

We quickly turned our attention away from the new guy and back onto our current situation. “Do you think Richard is gonna be okay?”

Celt replied, “Of course he’s not gonna be okay, are ye a feckin’ eejit? He almost overdosed and he’ll be facing time inside.”

Storm sighed, “I think there’s more going on with that boy than meets the eye. Once we get free of our legal entanglements, we’ll circle back around and figure out why.”

Chapter 21

Lacey

Iwoke up to someone ringing my doorbell aggressively, which quickly turned into a frenzied hammering. As I stumbled downstairs, I could hear Eric, the prospect who drove me home, yelling for me to open the door. After landing badly on the last step, I took a minute to catch my breath and shake myself awake before walking across the living room and pulling the door open.

Eric was standing there looking all kinds of upset. “What’s wrong? Did someone try to break in again?”

He made a slashing motion with one hand. “No. It’s nothing like that. Storm, Celt, and Rebel were arrested last night.”

“What? Rebel was arrested?” Shoving the door open wider, I told him, “Come on in and I’ll make us some coffee. I want you to tell me everything.”

I padded to the kitchen with Eric right behind me. When I gestured at the long snack bar separating the kitchen from the living room, he climbed onto a stool. I started to make coffee but told him, “Tell me what happened now—I’m too nervous to wait until the coffee’s done.”

He leaned onto the bar with both arms and launched into an explanation. “I got a call from Hacker just now. He said that Storm, Celt, and Rebel were out looking for your cousin, Richard. I don’t know if Rebel told you? But the cops found his fingerprints here, so they had an arrest warrant out for him.”

My eyes shot wide open, my cousin Richie was a strange one. When we were kids we were close, but we drifted apart. It always seemed as though he had a dark side, and it got worse after my uncle died. “Richie’s a longtime drug addict, I can’t believe he’d do something like that to my mom and dad. But I guess if he needed money…” I paused as I thought over what I knew of the break-ins. “But nothing was taken from here or the office, it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Anyway, Hacker says they found him at a crack house. He appeared to be overdosing, so Storm stuffed the guy’s drug paraphernalia into his jacket pocket, and they were carrying him to get medical treatment. Then they got caught up in a multi-task force police raid that had been planned for a while.”

My hands flew to my mouth, “They got arrested because of me,” I whispered, feeling a tremendous amount of guilt. Rebel had tried to help me, and this is what happened.

Eric’s expression turned sympathetic. “No, they got arrested because of your cousin and their own decision to go lookin’ for him.”

“They were trying to help me,” I said more assertively. “That makes it my fault.”

He frowned at me. “If I dropped my wallet and you accidentally got hit by a car picking it up for me, would that make your injuries my fault?”

Without even thinking about it, I said, “No. Of course not.”

He responded confidently, “I rest my case. You are in no way responsible for their arrest.”

Yeah, he got me on that one. “We’re going to bail them out, right?”

“Yeah, whenever the judge sets a bail hearing. We’ve got our club attorney looking into it.”

“What can we do in the meantime?” I was desperate to do something.

Eric thought it over for a minute before responding, “Maybe we could visit your cousin at the hospital and talk to him about the break-ins?”

“Was he not arrested too?” I asked.

“Yeah, but he’s receiving medical treatment before they officially charge him,” Eric said as he munched on some dry cereal from an open packet. I was going to tell him to get a bowl, but figured given the situation I needed to sort out my priorities.

“Are we allowed to interfere with a police case that way?”

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