Page 75 of Biker's Conquest: Property of Rage

“DRIVE! DRIVE! DRIVE!”

Fuck.The dude is Chinese or something, maybe forty, maybe seventy. Not a college kid though. And he definitely understands what the fuck is going on right now, but we’re in for a rough fucking ride. The light turns green. He shoots through, straight past a few Boston P.D. cars and down Allston Street.We need to get out of the city.

“You know how to get to 495?!” I yell at him, running through small shit hole towns in Massachusetts where nobody would expect to find me while I yell at this motherfucker.

“Please don’t kill me!”

Chinese with aBostonaccent. Is that common?

“Answer the goddamn question!”

Dr. Yancey shrinks back into the seat. Silent except for a whimper when the Chinese guy takes a sharp right turn towards the on-ramp.

”Yes! Don’t shoot me, man!”

“I need you to take us up to Lawrence. I’ll pay for gas once you get there and give you an extra two-grand not to go to the cops. Does that sound like a deal?”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Listen, I’m on the run from some dudes who would have killed me and turned that woman into minced meat. I know how it looks but… I’m not a bad dude.”

I toss a stack of bills onto the passenger seat. Dr. Yancey gasps.

Yeah.No need to put this guy in the ground. It’s a risk but… I’m really not a monster. I couldn’t even stand hunting when I was a kid — I never took to murder the way Wyatt or Owen did. I’m fucked up in entirely different ways.

“Okay dude. Two-grand, and a tank of gas, and I’ll shut my mouth. But if I find out you raped her or some shit, I’ll go to the cops.”

“He didn’t,” Dr. Yancey says. I glance back at her.Fuck,her voice is still so sexy, even if this conversation is completely screwed up. Once I calm the fuck down and get us out of here, I’ll have time to be gentle with her. For now, I just glare at her, hoping to put an end to her talking before she says anything that could screw shit up for either of us.

The dude plays NPR all the way up to Lawrence. He’s clearly anxious out of his mind, even if I took the gun off him. Dr. Yancey doesn’t look any better. Her terror seeps out of her. She could look on the bright side — she has greater insight into my life than she would have ever received with all those stupid discussions about feelings we had ahead of us.

I don’t have a fucking clue what we have ahead of us.

I pickthe first motel I see on the highway exit signs for Lawrence and the Chinese dude — who is apparently from Korea, which is nothing like China — takes us to the motel parking lot. His name isKevin.Doesn’t sound like a ChineseorKorean name to me. Whatever the fuck I say ends up getting Kevin and Dr. Yancey to both glare at me.

We have nothing but the clothes on our backs and the shit in my pockets. Enough to get us through the night.I have to call mom…

When I get us a room,her body language shifts.

“What’s your name? I’m not calling you doctor all night.”

Her body language changes at my use of the phrase “all night”, but she answers.

“Amanda.”

Our getaway cost me most of the cash on hand I carryaround for emergencies… And who the fuck knows what I’ll have to pay for tomorrow. She keeps trying to make eye contact with the jackass behind the front desk, but most of Lawrence is Puerto Rican — a group of people you can trust to mind their damn business.

I hold her hand, mostly to make sure she doesn’t follow some crazy instinct and try to run. Her fingers dig into my palms, but I grip her tightly. No escape. We walk down the halls together to the staircase and then to our room on the third floor. Once I drag her into the room and shut the door behind us, she scurries to the other side of the room and holds her hands out.

“Ethan, you need to stop right now so we can have a discussion of boundaries moving forward and how we can contact the police.”

“Therapy’s over,” I growl at her. “I need to call my family and both of us need to lay low.”

She drops that professional “nice chick” face and it takes everything in my power not to smile at the revelation that this therapist lady is a human being – and not just a robot designed to force your feelings out of you.

“I can always scream.”

“Scream all you want. I’ll stuff my dirty sock in your mouth and lock you in the closet.”

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