Page 68 of Truck Stop Tempest

I stopped dead, letting my thoughts roll over in my head. I fought back. Dear God, I fought back.

I shook my head, then continued my march up the hill.

The Brotherhood no longer had power over me. I fought back.

Despite my chagrin, a smile tugged at my lips.

Despite my ire, I couldn’t help but smile. Dane had mad skills in the torture and maim department.

“No more. No more,” the man begged through bloodied lips.

“From the beginning, motherfucker.” Dane Reynolds stuck the tip of his knife into dangerdawg69, AKA Matt Child’s crotch, piercing the wet denim. “I want names.”

Matt had ceased to fight against his binds hours ago. Still, he’d been a hard nut to crack, despite having lost one ear, three teeth, and a shit ton of blood. Toothpicks under the fingernails had finally cracked his armor. Everyone had their breaking point.

“I told you. I didn’t get a name. Just an envelope stuffed with cash and a number to call when I had her.”

“Why this girl?” Dane growled.

Matt’s head hung loosely on his shoulders, rolling from side to side, fighting to stay conscious. “She could’ve been any girl as long as she fit the description.”

“And what would that be?”

“Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Pale skin.”

He could’ve been describing Tuuli. I didn’t pay the connection any mind until he said, “And she had to have started her menstrual cycle.”

Tuuli’s words came back to me. In The Brotherhood’s eyes, the day a girl starts her period, she becomes a woman. She’s fair game. My guts twisted.

I stepped closer to the carnage. “Take off his shirt.”

Dane turned his dark eyes to me. “The fuck you say?”

The guy’s hair was longer than the last time I’d seen him. His beard was longer, his scowl meaner. He had to be packing at least thirty more pounds of ass-kicking meat on his bones. Dane Reynolds was one scary motherfucker. I kinda liked the guy. I also enjoyed ruffling his feathers.

“I said, take off his fuckin’ shirt.”

The knife that had been poised to pierce Matt’s crotch sliced through the air to land at my throat. “Listen, Freddie Krueger. Just because I didn’t kill you and your pretty boy cousin last time we met doesn’t mean we’re partners. You’re on my turf. I give the goddamn orders.”

Dane wouldn’t cut me. He had to save face in front of his brothers. Still, I was pissed that I had to spend another day in Montana dealing with Slayer shit when I could’ve been naked in bed with my girl, so I continued to push his buttons. “Fine. Mr. Reynolds, sir. I’m pretty sure if you were to…oh, I don’t know, maybe take off that fat bastard’s shirt, you might find some interesting ink. If my suspicions are correct, and they usually are, his skin art will tell you who this fuckin’ piece of shit is taking his orders from, and why he’s hunting for a specific type of girl.”

Dane’s nostrils flared. He turned his back to me, ripped open Matt’s denim button-up, then used the knife to cut through his wife beater. Sure enough, from the collarbone down, he was covered in black and red ink. Hate symbols. Prison tats. Celtic crosses. Swastikas.

Even with Dane’s back to me, I registered the change in his breathing, the shift in his stance, the coiling of his muscles.

Pissed-off biker rage charged the air.

“Goddamnmotherfuckingwhitecocksuckingpieceofshit.” His blade sunk through Matt’s thigh like a hot knife through butter.

The growled scream barely registered before Dane fisted the guy’s hair, yanking his head forward to expose his back, revealing one ugly-ass depiction of a laughing skull set over a jagged swastika. The Brothers of Banshee.

Dane’s entire body stiffened before he yelled, “You swallow that racist fucking come when they’ve got their pink dicks shoved down your throat? You scream that white power propaganda bullshit while you fuck each other’s hairy white asses?” He twisted the weapon.

Over the screams, I heard Dane promise to make Matt choke on Slayer cock before they put him to ground.

I honestly didn’t know how the guy was still conscious.

Dane continued. “Now, tell me, what are you and your boyfriends doing with these girls?”

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