Page 5 of Zeke

I come around the next curve, ready to challenge myself even more, but right as I’m about to crank my handlebars to the side, I see something out of the corner of my eye and slam on the brakes. I skid through the gravel, holding on to my bike as tightly as I can, but ready to throw myself off if I need to.

Miraculously, I manage to keep the bike upright as it slows to a stop in the middle of the rocks. I sit for a moment, panting as the adrenaline continues to surge through me, but I’m more worried about something besides myself.

Peeking out from a bush, where it was frightened back into by my little stunt, is a dog. The poor thing looks like it’s starving, and its fur has been matted to the point of having fist-sized clumps of dirt and hair behind its ears and on its belly. It tries to shake its head, but one of the clumps whacks it in the face and it whimpers.

“Hey, there, buddy,” I coo to the dog, which recoils from me as I get off my bike to approach. “Whoa… hey… it’s okay. I’m sorry I scared you.” I pull off my helmet and set it on my bike, then kneel in the gravel. “Come on. Come here.”

The dog steps forward, and I can see immediately that he has a limp, and he struggles to get to me, but eventually he does. I can’t tell for sure with how filthy he is, but he looks black with long fur. He’s definitely a mutt because his face doesn’t match with his body or coat.

I reach out and pet him, and he licks my hand once before coming and lying down at my feet.

I look back at my bike. There’s no way I can carry this poor guy on my bike, and there’s no way I’m leaving him here. Without a second thought, I pull out my phone and call Justice, who was still at the farmhouse when I left.

“Hey, Prez,” he says when he picks up the phone.

“Hey. I need your help,” I say briskly as I pet the dog, avoiding the obviously sore mattes.

“What’s wrong?” Justice asks, and I can hear his footsteps start up, likely as he rushes to his bike.

“I need you to bring the truck,” I tell him before giving him my location.

He arrives within about ten minutes, and the second he sees me, Justice pulls over to the side of the road.

“I’ll be damned,” he says with a small smile. “What do we have here?”

“I nearly crushed him with my bike,” I say, giving him another pet. I look at Justice. “I can’t leave him out here.”

“No,” he replies. “Let’s get him back to the farmhouse.”

I pick the dog up. He’s not as big as he looks with all those huge clumps of fur all over him, but he’s still pretty big. I stick him in the cab and pet him one more time. He licks my hand, and I close the cab door before going to my bike.

Well… I’d wanted something to take my mind off everything going wrong at home. Guess that something found me instead.

CHAPTERTHREE

Eli

The growl of a bike distracts me enough from my task that my head pops up to look out the window. I see Eden tearing ass out of the driveway and Zeke watching her go, hands on his head in frustration. I wonder if I should worry, but I also know that Eden is going to do what Eden wants to do, and if she wanted help, I’d be with her because she would have asked for it.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not concerned. She’s been a target for every sexist asshole club and biker since she took over the Kings, and going off on her own seems like a bad idea. But something clearly has her panties in a twist, and I know better than to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong if I don’t want it covered in other people’s shit.

Zeke has trouble with that. He feels things way too deeply, which usually leads him to be a little more reckless. He acts first, shoots first, fucks first, then asks questions later. If he asks them at all.

Whatever happened between them obviously had them both out of sorts. I didn’t like the idea of Eden going out on her own, and I liked it even less knowing that it was probably because she was upset. No one makes good choices when they’re mad, least of all Eden. She and Zeke have that in common. But I wasn’t about to get involved when it had nothing to do with me.

I go back to my task, using a miniature screwdriver to loosen the last screw holding the screen of my laptop in place. I gently pull it away from its casing and lay it on the cloth beside me, along with all the other parts I’d already taken off. It’s been running slow and doing odd things lately, so I figured I’d check on the motherboard and all the connectors to see if I can figure out the problem.

So far, nothing.

“Shit,” I murmur. Then I disconnect the motherboard from the CPU to release it so I can check it out. I gently use a pair of tweezers to tug at the connectors, freeing the pins from the slots they fit into. Once it’s fully disconnected, I pull it out and lay it beneath the large lamp I have on my desk, examining it for any burned-out bits or wires. While I hold it up to get a closer look, out of the corner of my eye, I see Justice’s truck pulling out of the driveway and briefly wonder where he’s going alone in the truck. It’s not that unusual for some of the guys to run out for supplies for the house, but it’s uncommon enough to be a question.

I pull out each of the RAM cards, wondering if a memory issue is the problem, but they seem to be fine. So do the graphics and sound card, so I pick up the tiny little CPU and begin to disassemble it.

I’m about halfway through checking on the borderline microscopic bits when I hear the telltale rumble of Eden’s bike. I always know which one is hers because she would never let someone else have a louder bike than her. If it’s loud enough to rattle my window and the screws on my desk, it’s her.

I look out the window and see her pulling back into the driveway with Justice hot on her tail.

Now, that’s odd enough to pull me away from my project.

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