Page 7 of Summer's Edge

I didn’t wasteany time. As soon as the van started moving, I fished the key from my pocket, nearly fumbling it twice, then undid my cuffs. Then I wrapped the chain around my right palm and waited.

Be readyis not much by way of instructions. But I am always ready. For anything. Anytime. It’s how I’ve lived my life since I was eighteen. No regrets. No filter. No job too small or too tasteless.

We’re on the highway, I can tell by the smoothness of the ride. No way the Devils will attack on the highway. But then the van brakes hard, making me slide down the sleek metal bench I’m sitting on and thump against the wall separating the cab and the prisoner area.

One of the guards up front is shouting. Before I can try to make out what’s being said, a loudthunksilences him.

Then the back door opens and three of my brothers are standing there, bandanas covering their faces, their eyes serious and alert. I recognize them all. Hunter, Chance, and Ruin, my best friend from before.

“What the fuck took you so long?” I ask and can’t help smiling widely as I leap from the back.

“We had to make sure you’d survive getting shot first,” Ruin says. “Otherwise, it’d be a wasted trip.”

I give him a huge bear hug.

“No time for chit-chat,” Chance says. “Let’s move.”

I clap both him and Hunter on the shoulder anyway and I can’t help smiling. I’m free. Now all I need is my cut, my bike, and a very long ride. And a lady or three. But I don’t think I’ll sleep indoors for at least a week.

There’s smoke all around the van, but I don’t smell fire. They probably used one of those fancy smoke bombs we make so much money selling these days, among other fancy weapons.

“This way,” Chance says and sprints away from the van and into the smoke.

The others do the same and I follow. Seconds later, I’m in the back of yet another van, this one with a grimy window that I can’t see much out of. But it’s still the best window I’ve ever looked through. I can’t stop grinning, that’s how happy I am to be free.

We’re speeding down the highway and Ruin is in the van with me, grinning too.

He points at a black plastic bag in the corner of the van. “That’s some clothes for you. And your cut. Change, then we can toss that prison uniform out the window.”

“Can’t wait,” I say and take out my cut first and look at it for a few moments. This cut represents so many things for me, not the least of which is finally finding a place to belong after my whole world was destroyed, and freedom.

“How’d you guys break me out, anyway?” I ask as I start changing out of my prison uniform. “That must’ve been something.”

“Oh, it was. You should’ve been there.”

He laughs and I do too.

“But seriously, we arranged for you to be taken to the hospital for a check-up,” he says. “That stuff was down to others, so I have no idea how it was done.”

“Maybe Melody played a part?”

She’s the girl Ruin and I talked out of jumping off the Golden Gate bridge what seems like a million years ago. She became a Devil’s Nightmare MC club girl after we joined, but she’s a full-on Doctor of Medicine now, an ER doc. I have her to thank that I’m still alive now. Her and the MC’s Doc.

Ruin shakes his head. “I doubt it. She’s living it up in LA… doesn’t even have time to text much.”

I understand the slight bitterness in his voice. Melody up and decided she needed to distance herself from the MC a couple of months ago. So, she took the job at the LA General Hospital. I get it, she doesn’t want to be just a club girl forever, but I still kinda expected all of us to grow old together after everything we’ve been through.

“Anyway, I have no idea how that part was done,” Ruin takes up the story again. “But twelve of us were in various vans and pickups waiting for the prison transport van to bring you out.”

I’m done changing and stuff the drab grey prison uniform in the black bag. He pauses in his account of my prison break to open the van’s back window. Watching the uniform fly out is one of the best things I’ve ever seen. It looks kinda like a bird—one of those I didn’t get to see at all in the last few weeks.

“Wasn’t it a little risky stopping the van right here on the highway?” I ask, looking out over its four lanes, enjoying the breeze on my face.

He chuckles. “Not the way we did it. First, we surrounded the van, then we forced it to stop. We dropped about ten smoke bombs after that. Overkill, but they’re so much fun to use. Then the prison guard that gave you the handcuff key… the one on our side… took out the other one and the rest you saw.”

“You’re right, I do wish I was there for all of it,” I say and laugh.

We’ve exited the highway and are heading up one of the hills Cali is littered with. “We’re not taking the highway all the way back to Pleasantville?”

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