Rebel
August
“Hey, Bobby, think we could close up early tonight?” There were only a handful of people in the bar he owned and I worked at, and it looked like most were getting ready to leave. Before he could answer, a group of guys came in, every one of them already drunk off their asses.
“Fuck,” Bobby muttered under his breath as we stood side by side, washing glasses. “Not these sons of bitches.”
“Who are they? I’ve never seen them in here before.”
“ABT. Every last one of ’em.”
“Aryan Brotherhood?” I whispered.
Bobby turned his back to them and kept his voice real low. “Keep quiet and watch yourself, Rebel. I’m gonna go give Mac a call.” Mac was Bobby’s brother and the Sheriff of Hays County.
I finished washing the glasses and then hollered at the guys who had just come in. “What can I get you, fellers?”
“Hell, I’ll take some sugar if you’re offerin’. Whaddaya think, Possum? You want some sugar too? I don’t mind sharin’.”
The man closest to me slowly raised his head. When our eyes met, the glass I’d been rinsing crashed to the floor and shattered.
I’d never forget those eyes. They were black as coal with hardly any white around the pupils. The last time I saw them was the night my mama died. I’d made a promise in the days that followed her death that if I ever saw them again, I’d kill the man they belonged to. Possum. That’s what the other guy had called him, and it sure as fuck fit.
Before I could respond, Bobby came around from the back and walked to the end of the bar where I knew he kept a gun. “We’re fixin’ to close, boys.”
“We can get ’em one for the road, Bobby.” I looked directly at the black-eyed man. “What’s your poison, Possum?” I didn’t look at Bobby; I kept my gaze fixed on the bastard who’d killed my mama.
2
Edge
I had three more nights in Texas, and then I had to fly to Boston—a place I had zero interest in going, for a reason I didn’t give a shit about.
If it were for work, that would be different. If there was a mission to be had, I was the first to raise my hand, more so now that I’d left the rules and regulations of MI5 behind and was a partner in the Invincible Intelligence and Security Group.
A partner’s wife had first called us the Invincibles, and it took. Yeah, it sounded cocky as shit, but we all were, so what the hell?
I’d tried to get my best friend, Miles “Grinder” Stone, to come out with me tonight, but he was in what I referred to as his dark place.
The man had PTSD from a deployment with ISAF—the International Security Assistance Force—a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan. I admired the guy enough to respect the times when he wasn’t interested in socializing.
I could’ve invited Cortez “Rile” DeLéon, the eldest of the four partners, but that would be almost as bad as going out with my secondary school headmaster.
It wasn’t as though I wouldn’t know anyone at the Long Branch tonight or any other night. Most of the hands who worked on the King-Alexander Ranch, where I lived, frequented the place.
I pulled into the parking lot, surprised at how few cars were in it, and found a spot not too far from the entrance.
Climbing out of the ranch’s 1957 Ford pickup I’d borrowed, I slammed the creaky door closed. The locks had a tendency to stick, so I didn’t bother securing it. If any wanker tried to make off with it, this truck, like the rest of those at the ranch, was equipped with a tracking device that would allow the engine to be shut off remotely.
I hadn’t done it yet, but if I was ever given the chance to, I’d press the kill button as soon as the driver hit a decent speed. For the Ford, that would be about seventy since the old thing wouldn’t go much faster. I chuckled, thinking about the look on the bastard’s face when the truck flipped end to end on one of the area’s dirt roads.
It was hotter than Hades tonight with close to one hundred percent humidity, but I still wore my pearl snap
shirt and pressed Cinch jeans. Anything else would get me tossed out of the Branch—as we affectionately called it—on my arse.
Walking past a newer edition pickup, I averted my eyes when I saw the front bench seat was occupied by a couple shagging. I was almost to the back bumper when I realized the sounds the woman was making weren’t those of pleasure.
I spun around, wrenched open the door, grabbed the asshole by the shirt collar, and pulled him away from the woman I could now tell was trying to fight the guy off.
“What the fuck?” the guy slurred.
I threw him up against the truck next to his, and as I did, I got a whiff of alcohol.
Holding the drunk by the neck, I turned around to tell the woman to get dressed and get the hell out of there, but she was ahead of me. Instead of getting out of the passenger side, she climbed out of the driver’s side, walked straight over to the wanker, and slammed her knee into his crotch. I cringed, thinking about how much that had to hurt.
When she threw a punch into the guy’s gut, I thought I may have fallen in love at first sight.
I heard a car pull up and looked over my shoulder, surprised to see the sheriff. “Hey, Mac. Good timing.”
“What’s goin’ on here?”
“The fucker tried to rape me,” said the woman, wiping what looked like blood from a cut on her face.
I still had the guy by the back of the collar. I let him go, and he fell to the ground, hands on his crotch.
“I got this, Edge. You go on and get outta here.”
“Thanks, mate. I owe you one.” In my line of work, the last thing I could afford was to be a witness in a rape trial.
I walked over to the old Ford and was about to climb in when I heard a soft voice ask me to wait. When I turned around, the feisty woman who’d slammed her would-be rapist in the balls with her knee, got on her tiptoes and planted a kiss right on my lips. It wasn’t a chaste one either. “Thanks, Edge,” she said as she walked away.
I shook my head and climbed into the truck, wishing I could stay, but knowing I couldn’t.
Two nights later, wanting to grab a pint before I left town for God knew how long, I went back to the Branch. It was harder to find a parking spot tonight; it looked like the place was packed.