Nowhere But Here (Thunder Road #1)(56)

“I’m not one of you anymore.” Her voice cracks. “I’m no longer fourteen and I’m not a follower like all of you. I don’t listen to you and ask how high when you say jump.”

I turn my back to her and go for the truck. “Razor is the oldest of us. He’s the leader.”

“You’re wrong,” she calls out. “It was you we followed, but I stopped and Brandon’s going to stop and soon it’ll all stop.”

“You don’t make any sense.”

“I do. You know I do.”

She doesn’t and I continue walking so I won’t chew her out for breaking the heart of my best friend and for making her mother and brother feel guilty for welcoming the club’s help. I chased snakes out of the barn with her when we were seven. At eight, with Chevy’s help and a baseball bat, we scared away the monsters under her bed.

Me, her, Chevy and Razor—we were tight.

Were is a son-of-a-bitch word.

Chevy watches us from the front of the truck and Stone stands in the bed with his hands resting on the roof of the cab.

A twig snaps behind me and footsteps pad against the dirt. I swing into the driver’s side and Emily has the good sense to stay silent as Chevy opens the passenger side. He offers his hand to Violet to assist her up the two-foot lift.

Instead of accepting, she grasps the console and hauls herself up with a struggle. Chevy waits, but the stone set of his face tells me we’ll be throwing a few beers back soon in the interest of forgetting Violet’s name.

Once she’s in, Chevy closes the door and joins Stone in the bed of the truck. Two taps on the roof and I rev the engine.

With a fourteen-year-old in the back, I move along at thirty and the truck gently jostles from side to side. This time, Emily’s not crashing into me, but I’d prefer her soft body pressing against mine instead of the awkward, heavy silence.

The trees create a green canopy and we’re surrounded by dark shade. In the rearview mirror, my best friend stares out into nothingness.

“You could be nicer to him.” I typically would never toss around our business in front of a stranger, but Emily will be leaving in a few weeks and she won’t follow the conversation. This might be the only time Violet and I will be alone together.

“I could,” Violet says as she stares into the same void Chevy does. “But where would that get any of us?”

The club is a blessing and Violet treats it as a curse. This family, this brotherhood, it’s not the enemy. The enemy is the outside forces attempting to shake us up or take us down.

Those forces are people like Violet or people like Emily who watch a few TV shows and think we’re thugs. It’s law enforcement who believe anyone with a biker cut runs guns, drugs or women. Or worse, what threaten us are diseases like the one that ravages the woman I consider a grandmother. Diseases like cancer.

A burning in my throat causes me to shove those thoughts away.

The overhead canopy gives way and sunlight streams into the truck when I ease onto the long driveway that leads to the clubhouse then farther down to my home. I’m not sure who nicknamed it Thunder Road or why, but the name stuck. Violet lifts her hands into a ray of light bouncing off the side mirror. Something her dad used to do.

Losing someone you love, it’d be similar to losing your home. I blink. My home is everything. I suck in a breath to apologize to Violet when she speaks again.

“Run as fast as you can, Emily.” Violet eyes me in a way that suggests she knows more than she should. “From what I’ve heard, some members of your club are okay with homicide.”

Emily stiffens beside me and my fingers flex on the steering wheel. I should have let Violet rot in the summer sun. She’s lying, but Emily isn’t aware of that. “You know that’s not true.”

Violet’s been hanging with those full-of-themselves snob kids at school who think the Terror is the devil’s playground. Can’t stop haters from hating, but it hurts like hell when one of our own begins to spew the lies.

She rolls her eyes and when she pops her mouth open again, I cut her off. “How secure are you in your new friendships at school? What happens when they turn on you? Do you think we’ll protect you while keeping Stone safe? Are your new friends going to stick around forever or are they going to decide that once in the MC always in the MC?”

Emily’s head snaps in my direction because there’s no mistaking the warning in my tone. The truth is, I’ll protect Violet until the end, no matter how she disrespects me or Chevy or the club, but I have to hold some leverage over her to prevent her from saying anything to Emily that will cost me the chance to be a prospect.

Violet closes her mouth and we turn into Olivia’s. Today proved one thing: girls are nothing but trouble.

Emily

NOT SURE WHAT to do with myself when everyone else seems relaxed, I sit in the shade on the front porch swing while Oz, Chevy and Stone patch the tires. Lars lies on his side at my feet and does that fast, hot dog pant. His sticky breath hits my ankle. I’m beginning to think he’s been paid in doggie treats to annoy me.

The afternoon sun is blistering enough that perspiration forms in every crevice imaginable, and there’s a heaviness in the air that causes my lungs to have to work harder to draw in a breath. It’s humidity. We have it in Florida, but here the air is strangling.

Violet slips out of the house with two frosty glasses of lemonade, wearing a stern expression. She and Oz obviously have some issues, but the fact that they hate each other doesn’t mean anything to me in terms of a possible friendship.