Bad to the Bones(34)

I had imagined there was an unwritten hands-off policy regarding her. She’d been a mere tot when I’d dragged her up to Bihari. So yeah, I raised hell. Not only for that, but for what I feared they might do to her as a result of her pregnancy. But this was Knoxie I was talking to—the biker who had picked me up off that mesa, put me in his cage, and breathed life back into me. I had to come up with something from the depths of my soul—or at least from the tide pools of my brain. I heard myself saying, “I guess I got a bit violent about it because I was in shock.”

Knoxie finally breathed. “Whew.” He looked at a spot past my shoulder, dazed. “That’s heavy, Bellamy. So as far as you know, she’s still up there, pregnant.”

Ugh. Just the thought of it turned my stomach, and I realized I hadn’t eaten in a long-ass time. “Right.”

He looked me in the eyes. “It’ll be all right. I’ll fix it, don’t worry.”

I remembered what Maddy had said—to ask Knoxie if he’d gone up to Bihari. “Did you see her yesterday?”

“No. But I know where she works—at some sort of composting facility. Do you know where that is?”

I gave Knoxie the lowdown on the composting facility. They must have just reassigned her to that shit detail. Before that, she’d worked in the cafeteria serving food, not nearly as horrible of an assignment.

Knoxie’s cell chimed then. Looking at it, he held a forefinger up to me to indicate he had to take it. He must have been talking to a higher-up in The Bare Bones, because he said, “What? Seriously? Yeah, I do remember seeing a cage with government plates broken down off Sycamore Creek on my way back down yesterday. Couple people surrounded by some of those paramilitary goons, those daimyo. Wasn’t exactly in the frame of mind to help, riding a stolen rice rocket. Yeah? Mm-hm. Right. Right. You’re f*cking kidding me. Montana would be the logical person to get over to the hospital and interrogate them. I mean, ask them a few questions. Right now I’m at Ford’s house, so I can get Maddy on the case, too. Any luck on that Stuart Grillo business? Church at ten? Uh-huh. Right. I’ll be there polishing your hubcaps. Later.”

I knew it was wrong to eavesdrop on club business, so all I said was, “Got to go?”

“Yeah.” I was glad when he took me by the upper arms and shook me a little, as though scolding a kid. “I’ll be by later to get you settled at The Citadel. You’re my responsibility now.”

“Okay…Flip.”

He laughed completely at that, throwing his head back. It was nice to see his muscular, full throat bristling with six o’clock shadow stubble, as though he’d been too busy lately to shave. “How’d you know my—oh, never mind. You’re going to be the f*cking death of me. So damned confusing and frustrating.” He flung one arm around my shoulders and steered me toward the sliding door.

I didn’t like the way he treated me like a kid sister. I already knew I wanted to be so much more.





CHAPTER TEN




KNOXIE


As a new Prospect, The Bare Bones didn’t allow Knoxie to attend church, held in a room off the old airplane hangar in the Citadel. What really tweaked him was that Ronald McDonald clown who had banged his wife, Kneecap, had become a fully patched member of The Bare Bones. That f*cktard was allowed to waddle into the chapel, but not Knoxie, who had been a hang-around for decades. He had first inked Ford back when Ford was barely legal—although Ford had also worn the Filthy Few patch since age seventeen.

Of course it had been an instant, unanimous vote that Knoxie be allowed to prospect for the club. His putting down that Presención driver had just been the icing on the cake, only now they had to add an additional “Filthy Few” patch onto his new cut. Knoxie felt at age forty, he was too old to be a Prospect, but he would never want them to alter the rules to suit him. It was decided that Lytton Driving Hawk would be his sponsor, Lytton having recently gone through the trial by fire of starting from scratch at Prospect level. Now one of Knoxie’s many duties was to make sure the oil in Lytton’s Softail was always changed, every inch free of dust. Knoxie was new blood, and he’d be forced to do everything from fetch beers and sodas to stand by the tent flaps of fully patched members during rallies.

Worse, his fellow Prospect was Bobo Segrist, the guy who had been frying Knoxie’s potatoes and smoking his ribs for years now. It was rumored a guy named Mergatroyd wanted to patch over from the Flagstaff charter. Mergatroyd. These were the guys he’d be stuck hanging with, keeping an eye on their brothers’ bikes in a rough neighborhood while they dined inside, or cleaning the clubhouse.

Mergatroyd. Jesus Roosevelt Christ.

While his brothers attended church, Knoxie scoped out a suitable room for Bellamy. The Citadel was a former army hangar with two wings, one for club business and one for Illuminati Trucking business. The club business side was often filled with sweetbutts draping themselves here and there, and Knoxie found one he’d been friendly with in the past to help.

“A new girl?” snapped Hilary, posing like Angelina Jolie with one booted foot stuck out. She must have been one size smaller than his daughter Sage, and he was glad he’d never f*cked her. “We don’t need any new girls. We’re full up.”

“She’s not a new Bone Licker,” said Knoxie, peering into a room made dark by a blanket being tacked over the window. “She’s under our protection.”