I’m going to kill time until I can get me and Michael safely out of this mess.
And if that includes hurting Cillian or Spark, then so be it.
Thomas may be beyond my help, but I’ll protect Michael as Mom asked, no matter the cost.
7
SPARK
People are running. Beaten and bloodied, they arrive hour after hour. I can’t stop the flow. They’re weeping over losses they’ve suffered as they run the gauntlet through militant forces to get to Kabul Airport.
A young woman, her clothes stained with blood spatter, holds her young child tightly to her chest, begging me for help. Help I can’t give her.
Voices are fever pitched. I try to zone out. As a member of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, my job is to provide safe passage and security. I’m struck by how quickly all the years of military training we’ve provided the Afghans is collapsing. But then, aren’t we just as bad? Hanging out in a country for over a decade, then pulling out when it suits us because of some mid-term election polls. These people stand no chance. The Taliban are going nowhere. And the sense of powerlessness burns stronger than any acid.
I watch as civilians pour through the airport’s Abbey Gate, which I’ve been told to control. They have no idea where to go; they aren’t listening to my instructions. They simply run for freedom. Some cling onto the wheels of planes trying to take off. I’ll never get over the sound of their screams when they fall to their deaths as the planes take off.
It’s like trying to quell a mosh pit. There’s a rancid drain running alongside the boundary, and the scent makes me gag. Some people are wading through it to avoid the huge crowds clamoring at the gates. The sun batters us. Tempers fray, but I endeavor to breathe through it all.
Suddenly, there’s an excruciating boom, and amid the wave of heat and flame, I’m on the ground. My ears are ringing, noises sound muffled, but I see Joey’s down, his listless eyes open and facing me. I know without reaching for the pulse on his neck that’s he’s dead.
When I crawl to my feet, the world comes back into focus. Screams from the injured deafen me. I crawl to Draymond, who gurgles while blood spurts from his neck on every heartbeat. There’s panic in his eyes as he holds his hand to the wound, blood trickling between his fingers. His breath comes fast, his chest rising and falling.
“Help . . . me . . .” he says.
And I bolt up in bed, my body drenched in sweat as my heart pounds. I swallow deeply and try to focus on the walls of my room in the clubhouse. A poster of a hot chick with her tits out leaning over a bike. A shelf with my smokes, a lighter, and three bottles of Patrón. I try to remember why I’ve ended up with three bottles. It’s trivial. Fucking pointless in the big scheme of things. But it’s a distraction as I find my feet, while I bring myself mentally back to this room in Asbury Park, instead of leaving parts of me on the ground in Kabul.
One bottle I bought, one was a gift from my last birthday from Vex, and one I won in a bet with Bates, the club’s enforcer.
Three.
“Fuck,” I mutter, as the worst of the adrenaline rush passes. A dull thud pounds against my skull. Daylight creeps in around the edges of the current.
My phone tells me it’s a little after nine in the morning.
I look back at my sheets, and there’s a huge sweat stain. My hair is damp around my neck. I take a breath. Then another. Draymond fights me. He usually does. He’s the last to let go when the dreams strike. Even now, as I’m aware it was only a dream, I can hear those last couple of strained breaths as he mutters his wife’s name, Aniyah.
“Fucking move,” I mutter to myself, and I stand and begin to strip the sheets. Once they are in a pile on the ground, I step into the shower and let the hot water ease the rest of me.
But I can’t shake the wave of panic that follows me around like a bad smell. Draymond and twelve other troops plus a hundred and seventy Afghans died in that suicide blast. I should have seen the suicide bomber. If I’d paid attention.
And since then, my inability to keep people safe has obsessed me. I’m like Clark fucking Kent around Kryptonite. Unable to do the one thing I’ve always prided myself on. Our president was taken out on the road. Gwen and Clutch nearly bought it at a ride out to a picnic spot. Then there was the shootout on the road. And Iris . . .
I see those pretty eyes rimmed with tears and . . .
“Fuck,” I yell, dragging the word out until I’m breathless and have to suck in air.
I need to get out on my bike. Go do something today. The Iron Outlaws is my full-time job; I’m lucky that way. While I’m drying off, my phone rings.
“What’s up, Prez?” I say, perching the phone beneath my ear so I can wrap a towel around my waist.
“Need you to do a cash run.”
“On it. Anyone around?” We never do cash runs solo. It’s a recipe for getting robbed.
“I can go with you if we go in the next hour.”
“Okay, gimme fifteen.”
Once I’m dressed, I throw a cup of coffee down my throat.
“Morning,” I say to King when I hit his office.
He looks up from his laptop. “Thank fuck. Can’t look at this finance file for a second longer. Let’s go.”
There’s a backpack on the table. “How much?” I ask.
King grabs his keys and slings the bag over his shoulder. “Fifty.”
Fifty thousand cash to be laundered through our strip club. “We hitting the balance?”
“Yeah. Bit rich this month but annualized, yeah.” Clubs must strike a balance. We get a lot of illegal cash, but we can’t just spend it. Some gets paid out to members, piles of cash in brown envelopes; some goes on the club’s actual accounts as dues and membership and shit. The majority gets cleaned through our businesses. Niro runs a tattoo studio, Vex runs a home security business, and Saint oversees the strip club, which is a fucking odd combo for our preacher man.
“I’ve been hearing bullshit about some clubs trying to go legit. They’ll miss the money.”
King laughs as we climb on our bikes. “Yeah. And they’re forgetting, if you’ve been in a certain business in that area for a while and then stop, some other asshole’s going to creep onto your turf and start offering what you were offering. Before you know it, you’ve got a turf war.”
“I like the way you’ve got it levelled out, Prez.”
King tips his chin, and we set off.
I ride just behind him to his left. Wanna be in the middle of the road so I can see the long game. I study people, take in vehicle details, look up on rooftops.
We drive past Iris’s house. She’s put a planter up against the new railing I fixed the other day. No plants in it yet though.
When we get to the club, we enter through the back and I watch as King deposits the cash in the safe. Once done, we shift to the bar and find Saint sitting by the stage. I flop down in the red leather seat next to him. My dick stirs as I watch a pretty young thing grind against the pole.
Last night, I fucked one of the girls in the clubhouse. . .let her think I was really into it, when the whole time I imagined it was Iris.
“College student. Wants a quick way to make cash with minimum impact to her studies,” he says.