Road Tripped (Satan's Devils MC Utah #1) - Manda Mellett Page 0,34

keep going to the door, focusing on the lock. While at first, the sixty minutes seemed useful, they soon began to drag. How dare they cage me like a fucking animal.

I’m on edge and want to pace, but my leg’s feeling easier after a good night’s sleep, and unless I want to lean heavily on the cane, keeping my weight off of it will keep my muscles from being strained. The acknowledgement of my limitations do not add positively to my mood. I do some exercises that the physical therapist had shown me. Each day there are small improvements. Today, I’ll leave my stick in the room and try to do without it.

My stomach rumbles.

I’ve already searched what hospitality there is on offer, but it’s not much. The bar contains drinks but no food. So not only am I locked away, it seems they intend to starve me. Nah, don’t be stupid. There are far easier ways of killing me.

I’ve never felt claustrophobic before, never really had need to. But that must be what I’m feeling now as part of my brain insists they’ve forgotten all about me. This room may resemble a hotel, but I doubt housekeeping calls regularly. What if I’m left here, no way out, no sustenance, and all they find when they eventually remember me is my dead body?

Don’t be fucking stupid and melodramatic. I find I’m lecturing myself again.

Swift told me she’d come get me at eight o’clock, and her army background suggests she’ll be punctual and won’t keep me waiting.

I take deep breaths, forcing myself to think rationally.

Weird doesn’t begin to describe this strange Satan’s Devils’ chapter I’ve come to. To say things are not what they seem is an understatement. First, they appear to have technical knowledge which no one thought they had, and access to shit I never expected. That hand of Bolt’s is incredible for a start. The prez isn’t the prez and the VP is not who I thought either. As for what business they’re in, I’ve still no idea.

Could there be something for me here? Would I find a purpose to replace my lost dreams? I won’t know until I give them a chance to show me what they are about, and how they earn their money.

If I wanted to, is there a way I could escape, get to my bike and ride off, find some means of contacting Drummer? Hell, even slip away and find a phone to use here. But as it stands now, I’ve no way of alerting my prez.

If I bolt, I lose my chance to find out what’s going on, and whether I’d like to be part of it.

If I stay, I’ve a good excuse to stay quiet. I don’t have a way to update anyone, and I’ll be gaining more information for when the time comes that I can.

But to learn as much as I can, I’ll have to earn the trust of the members here. To do that means letting go of my anger at the way they’re treating me. If I go on the verbal attack when Swift finally appears, that’s not going to win her confidence.

Anger I can push down with justifications of why it’s not the correct emotion right now, the gnawing of my stomach is a physical fact far harder for me to deal with. I’m a big man, I can’t live on air.

So when Swift appears and starts going on about a tour she wants to take me on, I’ve only one thought in my mind. Hunger.

My question about breakfast seemed to take her by surprise. Suspicion dripped off her when we arrived at the elevator. It hadn’t actually crossed my mind that I could push her aside, descend to the first floor and head out to my bike, the key for which is still in my cut. I’d already decided if I ran with my tail between my legs, I’d have no info for Drummer other than that the wool has been pulled over his eyes with regard to the structure here, oh, and for the existence of Swift herself.

I’d been taken aback, so I called her out on it, and found myself admitting something that wasn’t just an excuse to make her think I was buying into transferring to Utah. It was the truth that maybe staying in Tucson wasn’t where I wanted to be for the rest of my life.

My arrival in the Arizona city had been by accident. I’d stayed in Washington where