Wind Therapy - A.J. Downey Page 0,5
bring her back on the next run – we’ll see if she can square the debt in that time.”
“No.” Abuela shook her head and Marisol rattled off something in Spanish, clearly trying to argue the point.
“I said no.” Abuela turned her attention off her granddaughter and back to me. “You don’t want this girl. She is nothing but trouble. You could pick any girl here for whatever you want—”
“I did,” I said, cutting her off. “I picked her.” I thrust a chin at Marisol and said, “Go pack some shit, put on some better shoes, and make it fuckin’ quick, we got someplace to be.”
I got the distinct impression that Abuela wasn’t happy, but not for any love of her granddaughter. There was nothing but spite on the old woman’s face.
“The girl lies. All the time. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies! You can’t believe a word she says!”
“Duly noted, but you’ve got your choice. Cash or her ass, so you suddenly got the cash?” I demanded.
Her mouth thinned down again, and she turned her head, refusing to look at me.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no,’” I declared and called back to my guys, “Anybody got an extra lid?”
“Shit, he’s fuckin’ serious right now,” I heard one of my boys mutter in surprise. Squatch, I think, but I wasn’t mad at him. This was pretty fuckin’ out of character for me – but sometimes you had to ride on instinct and mine was saying to seize the fuckin’ moment, so that’s what I was doing.
“I’ll have her back at some point,” I said with a wink as Marisol came running out of the house, an old tan, rugged but also worn and frayed canvas backpack clutched to her chest, a pair of sturdy brown ankle boots on her feet to replace the wedge sandals she’d been wearing.
Deacon walked up to me and handed me a spare helmet for her pretty head. I handed it to her with one hand, taking her backpack with the other. She’d put on a short, jean jacket but it still wasn’t enough so while she worked on putting on her helmet, I shrugged first out of my cut then out of my own coat, handing her the latter. She shrugged out of her jean jacket while the guys finished off passing out the meds.
When she got done, she shoved her jean jacket into the top of her already stuffed backpack and I asked, “That all you want to take?”
“That’s all,” she affirmed and a kid, couldn’t be more than seven, stepped out onto the front porch, face streaming with tears.
“Marisol, don’t go!” he cried, and his nanna hissed at him.
“Let her go, she doesn’t care about you!”
That was the first time Marisol got fired up about anything that I’d had the occasion to see. She cursed the old lady out in a string of fiery Spanish that left several people looking alarmed and several more with silent smirks that they tried to hide behind their hands.
“That’s not true, Mateo, and you know it! I love you, manito!” she cried and got onto the back of the bike behind me. “And I’ll be back for you!”
Manito, I knew. It meant ‘little brother.’
Interesting.
I fired up my machine and she jumped, but put her arms around me without hesitation, holding on like she’d done this before.
“You sure you wanna do this?” I called, giving her one last out.
“Absolutely,” she responded in my ear and I gave the signal and wheeled us around, the boys falling into formation behind us. We rode for Moses Lake and the halfway point to meet up with Idaho for their share.
Despite Rebel and the rest being locked up, the Eastern Washington clubhouse was still owned by the club and wasn’t in any kind of default – at least not yet. Depending on the decision of the National President, Dragon, it could either be let go and the contents either divided up among the four remaining Pacific Northwest chapters, liquidated completely, and the resulting cash absorbed by the National coffers, or a new chapter rebuilt from a combination of other chapters stepping up, members relocating, or nomadic brothers settling down and moving in.
As it was, two of the remaining three brothers that hadn’t gotten locked up in this mess were lookin’ to absorb into my chapter if we would have them. Personally, I was on the fence about that one. They were good guys, don’t get me wrong, but it was yet to be seen