Page 39 of Existential
I only knew him for a short time, so why am I so anxious to be sure he’s okay? In all reality I should be relishing this win—I’m in a vehicle that’s technically been checked over by the police and given the all clear already, with a woman who’s supposed to be missing. Isn’t this a free pass out of whatever the hell Hooch got us into?
“So, why were you in hiding?” I glance over at Mel as she sits with one leg tucked up on the seat, her head rolled to the side to look out the window.
She twists to face me. “I’m legally dead.”
Well … Sure puts a spin on things. “Sounds like a hell of a story.”
“Yeah,” she sighs. “It was.”
I take her silence as a reluctance to share any more and let it be. It’s her tale to tell, and she’ll open up if she wants to, when she wants to.
A deep, more distinct rumble that threads itself through my chest and into my bones disturbs the gentle hum of traffic around us. I look into the rearview at the exact same time as Mel twists to check out the back window.
“Yes!” she hollers, fist pumping the air. “Here he comes.”
The roar of the bike as he approaches becomes deafening as he overtakes at high speed. I flick my gaze to the needle shaking like a leaf on the speedo and will the damn rust-bucket to go a little faster. Come on. If running from the scene didn’t gain us a tail, then that last little show would have for sure. Hooch slows a little to blend into the traffic ahead of us, and reaches into his cut as his stance on the bike eases.
The burner phone rings from somewhere inside the cab.
“Can you find that?” I ask Mel, trying to spot where it’s ended up after the chaos.
She retrieves it from under the front edge of my seat, and answers, putting the phone on speaker.
“Go ahead, caller.”
“We need to ditch the truck. It’s the most obvious thing to look for.”
“And a patched dude on a bike isn’t?” Mel sasses in that loving sibling tone.
“Not much I can do about that.” The wind noise steals syllables of his words, but it’s enough to make out what he says.
“You can’t fit us all on that thing.”
“I’ll split,” I offer, figuring in the heat of the moment it might do us some favors. There’s no criminal record for me, and the truck’s registered to the MC. I should be able to disappear without issue.
“What the fuck did I say about you bein’ on your own?” Well … that came through clear as day. “I’ll organize company.”
The line goes dead, and I watch as Hooch deftly dials another number while cruising in front of us. The guy needs props for managing that alone; I’d fall off the damn thing the minute I took my eyes off the road. He holds the phone to his ear again, taking us off an exit road in the process, and then hangs up as he leads us onto a semi-urban road. We take turn after turn, until I’m so disorientated I have no idea if the highway is ahead of us, or behind us. With a whip of his wrist, he orders us onto the verge of the country road.
I pull up alongside, cursing out how comfortable, how natural my current felon status feels.
“End of this road is a barn the MC’s used a few times for hand-offs. The owner is good, but he shouldn’t even know we’ve been here until he next stops in. We’ll camp out inside until our escort shows up.” He squints into the darkened sky, night approaching fast. “I don’t think we have a bird on us yet; I’m pretty sure I got the fucker before he could reach for the radio.”
“You killed another one?” I squeak.
“Didn’t have much choice when he drew on me.” He shrugs nonchalantly. “Pretty sure he wouldn’t have been keen to help wipe fingerprints if I left him alive.”
He rides ahead before I get a chance to say another word.
“He’s not a bad guy, you know,” Mel states softly from beside me.
I slot the truck into gear and idle after Hooch. “So you say.” All the shit he’s got me into so far states otherwise.
“He’s done a lot for our family.” Her gaze narrows on me. “Don’t make assumptions about what you know nothing of.”
I pull in a deep breath to save from saying something I’ll definitely regret later, and answer instead, “Then how about you and your brother up there tell me what the hell I’ve got myself into. Maybe then I’ll be in a position to make my assumptions.”
“We let you in like that,” she warns, “there’s no backing out.”
I level her with a deadpan stare as we wait on Hooch to open the gate across the road. “Don’t know about you, but I get the feeling the fact I’ve already been harassed by two cocky as hell cops, witnessed a dead federal agent, and become a fugitive, means it’s already too late to walk away.”
Mel smirks, shifting her focus out the side window. “You’ll suit him just fine.”