Long Way Home. Katie McGarry

      Skull inclines his head down the hall, away from the bathroom. “Why don’t we go in the kitchen? Give her a few minutes to regroup, get you some food.”

      Considering we were kidnapped, he should be offering to call the police. I’m not stupid enough to mention that. Not stupid enough to think this scenario is over. There are no pictures in the hallway. No personal touches in the kitchen we passed on the way here. No color to the walls. This place is nothing more than a dump house—a place to lie low, a place to hide, a place to take people you kidnap or want to kill. “I’m staying here.”

      “Come to the kitchen and we’ll call Eli. Faster we make that call, faster you two go home. You and I both know she’s not coming out unless she knows you’re on the other side of that door.”

      I want ten-foot-thick concrete walls between Violet and the Riot. For now, a door will do. I knock on it. “I’m going to the kitchen. Stay in until I come back.”

      “Okay,” comes her muffled response.

      Skull goes first, I follow and weigh my odds of making it out of here with Violet if I were to knock the hell out of him from behind, but figure there’s a wall of cuts surrounding the house. We enter the kitchen and I’m surprised when no one else is there. House feels too empty and that’s eerie.

      “Take a seat.” Skull pulls out a folding chair from the cardboard table.

      I choose to lean my back against the corner that leads to the hallway so I can keep an eye on Violet. “I’m good.”

      He shrugs. “Your choice. Before we call Eli, there are a few things we need to discuss.”

      Skull looks over at me as if waiting for my permission to continue, but I say nothing. He eases down at the table in the compact kitchen and kicks out his legs. “Look, I did send out my guys to find you, but they misunderstood my instructions. I told them to tell you that I needed to talk to you. To convince you to come with them. Not kidnap. Just for us to talk.”

      My eyebrows rise and the action causes a slice of pain. “We don’t have anything to talk about.”

      Skull sighs, then leans forward, drawing his legs in and rubbing his hands together. “Son—”

      “Don’t call me that.”

      “You turn eighteen soon,” he talks over me, ignoring my response. “And the way you’ve been groomed, I’m betting you’ll have the shortest prospect period in the history of your club or you’ll have a full-blown cut on you by the time the clock strikes midnight on your birthday.”

      Not seeing how that’s his concern.

      “Before that happens,” he continues, “I only felt like it was right to let you know some pertinent information. There’s a detective from Louisville who has been digging into our past and he seems intent on talking to your club, too. Because of that, I think you should know before your club does. Give you a chance to protect yourself.”

      He’s talking in code, in circles, verbally waving his right hand to keep me from looking at his left. My eyes flicker down the hallway and the bathroom door is still closed, light still peeking out from the cracks.

      Some of what he’s saying is true. There’s a Louisville gang detective who’s been trying to nail the Riot MC and the same detective talked to some members of the Terror in hopes of us being able to supply them with information. I’m in the dark on whether or not the Terror can or have helped.

      “I liked your father, Chevy, and for what he did for us, you deserve to know the truth before you have the Terror’s colors on your back.”

      Did for them? There’s a ringing in my ears as my world narrows in on him. My dad died before my birth, and I’ll admit to not knowing much about him other than family ramblings about Thanksgivings and Christmases, but I know my father was Terror through and through. “What the hell are you talking about?”

      “Your father may have had Terror colors on his back,” says Skull, “but he was loyal to the Riot.”

       Violet

      CHEVY WANTED ME to stay in here, but each second of silence is maddening. I sit on the edge of the bathtub and my hands shake. I don’t know why they shake. The rest of my body feels oddly calm, sort of like I’m drunk, but I haven’t drunk in weeks.

      I’ll admit to getting wasted more than I should have this past summer. Upset over some pictures some idiot guy had taken of me at a party, upset he blackmailed me into dating him—because that’s the way to make a girl care for you—upset that my dad wasn’t alive to protect me from the real-world monsters.

      But the pictures are no longer an issue, and neither is the guy. Razor’s to thank for that and the only thing he asked of me in return was to stop drinking around people who weren’t the Terror. I decided to stop drinking, period. The drinking didn’t help anyhow. Didn’t make me forget like TV and movies said it would. It only made my crazy emotions crazier, made the sadness sadder, made me fall into dark places when I already couldn’t see daylight.

      I roll my neck and try to focus. Try to make out any sounds outside the bathroom door, but it’s been hard. My mind keeps wandering. Goes to random places, but then returns to the way my heart slammed in my chest as I ran for the gun, the way my stomach sank when I heard the bang, the bullet that missed, and then my thoughts wander off in weird directions like to this past summer and how I’d give almost anything to push rewind and get a second chance.

      A second chance—will I have one going forward? Will Chevy?

      Focus!

      I suck in a deep breath and try to listen, but I hear nothing. How long have I been in here? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Did they take Chevy out of the house? Are they hurting him? My eyes burn and I quickly stand, not wanting to let visions of him bruised and bleeding enter my mind.

      I stare at the door and will it to open. Will Chevy to be standing on the other side, offering me his hand and telling me that we’re safe and that we can leave. But nothing happens. No noise. No turning of the knob. Nothing.

      My entire body quakes. He’s been gone too long, and I need to find him. I need to know if he’s okay, but what if he’s not okay? What if I open the door and there’s another gun pointing at me?

      I shake my head. What if there is? If I’m going to die, I’m going to die. At this point, it could be a relief compared to thinking of how this is all going to end.

      The three steps to the door are the longest of my life, and when I turn the knob, I quit breathing. The hallway right outside the bathroom is empty. I step out, I turn my head and Chevy’s down the hallway, leaning his back against the corner of the kitchen, and he swings his head in my direction.

      I blink. Something’s wrong. This whole situation is wrong, but his expression...

      “Kenneth’s talking with Chevy on some club business.” A woman appears to my left. She’s older, in her sixties maybe, but she has blond hair, blue eyes, jeans, a purple sweater, pearls in her ears and a gold cross around her neck.

      My hand goes to my father’s cross. It should be buried beneath my shirt, pressed against my skin, but Fiend stole it along with my bracelets, Dad’s watch and my other necklaces.

      “Sweetheart, do you hear me?” she asks.

      I died. I died and I’m in some sort of hell.

      “Kenneth is Skull,” she continues. “My husband. I’m Jenna. We’re both sorry about how you were treated. I’m sure Kenneth explained it was a misunderstanding.”

      Sure it was. “Then let us leave.”

      “Chevy and Kenneth are calling Eli now. We’ll figure out how to get you home safely without entanglements.”

      She means police.