Tanner's War (3 page)

Chapter Four

Bethany sobbed quietly
as he carried her along the hallway to one of the spare rooms. The sound ripped
at Tanner’s heart. She was so fucking young and fragile, and he’d brought her
here, where the smell of pot clung to the wood and the sounds of sex echoed
behind the closed doors around him. Good thinking, Tanner.

Still, his own place
was off limits and at least here nobody was going to carry her off against her
will. “Here we go.” He set her down outside one of the guest rooms. She still
clung to his jacket as if she’d collapse without it, so he let her cling while
he shoved the door open. “We always keep a few rooms made up. The guys crash
here a lot, sometimes they have company …” He drifted off as a particularly
enthusiastic cry of
oh fuck yes
resounded from the next room. A quick glance at Bethany showed her cheeks were
blazing. “It locks,” he said quickly, showing her in and pointing out the bolt
on the inside of the door. “So nobody can get in unless you invite them, okay?”

She nodded, staring
around the room. “It’s nice.” She sounded surprised. After the state of the
kitchen, she probably was.

The bed was freshly
made with plain white sheets. There was a view of the river from the window,
nice if you were into nature or whatever. Besides the bed and a floor lamp,
there wasn’t much to speak of, but these rooms weren’t meant for much besides
fucking and crashing out. He’d grabbed some clothes from Roxy’s room for
Bethany—they were about the same size, and Roxy’s “comfort over sex appeal”
mentality would work for Bethany, he figured. The clothes were neatly folded on
the bed, along with a towel.

“Shower’s down the
hall,” he said. “And then I guess
,
if you’re hungry or
… whatever …” He trailed off again, hoping she’d fill the silence. Her
deer-in-headlights look had him worried she was going into shock and he had no
clue how to deal with that.

“I think I’d just like
to sleep.” She sat down on the bed, wiping her eyes. She was pale, dark circles
under her eyes, and Tanner guessed she’d soon pass out whether she liked it or
not.

“Okay. Lock your door,
okay? I mean, not that you’re not safe, but I don’t want anyone barging in
thinking the room’s free.”

She smiled warily at
him. Impulsively, he leaned down and kissed her hair. She started, but didn’t
pull back in disgust or anything. “Okay,” he said again, straightening up.
“Sweet dreams, Bethany.”

“Beth,” she said.
“Just Beth.”

“Just
Beth then.
If
you want me, I’ll be downstairs.” He thought of Beth walking into the club’s
bar and winced.

But she managed a
warmer smile and whispered her thanks, so he left. Whatever she’d been through,
and he had some ideas, she’d want some time alone to process it. As much as he
wanted to hang over her like a guard dog, he didn’t think that was what
she
wanted right now.

He stopped by the
kitchen to grab a beer and drained it there and then, before taking another and
heading into the main club room. Despite the loud music—shitty hair metal from
three decades ago, which meant Judge was in charge of the jukebox today— the
atmosphere was pretty mellow. A few guys played pool but most of his brothers
were just lounging on the threadbare sofas. The thin clouds of smoke over their
heads and the scent of pot explained the lazy vibe. A couple of prospects
manned the bar, and the Wild Blood MC President, Cullen Nash, sat in the far
corner with Judge, the VP. Good. Both the men Tanner wanted to see.

There was a deck of
cards on the table between the two men, but since Judge didn’t play, even for
fun, Tanner knew he wasn’t interrupting anything. Judge had a major gambling
problem before he met Roxy. Curbing it had, apparently, been her only condition
for being his old lady. Tanner took the third seat at the table and nodded at
them both. “Boss,” he greeted Nash out of habit, pulling off his jacket. The
leather was wet and hot, and he’d been itching to peel it off since the diner.

Nash cocked an eyebrow
at him. Tanner considered himself a big guy, but he was dwarfed by Nash—most
people were. The guy was pushing six-seven, and built lean and mean. Rumor had
it he’d been a bare-knuckle boxer in his youth, and looking at the size of his
hands, Tanner bet he’d been a good one. “You got that look in your eyes,” Nash
told him.
“Tells me you did something stupid.”

Tanner took a swig of
his beer and shrugged. “Not really. Not yet.”

“Ominous,” Judge said,
more to Nash than Tanner. “What
d’you
think
? Do we kick him out now, before he does something
stupid? Or do we let him do it in case
it’s
gonna
be fun to watch?”

Tanner tried not to
scowl. Judge would be unaffected anyway. The graybeard was the coolest dude
Tanner had ever met, nothing shook him.
Hell, that
was
the main reason Tanner wanted to speak to him now. “I found a girl,” he said.

“Congratulations. You
need instructions on what to do next?” Nash asked. Judge bellowed with
laughter.

“I damn near ran her
over,” Tanner said, ignoring the jibes. “She’s on the run from something, or
someone, and I think she needs help.
Big help.”
Seeing
he had their attention, he quickly explained the day’s whirlwind events. Nash’s
face turned thunderous when he told them about Nathaniel.

“You bored of being
free already?” he asked, balling his big hands into fists.

“He won’t go to the
cops,” Tanner said.

“You know that, do you?
You beat the shit out of a guy in a public place—”

“I didn’t beat the shit
out of him, Nash. I knocked him on his ass, that’s all.” Tanner waved it off.
He’d have liked to beat the shit out of the
creep, that
was for sure, but hey. He’d showed restraint. He’d learned something in prison
after all. “And he won’t go to the cops because his
kind
never do
.”

“What’s his kind?”
Judge asked, idly toying with a few playing cards.
“Wife-beaters?”

Tanner shook his head.
“Cult leaders.”

Both Judge and Nash
leaned back in their seats, mimicking each other so perfectly Tanner had to
smile.
“Cult leaders?”
Nash echoed.

Tanner nodded, absently
rubbing the tattoo on his forearm. It was an
ambigram
design in heavy gothic script, reading “love” one way up and “
hate
” the other. It was his newest too, his prison ink. “The
guy who came after Beth at the diner was spouting Bible verses and talking
about 'the church.' And he had this pin on his shirt, like a cross with a snake
around it. Beth was running out from Heatherton Farm way.”

“There’s nothing at
Heatherton Farm,” Nash said. “Place has been abandoned for years."

Tanner nodded. At one
point the MC had talked about buying the land up and using the old buildings
for underground fighting. “Right, but there’s a village close by, isn’t there?
Not even a village, more like …”

“A commune,” Judge
said,
when Tanner couldn’t find the word he wanted.

“Right,” Tanner agreed.
“So while I was on the inside, I met this guy, a tattooist.” He tapped his ink
again. “He grew up in this commune. I’m sure it’s the same place. He ran away
when he was like, fifteen or sixteen. Said the whole community is one of these
extreme religious deals, like the
Quiverfull
Movement
and that shit. I can’t remember what he called it, but I bet that’s where
Beth’s from.”

“The Church of the
Serpentine Cross,” Judge said. He’d straightened up again, expression serious
and thoughtful. “They were in the papers a couple years back, remember?
Rumors about child brides and shit.
Nothing ever came of
it.”

Nash nodded slowly. “I
remember. Snake-handlers and shit like that. Well, so what? They’re weird, so
what? Can’t judge a man for what he believes. And if they really weren’t
messing with kids or anything … So what?”

Tanner tried to smother
his irritation. “So what if they’re more than just weird? Beth’s scared, man.
She ran away with nothing, in a storm like this … Maybe they don’t mess with
kids, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t into some dark shit. That guy at the
diner, Nathaniel, he was no good. No fucking
good
at
all.”

Nash rested his hands
on the table, palms down. In most people it was a gesture of calm, but Tanner
knew better. Nash was trying to hide his anger—trying to keep his hands under
control. “Look kid,” he said in a tone that was just short of patronizing. “I
get it. You see a wounded woman, you go all superhero. I get it. It’s
commendable. You’ve got a good heart. But you are six months out of prison and
you’re damn lucky to be out at all after what you did. You could have gone away
a lot longer. Now you
wanna
get mixed up in whatever
this is?
Snake-handling cults and runaways?
Don’t do
it, Alex. Don’t you fucking
dare.
”

Nash drained his beer
and stood, striding away from the table and disappearing from the room. Tanner
exhaled, balling his own hands into fists. “That’s all I’ll ever be, isn’t it?
The kid who went to prison? Like nobody else here has ever done anything fucked
up or dumb-ass or illegal …”

“Nobody else got
caught,” Judge pointed out.

“Bullshit.”

“All
right.
Nobody
else has got caught on Nash’s watch. Either way, we were supposed to be putting
that kind of shit behind us.” Judge reached across and poked Tanner in the
chest, hard. “You did fuck up. Your reasons were good, nobody here’s
gonna
argue that, and that’s the only reason Nash let you
back in. But that isn’t a license to keep fucking up.”

Wild Blood had been an
outlaw MC,
one percenters,
until Nash became President
fifteen years ago. Tanner hadn’t even been a prospect then, just a kid with a
passion for bikes who hung around until the older members stopped telling him
to piss off. Tanner was a little vague on what exactly had gone down. Guns and
drugs, he guessed, but Nash had put a stop to all that. All that was left now
was the underground fighting, which … well, it wasn’t exactly legal, but the
cops looked the other way mostly. Hell, the county sheriff even came down to
watch and place a few bets himself every now and then. Some of the MC’s old
guard, like Rattler, disliked Nash’s direction, but nobody was going to fight
him about it.

“So what am I supposed
to do?” Tanner asked Judge. “Beth’s scared shitless and she’s got nothing. If
she really did run from this Church—”

“It’s not about what
you’re supposed to do,” Judge cut in. “Have you asked her what she wants to
do?”

Tanner shook his head.

“There you go then,”
Judge said, as if that settled everything.

Tanner wanted to argue,
but Roxy, Judge’s old lady, appeared as if by magic with two shot glasses and a
bottle of tequila. Roxy was one of Tanner’s favorite people in the world. No
way he
wanted to hear her telling him he was being a
dumb-ass kid as well, so he kept his mouth closed.

“Time for shots!”
Roxy announced, dropping into Judge’s lap. She
glanced around the room and waved someone else over while Judge wrapped his arm
round her waist, squeezing her against his broad chest.

A girl Tanner had a
nasty feeling he ought to recognize sashayed over to join them. Tameka? Tamera?
Something
like
that. She was dressed in skin-tight
jeans and a hot pink tank top that showed off a banging body to perfection. Her
thick black hair was pulled back from her heart-shaped face, and another time
Tanner would have taken more notice. But Beth was stamped in his brain and other
women, no matter how cute or
bangable
, just weren't
going to register.

"Alex, you
remember Tamsin?" Roxy said in a tone that suggested he damn well better.

Tamsin fell into the
chair next to Tanner's and laid her hand on his knee. "Of course he does!
Miss me, baby?"

"Uh."
Tanner looked to Judge for help,
but the VP was busy nuzzling his old lady's neck while she giggled and poured
tequila. Tanner racked his brain and came up with a fuzzy memory of beer, pot,
and a really filthy lap dance. Was that Tamsin? "Yeah," he said,
hoping it was. "Course I do.
How you been,
gorgeous?"

The words fell from his
mouth, insincere and empty, but Tamsin either didn't notice or didn't care. She
wriggled closer to him, pressing her thigh against his and tilting her head so
he could smell her coconut shampoo. He slung his arm round her shoulder
automatically, still wondering how he could make Nash and Judge take him
seriously about Beth. It hadn't taken long for one guy to find her and if she
really was from a cult or sect, whatever they liked to call themselves, Tanner
didn't think they'd just let her walk away. You heard all kinds of nasty shit
happening to people who left cults. If anything happened to
Beth
...