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“Your face looks like a cock, dick head.”
He did not seem inclined to take her feedback in a constructive manner. He called her some very rude names in a very aggressive voice and moved toward her as if he intended to yank her off the bike and do god knows what.
It was then that she noticed that the keys were actually in the ignition. It was as if the owner of the motorcycle thought he was too terrifying for someone to take his bike.
She turned the key, flicked the starter, grabbed the clutch, and pressed the start button. She probably should have put the brake on, but skidding across the sidewalk added a certain je ne sais quoi about stealing the bike.
She’d ridden one of these before, of course. Willow and Digby had never wanted for any toys at their various houses. There had been a year when twenty of them all mounted motorcycles and tore across Spain half-drunk and very high in a celebration of youth. Gemma was rather proficient. Or at least, proficient enough to put fast distance between herself and those who pursued her on other motorcycles, the ugly man’s ugly, stupid, smelly gang friends.
A nearby wood provided an excellent place to lose her tails. There was a great deal of clanging and banging as various aggressive males slammed into trees and hit rocks and other obstacles.
Gemma could just as easily have crashed as any of them but didn’t. It wasn’t skill. It wasn’t luck. It was the flow state that can only be achieved by someone who didn’t care if they made it or not.
Willow was dead. And she, Gemma, was wanted by the Organization. Probably the House of Vitali as well. And by whatever the men dwindling behind her called themselves. There were so many groups of men with harm in mind. She was starting to think it might be her fault, somehow.
She came out the other side of the woods intact and without obvious pursuit. The wind whipped through her hair and against her eyes, making them water. There was freedom in that cold, cruel wind and in the throbbing roar of the machine between her thighs.
Perhaps this was her calling. America was a very big place, much larger than merry olde England. She could drive a motorcycle down new roads every day for the rest of her life. She could go and go, running and hiding, and running again.
She stole a bottle of whiskey from a liquor store. Just walked in, picked it up, and walked out again. It was a brazen daylight robbery which nobody seemed to actually notice.
Having retrieved necessary supplies, she rode on until she spotted a large graveyard a ways from the main roads. She laid the bike down in a handy parking bush, and took shelter from the wind behind one of the big stone walls.
It was quiet there with the stones all stood in lines and rows, like a big, dead game of Guess Who. Crouching against cold stone, she wrenched the screw top off the bottle and decanted a good amount into her mouth. She wondered what Angelo had done with Willow’s body. She doubted it would be respectfully interred.
The whiskey burned on the way down, lighting a fire in the pit of her stomach. A few dozen more swigs and she wouldn’t be feeling any of this anymore. She’d be warm and cozy, even in this old graveyard.
Chapter 10
“Let’s not assume the worst,” Mark suggested, ever the voice of reason.
“She’s escaped!” Bobby’s voice was high-pitched and frantic. “This is your fault, Angelo!”
Mark decided not to panic, and instead, to check the local scanners. Angelo always had information at hand when it came to local goings-on.
He could hear Bobby arguing with Angelo outside. Apparently, everything was Angelo’s fault. Sometimes it seemed that Bobby had matured since he left. Other times it was like the concept of maturity would never come tangential to Bobby.
It did not take long listening to the scanners to get a significant clue which he relayed to the others.
“There’s chatter on the police radio about a small blonde woman stealing a motorcycle from a local gang.”
“Gemma wouldn’t do anything… like….” Bobby trailed off as it occurred to him that she might actually do something like that.
“Alright. We split up, and….”
“No. Bobby, you’re in no state to deal with the public,” Angelo forbade. “It does not take three men to retrieve one girl. Mark will go. Bobby, you’ll stay here with me. If Mark runs into trouble, we can send backup. I have several local contacts.”
“I’ll go,” Mark agreed. “Don’t worry. I’ll find her. I’ll get her back safe.”
It was not hard to find Gemma with all the hints from the police radio. The angry bikers were milling around the local bar, talking to the cops at high volume. There were ripped-up trails of grass everywhere where they’d tried to give chase through the forest and ended up losing bits of themselves in the process.
