Smolder: Trojans MC (66 page)

Chapter Thirty-Four

Falcon pressed his bruised face against the bars of his cell, straining to see what was going on. He could still hear the rustling of an uncountable number of feathers and the sound of running feet, but there was another loud noise. It was a loud banging. Bang! Bang! Someone was hitting something, something close to him, but he couldn’t figure out what.

Then there was one final bang and the sound of footsteps pounding down a flight of stairs. For one moment, for the briefest of moments, he thought she was an angel. She came flying down the stairs with her gun out as she raced past the empty cells all the way to Falcon who was in the very last one.

“Oh my God, Falcon,” Grace said. She was staring at him through the bars and her eyes were wide with fear. “What did they do to you?” She reached through the bars and took his bruised hands in her own. Her skin was so soft and smooth and the sight of her in front of him was almost too beautiful to describe.

“Are you really here?” Falcon asked, his words slurring together as he tried to talk around his swollen lip and his broken nose.

“I’m here. We’re gonna get you out,” Grace said, still holding his hands. “This is my partner, Mike. He’s gonna pick the lock.”

Falcon looked down as Grace’s partner quickly opened a lock picking case and got to work on the lock. He was a shorter, stocky guy who barely glanced at Falcon as he got to work.

“Do you hear all of those birds?” Falcon whispered. “I can hear birds...”

“Yeah,” Grace said with a crooked smile. “So, uh I was having trouble getting you, so we tried something crazy.”

“Crazy doesn't begin to describe it,” Mike said as he continued to work.

“What did you do?” Falcon asked. Part of him couldn’t quite believe she was really there. Maybe she was just another figment of his imagination, another hallucination he couldn’t control.

“We released about two hundred and fifty pigeons into the clubhouse,” Grace said. “Everyone’s distracted and they can’t tell if it’s a prank or an attack, but it doesn’t matter. We don’t have a lot of time and we need to get you out of here before someone figures out what’s up.”

Then the lock clicked and the door swung open. For a moment Falcon couldn’t believe it. He had been staring at those bars for what felt like years. In his mind they were sunk all the way down to the core of the earth and were as immovable as mountains. The fact that they had opened was impossible. He would have sworn they couldn’t move at all, but they had been opened and all he needed to do was walk out.

“Come on,” Grace said, grabbing his hand and pulling him out the door.

“No,” Falcon said, pulling his arm away from her and backing farther into the cell.

“Grace, we gotta go. You said he was going to be cool,” Mike said his head turning towards the wide-open door. “We don’t have a ton of time here.”

“Where were you?” Falcon slurred. “How long have I been down here?”

“Four days,” Grace said. “Falcon, you have to believe me when I tell you I tried to get to you, but I had to be careful. I didn’t know what happened or where you were. All I’ve been doing these last four days is trying to find you. Please, you have to believe me.”

Falcon fell against the back wall, barely able to keep standing. Grace was here; she was here rescuing him. How many times in the last four days had he hoped for and imagined this? But she wasn’t his savior; she was the reason he was in here.

“Think about Sophie, Falcon,” Grace said, she walked into the cell and took his hands gently guiding him towards the door of the cell.

“Did they hurt her?” Falcon asked.

“No, she’s fine. We’ve been watching her. But I’m sure she misses you. Don’t you want to see her?” She was pulling him out of the cell.

It felt wrong for him to walk out of the cell. He had convinced himself he was going to die in there and then to not die was confusing. But Grace was pulling him and he wanted to go with her and he thought about Sophie, about seeing her again, and he took that one step over the threshold and then he was out.

But he was still weak and exhausted and barely able to stand. Mike and Grace steadied him as best they could as they hurried up the stairs. The clubhouse was in chaos. There were birds everywhere. Pigeons lined the rafters above them and sat along the bar. The floor was covered in white bird droppings as people yelled and ran for cover while others tried to catch the wayward birds.

No one saw them. No one saw as Falcon, Grace, and Mike slipped out of the back door. There was a black SUV in the parking lot, but the Screaming Eagles had about ten black SUVs, so Grace’s didn’t stand out. Falcon was quickly ushered into the back seat and then Grace and Mike got in the front and they peeled out of the parking lot.

“Holy shit!” Mike said, pounding his fist against the dashboard. “I cannot fucking believe that actually worked. Birds, Grace. Who would have thought that birds would work?”

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Grace said.

“You still think bringing him back to yours is a good idea?” Mike asked.

Falcon was lying down in the back of the SUV. The cushions were so soft beneath him and the air around him was so warm. He looked up and out the window and could see the blue sky and the occasional tree branch as they sped down the road. He was out; he was actually out. It wasn’t a hallucination; he had escaped.

He pushed himself into a sitting position and looked out the window. The world was still there. There were still people out driving their cars and living their lives. Falcon had been stuck in a cell beaten and bloody and he had almost forgot that there was a world beyond those cement walls. It seemed insane that the planet had continued to spin and exist without him.

“Where are we going?” Falcon asked. “Where are you taking me?”

“Falcon,” Mark said, turning around to look at him. “What did you tell them? Did you tell them anything about Grace or the investigation?”

“No,” Falcon said, shaking his head, his eyes still staring out the window.

“It’s okay if you talked. You were tortured and everybody talks under torture. That’s why they do it, because it works. You’re not in any trouble and no one is going to think less of you if you told them about the investigation.”

“I didn’t talk,” Falcon said, looking Mike right in the eye.

Mike nodded and turned back around.

“For right now, we’re going back to my house, Falcon,” Grace said as she continued to drive. “If you didn’t tell anyone about me, then it’s the safest place for you.”

Falcon nodded. Taking him to her house was the least she could do. This was all her fault. From start to end everything bad that had recently happened to him all led back to Grace. He didn’t want to go back to her house; he didn’t want anything to do with her. But he needed a place to stay. He needed a shower and a bed and he needed to lie low while he recovered. Grace’s apartment was as good a place as any.

They stopped in a random parking lot and dropped Mike off. He gave a worried look in Falcon’s direction like he didn’t trust the other man alone with Grace, but eventually he closed the door and left and Falcon and Grace were alone. She pulled out of the lot and headed east. The sun was setting and everything was bathed in an orange glow. Falcon hit the button to roll down his window and took a deep breath of the afternoon air.

Freedom. He was out. He had survived it. The worst possible thing that could happen had happened and he had come out on the other side. They say that what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. Falcon certainly wasn’t stronger at this moment, not physically, but there was another strength. He knew what he could handle now, how far he could go. It made him feel strong and invincible.

He was hurt, but not dead. He was going to get better. He was going to get stronger. He was going to be physically stronger than ever before. The Screaming Eagles had no idea what they had done. Did they really think that this was all it would take to break him? He was going to get better and then the Screaming Eagles were going down.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“I think I might be a little past first aid at a cop’s house,” Falcon said. He still couldn’t see out of one eye and he couldn’t breathe through his nose. His ribs ached every time he took a breath and coughing was utter agony.  He could only see her eyes as she stared at him from the rear view mirror. Her green eyes were tinged with worry and it seemed like she was glancing back to check on him every other second as her eyes flicked between Falcon and the road.

“My mom was a nurse, so I know more than the average girl,” Grace said as she made a turn onto a nice looking residential street. “Plus, the Screaming Eagles will be looking for you and the hospitals are the first place they’ll go. We can’t let them find you; we need to hide you somewhere safe and at the moment my place is the safest.”

The road was lined with ranch houses painted in muted colors and impeccably green lawns. Falcon had never been inside one of these nice houses. He had driven past them a few times, but everyone he knew lived in apartments and split levels out the outskirts of town.

Being in this neighborhood felt wrong to Falcon. He didn’t belong here and anyone who looked at him would know it. His motorcycle and now his bloody and beaten face marked him as a man who didn’t belong amongst such pristine houses. He belonged in places with dirt roads and dive bars where liquor was cheap and women were cheaper. People here would turn their noses up if Falcon walked past. They would complain about the noise of his bike in the late hours.

She turned down another street, taking the route that was so familiar to her and so strange and alien to Falcon. Finally, at the far end of a long, mostly empty lane, she turned into a driveway in front of a small brick house. It was quaint and rustic looking in a way that appealed to Falcon. It wasn’t new and he liked that. This was no cookie-cutter house with it’s effective plastic siding. No, this was an old house, a holdout from when an entirely different type of people lived in this area.

Grace opened her door and stepped out of the car. Falcon followed. As he opened his door Grace rushed to help him. She held out her hand to steady him, but Falcon just brushed her off. His legs were shaking and he was in pain, but he stood on his own two feet and took a few steps onto her onto the vibrant green grass of her lawn.

Grass. Dirt. Sky. Had Falcon ever really appreciated them before? He had been in that cell for days and he had been sure he would never see anything other than cement and iron bars for the rest of his short life. But here he was. Falcon knelt down in the grass and ran his fingers over the delicate green blades. He felt their spindly arms caress his hands as he moved his arm back and forth above them.

He could smell the dirt beneath him, he could feel the wind on his face. He was alive and he was free. How many men had never come this far? How many had died, alone and cold, in the bowels of the Screaming Eagles’ headquarters? How many would only see the sun from the prison yard? At that moment he wanted to cry. He wanted to fall and let the soft ground cushion him and he would have been fine just sleeping outside in the grass with the blue sky above him.

Grace took him gently by the arm and pulled him up into a standing position. He couldn’t help but list against her like a sinking ship as she struggled to get him into the house. With her arm around Falcon as she half-supported him she pulled out her keys and opened her bright red front door. They took a step inside and Falcon looked up and saw a house with white walls and dark hardwood floors. She turned to the right and they walked past her bedroom before she pulled him into her bathroom.

He stood up in the harsh glare of the bathroom light and looked at his own reflection in Grace’s mirror. He didn’t recognize himself. It was a Neanderthal that looked back at him from the other side. His face was swollen and misshapen and he barely recognized himself.

“Here,” Grace said and she reached for the hem of Falcon’s shirt, but he pushed her hand away.

“I can do it,” he said, avoiding her eye contact.

“Okay,” Grace said, tucking a non-existent stray lock behind her ear. She turned on the shower and they were surrounded by the noise of falling water. “I’ll wait outside; I’ll bring some clean clothes in for you.”

“Fine,” Falcon said. She turned and walked out the door, closing it behind her. The bathroom was filling with steam as Falcon struggled out of his shirt. It ached for him to lift his arms above his head and he bit back a cry of pain as he finally managed to remove his shirt.

His torso was covered in yellow and purple bruises; in the mirror he saw that they extended around his back. He undid his pants and slipped out his shoes, letting his pants slide down onto the floor. He took off his boxer briefs and stepped into the steaming hot shower. He winced as the water hit his many cuts before it washed away the blood and the dirt and he sighed in pleasure and leaned against the wall.

He soaped up his arms and legs and watched as the water went from tinged with red to clear and finally he was done. Falcon stepped out of the shower and saw Grace had left a pair of sweatpants and a black t-shirt in the bathroom for him. He dried off and dressed and stepped out into the house.

He walked past her bedroom and then the kitchen and then he was in the living room. He dropped onto a paisley blue couch next to a leather chair. The room had large windows and bright daylight was flooding through the room illuminating the dancing dust moats.

Falcon sat on the edge of the chair and put his face in his hands as he looked around her living room. It was sparse and barely decorated, a large flat screen TV that sat across from the couch and a few paintings on the wall. After a few moments Grace appeared in front of him with a professional looking first aid kit. She knelt down and opened the kit taking out gauze and bandages and antiseptic and lining them up on the coffee table. She had a glass of water and she handed Falcon two white pills and he took them both without even asking what they were. He drank the water, chugging it down in thirsty, desperate gulps.

“More,” he said, handing Grace the glass.

“In a minute. You need to give your stomach time to absorb what’s there. If you drink too much you might get sick,” she said, setting the glass down on a coffee table.

“I feel thirstier than before,” Falcon said as Grace began gently wiping the remaining dried blood from Falcon’s lip. He winced, but she was patient and took her time.

She let the water soak into the blood so it would wipe away easily. From there she moved onto his still swollen shut eye. She placed her hand gently on his chin as she guided his face up and down as she tried to fix him.

There was worry in her eyes. A pained sort of worry. Sometimes she would open her mouth as if there was something she wanted to say and then her eyes would flick to Falcon’s and she would change her mind and snap her mouth shut. A troubled look would cross her face as she sought out some other scar or bruise she could soothe.

Finally, when his face, neck, and arms were bandaged up she stopped what she was doing and looked up at him. “What about your chest? Does it hurt badly,”

Falcon scoffed and shook his head, looking away from her. “A couple of cracked ribs, nothing too serious,” he answered.

“Let me bandage them up,” she implored him. “It will help you heal faster.”

He rolled his eyes, but he lifted his arms above his head and bit back as a cry as he pulled off the black shirt. Grace’s soft fingers touched his chest as she tested his bruises. For a moment he thought he could see a tear in her eyes, but she looked away quickly and he couldn’t be sure.