Sixteen

Joel

S he’s off the bike the second I pull up outside a small Italian restaurant on the corner of a fairly busy street in a neighboring town where the Vikings aren’t really known. It’s not our territory, neither has it got anything to do with the Blackhawks, we’re on neutral turf. That’s why I brought her here. I’m not in the mood for trouble today.

“I’m not hungry.” She places the helmet on the seat of the bike and leans back against it, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Yeah, well, I am. You should probably drink something, though. Don’t want you dehydrating.”

“Do I get a choice?”

“No. Come on.”

She follows me into the restaurant, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her jeans, her head slightly down. She rarely lifts it, to be honest. Rarely looks up. And I feel for her, I really do, she didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve any of it.

“Sit down. Have a look at the menu.”

She sits down opposite me in a window booth. “I said I wasn’t hungry.”

“Why don’t you just order something and see how you feel?”

“Again, do I get a choice?”

I don’t answer her, and look down at my own menu. “Just order something.”

She sighs quietly, which irritates me no end, but I ignore it.

“I’m really not hungry.”

I look up, and her eyes are almost pleading with me. And now it’s my turn to sigh. “Alright. You can always have some of mine if you change your mind.”

Her shoulders visibly relax, and it’s completely understandable why her appetite’s shot to shit. She’s living a fucking nightmare.

I beckon a server over. “A large steak and onion with extra cheese, thin crust, and two diet Cokes.”

Ana raises an eyebrow. “Diet soda, huh? Doesn’t quite fit in with the whole big bad biker image.”

“That’s because you’ve obviously got a pretty narrow minded view of who we really are.”

“I did my research, when my mama started seeing Skip. I looked your club up. You’ve done your fair share of bad stuff.”

“And not one charge has ever been leveled against us. Did your research tell you that?”

She shifts her gaze to stare out of the window. “Doesn’t mean you’re innocent. Doesn’t mean you didn’t do those things.”

“Maybe not.”

Her head snaps back around, her eyes narrowed as she looks at me. “Do you ever think about the harm you do to others?”

“We don’t harm anyone who doesn’t deserve it, Ana. Only those who harm us. That’s why we’ll make the Hawks pay for what they did to your mama. What they did to you .”

She looks away, back out of the window. And she doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t respond. So we sit in silence until the food and our drinks arrive.

“You want some?” I ask, picking up a slice of steaming hot pizza. She shakes her head, keeping it turned away from me as she continues to stare out of the window. “Suit yourself.” I take a bite. “It’s good, though. It’s very good.”

She reaches for her drink, still keeping her head turned away, and takes a long sip of soda.

“You settling in at Dag and Freja’s?”

I’m trying to make conversation here, because we need to get her to accept that she’s going nowhere, at least, not until we finish the job: make sure she’ll be safe.

“I guess.” She sits back and finally looks at me. “They’re really nice, actually. It’s hard to believe they were once a part of the club.”

“They still are a part of the club. They always will be. To be honest, the place would fall apart without them.”

“Would it?”

I can’t help smiling at her. “Maybe.”

She drops her gaze to the pizza. “Can I have some?”

I push the plate toward her. “Knock yourself out.”

She picks up a slice and takes a small bite, dropping her gaze again as she chews and then washes it down with more soda. “It is really good. You were right.”

“Not often I’m wrong, kiddo.”

She looks up at me, and this time there’s the faintest hint of a smile fighting to make an appearance, even though she’s trying her hardest not to let it happen.

“You want to share the rest of this pizza?” I ask.

She pauses for a moment. “Is that okay? I probably should’ve ordered one of my own–”

“It’s fine. There’s more than enough for two people here. I’ll order some fries on the side.”

I signal to the server to bring us a side order of fries, and I watch as Ana eats, occasionally turning her head to look out of the window, even though there’s nothing particularly interesting out there. Nothing but your average street, full of people going about their business.

“It’s really difficult, getting used to the idea that this is my life now.” She keeps her head turned away from me, her shoulders tensing up again. “It’s hard. Because this life, it’s… it’s not anything I ever imagined I’d be a part of. It scares me.”

I put my pizza down and lean forward. She’s got every right to feel this way, but I’m not sure what I can do or say to make her feel better.

“That’s to be expected. But there really is no reason to be scared, we’re looking out for you. We’ll protect you, I promise.”

She looks at me, and there’s a mixture of fear and wariness in her eyes. “Can I trust you?”

“Yes, you can trust me. You can trust all of us.”

“Because it doesn’t feel like I can trust anyone. I’ve lost everything I ever knew, my whole world changed in a heartbeat and you have no idea how utterly terrifying that is.”

“I get it.”

She shakes her head, she doesn’t believe me, but I understand more than she realizes, and I want her to trust me. It might make all our lives a lot easier.

“I get it, Ana.”

“How can you?” she whispers, her voice laced with sadness, and I’m shocked at how bad I really do feel for this kid. How helpless I feel at shit I can’t change for her.

“What did you do, back in your old life?” I’m taking a gamble here. Getting her to talk about her old life could either make her feel more comfortable, or it could make things worse, but I kind of want to know more about her.

She sits back in her seat, her fingers pulling at a thin sliver of steak on the half-eaten slice of pizza in front of her. “I ran a small business, with Lars and Lea. My best friends. The ones you’ve told me I can’t see anymore.”

I ignore that obvious dig. “What kind of business was it?”

She takes a breath, her eyes down. “We ran a bohemian clothes store together, the three of us. Well, I say it was a clothes store but we sold everything from clothing to jewelry to accessories. It was doing really well..."

She tails off, once more turning her head to stare out of the window, but I don’t miss the tears starting to fall from her eyes. Man, this is tough. And I’m not sure I’m the right person for this job, but I guess I got to follow orders. Skip wants me to keep her close, so I’ve just got to suck it up and do that.

“Listen, Ana, I’m sorry, okay? Sorry that we’ve fucked everything up for you, but maybe we can fix that–”

“How?” she interrupts, her head snapping back around, angry eyes meeting mine. “How the hell can you fix it? What are you going to do, exactly? Are you going to get me my business back…?”

“Maybe.”

Anger turns to confusion but she doesn’t take her eyes off me. “That’s not possible. Is it?”

“Anything’s possible, Ana. If you put your mind to it.”

She looks right into my eyes, a stare so intense I feel it hit me square in the solar plexus.

“It’s not possible to bring my mama back.”

I break the stare: drop my gaze, I don’t know what more I can do here. And for a minute or two there’s nothing but silence between us, before she breaks it.

“I’m sorry.”

I look up. Her eyes don’t carry that anger anymore, they’re just tired. Her expression’s weary, the weight of her new reality is finally hitting home.

“I’m trying to accept all of this, but I can’t move forward, Joel. I can’t do it. Because all I see is this bleak, dark future ahead of me, and I can’t accept that this is all I have now.”

“It will get easier, believe me.”

“Will it?”

I smile, I want her to relax, although, I think I might be asking a little too much there. And she doesn’t smile back, of course she doesn’t. But she doesn’t look away, either. “Yeah, it will. And hanging with us won’t be all that bad, we can be a lot of fun when we want to be.”

She raises an eyebrow again, the faintest hint of a smile forming at the corners of her mouth, but it fades away as quick as it appeared.

“I miss my life,” she says quietly, her eyes boring into mine, and I swear, for a second there, I could physically feel her pain. Her sadness. And I keep calling her a kid but she’s so far from that. She’s a woman who’s had her entire world turned upside down and we’re just trying to help her pick up the pieces.

“I know.”

She turns her head away again, picks up her slice of pizza and eats it while looking out of the window, and I let her have that moment. She’s eating, she’s starting to talk, I’m taking that as progress.

“Can I really trust you?” she asks, without looking at me.

“I already told you, you can trust me. You can trust all of us.”

She turns her head, sad eyes once more locking on mine. “You keep telling me that. I just want to know if I can trust you .”

“You can trust me, Ana.”

“Okay.”

That’s all she says before turning her head away from me again. And I watch her, this young woman who once seemed to have everything is now trying to get her head around suddenly having nothing, except us and an uncertain future. And that’s just something she’s going to have to get used to, because nobody can change that. Nobody…