"Where? Go where, Mom? Where is Dad?"

"Your father didn't want to wait so he left already, but I wanted you to come with us so I waited for you." Her smile was big, but her eyes were glistening and were completely void of any emotion.

"But where did he go?" I asked again, stepping further into the room.

"Don't worry, we'll be joining him soon. I just wanted to talk to Jesse first," she said, stroking the dinosaur.

"Mom, Jesse is dead." I reminded her. "He died years ago."

Mom nodded and her eyes darted to the Star Wars themed wallpaper and then to his stack of Legos in the corner. "I know that, silly."

"Okay, because I thought for a second you were saying that..."

"I just wanted to let him know that we'd be joining him soon," Mom said. It was then, when she shifted the stuffed animal from one arm to the other, that I noticed the gun on her lap.

"Mom?" I asked, my entire body starting to shake with awareness of what she was really saying. "Tell me where Dad is," I whispered.

"I told you. He's gone. He left without us because he couldn't wait. He was always the impatient one." She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "You're a lot like him in so many ways," she sang.

"Why do you have a gun, Mom?"

"Silly girl, how else are we going to meet up with Jesse and your father? I mean I know there are other ways but I think this is the quickest and most efficient. After all, we don't want to keep them waiting too long," she said, patting the dinosaur's back like she was burping it. Back and forth she continued to rock, never breaking the slow and steady rhythm. The chair creaking with each roll over the hardwood floors.

I took another step toward her hoping to snatch the gun from her hand, but she saw where I was looking and picked up the pistol, waving it in the air. "Nah ah. Your father wanted to be the one to hold it too but I insisted. This is a job for Mommy and no one else. It's about time I took some control and took care of this family. Having us all in the same place is the first step."

My foot on the floorboards sounding as quiet as a beating drum. "Now, now, Cindy. You were never good at waiting your turn, but the good news is that you'll be first."

"Where did you send Dad to meet Jesse?" I asked, tears prickling behind my eyes but the adrenaline coursing through my veins prevented them from spilling.

"I don't see why that matters," Mom said, blowing off a strand of dark curls that had fallen into her eyes. "But if you must know he left in our room. It was a lot messier than I expected. When I send you I think it should be in the tub, then I'll just climb in after you. Maybe I'll leave some bleach for the sheriff, red stains are the worst, especially in the white grout," she said with the same eerily cheery voice she'd greeted me with.

I took a step back and Mom continued to stare up at me, smiling a full-toothed smile from ear to ear. She didn't follow me when I turned and opened the door to their bedroom. It was empty.

Mom's gone crazy. That doesn't mean Dad is dead. She could be lying. She could be making it up.

I rounded the bed.

Please be alive, please be alive.

On the floor on the side of the bed against the wall was my father's lifeless body, his eyes and mouth both opened, frozen in surprise.

I gasped and covered my mouth. "No, no, no, no, no!" I shouted.

I backed away from my dad into the hallway and when I looked down the hall my mother was no longer in the rocking chair. I turned to run out the door but ran directly into the soft satin of my mother's pink nightgown.

"You ready honey?" she asked, cocking her head to the side. The gun was in her hands but it wasn't raised.

"I, I, I need to say a few things to Jesse too," I said, scooting past her towards his room.

She smacked herself in the forehead with the barrel of the gun. "Silly me, of course you do. I'll be waiting right here and then after we meet them we'll have ice cream."

"Yuh yuh yeeaaaahhh, ice cream is good, Mom," I said, sniffling. I sidestepped her and pretended like I was turning down the hall to Jesse's room, she shifted her shoulders to make room for me, and I took the only chance I knew I had and burst into a sprint, dodging her as I made a run in the opposite direction toward the door.

The wall beside the door exploded as a bullet tore into the hundred-year-old plaster. My mother was laughing as I leapt down the porch steps. One of the laces of my shoes caught on the railing and I sailed forward through the air, landing on my chest. The air whooshed out of my lungs and I turned on my back, desperately gasping for air.

"You talked your way out of that trip to Nana's last year, you're not getting out of this," my mother said as she looked down at me from the porch. In my peripherals I spotted my father's old rifle against the front of the house. He used it to scare the critters away from eating the oranges. I don't think it had been used since the previous harvest. It had been out in the elements for months.

Chances were that the thing didn't even work.

"I'm not talking my way out of it, Mom," I said, as I could finally draw in a breath. Slowly, I crab-walked on my hands and feet, sideways toward the house.

Toward the only shot I had of surviving.

"I just thought that maybe we could do it together, you know, go at the same time," I said, mirroring her cheery voice as best I could.

"Oh, Cindy that's a lovely idea. You were always my sweet one, you know. Headstrong. And a holy terror at times, but you could also be very sweet. I loved the way you used to play with my necklaces and earrings when you were a baby." Mom set the gun against her chest and sighed.

"Can you do me a favor though, Mom? Can you use Dad's old rifle? That way I have something to talk to him about when we get there. And I can use the gun you sent him to Jesse with. It will be fun and you know it's hard for me to find things to talk about with Dad."

"You know," she said, picking up the rifle off the house. I climbed to my feet and wavered, holding onto the chipped siding so I wouldn't fall. "I wish your father would have thought of something nice like this. It would have been so much easier. You should have heard him screaming and yelling." She let out a quick burst of laughter. "Begging." She inspected the gun to make sure it was loaded then tossed it to me. I caught it and made sure it was loaded just as she had. "Can you believe it? Your father...begging. It was quite ridiculous."

Under the moonlight my mother's ivory skin glowed. I'd always envied her long dark curls and naturally pink lips. To me she'd always looked like Snow White. I used to watch her pick oranges in the grove for her famous orange marmalade and wonder why I got stuck with pinkish hair, green eyes, and freckles, instead of her good looks.

Snow White stood tall in her satin blood splattered nightgown and aimed the rifle at me. With my heart hammering in my chest I raised the pistol at her. "I love you baby, see you on the other side," she said. Tears welled in my eyes. I would only have a split second. Even if the gun jammed like it often did on the first pull of the trigger, it wouldn't on the second.

My mother smiled manically at me with wide eyes.

Then Snow White pulled the trigger.

I held my breath, but nothing happened. She tapped on the side of the gun as she'd seen my father do a million times before and just before she was able to get her finger around the trigger again, I fired.

Blood splattered against the siding, turning peeling white paint to shiny red.

Mom had been right about one thing.

It was quick.

I dropped to my knees and clutched my chest. My mind blanked. I couldn't form a coherent thought. Both my parents were dead and I didn't know what I should do. Who I should call.

Both my parents were dead.

You killed your mother.

I wailed into the night; lost, afraid, and utterly alone.

I reached under my shirt and sought comfort the way I often did when my parents had been fighting, by clutching the ring I wore on a chain beneath my shirt.

I rubbed the cool metal between my fingers. A bolt of lightning hit the water tower and it was at that moment when the answer came to me. I knew where I had to go.

Who I had to go to.

CHAPTER THREE.

Thia It was raining.

It was summer in Florida.

It was always raining.

Somewhere during the forty minute bike ride from the farmhouse in Jessep to Logan's Beach I'd lost all feeling in my feet as I pedaled wildly against the force of the sideways rain.

I'd tried to take my dad's old Ford. The key rack by the front door was empty, which left only one other place they could've been. I willed my legs forward and back into the room that held my father's lifeless body. Seeing him earlier didn't lessen the impact of walking around the bed and finding my father splayed out at an awkward angle against the wall, his hair still wet with his blood.

"Daddy," I cried, stepping over the red river that started as a pool behind his head and grew thinner and thinner until it left the room my parents shared and seeped into the space between the wall and floor, spreading both left and right, lining the white baseboards in fresh red.

My entire family was dead, but I didn't have time to think about it and I was grateful because the weight of what happened was threatening to crush me where I stood.

Something inside me, a final ray of hope, told me that if I could just get to Bear, then it would be okay. He couldn't make all this go away.

But he could make it okay.

He made you a promise. He will help you. He can do the thinking for you. You just have to get there.

I couldn't bring myself to look in my dad's pockets. Touching him would just make it more real.

Without another option, I picked my bike out of the dirt and headed out.

Each rotation of my legs made the muscles in my thighs feel heavier and heavier. The only thing propelling me forward was the salvation I'd hoped to find when I reached the Beach Bastard's clubhouse.

When I reached Bear.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Thia The rain hadn't let up by the time I got to the gate. A skinny kid stood guard outside on a stool. Through his clear plastic poncho I could see the patch on his cut that read PROSPECT. He watched me as I laid down my bike and limped over to him, the muscles in my legs hadn't yet gotten the message that I was done pedaling. "I need to see Bear," I said. "Please. Can you tell him that Thia is here to see him? Thia from the gas station. I need to talk to him. It's very important."

"How important?" The prospect asked, moving the toothpick that hung from his lips from one side to the other with his tongue.

Pulling off my chain I held it up so he could see Bear's skull ring dangling from it. "This important."

The prospect eyed the ring skeptically before slithering off his seat. He took the chain from my hand and disappeared behind the screeching metal gate. When he came back ten minutes later it was like he was another person. "I'm Pecker," he announced, stepping aside so I could enter. "What did you say your name was again?" A smile replaced his earlier scowl.

"Thia," I said, stepping into The Beach Bastard clubhouse, although I would have called it more like a compound. It was an old motel or apartment complex. Three stories high with rooms open to the elements circled an open courtyard below where an empty pool sat in the center. Off to the side was a clear glass door that looked like it used to be an old bar or restaurant and it looked as if the Bastards still used it for its original purpose. The bar was fully stocked and several men, all wearing cuts, played pool at one of three pool tables.

"Where is Bear?" I asked again. Out of the rain and under the protection of a series of overhangs, my jaw began to shake and my teeth chattered. My wet tank top and shorts clung to my body. My hair lay flat and lifeless against my forehead and cheeks, dripping water into my eyes.

"Bear's busy right now, but he told me you can wait for him in his room," Pecker said as I followed him up a flight of stairs to the second floor, holding onto the jagged aluminum railing for support. I nicked my middle finger on an especially sharp point, sucking off the drop of blood that pooled on the surface. "Sorry, should have warned you about that."

Rain streamed down into the courtyard with such ferocity that the Bastards wouldn't need a hose to fill their empty pool. The small overhang was no protection from the sideways rain.

Pecker stopped in front of a dark green door and opened it, motioning for me to go inside. "He'll meet you in here," he said with a laugh. I stepped inside the dark room but spun around again when I heard the door slam behind me.

"Where did you get this?" a menacing voice asked. My throat squeezed tight and slowly I turned to face the owner of the voice. On the edge of the bed sat a man who looked very much like what I remembered Bear did, except this man had graying hair and a face filled with hard lines.

He held up Bear's ring.

"Where is Bear? Are you his dad?" I asked, hugging my arms around my waist. The man stood up and laughed, closing the distance between us. I backed up to avoid contact, my head banged against the door.

"I'm not sure you heard me, Darlin'," he said with mock sincerity, "But I asked you a fucking question and I don't know who you think you are or where you think you are, but I'll fill you in..." He leaned down to stare at me with familiar blazing blue eyes. "I'm Chop. Stands for Chop Chop because..." He chuckled and ran a calloused finger down my cheek, I pulled away and he grabbed my face so hard my mouth opened and he squeezed my cheeks until they touched in the middle. "Well, you don't need to know that story, now do you? I run this shit. The patch on my cut says so. You're in my house so you'll tell me where the fuck you got this before I shove it down your fucking throat and choke you with it." Chop held up the chain again, the light from the lamp glinted off the diamond in the eye of the skull.

Chop might have had the same color eyes as Bear's but they held none of the beauty. Chop's burned with instability, rage, and violence.

This was a mistake.

I'd gone to the compound seeking... what exactly had I been seeking? Help? Protection? Safety? All I knew was that in that room, with Bear's old man only a few inches from my face, I felt anything but safe.

When I didn't answer right away, Chop shrugged. "Okay have it your way." It was when he pressed the ring to my lips when I suddenly found my voice.

"Bear gave it to me," I blurted out.

"Bullshit! Where did you get it?" he roared, again trying to force the ring between my lips.

"I was ten!" I screamed and when I opened my mouth the ring slipped in and smacked against the back of my throat. I gagged and Chop took a step back, examining the ring in the light of the lamp. I didn't know if he meant for me to continue but I did anyway. "He gave it to me in Jessep when I was ten years old because I did a favor for him." I didn't know if I would get Bear in trouble by telling Chop exactly what happened so I kept it vague. "He told me that if I ever needed his help to come here and show the ring and he would help me."

Chop waved me off. "Shut up," he commanded, still twisting the ring around in his hand like he couldn't believe it was there. A twisted smile took over his face and he let out a burst of laughter. "He's a dead fucking man walking but the kid has always been funny."

"What does that mean?" I asked, not sure if the new round of teeth chattering was from being freezing or from fear.

"It means that my boy gave this to you because he never expected you to show up and take him up on it," Chop said, putting the ring in a pocket sewn to the inside of his cut. "He wouldn't have done shit for you, except maybe show you his cock."

"No! He said that it's a biker promise. It's your way..."

"Darlin' we ain't got no such code and I know that because all of our codes have to do with killing. Like what, where, who, and when."