Truck Stopped
Satan’s Devils #11
Manda Mellett
Contents
Cast of Characters
Satan’s Devils
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Epilogue
Reading Order
Other Works by Manda Mellett
Glossary
Acknowledgments
Stay in Touch
About the Author
Copyright
Published 2019 by Trish Haill Associates
Copyright Manda Mellett
Book and Cover Design by Lia Rees at Free Your Words
(www.freeyourwords.com)
Edited and formatted by Maggie Kern
Proof reading by Melanie Farrow
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book reviews.
www.mandamellett.com
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Warning
This book is dark in places and contains content of a sexual, abusive and violent nature. It is not suitable for persons under the age of 18.
Cast of Characters
Officers
Drummer – President- Old Lady – Sam
Children – Eli
Wraith – Vice President - Old Lady – Sophie
Children – Olivia
Heart – Secretary - Old Lady – Marcia
Children – Amy, Jacob, Isabel
Dollar – Treasurer
Peg – Sergeant-At-Arms - Old Lady – Darcy
Children – Noah
Blade – Enforcer - Old Lady – Tash
Joker – Road Captain
Children: Maya (niece)
Mouse – Computer Expert - Old Lady – Marianna
Patched Members
Bullet - Old Lady – Carmen
Beef
Hyde
Jekyll
Lady
Marvel
Roadrunner
Rock - Old Lady – Becca
Slick - Old Lady – Ella
Shooter
Viper Old Lady – Sandy
Drifter
Truck
Sharp
Prospects
Hound
Roadkill
Deceased Members
Adam
Buster
Tongue
Hank
Bertram
Prologue
Twenty years in the future
Drummer…
“How you doing, Prez?”
I raise my eyebrow questioningly, then respond. “Just resting my bones, Sergeant-at-arms. Take a load off.” I wave Peg to the Adirondack chair alongside mine. Two of the comfortable wooden chairs had been added to the veranda circling the clubhouse some years back, and come in useful for us old-timers. On the opposite side of the clubhouse door is a swing chair that’s popular with the old ladies. It’s vacant now, the light breeze making it sway gently back and forth.
Peg groans a little as he eases down, and rubs his thigh above his prosthetic leg.
“Troubling you?” I narrow my eyes.
“They might have sorted out the electronics, but even after all these years, the fundamental problem is still the stump.”
Yeah, there’s been many changes as the years have passed by. Some good, some not so good.
Peg catches me eyeing the bikes, parked up in a line. “Miss the thunder and roar of the old exhausts.”
“Still got mine,” I tell him.
He chuckles. “Me too. But most of these are electric. Fuck, who’d have thought we’d have charging points all around the club back in Bastard’s day? Or that it would be easier to find electricity than be able to top up with gas?”
I have a mental image of my father turning over in his grave at how time has marched on. The bikes aren’t even all Harleys. Some manufacturers were slow getting an affordable electric model to the market, and foreign bikes started to become popular.
“That fake electronic engine sound is nothing like the real thing, eh, Peg?” We both shake our heads. “But we’ve had some fun, over the years.”
“Like that is it, old man? Reminiscing about shit in the past?”
I nod toward the mountains, golden in the late afternoon sun, and picking up my whisky tilt my glass toward the scenery. “Good to look back, Brother, and see how far we’ve come.”
“You thinking about anything in particular?” He settles himself in, stretching out his long legs and smoothing a hand over a very grey beard.
“Yeah, I am. About the good and the bad. Currently settled on one of the darkest times for the club.”
Peg gives me a ‘which one?’ look, then offers a few choices to choose from. “When Ella’s sister was taken? Or when Sam disappeared? One of our run-ins with the Tucson crime family, the Herreras?” Peg snorts. “Or that crooked politician? About the time the wildfire nearly took out the club? Or the coup by Snake and the San Diego crew? Which particular darkest time are you thinking about?”
Again I shake my head, smirk, then frown. “Not thinking about external influences. I was thinking about the human ones. Specifically Truck and Allie. Those were dark days for the club.”
He’s quiet, thinking back but I don’t rush him. We’ve got all the time in the world. I lean back my head and let the sun warm my face.
It’s a few minutes before he speaks, “You’re right,” he eventually replies. “Showed how far a man, and a woman for that matter, can be stretched without snapping.”
“You think they didn’t snap?” Once more my head moves side to side. “Affected us all, Peg.”
“Yeah. It did that. But you know what they say?”
Us two old-timers say it together, “What doesn’t break us, makes us stronger.”
It’s my turn to chuckle, then my mirth fades. “Remember how it all started, Peg?”
Chapter One
Six months ago
Truck…
“Take five.”
As the captain gives us the sign to take a short break, I bend over, place my hands on my knees and draw in several deep breaths. The smoked-filled air does nothing to ease my lungs, but gradually my heart rate slows. This is my rest, my respite.
It will last only a few moments before I’ll return to the fray.
“Water, Truck?”
“Yeah.” Gratefully I take a bottle from my teammate, Pete. Opening it, I down half the contents in one go, before taking a breath then finishing the rest. I’ll sweat it out almost as fast as I can drink it.
“Got it beaten back at least.” He nods toward the houses which we’d just managed to save, and to where another team is hosing them down with water, making sure the fire can’t flare up and take hold once again. A few minutes ago we thought they’d been lost for certain, but fire’s not only an unpredictable beast, but also ambivalent, seeming to veer between this target and that. All we can do is try to keep ahead of it, focusing on what’s currently in its path, analysing wind direction and determining what type of fuel it might be able to find.
“This place is a fucking mess.” Pete peers through the smoke. We might have saved this part of town, but in the direction he’s looking, it’s like a war zone.
Neither of us mention the bodies we’ve seen; some, having made unsuccessful attempts to escape, still in their burned out cars, others trapped in their homes. This is a serious fire. Some people have lost everything they’ve owned, while others have paid the ultimate price.
I slap his back. There’s no point dwelling on the carnage we’ve seen. We need to focus on preventing more loss, counting every house and life plucked from the fire’s grasp as a win. “We saved this part. All we can do is keep pushing it back.”
I’m a firefighter from Arizona. Last year I was on the front line as fire roared down toward the compound of the Satan’s Devils MC, the motorcycle club of which I’d been patched in as a full member shortly before joining a hotshot firefighting team and coming to California. Back in Tucson, my job involved putting out structural fires one at a time, or attending motor vehicle accidents. My twenty-four hour shifts were mostly spent keeping fit, sleeping, or sitting around bored, waiting for that call to come in. Occasionally we got fires that did try to beat us, and lasted longer than one shift, but that was, thankfully, the exception.
I’d joined the Army straight from high school, did a few tours in Afghanistan. Hated the conditions, both for us and the civilians we were half protecting, half suspecting of being insurgents, but loved the feeling of working with a team; always knowing there was always a man behind me or at my side who would never let me down.
We’d been routinely searching a village one morning when we lost a man to a sniper. A subsequent explosion didn’t kill anyone but took the leg of one of the members from my unit. It wasn’t the danger that made that my final tour, but the knowledge that it may not be me who could end up dead or injured, but the men who I’d become so close to. That was what I couldn’t take and what had made me decide to leave.
What does a vet do when he’s found a family that he then loses? He looks for another.
It hadn’t taken long for me to decide to become a firefighter. I’d entered the Army not for money or prestige, nor to finance an education. I know my limits. Instead I was driven by a genuine need to serve, to protect my country. I may not have wanted to do that from a distance any longer, so joining the fire service meant I could give back at home. Not unlike serving with fellow soldiers, firefighters form a close-knit team, a brotherhood who work together, facing anything that’s thrown at them.
I might not be the sharpest tool in the box, but I’m physically fit, and like most of my comrades I’d left back in Tucson, relish the opportunity to keep training and maintain my body at its peak.
Fighting the wildfire last year had been an inspiration. A challenge that made me accept the spot on a hotshot team when it opened up. That’s how I’ve found myself in California, in one of the worst wildfires the state has ever seen.
My five minutes is almost up. My memories have reminded me of the reasons why I’m here, why I’m putting myself through this day after day. Sure, the area behind me is blackened and burned, but ahead? Well, that’s our success. What we’ve saved. When it’s safe to return, there’ll be people smiling at the sight of their houses still standing. The grief of those who weren’t so lucky must, for now, be put out of my mind. This fire will beat me mentally if I focus on what we were unable to save.
“Fucking hell,” Pete swears beside me. “What the fuck does that asshole think they’re doing?”
A four-by-four is driving along the road, where burning embers are still falling. It appears to be heading for one of the houses in front of us.
“I got this.” As the car pulls up, I’m trotting over, my pace fast, my rage rising. Why the fuck do civilians think of coming back into the danger area? Can’t this asshat see the fucking fire raging around them?
A loud whistle pierces my ears. “It’s jumped the firebreak.”
The loud, shouted warning causes me to look up, then quicken my steps until I’m running. A tree, tinder dry and a hundred foot high by my estimate, has burst into flames. Branches are already falling, firefighters redoubling their efforts to damp down, many looking up and starting to retreat. If that tree falls it will be right on the house I’m heading to.
“Get back!” I shout as a woman gets out of the SUV. “Get fucking back.”
She looks at me, then the house, then, ignoring my frantic gesticulations, runs inside.
Shit. I have no option but to follow her in.
There’s no electricity. The skies overhead are dark with smoke making it feel more like night than day—if that’s indeed what it is. Like my fellow firefighters, I’ve lost all sense of time.
“Ma’am?” I call out as soon as I’m inside, peering through the gloom, trying to make out where she could be.
Then I hear a voice desperately calling a name.
“Smudge, Smudge. Come on, Smudge.”
Following it, I come to a bedroom. I flick my flashlight around and in the light of the beam catch sight of a middle-aged woman on her knees, reaching for something under a bed.
“Ma’am, it’s not safe. You’ve got to get out of here.”
“Smudge,” she calls out again, her voice now coaxing as she ignores me entirely.
I surmise it’s a fucking cat or dog she’s come back for. “Ma’am,” I say sternly. “Smudge can look after himself. You’ve got to get out of here, now.”
“I’m not leaving her.”
I’m going to pick this woman up and drag her out if she’s not careful. In my mind’s eye I see that burning tree outside.
“Ma’am. You have to leave, now.”
“Got her!” she shouts triumphantly as she turns with a ball of grey fluff in her arms. “Need to get her travel crate—”
“Just fucking go!” From the corner of my eye, I see movement outside the window. With my hand on her back I push her so hard she stumbles, but luckily her movement takes her in the direction of the door.
That’s the last of her that I see as a sound like thunder roars through my ears and I’m on the floor, a heavy weight crushing me and the smell of my burning skin reaching my nostrils.
The tree must have fallen. I’m gone. And all for a fucking cat.
I hope the woman got out.
I’m pinned. My arms, legs. All I can do is toss my head and try to dislodge whatever is red hot and burning my face. My hand… what the fuck’s happened to that? My leg. I don’t know which pain is more excruciating.
I hear shouts. My team is coming for me.
They might be too late.
Chapter Two
Ten years ago
Allie…
A man stops and rolls down his window. He looks clean enough, but who can tell? There’s that normal flicker of concern inside me, but as usual I push i
t down. I’ve got rent to pay unless I want to be homeless. Optimistically, I tell myself, as usual, there’s always a chance I could end up like Vivian in Pretty Woman, but my brain counters that there’s fat chance tonight. Millionaires don’t drive around in beat up Fords.
“Fifty dollars,” I tell him in answer to his enquiry.
“Get in,” he replies, his head turning to scan the area around us. Yeah, don’t want any of his friends to see him picking up a prostitute off the street.
As I expected, he drives to a darkened parking lot used by nine-to-fivers during the day, and almost abandoned at night.
I get out without being told. He opens the back door.
I hold out my hand. “Money first.”
He hands it over, then, as I fold it and put it in my pocket, he gestures for me to get inside. It’s cramped as I expected, but just room to get enough of our clothes off for him to slide on a condom, and then I get down to giving him what he’s paid for.