I got offered a job to detail bikes at a big shop and I’ll get paid very well for it. I guess a guy I did some work for drove through Georgia and it turned heads. Next thing I know I got a letter offering me a job and then that was followed by a phone call begging me to come work for them. I wanted away from LA and the Devil’s Dust, and this is my shot.
Headlights from the opposite of the freeway nearly blind me as I soar through the night, my heart beating with excitement and my stomach fluttering with nerves. This is the first time in my entire life I won’t have my father, brother, or any of the Devils watching over me.
That internal thought hits me harder, but not in a way you might think. I’m twenty-one years old and nobody outside the club talks to me without word getting back to the mighty king that reigns over California, and that king just so happens to be my father now. So you can guess how many times I’ve been in love. How many dates I’ve been on, and how many people want to be friends. If you guessed zero, then you’re right.
Everyone knows who The Devil’s Dust MC is, so everyone stays away from me.
Not that my personality screams social princess, I’m far from inviting, but even if I were the type of girl to hang out at the mall. Whatever we did as gal pals, wherever we were, a dangerous Devil would lurk nearby watching over our every move and reporting back to the den of hell. The club.
“I’m free,” I whisper to myself, my lips curling into a grin. “This little Devil is never going back.”
I begin to scream the lyrics of the song, my hand hitting the steering wheel of my old Ford Taurus to the beat. I don’t know what’s out there, but I’m chasing something and it has to be better than what I’ve been doing.
Hours go by, my car needs gas, and my neck is really starting to stiffen up from the drive. Pulling onto an off-ramp, I look at the GPS. I’m somewhere in Arizona. Sighing, I rub my stinging eyes. I really wanted to make it to New Mexico before stopping. Yawning, I look at the time. It’s ten in the morning. It won’t be long before my parents know I’ve skipped town without saying goodbye. Shit move I know, but if I waited, I was scared I’d be talked out of it or my father would tag my car with a GPS or make a club member follow me and watch over me. Sounds crazy, I know, but it’s the kind of shit he would do. I need away from LA, away from my mistakes and a constant reminder that I’m the black sheep of the family.
I kick off my boots and throw my legs across the console and into the seat, kicking an empty Redbull can onto the floorboard. Stretching out, I rest my head on the window behind me and close my eyes.
Just a few minutes, and then I’ll drive a few more hours into New Mexico, and stop at a motel.
Nobody will come after me being this far out. I’m sure of it.
2
Delilah
A hard vibration shakes me awake, snapping upright I discover it’s just a truck and trailer downshifting from the ramp on the highway. Sweat trickles down my neck, and my body is sore and stiff from the angle I’ve been lying in. Yawning, I stretch my arms to the side and look out the driver’s window. It’s much brighter out than it was when I fell asleep. There’s desert and dry bushes everywhere, it looks completely different than home. I reach for my phone to check for missed calls and the time, it’s one in the afternoon. Shit. I didn’t mean to sleep that long.
Grabbing my boots, I shove them back on, and my phone rings in my hand. My eyes fall to the screen, noticing it is my mom. I wonder if she knows I’m gone or if this is a call about something else.
Rubbing my face, I answer it.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?” she snaps angrily.
Yup, she knows I’m gone.
“I’m heading to Georgia, I got a job offer,” I remind her.
“I know you got the offer, but I didn’t know you were just going to up and leave in the middle of the night, Delilah!” she begins to shout. She’s angry I didn’t say goodbye, or that I didn’t let the club throw me a goodbye party.
“If I didn’t leave when I did, I wouldn’t have left at all,” I tell her, my voice sleepy.
If I saw everyone weep, and my mom cry because I was leaving, it would have made me feel bad and I never would’ve left. I needed to go on my own timing, but hearing the hurt in her voice is making me feel like shit too. I don’t think there was a right way to leave, to be honest.