Tastes Like Candy

One

One

London, Present Day

Michelle

"Chelle. Chelley, can you hear me?" A touch against her throat, fingers searching for her pulse. "Michelle."

She knew that voice.

Wait...what was happening...

The familiar dry-leaf crackle sound of fire brought her back to full awareness. Panic slammed into her, a weight against her chest, her eyes opened, and smoke filled her lungs.

Oh God...

Tommy knelt over her; his face was a mask of soot, and set within it, the familiar blue eyes the two of them shared. Panicked; he looked panicked. She'd always been able to read him like a book, the two of them close as siblings. The uncle who was only two years her senior, thanks to the insane reproductive efforts of her grandfather.

Smoke swirled behind his head, obscuring the street, the facades of the townhouses.

His voice sounded very far away when he said, "Chelle, can you get up? We've gotta move."

She nodded, sucked in a deep breath, and launched into a violent coughing fit. She did manage to sit up, though, and then Tommy's strong arm slid around her and he helped her to her feet.

Chaos. The tidy street with its iron fences and brick-faced townhouses, sedate moments before, now boiled with confusion and too many bodies. It had been a flower vendor show, pop-up tents and stalls lining both sidewalks in front of the gentile pubs, shops, and homes. Smoke rolled in thick, choking clouds. Ruined flowers lay like confetti, colorful carnage against the pavement. People were screaming. She glimpsed bodies through the haze, some standing, some not.

"Where'd they go?" she asked, leaning against him, scrabbling to follow as he towed them away.

He scanned the street, what they could see of it, face still frantic. "I don't know."

They were talking about the men dressed in black.

Like them.

Nothing like them.

They had to get away. The mission had gone sideways. They had to move, couldn't be found, couldn't risk the club.

Tommy moved faster and she tried to stem her coughing, tried to keep up.

"Do you have it still?" he asked, twisting to look down at her as they moved. "Do you–"

Michelle saw the man a fraction of a second before he moved, rearing suddenly out of the gloom and smoke, swathed head to toe in black, face covered save for his dark eyes. Her gaze collided with his, the sheer unexpectedness of it riveting her. She saw the glitter of violence radiating off him like an aura.

"Tommy!" she screamed.

But the knife was already in motion, glimmering in the dimness, flashing through the air and sinking between Tommy's ribs.

"Tommy!"

~*~

It had begun like any other task, a photograph slid across her father's ancient Cherrywood desk. It was raining, fat drops sliding down the window, casting shadows across the rug in the upstairs room above Baskerville Hall.

"Thumb drive. Whose this time?"

Phillip Calloway, president of the London chapter of the Lean Dogs Motorcycle Club cut an impressive figure on the other side of the desk, backlit by silvery afternoon light. Save Tommy, he was the tallest of Devin Green's brood of misbegotten nine children, and he was also the oldest. Which meant he'd spent most of his life looking out for his siblings. Michelle had always known this, accepted it, and never once felt slighted by the man's assumption that she had been born grownup, and could handle just about anything he slung her way. It was a compliment, to be honest. Her mother's passing had hit him hard. Someone had needed to step up and be the woman of the house. The woman of the club. She'd never viewed it as a choice, but a natural progression. No trips to the circus, face sticky with sweets, tugging on Daddy's hand and begging for one last souvenir? No problem. She'd never needed that.