Page 1 of Raggedy Dan
Chapter One
Dan
Dan’s bandana was soaked through with sweat and heat by the time he killed his motorcycle in front of the building for Ink & Iron.He tugged the black rag down from the lower half of his face, letting it hang loose around his throat like a busted noose.The midday sun still beat down hard enough to make the scar tissue along his jaw and cheek pull tight, so he left the rag where it was.Leaving it down didn’t matter.He didn’t know anybody inside the tattoo shop and didn’t think they would be expecting pretty.
He set the kickstand and swung off the bike, boots crunching on the gravel strip that passed for parking out here on the edge of town.The place looked exactly like the info said, just a single-story cinder-block building, neon OPEN sign flickering, with hand-painted iron roses curling around the windows.Two motorcycles he didn’t recognize were parked crooked in front of the door.Wrong patches were painted on both of the tanks.Son of a bitch, those are remnants of the Heartless Horde MC.Motherfuckers.There was also a two-door beater, with no colors or patches visible.Thank God they’re not tagging cages.That’d be a line too far for sure.
Dan’s spine straightened.The President of his club, Tinder, had made it crystal-clear that any leftover HHMC trash still breathing in Rogue Maniacs territory were to be educated, relocated, or buried.Preferably, but not necessarily, in that order.
Shouting broke out from behind the door, and a man’s unintelligible bass growl was followed by a woman’s angry yell of clear outrage.HHMC’s method of patching people stressed the most grievous of wrongs done.The bigger the bad, the faster the patch would show up on their back.
Sounds like they’re up to their same old bullshit.
He rolled his shoulders, and the familiar weight and creak of his leather vest reminded him of who he was and what he stood for.Dan opened the door and walked inside.
The bell over the door gave a tired jingle, and all conversation, one-sided though it might have been, died instantly.
Three men in those same ole stale HHMC colors turned towards him.One had a woman bent over the counter, forearm across the back of her neck like he was pinning a butterfly.Her jean shorts were tugged down on one side, making it clear what the asshole’s intentions were.
Dan had about a second to register that she had fire-engine-red hair twisted up in a knot and that the arms straining as she tried unsuccessfully to shove the asshole off were tattooed beautifully.
In the chair across the room was what looked like a legitimate customer with a half-finished rib tattoo, lines of the artwork bleeding out from under a hastily applied towel.That asshole was cowering, like he was the one about to be violated.
Assholes will asshole.
The woman’s furious storm-gray eyes flicked to Dan.Relief flashed across her face for half a heartbeat before it was replaced with pure, unfiltered defiance.Her gaze ran down his chest and back up to his scarred face, and she lifted her chin as much as she could.The woman was prepared to take them all on if needed.
“Let.Her.Go,” Dan said.He kept his voice low, the intonation flat, the same timbre that used to make fresh privates piss themselves in Kandahar.
The biggest HHMC wannabe, the one holding the redhead, laughed aloud, the sound ricocheting around the shop.“Or what, Raggedy Dan?You gonna smile us to death?”
The other two snickered.
Dan didn’t bother answering.He simply moved.
Two steps forwards and he grabbed the laughing prick by the collar of his cut and yanked him back and away from the woman.Then he politely introduced the man’s face to the glass display case.Broken glass, jewelry, and piercing barbells exploded across the floor, and he was down for the count.When Dan dropped him, blood pooled red underneath his head.The woman had been knocked to one side, but at least she was out of reach for the assholes left behind.
The second guy reached for a blade strapped in plain view to the inside of one arm.
How big a dumb fuck do you have to be?
Dan caught his wrist, twisted until bones ground together and the sheath broke away, then drove an elbow into the man’s solar plexus.Air whooshed out, cutting a scream in half.A single hard two-handed club to the side of the head had this one falling like a sack of half rotten potatoes.
The third picked that moment to try to rabbit past Dan towards the door, and he took a biker boot to the back of the knee for his trouble.Another boot put him on the ground, unsure whether to grab one knee or the other.Both were listing sideways, so it was a toss-up.
The air around him was suddenly on fire.Dan couldn’t take a breath and fell to his knees.Just across the road another truck exploded, and pieces of the driver flew off into the distance.Then the wave of noise and heat hit him hard, blowing him backwards, legs akimbo as he landed, both knees fucked from the twisting they’d taken.
He shook his head hard, recentering himself in this decade.
Within forty-five seconds, he’d put all three on the floor groaning, bleeding, or both.Dan verified the men were no longer an immediate threat, and the woman was at a safe distance, and turned to head outside.By the time he walked back inside half a minute later, the bikes outside were wearing fresh key art across those painted colors courtesy of Dan’s buckle.Before any of the assholes had moved an inch from where he’d left them.Two bikes, three patched assholes.That math ain’t mathin’.Cage, probably.
He turned back to the woman.
She’d straightened and tugged her shorts back into place.She rolled her neck once and stared at him like he was an alien species.A very large, very scarred, very scary alien species wearing his Rogue Maniacs MC colors.
“You okay?”he asked in his damaged voice.
“Define okay?I mean.”Her voice was as far away from his rasp as could be.It was smoke and whiskey.Good whiskey.She shrugged halfheartedly.“Meh.I’ve had worse Tuesdays.”
